[CoolJosh3k]

Hi there,

I am seeking guidance for keeping a TF2 server free of bots/cheaters and bad actors who would attempt to interrupt normal operation.

It has been years since I last hosted TF2 servers (TF2 Tightrope) and I have a plan to setup something that should become quite the welcomed hot spot for activity. However I need some advice…

Over the years I have become recognisable figure for several reasons, but have also become a target for bad actors. I’ve had minor incidents in the past (no lasting damage) and I foresee that hosting a community server means serious attempts from various parties to take it down.

While network based attacks, such as DDoS I can have mitigation handled via cooperation with service/hardware providers, what I need real help with is the anti-cheat measures to keep incidents to a minimum so that uptime and reputation can be upheld.

I am serious about this sort of thing and, beside what guidance can be given from those with experience (which I’ll be very grateful for), I would also be inclined to invest towards professional solutions.

My ideal outcome is that that requires no moderators, while future updates to plugins/extensions can be performed without much hassle.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Yours,

CoolJosh3k

[nosoop]

Haven't used any existing anti-cheat solutions myself, but StAC claims usage in Creators.TF and Uncletopia, two fairly large TF2 projects. It's also focused on TF2 instead of supporting multiple games. I've seen Little Anti-Cheat show up in the forums a few times as well.

You may also want to look into this occlusion culling system, though it does appear to require a lot of manual work for maps.

[CoolJosh3k]

Thanks for the help.

I’ve been looking into smac, lilac and stac. There is stuff from smac I want and lilac plays just fine with it apparently.
Unsure about stac and what it includes, but it does sounds like a very effective by itself.

I plan on jumping into the stac Discord to ask a couple questions, with my latest concern being about rcon exploit patches.

I’ve decided to just punish with a kick, making cheaters have to constantly fiddle with their settings just so they can still gain some of their unfair advantage. This makes false positives a lot less of an issue too, as those can just rejoin and report issues if it happens a lot.

My biggest challenge is human moderation. I wish to have very little, if any. I feel moderators would rather spend time playing than dealing with the occasional issue. Plus moderators could make mistakes, just I could myself, even when a bad actor appears so obvious.

I look forward to getting systems in place, but I will be spending a lot of time researching and testing.

On a side note, I think I’d want sourcebans, but figure the cost of running that makes it more reasonable if my server is popular enough to warrant multiple instances.