2d spaceship gamer Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 I was wondering if there are any bots that can be run from client-side, not server-side. That is, they would log in a zone just like players would, and the owner can also be a player. I've seen some players have some impressive bots that fight, fly around, etc. But while getting my hands on one of those would be cool, I'd be content with a simple chatbot that can pub/pm messages. Open source or other programmable ability would be great. I've seen joke bots, casino bots, mailbox bots, etc, but never figured out who owns them and how can I get one. Such a bot should not require mod+ privileges, and should not be able to do anything a regular player can't. BTW, please don't start any of that rules stuff... I'm perfectly aware that many zones don't like players running bots, and have no intention running it in those zones... Or any SSC zone for that matter.
Bak Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 there are a few such as MervBot, but you need VIP access at least to get into any continuum-only zone. The other option is modifying a chatnet client to become a chatnet bot, which is what I did in my casino chatnet bots for hyperspace (go to hyperspace forum to download that but that only works in ASSS zones that allow chatnet). The encryption of continuum is secret, so you won't be able to get into a zone without being put on (at least) vip.txt.
Witchie NL Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 Bots without mod+ priviledes is not posible. however:http://www.dsbleague.com/aibot.html
2d spaceship gamer Posted February 14, 2007 Author Report Posted February 14, 2007 Why mod+ not possible? If the bot behaves strictly as a player, then it should not be so, if only because the server should have NO way to tell a bot from a player. If a player can enter a zone and use chat, then why can't a bot do the same? It should only use the same interfaces that a player uses. If there are no better ways, it could scrape the chat by reading the same chat window the player reads, then parse it; and simulate keyentries to send outgoing chat, just like a player would press the keys.
»Maverick Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 Bots can be compared to the old Subspace client - it uses the same protocol without encryption. Continuum uses a special encryption over the protocol. This is the reason why you can't have a bot connect to a normal zone without the bot being on vip.txt. If a name is on vip.txt, the server allows the name to use the old subspace protocol (if the correct properties on server.ini to allow subspace clients are also set ofcourse). (BTW you can also setup the server in such a way it always accepts bots without them being on vip.txt) "Bots not possible without mod+" is nonsense. If the bot uses a name from vip.txt then it has no staff powers and can be considered a normal player. If you put the same name on moderate.txt / smod.txt / sysop.txt it will also get the staff powers. I believe that if the name is on sysop.txt it doesn't require the name to be on vip.txt aswell but only if the bot uses the password*sysoppw login. (not completely sure about this last fact) Last tip: if you want a "chatbot", use subchat.
2d spaceship gamer Posted February 14, 2007 Author Report Posted February 14, 2007 Bots can be compared to the old Subspace client - it uses the same protocol without encryption. Continuum uses a special encryption over the protocol. This is the reason why you can't have a bot connect to a normal zone without the bot being on vip.txt. If a name is on vip.txt, the server allows the name to use the old subspace protocol (if the correct properties on server.ini to allow subspace clients are also set ofcourse). You're missing the point. A living, breathing human player can connect to any zone without being on VIP, right? And it can see all text without any encryption on his end, because that encryption is handled by the Continuum client. I do NOT want to bypass the client. I want to have something running ON TOP of the client. For example, I have access to the Continuum chat window available on the alt+tab mode to every player. Now, imagine, that I write a COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT program that looks at the final, decrypted chat from that window, copies it, and parses the chat to tell commands apart. I repeat, I do NOT want to intercept encrypted packets half-way, I want to grab the final output given to actual human players in that window. The same program would, after processing the text it got and making all needed decisions, PASTE the text back into the window and emulate the Enter key to enter the text. Why should that be, in principle, not possible?
»Maverick Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 Theoretically that should be possible. You can read the text in the Continuum window by reading some memory from Continuum or by attaching a process to Continuum that reads the text from the window. However I believe the Continuum client is protected by all kind of anti-debugging securities amongst others. Theoretically possible, practically impossible or undoable. I have seen a program do such a thing (I forgot the name); it created ascii art-like text and then used Continuum to send it (at least, that is what the author claimed). There was no source of the program though.
2d spaceship gamer Posted February 14, 2007 Author Report Posted February 14, 2007 Theoretically that should be possible. You can read the text in the Continuum window by reading some memory from Continuum or by attaching a process to Continuum that reads the text from the window. However I believe the Continuum client is protected by all kind of anti-debugging securities amongst others. Theoretically possible, practically impossible or undoable. I have seen a program do such a thing (I forgot the name); it created ascii art-like text and then used Continuum to send it (at least, that is what the author claimed). There was no source of the program though. Tried chatbot. I don't have a prob with VIP (using it with ASSS server that doesn't need one), but it is not a bot, it's a client. A bot is programmable, a client is not. I need to be able to autmatically read text, make some decisions based on that text, and send text out.
