TeamSync on GC servers?

[RAGEFACE7]

-> I searched this forum before posting this.

I have been playing on some servers using TeamSync on their TS servers and it is a great server-side plugin to have. It moves players based on the squad they join in the server and it even has positional audio (if enabled).

More than auto-sorting, positional audio is what I would like to have while talking to my squad mates. SL will know in which direction the guy talking to me is and it will considerably improve the squad leaders ability to direct his troops accordingly.

TacticalGamers Thread: http://www.tacticalgamer.com/battlefiel ... -here.html

Someone on Reddit coded this plugin for Mumble here: http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield3/co ... _and_team/

If you guys have already discussed this out, please point me to the thread or explain why we shouldn't use this.

[LoA]

-> I searched this forum before posting this.

I have been playing on some servers using TeamSync on their TS servers and it is a great server-side plugin to have. It moves players based on the squad they join in the server and it even has positional audio (if enabled).

More than auto-sorting, positional audio is what I would like to have while talking to my squad mates. I will know in which direction the guy talking to me is and it will considerably improve the squad leaders ability to direct his troops accordingly.

TacticalGamers Thread: http://www.tacticalgamer.com/battlefiel ... -here.html

Someone on Reddit coded this plugin for Mumble here: http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield3/co ... _and_team/

If you guys have already discussed this out, please point me to the thread or explain why we shouldn't use this.

Being able to speak to everyone in your team with positional audio is genious. Would be awesome if we implemented this.

[.Sup]

It was mentioned before but not discussed. If more people are interested it could be tested. Any downsides to this, would it hog the server with its use of resources?

[Undisparo]

The positional audio is only with mumble im pretty sure. Teamsync is cool for people that don't know each other well. It forces you into squads. I really don't think it is necessary with GC pubbing. If we want to get into our own squad, we can. We all pretty much know each other.

[KoffeinFlummi]

Wouldn't this make 8-man squads impossible in TeamSpeak?

(Or any other constellation with multiple ingame squads in one channel, like in most air forces)

[Ash2Dust]

Its always a concern when installing something on a server without the sourcecode or from a trusted publisher. Teamsync's forums are not maintained or updated. Let alone install instructions on the site.

We could look at using a procon plugin to do the same thing. Issues to over come would be more than 1 squad in a channel. And when a new person joins the BF3 server, how easy is it for him to inquire and get response to what squad hes suppose to be in? Ease of TAs or HCs change channels without being thrown back in.
Teamspeak army channels would have to be static and not change.
And if I recall correctly, TS does have positional sound, just not synced to BF3. You can position everyone in you TS channel. Stick someone you dont like in the back corner and turn it on.

BF3 does not send out positional data to 3rd party programs, only to ingame clients. I believe BFBC2 was the last BF game to do that. Correct me here if I'm wrong on this.

[Hitman47]

More than auto-sorting, positional audio is what I would like to have while talking to my squad mates. I will know in which direction the guy talking to me is and it will considerably improve the squad leaders ability to direct his troops accordingly.

BF3 does not send out positional data to 3rd party programs, only to ingame clients. I believe BFBC2 was the last BF game to do that. Correct me here if I'm wrong on this.

These two are contradictory, which one is it? If Rageface is right then it would be well worth testing and implementing, if Ash is right then you can get the same crappy "positional audio" (which it really isn't) from TS.

I am a great fan of pos audio, when I used to play BF2:PR this was used on all servers and pubbers were forced to use PR mumble or they would be klcked (there were only about 30 servers, 10 usually populated - monopoly allowes you to do certain things). Pr mumble worked in the same way as Rage explained, you were muted in lobby, and when you joined a squad the program recognized it and put you in that squad and it recognized where you and your teammates were standing in game and you could hear them whether they were left or right, in front or behind you, also if they were too far away you could barely hear them or couldn't hear them at all, and there was another button to speak to them so they can hear you as if you were on TS, which simulated a army radio function.

Needless to say I'd be the first to volunteer to test it if it's the real deal.

[RazY70]

BF3 does not send out positional data to 3rd party programs, only to ingame clients. I believe BFBC2 was the last BF game to do that. Correct me here if I'm wrong on this.

The positional information is grabbed from the known memory addresses BF3 uses to store the information. Not unlike the way hackers get it (given that, there are some obvious risks involved)

You can find more information about it here: http://mumble.sourceforge.net/Pluginguide
You can also find a source code example for a BF3 mumble plug-in here: http://ryanaustin.net/BF3Mumble/

[Necromancer]

Last time i used positional radio (very long time ago) it didnt work right
But i am a mumble fan.
I even wrote a small ICE webadmin for it.

[Ash2Dust]

The positional information is grabbed from the known memory addresses BF3 uses to store the information. Not unlike the way hackers get it (given that, there are some obvious risks involved)

You can find more information about it here: http://mumble.sourceforge.net/Pluginguide
You can also find a source code example for a BF3 mumble plug-in here: http://ryanaustin.net/BF3Mumble/

To people wondering about this. Its the basic foundation of how hacks works. This is not something we can implement on TS3 server side because the server is not a client of BF3. The user would have to install it on their own machine and hope they aren't labelled as cheating for accessing memory listing where everyone is located. I personally wouldnt use this unless Evenbalance publicly stated they wont flag this as a cheating.

