Patch - Hoverdrive Jammer SENT

[Jimlad]

Personally I don't think it's such a terrible idea, and I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. I agree that Wiremod doesn't and shouldn't actively try to police minges in place of good admins, but at the same time there's a level of responsibility in not making "abusable" addons.

The objection I agree with is that if there is an issue, maybe it can be fixed more directly than by making a new wire sent. I put some thought into overhauling the hoverdrive a couple of weeks ago but as always, things go slower than you expect so I haven't gotten around to it! So I'm not all that surprised a thread like this has popped up, since as you say, it's a relatively common objection. It's probably just as well hoverdrives aren't too easy to use. Still I'll admit, I would have been in two minds about actually committing this since it isn't a tool that's useful by itself, its sole purpose is to balance the hoverdrive.

I think these days people are cautious about adding features because of the recent influx of E2 addons. Everyone's wary of how additions can affect gameplay and exactly what Wiremod is reponsible for.

[SuperLlama]

Very good point. I pretty much made the entity to learn lua a little better so I can make something more useful. The Jammer is an attempt to solve some hoverdrive issues I've had in the past, specifically when having fort-based wars. My friends always use my Telemodule to just teleport right into my base, which is obviously cheating and needs to be moderated. Its a private server, I am an admin and so is everyone else, so it isn't at all about proper moderation, its about balancing the hoverdrives' ability to be abused by people who know full well what they're doing. Making it hard to use doesn't help, because the people who can figure out HOW to use it will actually be able to abuse it far worse, such as creating a seek and find deathbot, or something worse. People need a way to save themselves from this fate, and that's what the Jammer is for. It allows more complex contraptions, and is comparable in necessity to the hoverdrive itself. If wiremod is not about defense, it isn't about offense either! If something can be exploited as an offensive tool, something that wiremod is also not intended to be used for, there must be an alternative. To say that it cannot be used because its defensive is the same as saying the hoverdrive should be removed because it can be used offensively, which would be horrible since hoverdrives are so insanely useful in a non-offensive manner, such as Lying's Hermes drones, or my Telemodule. If we're going to complain about an entity being soley defensive, we would have to also overlook the fact that without it, the hoverdrive also has its errors.
Also, I think many people are getting too worried about what wiremod is and what it isn't. If something should be thrown out because it doesn't fit the mold, that's fine, but this will help crop another entity to fit the mold. This wouldn't fit in wiremod by itself, but because it fixes something that barely fits currently to fit better, that can be overlooked.
Do you see my reasoning at all? I'm not forcing anyone to use it, but I'm sure you all know how horrible it is to have hard work and a good idea come to nothing. I see why this doesn't fit, but I also see that adding it will help something else fit, therefore eliminating the fact that it doesn't fit, and fixing the imbalance of the other thing too. Its beneficial and simplifies the work of the admin. We are not replacing good admins, as a determined party crasher will still be able to get past it by removing it from a distance or something, but even good admins can't stop people from teleporting death around without kicking them. Sometimes, the people who use telebombs don't deserve to be kicked, just stopped. For example, what if the admin himself decided to make a telebomb? An honest wiremod player would be able to jam his teleports to save himself. What if someone made a telebomb when the admin wasn't around? Same scenario.

I think it fits fine and is very beneficial, and solves some of the problems with hoverdrives being used for evil.
</rant>

EDIT:
What about the wired turret? That's used solely for combat, should we delete that? Obviously not, as its been around since forever. I don't think an entity's being sole defensive or offensive or both should disqualify it from commission.


EDIT:

Anyway, I suppose its up to the admins whether it gets included or not. I needed one, and alot of other people did too, so I made it. I think its useful enough that it should be included with all installations of wiremod, since some servers refuse to download extra mods, and the players on that server could still be murdered by unrelenting party crashers with hoverdrives.

[Teddypimm]

How about making two new SEnts, Hover Drive Jammer and Jammable Hover Drive and a new admin setting for wire mod severs, allow unjammable hover drives.

[SuperLlama]

Well, there's no difference between jammable and unjammable hoverdrives. It simply adds a small loop in the original hoverdrive's jump function to ask all the jammers if it can jump. The admin setting would be, instead, to disallow jammers, which could technically be done by setting sbox_maxwire_hoverdrive_jammers to 0.
EDIT:
Even if its unnecessary, its useful. Just because we don't NEED it doesn't mean someone won't want it and be glad its there. I know I will have use for it, and I know alot of other people that are annoyed by being teleported to. Adding a server command to stop teleporting to players is NOT the answer. Players should be able to choose who they want to let in and who they don't, especially on servers where the admins could care less. By putting this in wiremod, we would be giving honest players a means to build greater security systems, to protect themselves, and more. It is not an admin tool, it is a player tool, and therefore I don't see why it should be disqualified.

[Azrael]

EDIT:
What about the wired turret? That's used solely for combat, should we delete that? Obviously not, as its been around since forever. I don't think an entity's being sole defensive or offensive or both should disqualify it from commission.