»Maverick Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 On top of Continuum client? There is currently nothing available that lets you do this.
2d spaceship gamer Posted February 14, 2007 Author Report Posted February 14, 2007 there are a few such as MervBot, but you need VIP access at least to get into any continuum-only zone. The other option is modifying a chatnet client to become a chatnet bot, which is what I did in my casino chatnet bots for hyperspace (go to hyperspace forum to download that but that only works in ASSS zones that allow chatnet). The encryption of continuum is secret, so you won't be able to get into a zone without being put on (at least) vip.txt. I left a reply on your Casino bot topic in the HS forums. Can you take a look please.
»doc flabby Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 I started to work on a clientside mod/bot/plugin but i gave up Bascially what it did is it trailed then end of session.log, so it would receive all the commands a player typed The idea was it was going to be a winamp controller for continuum so you could typeb?play hit me baby one more timeand britany would come screaming out your speakers However the prob i had is there was no way i would work out to provide visual feedback.There is a way where by you could play text inside continuum when you are playing, however i lack the techincal ability to do it. And it would be verging be on hacking the game It bascially involes wrapping the ddraw.dll (the directx dll that writes the graphics to the screen) with your own code. So you intercept the drwaing instructions from continuum and modify them. This is non-trivial. It is one way some hacks such as seeing though walls work in other games. In continuum however it couldnt give you any unfair advantage as you can change all the graphics easily so i think it would be faily safe.
»D1st0rt Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 One thing you could do is start a log, then read it from an external program as it updates. A while back I wrote this based off of Smong's chatnet client. I've got a new one I'm writing from scratch in alpha now, talk to me if you really want it.
Witchie NL Posted February 14, 2007 Report Posted February 14, 2007 "Bots not possible without mod+" is nonsense.sory my bad. i was a bit.. ehmm.. stoned
Smong Posted February 21, 2007 Report Posted February 21, 2007 However the prob i had is there was no way i would work out to provide visual feedback....it would be verging be on hacking the game It bascially involes wrapping the ddraw.dllI have never used XFire but I think I saw a screenshot once, it overlays its UI ontop of whatever game you are playing. Basically it looked like 3rd party priv messaging for any game (ss, cs, whatever). Well if what I said is correct then there must be a "safe" way to do it.
»doc flabby Posted February 21, 2007 Report Posted February 21, 2007 However the prob i had is there was no way i would work out to provide visual feedback....it would be verging be on hacking the game It bascially involes wrapping the ddraw.dllI have never used XFire but I think I saw a screenshot once, it overlays its UI ontop of whatever game you are playing. Basically it looked like 3rd party priv messaging for any game (ss, cs, whatever). Well if what I said is correct then there must be a "safe" way to do it.To get xfire to work so you can use it in game you have to add specialy code to the game (ie u need src or some kinda wrapper)xfire doesn't work ingame with ss, and doesnt overlay in fullscreen mode because it doesnt have access The ddraw.dll wrapper would be the best way of doing this imo without the continuum source, you could always try api hooking which "might" work but i think continuums anti debuggin stuff would probabbly choke on it. Unfortunatly i've not found a (working) pre-made wrapper i can modify nor do i have the ability to write it myself. To be honest half of what i have just said is probabbly bs as i don't have a great knowlege of c++ and how windows works.
»Admiral Kirk Posted February 21, 2007 Report Posted February 21, 2007 When you use the Windows API to hook into a running process, thier are other API commands that said process can use to determine if its being hooked and by what. Thier are ways around this, they are not easy. Thier are also ways to brake into, and detect a process's memory space that is not your own. And as I mentioned in another post, since the SS protocol is entirly client authoritative, any methods that are able to byp!@#$%^&* Ctms memory space protections would allow cheating. In short, use a chat client while on the VIP, if on ASSS use that servers dedicated chat protocol, or just use what comes with Ctm.
»doc flabby Posted February 21, 2007 Report Posted February 21, 2007 the ddraw.dll wrapper technique i have refered to would not assist in cheating (in subspace, it "could" in other games), as it would only wrap directdraw calls. Its a totally different technique to hooking api calls. You essentially write your own "fake" dll which then calls the real dll functions within it. dlls are kept in a separate memory space to continuum so it wouldnt interfere.
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