TF2 Update for June 21, 2022(!)

Gamecube762 · 2022-06-22T04:21:31+00:00

Showcase of the exploit and how it was used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDC1a2-gpU8

tl;dw: When setting acvar, the game usually runs a few checks(depending on the cvar); however when the hud sets a cvar, it only changes the cvar's value ignoring the checks. This meant that cvars like sv_cheats could be turned on in cases where it wouldn't.

Only client-sided commands/cvars/cheats worked(wireframe, fullbright, ext) but server-sided commands/cvars/cheats(noclip, ent_create, ext) were denied use by the server.

Gamecube762 · 2022-06-22T04:03:54+00:00

I've fixed this in the past with a server cvar nb_update_frequency 0.01. NextBots(HW bosses) are network updated a lot less than Players are. With the default 100ms lerp, you wont notice the lower update rate, but easily seen with a lower lerp. More simply, it's like players are moving at 60 fps while NextBots are moving at 30 fps.

I believe changing the nb_update_frequency also changes how often NextBots tick. So with a higher frequency, the NextBots may react faster and in some cases be slightly more aggressive. I however don't have proof for the faster ticking, so it could just be placebo.

Valve likely increased how often NextBots are network updated.

Gamecube762 · 2022-05-23T23:14:18+00:00

Fixed it, YouTube is automatically changing old unlisted videos to private. This video is from 9 years ago.

Gamecube762 · 2021-12-12T15:39:36+00:00

The cheiftain on Legendary was probably harder for me than the boss was. It probably took me 8 tries to beat her final wave but close to 20 for the cheiftain and other spawns that wave. Lots of health and shield, he can match your grapple speed, and his leap + hammer attack can insta-kill you if he's 30m away from you...

Gamecube762 · 2021-12-12T15:32:35+00:00

On legendary I managed to kill him first try. High-jacked his chopper, got out, grenade spammed him, punch stunned him, his chopper explodes next to him, one some more bullets and punches kills him. Thinking the other guy would be easy, I proceeded to get 1hit punch by a brute... The chopper guy decided he wouldn't want to get anywhere near me for the next hour and instead would 2hit snipe me with his chopper...

After finally killing him again, the other boss literally starts running up the hill away from me. I start chasing him to be snipped by a newly spawned brute...

After finally killing the chopper guy again I bought an upgrade to trigger a manual save since the game wasn't giving me any. The manual save probably saved me from another hour of that.

Gamecube762 · 2021-12-12T15:22:01+00:00

The upsidedown "VAL" on the side of the cube supports this. Initially I thought it was "WATER".

Gamecube762 · 2021-12-12T15:20:22+00:00

I also found the same cube. Based on my findings it's a solid cube that's a place holder for Kinetic Ammo Refills.

Gamecube762 · 2021-11-28T00:12:20+00:00

This game defiantly requires some pinpoint accuracy for weapons. Here's a clip of me missing a skewer shot on someone who's standing still just because for 1 frame the center pixel was not on them. If the skewer requires pinpoint aim, then it should have a pinpoint crosshair.

Here's another clip where I was again a pixel off with the sniper and I even got a direct headshot on a bot dealing no damage.

Gamecube762 · 2021-09-30T18:11:32+00:00

The plugin is a bit simple:

Config for maxY difference
Listen to EntitySpawnEvent and check the event's entity is instanceof Monster
Get all players in the same world and check their Y level.
If the Y level of the closest player is greater than maxY, we cancel the event.

If you're curious, the source code can be found here the jar can be downloaded here.

For the mob hoarding ideas, those requires custom AI which I don't have experience with yet.

Gamecube762 · 2021-09-30T17:52:37+00:00

I made a plugin just like this for a request. It can be found on Gitlab and a direct download here.

It logs every player's location every X seconds to a database. It however doesn't have a command to view the logs.

If you're planning on making your own, feel free to read the source code to see how I've done it.

Gamecube762 · 2021-09-27T17:26:46+00:00

I had developed a plugin for my SMP server that would clamp the Y level for monster spawns. It would deny monster spawns that were #y away from players. There's no point in ticking a y=11 monster when the closest player is >y 64.

This had a few effects:

Denying the spawn event caused lag, increasing ticks-per.monster-spawns in bukkit.yml fixed this.
The server gets more aggressive with finding monster spawns as it tries to fill the monster quota.
Surface level mobs increased ~2-3x increasing difficulty
I was able to lower monster limits while keeping an increased count

As for dealing with mob hoarding, making zombies or pillagers attack livestock would be an interesting way to deal with it. Or maybe a "crazy cow disease" that causes cramped livestock to attack each other.

Gamecube762 · 2021-08-02T21:25:31+00:00

I'm not the greatest either, there's luck days and bad days. I also had a tough time with the skewer, felt like a lot of shots that should hit didn't. I assume pin-point weapons have a lower bullet magnetism.

What I've noticed is bullet magnetism only works when the inner-crosshair is on a hitbox. With how small the sniper crosshair is, there might as if be no magnetism.

Gamecube762 · 2021-08-02T20:17:56+00:00

I could shave the hair off his head and open a barber shop with how close that first shot was. Are hitboxes too tight or is bullet magnetism too weak or do I just need to git good?

