A Proposal to prevent accusations of "cheating"

[Ionathan]

oge978, you are right. Your flown sim-time is divided by the maximum time rate you have used during the flight. The difference is that using the 16x time compression, you could fly 5 or more long range routes in one day gaining more money as a result. The suggestion of restricting the sim-time booked on a single day or adding extra charge for a slip crew for longer flights sounds a good idea but what joefremont is right. People would start create phantom pilots. To be honest it was the first think which crossed my mind when I read the suggestion. Believe me, it came to my mind just a few seconds after reading the post. I am not saying that I intend to do so but we must be sure, many will do it and there is absolutely no way to be tracked behind a dynamic connection where a new new IP is used every time we connect. There are ways which are not big secrets.

In the past I used to fly a lot and always at 16x. I still fly almost solely at 16x (cruising) but much less for several reasons. Being so I can't catch any more frequent fliers but I still have no problem with airlines using the 16x to an extended degree. At least all those people spend their compressed time watching the aircrafts cockpit and it is much more professional and realistic than flying at 1x while sleeping or go out for work or fun and/or unplugging the cable so the client cannot send a crashed pirep to the site if their aircraft crashes while they are realistically sleeping. Am I wrong?

[CAPFlyer]

There are ways to prevent phantom pilots and identify them. So yes, it can be used as part of a system to help curtail abuse of the system.

[vknierim]

At least all those people spend their compressed time watching the aircrafts cockpit and it is much more professional and realistic than flying at 1x while sleeping or go out for work or fun and/or unplugging the cable so the client cannot send a crashed pirep to the site if their aircraft crashes while they are realistically sleeping. Am I wrong?

Personally, I can't see the a big difference here. Sure, if you leave the house (or go to sleep) and let the plane fly on it's own you are 'cheating',. But I would phrase it differently: 'grossly negligent'.

If you cruise alnog at 16x time compression, you act much the same. You can't tell me that you check all of your instruments every second real time while in accelerated flight for one hour because it is physically not possible to stay fully concentrated for such a long time. Suppose you are distracted for 20 seconds real time (for whatever reason, i.e., telephone call, lighting a cigarette, or whatever), this would mean that you have negelected your pilot duties for 320 seconds (over 5 Minutes) in simulated time. In a case of emergency this would be more than enough to let the plane crash. If you leave your screen for just one minute (real time) you have left your cockpit for 16 minutes simulated time. In my opinion this is also 'grossly negligent'.

So in my opinion there is no difference. I can live with both kinds of people in flynet. If you want full realism and professionalism, use real time and stay at your screen.

Greetings

Volker

[IslandBum]

Thanks for your Input Volker

I agree with you - however the whole reason for the thread was I saw an oncoming conflict complete with name calling and flames - and was offering a possible solution to that problem - I think I can speak for the guys at VHA - we have very very few long range routes which require compression - and its used judiciously then - Personally I flew EDDF-GOOY-SBGL
a couple of days ago using Poskys 747-200 - although I wasnt "at the computer" the entire two flights , I was in and around it the whole time and did period checks on the flight (From Dakar to Rio until you coast in abeam Recife there really isnt anything - ATC traffic or otherwise). And, as I have stated before Venture Hawaii doesnt lower Flynet to the level of some of the first person shooter and combat flying "games" out there - We have very little to prove (at least NOT to the community)
This is quite obvious by the size of Venture (we have 16 pilots) and the fact we are rated 46th - On any given day we could if we wished , put 10 -12 pilots in the air at the same time, and, operating to the practices that others use here move from 46th to first - And the point would be?????? - We are more about realism, the enjoyment of flying extremly well crafted sim models in an enviorment that offers a challenge and a reward of sorts, which we are very lucky to have had Konny produce.
So as I said the thought originally posted was to offer a certain limitation that would make Flynet a more level playing field for all, and at the same time add an extra degree of realism.


Leif

[vknierim]

So as I said the thought originally posted was to offer a certain limitation that would make Flynet a more level playing field for all, and at the same time add an extra degree of realism.

Hi Leif,

sorry, I went a bit off-topic. I fully support your idea of having the flight time limited to a certain amount of time per day. Of course this would not neccessarily prevent cheating, but I personally don't care that much. I also agree with you in the point that I do not use flynet to compete with others. I use it to give MS FS a new level of complexity and challenge and to add a purpose to what I am doing. I also like the idea to fly together with other real pilots. The people who put this whole thing up and keep it running have my deepest sympathy and gratitude. Thanks guys.

Greetings

Volker

[cmdrnmartin]

My definitions:

Cheating is not flying (slewing) to a destination.
Not Burning Fuel (Fuel Cheating)

Flying for 18 hours a day, all week, at 16x, is not cheating. If someone wants to put in that amount of time, they can, just like for any online game. Provided they arn't gaining an unfair advantage by using the two cheats above, there is nothing wrong with it. If you are upset because you perceive it as 'unfair', let me expand. It is not unfair, because you could do it as well. It is not an advantage that breaks the rules, and if you so desired it would be possible for you to do it (ie It's not out of your reach). Complaining about it being unfair makes you into the same category as the people you are decrying as statschasers. You may say they just want to be at the top of the leaderboard, but by complaining about it and saying it is unfair, you are showing your true colours as someone who wants to remain at the top, or near the top of the leaderboard, meaning you are just a statchaser with less drive...

I am firmly AGAINST any proposal that limits how much someone can fly, as it is not in the true spirit of the hobby or Flynet.