I've never built a sentry turret, but I've still found lots of uses for the turret. WireScribes, etc. Besides, there is already a regular turret which could be controlled by a Numpad Output, so removing it wouldn't do anything whatsoever.

Anyway, I suppose its up to the admins whether it gets included or not. I needed one, and alot of other people did too, so I made it. I think its useful enough that it should be included with all installations of wiremod, since some servers refuse to download extra mods, and the players on that server could still be murdered by unrelenting party crashers with hoverdrives.

Admittedly this does have some uses, but I think it's not worth it. Besides, the hoverdrive has saved me lots of times -- for example, when a server has UClip (which is a terrible addon anyway), it's possible to build a chair with a hoverdrive that just teleports you 500 units upwards. The hoverdrive works just as well as an anti-minge device as it does as a minge device, so in my opinion hoverdrive jammers wouldn't help the situation.

Of course, as you say, it's up to the powers that be to decide on its inclusion. A more flexible solution would be a hook that gets called whenever the hoverdrive wants to teleport, and gives you the entity and the destination. That way you can make a Hoverdrive Jamming SEnt that simply checks if it's in the radius and returns false if it's in it. You could also just disable the use of hoverdrives completely.

I'm guessing this won't be added to the SVN, but I could always be wrong.

[SuperLlama]

Well, since the hoverdrive uses coordinates, you can't just the entity that its teleporting to. And besides, how could something that's already done be "not worth it"? Only as much trouble as clicking the "Apply Patch" button...

EDIT:
I suppose you mean not worth including as it doesn't do enough. I'd have to agree with you that its simple, but its up to the players to make amazing things with it.

EDIT:
Also, it needs to be simple. It is meant to be part of a larger construction, implemented into a security system. It's meant to add the functionality of blocking a teleport, and the players can use that however they want.

One thing I know for sure, debating over it is far less 'worth it' than including it.

As it has been said, let's just let the admins settle it when they decide to get on XD
Now for something else to make that IS worth it.... hmmmm

[TomyLobo]

minges are an admin's problem, not Wiremod's

maybe we should allow e-2 to push around everyone's entities then, since it's so easy to prevent abuse if an admin is present

plate+keep upright+turret+hoverdrive+target finder+beacon sensor = the perfect minge tool
it's not really hard to build either

about deleting the turret: turrets already have a perfect balancer. it's called prop_physics *g*

[SuperLlama]

Good point. If everything is the admin's responsibility, why moderate E2 functions? Admins cannot control everything, and we have to do our part to help them! Besides, like I've said several times, this isn't an admin tool at all. Its a way for PLAYERS to stop people from ruining THEIR stuff, not the admins stopping people from ruining the server. Its meant to be an admin-independant way of stopping trouble, the admins have absolutely nothing to do with it.

[nyarlathotep]

Good point. If everything is the admin's responsibility, why moderate E2 functions? Admins cannot control everything, and we have to do our part to help them! Besides, like I've said several times, this isn't an admin tool at all. Its a way for PLAYERS to stop people from ruining THEIR stuff, not the admins stopping people from ruining the server. Its meant to be an admin-independant way of stopping trouble, the admins have absolutely nothing to do with it.

This is missing the point. Its purpose is not to stop trouble, in my opinion.

The purpose of the hoverdrive jammer is to selectively jam hoverdrives.

Hoverdrives can teleport to anywhere. Hoverdrive jammers create exceptions to that rule. They should both exist. Why should they not exist? It is not hampering functionality; it is adding functionality, and gameplay possibilities. 99% of hoverdrive users don't want to ruin your day. They wouldn't BE upset if there were a relatively small area they couldn't hoverdrive into.

Meanwhile, if I am a minge and you jam my hoverdrive, I'll just weld a hoverdrive to the very end of a very, very long chain of heavy props so when I teleport my hoverdrive to the edge of your jamming field, the props all poke in and wreck your stuff anyway.

If anything, hoverdrive jammers could be used for minging - I'd just plop one in the center of the map with an enormous radius to be a dick, preventing EVERYONE from teleporting, if I were so inclined. For example. Unless the radius were capped, which it should be.

In short, it's obvious: this SENT is about GAMEPLAY. Not about players doing admins' work. And it has plenty of merit in that regard. I fully support the immediate inclusion of this SENT, and this patch to the Hoverdrive 'Controler', into Wiremod. Cap the Hoverdrive Jammer's radius. Allow players to each spawn at most two. That should halt all complaints.

Good day.

Edit: It should always be possible to hoverdrive OUT of a Hoverdrive Jammer field. This will stop the bulk of "I'll just put this jammer right next to your stuff" minging.

[SuperLlama]

Radius determines the area of effect (clamped internally between 0 and 500, so giving it a radius of 1000 will actually be giving it a radius of 500, so noobs can't jam the whole map)

Already done that

And yes, you can always jump out of it, it only jams incoming teleports, and it has its own sbox max value so admins can set the spawn limit.