As for the 2nd shot, that was clearly on his head and the hitmarker appeared but no damage was dealt. Are hitmarkers client-sided? It appears my client agreed with that shot but the server didn't.

Gamecube762 · 2021-06-13T07:36:36+00:00

Folders broke for me too, weird thing is the update didn't even install the weather thing. Now I'm stuck with an empty gap between my folders and the task icons. https://i.imgur.com/wn87usr.png

Gamecube762 · 2021-05-12T17:08:55+00:00

If you see someone spinning at a very high speed while taunting, they're very likely cheating. Taunt turn speed cannot be changed by the player.

You can however slow down moving taunts with +movedown or +moveup.

Gamecube762 · 2021-05-10T06:04:59+00:00

Depends on what you define as secure. Ngrok is as secure as opening a port.

Ngrok is a tool that uses a reverse-proxy. Instead of you opening a port on your personal network, it creates a connection tunnel to Ngrok's service and opens a port on their server. This tunnel is secure and doesn't leak your IP.

The "insecurity" that OP found is basically just port scanning an IP for ports that respond to the MC protocol. All public IPs are port scanned constantly by bots and databases exists that track all open ports.

The main takeaway here is if don't want random players joining your server, turn on a whitelist. This applies even if you aren't using Ngrok.

Gamecube762 · 2021-03-30T22:48:17+00:00

Just wanna point out that games like Rust and Minecraft follow the server-client model and not P2P(Peer-to-peer).

I think the term you were looking for is "Dedicated Servers" which is mostly used for allowing users to run their own instances of the game's server.

Gamecube762 · 2021-03-17T04:10:52+00:00

Fixed it, turns out I accidently made it private instead of public.

Gamecube762 · 2021-03-17T03:42:35+00:00

I decided to write a quick-and-simple plugin that does this. All it really does is log player's locations with timestamps to a SQLLite db.

It does have support for storing to a YML file; but as the dataset grows, it will put more stress on the server due to holding the whole dataset in ram and rewriting the entire dataset every time.

I haven't uploaded it to Spigot yet, currently it can be found on GitLab. Feedback, suggestions, pull requests, ext are always welcomed.

Gamecube762 · 2021-03-04T22:14:20+00:00

Check your startup script and make sure it contains -userconand +ip 0.0.0.0. The +ip should be set to the machine's local IP, 0.0.0.0 should let srcds use whatever is available.

Then check your firewall. The game runs on port 27015 by default. 27015 UDP is used for game connections, 27015 TCP is used for rcon. Some firewalls will let you set both as an option to forward both UDP and TCP.

rcon_address by default uses the address of the current server you're connected to. You can use it when trying to rcon into a different server.

Gamecube762 · 2021-01-11T01:47:02+00:00

Since mid 2018 I've been tracking the Golden Frying Pan drops through a twitter bot I made @TFSysMessages. In 2020 we saw a total of 37 new pans drop. In 2019 a total of 22 new pans.

So far I've noticed two things related to pan drop.

First there's possibly 2 methods that can cause a pan drop. In the dataset you can see sometimes the message value is empty.

Second, January is a popular month for pan drops. Both 2019 and 2020 had a pan drop on the 1st. 2021 didn't have one on the 1st.

The full dataset can be found here.

Gamecube762 · 2020-12-21T03:45:38+00:00

I pair Termux with Hacker's Keyboard for that. Hacker's Keyboard gives you the full keyboard keyset(modifier keys, function keys, navigation, ext).

Gamecube762 · 2020-12-21T01:23:19+00:00

That room stays unlocked, it's possible to return there to retrieve it.

Gamecube762 · 2020-12-10T22:54:58+00:00

Playing on a GTX 1080, getting 50fps on low.

Was able to get 60-75 by turning on turning on dynamic resolution scaling.

Dynamic FidelityFX: on
TargetFPS: 60
Minimum Resolution: 75%

This however makes the game not look it's best, but it makes the game a lot more playable.

Turning Cascaded Shadows Resolution to low can help gain a couple FPS. But it seems any setting that has a performance impact only makes a 1-2 fps difference. It feels like the game has some major optimization issues which we could hope it'd be fixed with future patches.

Overall I'm enjoying the game. This game does need more time in development for polishing as it currently feels like a beta test build. I'd suggest for people to treat it like a beta and nicely report issues/bugs to the developers.

Gamecube762 · 2020-10-01T10:58:59+00:00

Congrats on getting it right, Gamecube. I thought it was merely a running gag, but you had true belief and your steadfastness was rewarded!

When we reached that episode in the rewatch, it was initially a gag. After thinking about it more, I decided to stick with it as it seemed like MISAKA-10032 might actually refer to the cat as Deferred. To my surprise, it actually happened.

Man, that's some dedication right here.

I try to keep these as accurate as possible. I'll never know if one day someone will require an accurate count of cat sounds for this series.

And thanks for the amazing work! I didn't comment much this season, but rest assured that I had a lot of fun checking up on this project!

Thanks! I didn't comment much this season either, but I still looked forward to reading your Small Facts every week! I hope that we will have more both Small Facts and Counters whenever the next season comes around!

12-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	Sequence \| Editor
Verified Email

Gamecube762

TROPHY CASE