[MOD 0.14.x] TrollControl 0.1.1

[iggyboo]

Type: Mod
Name: TrollControl
Description: A mod aiming to control Trolls and their trolling in MP games
License: MIT
Version: 0.1.1
Release: 09-14-2016
Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.14.5
Category: Convenience
Tags: Weapon, Multiplayer

Prevent Trolls from damaging you and your factory

Currently, a very simple mod to prevent guns and vehicles from being loaded with ammo and prevent grenades and poison capsules from exploding and doing damage. Trolls can still make the grenades, but get no satisfaction from tossing them around. You'll have to defend yourself with other capsules and turrets, instead.

Future plans, are a bit more complex. Here is a list of features that I just came up with that I would like to add, eventually:

• - Redirect damage onto the Troll: Any damage a troll does to another player or building is instead redirected onto the troll
  - Police: Let the admin of the server provide other players the rights to hurt other players to help control the trolling
  - Vehicle damage: Remove it from hurting buildings or players as this is an obvious out right now
  - AutoBan features: Why not add a way to let the game deal with repeat offenders?
  - More: as I think or am provided suggestions

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Iggyboo/TrollControl

[iggyboo]

More brainstorming:

Add player list UI: List players and have a Ban/Promote buttons next to them
Add Ban Hammer: Admin shoots players with special BanHammer ammo to auto-ban
Greifer voting: Players vote to kick players and UI will provide top votes or set limit to auto-ban

[aubergine18]

Is there a modding API for banning players, or finding which players are banned? I thought it was all done via the console?

[Adil]

You cannot exactly ban through script, but you can do plenty of other things to prevent player from ruining others game.

[aubergine18]

I've just been wading through base game prototypes and found the `sticker` type - maybe that could be used, eg. to slow down bad players movement speed? You could basically grind them to a halt.

[Adil]

There are much more direct ways of acting on player: there's a whole bunch of [rw] fields in player object that modify his walking speed, his mining speed, etc.
You can track building and rotating of entities through events. There's even "active" field which effectively disables character from the game.

[iggyboo]

Hmmm. I've been digging today to find ways to detect the "admins" and let them do damage and use weapons. Haven't made much progress. I think I'm going to have to deal with "forces" for this. [edit: Nope, I just found how to find game.players[index].admin = true then they are admin ... now how to apply that...] Reading some of this discussion leads me to believe I will not be able to do my autoban plans. I'll have to look into tracking events and then allow the admin to set thresholds on what to limit. That way they can focus on playing the game and not babysitting the players. Hopefully, this will allow for even larger persistent open games. Without auto-banning, then it will just have to be a matter of neutering the trolls, instead.

SO I guess the next few versions that I plan on attempting are:

0.1.2 - Only admins are allowed to use ammo and grenades (hopefully this will make it a bit more usable right now)

0.1.3 - Find a way to limit or remove collision damage from vehicles (just cars and tanks as I see that as a big way around some of the weapon limiting)

0.1.4 - Detect damage events from players on buildings or other players and remove something from that player ( such as use of ammo or grenades or as suggested slow them down considerably ) for a period of time [ put them in timeout ]

0.1.? - Develop a complaint system to allow other players to report trolls (this I'd like to do with a nice GUI but I'd settle for either clicking or console) and then let the mod deal with them appropriately

[iggyboo]

Problem with events that might trigger troll control ... I don't see any. Looking at the available events http://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/ I see only on_entity_died and on_player_died would be the only way to determine damage, and those don't contain any data on the player that caused it (though on_entity_died does contain the force that did it). I think this pretty much kills any chance of automatically detecting any trolling. That feature might be unavailable until there is an event to determine damage done and by which player. This means the only way to handle this might be through a reporting system to allow players to report and then let the mod act upon those reports. Anyone have any suggestions?

[123nick]

maybe u can rename this mod too ConTroll? it uses the prefix con, which i think means against or opposed too, and troll as the root word. its also control, with an extra L at the end i think it would be neat.

[Daid]

Reading some of this discussion leads me to believe I will not be able to do my autoban plans.

Instead of banning, you can do what I've seen in some other games. Jail them. You could create a size limited new surface and teleport them to there.

[aubergine18]

+1 for rename to ConTroll

+1 for jail surface... could possibly contain an indestructible piano player to keep them company