Question: Is Powerstrip Cheating?
SuperTeflon
Join Date: 2003-12-31 Member: 24893Banned
Join Date: 2003-12-31 Member: 24893Banned
I got into this argument with some nubcaek on an IRC channel. According to him, using Powerstrip is completely legit and fine, because it let's him play the game.
I believe that it's a blatant hack, and you really should be banned for using it. It's intentional modification of a map to modify visibility to your advantage. It's no different then changing terrorists so their models have huge spikes coming out of them so you can see them hiding, claiming 'it's too hard without it'.
In case you don't know, Powerstrip is a program that rips apart a map maker's hard work, strips out light entities (or something, I don't know how it works), basically removing ALL shadows from the game, making every room nice a bright so nothing can hide.
What's the NS team's official stance on it? Hacky cheat or not?
I believe that it's a blatant hack, and you really should be banned for using it. It's intentional modification of a map to modify visibility to your advantage. It's no different then changing terrorists so their models have huge spikes coming out of them so you can see them hiding, claiming 'it's too hard without it'.
In case you don't know, Powerstrip is a program that rips apart a map maker's hard work, strips out light entities (or something, I don't know how it works), basically removing ALL shadows from the game, making every room nice a bright so nothing can hide.
What's the NS team's official stance on it? Hacky cheat or not?
Comments
Does PStrip automatically rip everything out?
Beats me, all I know is a great many people use it to 'fix' maps. Like I said I don't use it, but I know it's main feature is that it literally hacks the map apart for your advantage.
no care at all, plus some old monitors are _really_ dark so they have the right to use powerstrip
(my old 15" was so dark i couldnt see a thing in shadowed areas)
You can't blame people with really dark monitors (like me) to turn up their gamma to get the same brightness you do without it.
OMG U HAXOER NUBCAEK YUO SEE AS MOUCH AS I DO!!!!!!!111
Have you tried photostrip?
I think that's the problem, you haven't a clue what it's uses are. You fail to realise that computers drastically vary. Default settings on your computer will look and perform totally different to default settings on another. Some things rely on a lot of outside factors, like gamma.
Before release of NS, a "funny" screenshot was posted on the forums and when I viewed it, I could see nothing but black and a few glows. After spending almost half an hour talking to people on IRC about it, them trying to pinpoint the humour, we realised I couldn't see it because on my crappy graphics card and monitor it was so dark that barely anything was visible. Yet they could see everything on it perfectly. The same applied in game, with identical settings, they can see things that just appear black on my computer. This is when I discovered PowerStrip, I could alter my gamma and brightness settings within the game to an acceptable level, allowing me to actually see things.
PowerStrip doesn't strip out lighting and shadows that I am aware of, you can simply change graphical settings to allow you to increase brightness etc. Of course it can be misused and made too bright so that dark corners are light enough to easily see, but punishing those that use such a program legitimately isn't acceptable.
Also, since then I have purchased a newer computer and haven't even bothered installing PowerStrip (which is a nice tool excluding it's gamma changing abilities) because I can see perfectly fine in game with default properties.
So in conclusion, don't be so quick on the trigger to accuse people of "hacking" for trying to simply make their computer perform in a similar way to their opponents. I know first hand now that I have had the priveledge to compare the same game on different computers, that even with identical configs and settings there is a dramatical difference.
Powerstrip has absolutely nothing to do with Half-Life. It cannot modify .bsp files in any way whatsoever. Even if a program could modify the BSP file for such a purpose, the end result would be a file that differed from the servers, and would be unplayable online. Not to mention the idea of decompiling the bsp and recompiling it in full-bright mode, the FPS would hit the floor if it re-compiled at all.
Some of these programs do have options to make key binds to do simple things like modifying the gamma, brightness, and contrast settings on-the-fly, which have perfect legitimate use. I can see why one might complain about the idea of this, but it is still a far cry from what you're claiming.