The methods of memory peeking used to grab the necessary information needed from the BF3 client to support this are sometimes mistaken as a cheat/hack by poorly written overbearing anticheat systems. However I have tested this personally on Punkbuster protected servers and it was not an issue. Similar Mumble plugins have been used in other DICE games such as BF2 and BFBC2 without any issues as well.

So basically the author said it safely worked for him 3 months ago and there have been several BF3 and Punkbuster updates since with more to come.
Completely non-fact guessing, but maybe there are cheaters abusing it. Use a non flagged mumble or TS plugin to hack everyones position, then hack mumble's/TS's memory to indirectly get the data? Makes PB's job harder, PB has to react to how the data is used, aimbot, visual display, etc.

[Necromancer]

First of all, pb is crap.
Second, the more legitimate people use it, the harder it to ban
And thirdly, dont forget a lot of programs make use of "hack" features, and arent banned.
You can forget about evenbalance announcment.
I use teamspeak overlay to show who is in the channel and who is speaking.
It prints on the screen over the game the same way a wallhack prints.
And it havent been banned yet, in any game.

I personally would use it without hasitation.

[Ash2Dust]

Second, the more legitimate people use it, the harder it to ban

True. BF3 FXAA inject color correction is used by so many people, Evenbalance has unofficially said they wont ban, but that they potentially could kick in the future. Its used by so many people and Evenbalance would make alot of people mad if they did. I've been meaning to try it out, but seems the last patch changed the lighting and color a bit better.
http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/batt ... ector.html

TS overlay doesnt access everyones position and cant be abused by itself. 3D audio can access everyones position and that can be abused. Playing with fire in my opinion even if legitimately.

[Necromancer]

As i said, pb is crap.
Ts ovetlay/mumble overlay arent using any game obtained data, but it is printed on the screen the same way a wallhack is printed on the screen, and thus might cause ban

Actually. Youll often see the authors of overlay plugins say EB may the user of that plugin and that they dont take responsibility.


But luckly for us, the dumbasses at EB dont/cant search for fishy technology (hooks), and instead scans the HD for known hacks files, and the memory for strings from known hacks.

In fact, when the started that memmory scan, several years ago, when they introduced the pnkbstrA/B/k services
Hackers found it (probably from investigating pb), and in ET, they joined large populated servers and posted the strings pb searched for in the public chat. All clients resevied the chat message, which means everyone connected had suspecious strings in their RAM resulting in a messive bans for hacks.

A weak later EB lifted all the bans, but obviously thats their main way to detedect cheats.
That also mean they can only ban for cheats they got thier hands on, and investegated.

Any way, they more likely issue a general kick (like failed integrity check) if they start inforcing the use of those programs instead of a hack ban. So im not worried.

And in anyway, if they do decide to stop the use of things like those

[bogie]

Hello I am the author of the mumble plugin, first off it is open source now:

https://github.com/bogie/Mumble-Positio ... -Framework

Secondly mumble does NOT use the same technique as wallhacks/ESP when drawing the overlay. Look at my explanation here. Also simple mem reading does not throw pb/vac off, well as long as you only read your own player information and ignore everyone else.
The ET ban wave was fun though, did you watch the Defcon18(or 19?) panel with the author of Glider?
Btw I actually wrote the mumble plugin that reads player information from bf3 memory(player position, team, squad etc), I have been running that plugin for the last 3-5 months and havent been banned so far.

Anyways, I would like to get your input on how to continue with our project. Mainly what kind of squad talking is prefered. Look at what I proposed here. We recently pushed a lot of web frontend modifications I think I will start my presentation server tomorrow again.

[RAGEFACE7]

Hello I am the author of the mumble plugin, first off it is open source now:

https://github.com/bogie/Mumble-Positio ... -Framework

Secondly mumble does NOT use the same technique as wallhacks/ESP when drawing the overlay. Look at my explanation here. Also simple mem reading does not throw pb/vac off, well as long as you only read your own player information and ignore everyone else.
The ET ban wave was fun though, did you watch the Defcon18(or 19?) panel with the author of Glider?
Btw I actually wrote the mumble plugin that reads player information from bf3 memory(player position, team, squad etc), I have been running that plugin for the last 3-5 months and havent been banned so far.

Anyways, I would like to get your input on how to continue with our project. Mainly what kind of squad talking is prefered. Look at what I proposed here. We recently pushed a lot of web frontend modifications I think I will start my presentation server tomorrow again.

Hello, thanks for posting here. Our communication is based on TeamSpeak and I don't think the admins plan on moving to Mumble anytime soon. I have used both the apps, and TeamSpeak seems to be better feature-wise. What is the possibility of actually adapting this to TeamSpeak? We are particularly more interested in positional audio than anything else. So perhaps a plugin doing just that would be great.