[Quantum]

Hi,

I happen to agree with Justin. I don't think we should limit someones desire fly as often as they wish on FlyNET at whatever simrate they want. We need to somehow address the obvious cheats that are going on. Last night I took a glance at some of the VA's on the database and the abuse is still going on by quite a few of the VA's I looked at at random. We need to get the message across to the CEO's to take responsibility for the actions of all who fly in their VA, including themselves. I think random checks should be made and any VA percieved as cheating should somehow have their ops stopped pending investigation and if they have been found to be using a cheat then the VA should be removed from the database and the pilots banned. Tough maybe, but if the CEO's know the possible outcome and they persist in these actions then they only have themselves to blame if they continue to cheat the system and find themselves getting booted off FlyNET.

If individual VA's want to restrict duty hours then there's nothing stopping them implementing their own VA rule.

Rgds

John.

[joefremont]

I am in agreement with Quantum and Justin, there is enough real cheating going on with slewing and fuel games that flying 18 hours at 16x is not really a problem.

I think that if a flight is suspected of fuel cheating, the flight should be retroactively converted to a something similar to a training flight (revenue impact reversed) and the airline takes a 10% reputation hit for each occurrence.

[IslandBum]

Justin and John

I will reiterate what I said at the begining - I didnt say that it was "cheating" but rather that it would restrict the accusations there of - and recently it seems to have become a little heated elsewhere in the forum - and BTW the idea that Fatih is working on happens to be a "CEO" option - giving as you say responsibilty to those who are "running" the virtual arilines..Personally Justin anyone who could devote 15 hours a day to this thing DOEST have a life as such - and I think the whole point was to do it
merely to run up Virtual Dollars and "points" lowers Konnys fine work to the level of a first person shooter. As I said. You want realism - then use REAL WORLD rules you want to play "Mines bigger" then go play the latest version of Doom or whatever.
Sorry didnt mean to lose my temper but thats exactly what this is becoming


Leif

[tall_guy_pete]

My definitions:

Cheating is not flying (slewing) to a destination.
Not Burning Fuel (Fuel Cheating)

Flying for 18 hours a day, all week, at 16x, is not cheating. If someone wants to put in that amount of time, they can, just like for any online game. Provided they arn't gaining an unfair advantage by using the two cheats above, there is nothing wrong with it. If you are upset because you perceive it as 'unfair', let me expand. It is not unfair, because you could do it as well. It is not an advantage that breaks the rules, and if you so desired it would be possible for you to do it (ie It's not out of your reach). Complaining about it being unfair makes you into the same category as the people you are decrying as statschasers. You may say they just want to be at the top of the leaderboard, but by complaining about it and saying it is unfair, you are showing your true colours as someone who wants to remain at the top, or near the top of the leaderboard, meaning you are just a statchaser with less drive...

I am firmly AGAINST any proposal that limits how much someone can fly, as it is not in the true spirit of the hobby or Flynet.

I would have to agree with you. I have changed my mind on this after talking with some of our members who work a fair few hours during the week and they fly on the weekend.

I think it should be the responcibility of the VA to ban or in our case train up their pilots on how to calculate fuel.

We have had one member who left becuase we took his type ratings away until he would start using fuel on the training sessions that we use.

I'm going to PM one of the admins about who started this off as I've worked out which VA has actually cheated the system more than anyone else. Though will make that announcement private

[Quantum]

Hi Leif,

No tempers rising this end. If what you suggest is implemented it would do zilch to stop the 'cheaters' who slew and tinker with fuel scalars or use the unlimited fuel option. All it would do is restrict those that want to do a lot of flying.I have no objections to someone flying their butt off if thats what they want. They'll only do it for so long before they suffer flightsim 'burn-out' and revert to something more sensible. There is blatant cheating going on and I could name names but here are a few examples of recent flights :

VA1
DC93 2160nm 6:52hrs block fuel 409kgs
B744 8219nm 15:49hrs block fuel 2629kgs
B744 7735nm 15:03hrs block fuel 2160kgs
B773 4342nm 9:18 block fuel 3647kgs
These flights are March07

VA2
B763 4764nm 0:00hrs block fuel 0kgs
this VA's last 5 flights had nil hrs duration nil fuel burn and 650v$millon income.
Last flights were 28Feb


A quick scan of the VA's that are the highest values, most are behaving themselves in a gentlemanly manner. There are a couple that look a little suspect regarding fuel burns but they look only slightly massaged as opposed to having had 'major surgery'. The two VA's above are the two that stick out like a sore thumb.

Rgds

John

[FsNovice]

That second one would stand out as a sore thumb as they have more money in one flight that i have in my Va's account!!!!

[tall_guy_pete]

Guys I think they may be something wrong with the calculations of fuel.

When im doing my flight from EGNM to PHNL this morning I have noticed that my fuel bought is lower than the fuel block. Now I use a freeware Meljet B744ER to do this route and have not changed anything. It flys the route only just, today I had headwind but I still managed to arrive at the gate with about 500 odd pounds left (went around once as well due to traffic). Now I can happily produce screenshots of this and if anyone wants to check this then happily download our freeware B744er with the new patch installed (currently not available as im tweaking the panel cfg). Now I use the compare function as I find that refueling the old way always tells me that im loading too much fuel.

I load up with 383,240lbs

I have checked other freeware aircraft and also have noticed the same thing ...

[joefremont]

Pete it may not be wrong, if you buy to much fuel on your out bound flight and have a lot left over, and then only buy enough additional fuel to return, your block fuel or fuel used will be higher on the return flight than the fuel bought.

Example

Flight Initial fuel Fuel Bought Block Fuel Remaining
1 1000kg 40000kg 25000kg 16000kg
2 16000kg 10000kg 25000kg 1000kg

Nothing really wrong there.

[tall_guy_pete]

ah right, I see ... that would be right then as I have had 20,000 odd left over from doing the return due to the winds across the atlantic (I use ActiveSky)