Edit - Ah, Vo0do0-MoNk3h beat me to the point.
All it does is increase the brightness of your monitor across the board allowing people with very dark monitors, that can't otherwise see anything, to be able to see at all. Sure, if you crank it up VERY high then it will wash out all the colours in the map and not make it very nice to look at and strain your eyes. Powerstrip is mearly a shortcut to adjusting your gamma in advanced display properties.
What is hacking is using conifig commands to remove all the lighting/make the textures brighter. That is hacking and will always be hacking. Anyone that says otherwise is clearly ignorent/new.
Some people use it as a necessity to make the game remotely playable (dark monitor people).
Others use it to gain unfair advantage (people who can see fine, but want a gl_monolights effect.)
Can anything be done about it? I doubt it.
If there could, would there? I doubt it. Simply because it's up to the ethics of the gamer to not use it if they don't need it.
It is, however, programs like this, why I never hide in dark corners anymore. I just leap-focus-bite my way through armies of marines. The subtle approach nearly always fails nowadays.
For the record, some cards have these features. Like my ATi Radeon 9800 Pro. I can press Alt + F1 and incrementally increase my gamma, as well as Alt + F2 to drop it. Alt + F3 for my brightness, and Alt + F4 to decrease it.
Also for the fact that it doesnt make you look like a cocky idiot - Would you think adjusting the gamma on your screen is wrong? in your settings? which gamma settings is legible? Is it cheating to clister a crosshair onto my screen?
Teflon: what's happened here is that you've been on the far end of a game of chinese whispers. As a lot of people here have noted, powerstrip is simply a monitor settings program, NOT anything to do with altering maps.
And while there are probably people who use it for cheating means, as Mojo and others have mentioned, it does have a legitimate use for people whos monitors or video cards don't display as bright as was intentioned, and that's probably what most users use it for. (and for the record, I used to also have the problem with forum pictures being too dark to even see when viewed on my work machine, which looked fine from my home PC, which is exactly the sort of problem that this program solves.)
So everyone... deep breath...
::in....::
::out...::
...and relax.
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
All it does is make a nice big Can-CanNot line. I can see you because I know what I’m doing on my computer, and you can not because you’re just a casual player. The NS team will have to try a lot harder than just a gamma lock if they want to have people hiding in a dark corner. HalfLife is too old for all this new gameplay crap <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
As for Powerstrip, there is nothing you can do about it one way or another. It is like those people who have "broke" graphics cards that allow them to cloaked players, unless you are standing behind the other player, it is impossible to tell what is going on in their computer or if it's just skill.
Sooo if your monitor is at max gamma and its still dark turning it up with a gamma tool so that the NS Gamma tool shows you "perfect" results is cheating because I used powerstrip?
If someone uses it to remove dark corners THAT is cheating. But you can't blame the program.
...that makes no since at all
My monitor at home is old about 6-7 years, and i have the brightness and contrast settings all the way up on it; yet when I play NS, its like staring at a black screen w/ a few flashes from a muzle and a sound of a clunk from a dead restrik.
I use PS only to get it to the point where I can see. If I had the money, I'd go out and buy a new Monitor b/c its like this with all my games, not just NS.
PS isn't a hack, and turning up the gamma on your monitor to see cloaked players is more of an exploit than a hack. hacking is when you edit or change the standard configuration of game files to give you an edge in the game.
With the reasoning people are displaying here, a person using low poly models on an extreamly fast and capable machine, could also be considered hacking b/c it gives them a better FPS so they can make desisions faster and better...
When will Flayra protect us against these blatant CHEATARS?!?
Anyway, although Teflon got it wrong what PS does precisely, he has a point in that some people will and do use it maliciously to gain an advantage. However locking gamma will stop some people playing. I'd say keep things the way they are, the people who use it to counter the few really dark places on maps are probably barely a scratch on the players we'd lose because they wouldn't be able to see anything anymore.