Anti X-Ray
PREVENTS cheaters from taking all the good stuff for themselves, without the tremendous overhead of Orebfuscator.
How does it work?
Basically, players are limited in the amount of valuable ores they can mine, based on their play time on the server. Legitimate, non-cheating players probably won't notice because the default limits are generous, but xrayers will be blocked from mining ore too quickly. So cheaters can still cheat, but they can't take more than a non-cheating player's reasonable share of ore. So their only gain is avoiding monsters while digging. They can't mine their first diamonds/"other good stuff" sooner than non-cheating players, and they can't take more total than they could if they weren't cheating.
How does this compare to Spigot AntiXRay and Orebfuscator?
The trouble with these and similar plugins is that while they're incredibly effective, they're very, very expensive to run. They consume a lot of CPU cycles doing deep packet inspection and manipulation, and they consume a lot of RAM trying to cache the results in memory. Small servers simply can't afford it, and larger servers have to cut back on their max players or other plugins. Any server which doesn't have enough CPU or memory may suffer heavy lag and crashes, other servers are simply spending too many cycles to stop a few cheaters - it's not a good trade-off.
In contrast, Anti-XRay is extremely cheap. It doesn't do any heavy processing, and consumes very little memory. It's true that technically cheaters can still use xray to find ores and dungeon chests (Mojang hasn't really made those worth hiding), but they're limited in how much advantage they get out of it. Basically, you're allowing players to cheat (but only very little!) to save immensely on CPU cycles and RAM.
How does this compare to ore loggers and ratio reporters?
Those simply don't work. Viewing a report to determine who has been x-raying only helps you catch players AFTER they've done permanent damage, removing massive amounts of diamonds so that non-cheating players can't find any. Banning the cheaters doesn't actually solve the problem, because it doesn't put the diamonds back in the ground AND more cheaters will soon replace those guys, so the problem continues. Also, this approach requires administrators to actively work to catch cheaters. An automatic approach like that provided by this plugin makes more sense.
Anti X-Ray keeps ores in the ground so that non-cheating players can find them. By placing limits on the amount of valuable resources a player can mine based on his play time on the server, Anti X-Ray guarantees that cheaters don't get greedy. They can still cheat a little, but not to the extreme of ruining the fun of other players. In fact, most new-to-server cheaters just leave the server to find another server where they can cheat without limits, solving your cheating problem very well.
Versus ore loggers, you're actually SOLVING the problem, and doing it in a fully automated fashion. Versus ore obfuscation solutions, you're saving RAM and CPU.
The Details
Players have an invisible currency which grows while they play (up to a maximum amount). Players who aren't actively playing (idling) don't gain any. When players break a valuable block, their total is reduced. If they don't have enough to break the block, they get a message explaining that they've reached their limit, and will have to wait X minutes before they can break that block.
Players who have been playing on your server since before you installed this plugin will start maxed-out to make the transition go smoothly.
Players who are NEW to your server after you install this plugin will start with a negative amount. This will prevent players from logging in and immediately x-raying to get valuables like diamond, because they won't have played enough yet to reasonably mine diamonds without cheating.
Yes, it's possible that some players who aren't cheating will run into the limits. It's my goal to adjust the default limits to minimize the chance of impacting legitimate players, while at the same time stopping xrayers from going crazy and taking all the valuable ore for themselves. If a player complains, these are the common scenarios:
- That player is a cheater, and is trying to convince you to disable the plugin or give him permission to bypass it so that he can cheat more.
- That player has "raided" someone else's existing mine instead of exploring on his own, allowing him to find diamond within the first hour of joining the server for the first time. Tell him to stop being lazy and earn his own diamonds.
- The player is EXTREMELY lucky, and managed to survive a reckless cave diving expedition without bothering to grow food or make armor and weapons. This is extremely unlikely - the player is probably cheating.
- That player is "branch mining", which involves tediously mining in long, straight, parallel tunnels near bedrock to collect lots of diamond. Chances are that player has an unhealthy obsession with diamonds, and already has a million more diamonds than he can possibly use. For this case, I recommend advising the player to take a break from mining when he hits the limit. If you give a player like this the bypass permission, he will grab most of the diamond in the area, robbing other players of the opportunity (even though he's not cheating, he's potentially causing a problem).
Catching Cheaters
This plugin will do a good job of preventing cheaters from benefiting from xray. However if you'd also like to actually catch and ban them, there's a configuration option to make a log entry and notify moderators (permission: antixray.monitorxrayers or op) when a player reaches the mining speed limit. This does NOT necessarily mean the player is cheating (read below!), but teleporting to the reported location will often be enough to determine whether the player was cheating or not. Since the 1.3 update, the Vanilla /tp command will accept coordinates, making these investigations very easy even when the player is offline.
What are the indications of a cheater?
It's impossible to know absolutely for certain whether a player is cheating or not unless you're looking over his shoulder while he plays. However all of these are indicators of likely cheating.
- Mines straight down. Xrayers don't fear lava because they can see through the ground.
- Mines in the dark. Xrayers don't need light - most of their blocks are transparent anyway.
- Mines in very long, single-block-wide tunnels (possibly winding), with very few, very short branches. You may notice a distinct lack of any pattern - unlike a "strip miner" who digs straight, parallel tunnels very close together, an xrayer's tunnels "wander". Xrayers don't need a pattern to be efficient, because they can see exactly where all the ore is, and so they can always take the shortest path to the next node.
- Starts mining before he even builds a rudimentary shelter, and without bothering to start even a small farm. Xrayers can see through most blocks, so they see caverns and monsters, and dig around them instead of fightning them.
- Carries very few supplies with him and doesn't wear armor while mining. May not even have a sword. Xrayers can see through most blocks, so they see caverns and monsters, and dig around them instead of fightning them.
- Finds diamonds VERY early after joining the server. Xrayers don't have to look for diamonds. They know exactly where they are and can see the shortest path immediately after logging in.
- Complains frequently, "Why do I have to wait to mine diamonds?!", while other players don't seem to notice the "problem".
- A VERY high ore-to-stone ratio. This plugin doesn't measure that, but you could supplement this with an ore logging plugin if you really want to catch and ban cheaters (this plugin will limit their cheating so that they don't mine more valuables than non-cheating players). Because xrayers can see the shortest path to any ore node, they minimize the number of stone blocks broken as they mine.
Setup and Configuration
Beyond just putting the .jar file in your plugins folder, all of these steps are optional. There is no database required - that is also optional.
Tweaking the Ore-per-Hour Ratio
Please do not adjust the diamond mining rate, starting values, etc, until you have actually tried the defaults for a day or so. Over-thinking them will likely lead to you choosing bad values which either prevent non cheaters from mining, or allow cheaters to cheat too much.
In the config file, you'll find something like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 |
AntiXRay: EnableMetricsTracking: true NewPlayerStartingPoints: -400 PointsEarnedPerHourPlayed: 800 MaximumPoints: 1600 IgnoreMaxPointsForBlockRatio: true ExemptCreativeModePlayers: true NotifyOnMiningLimitReached: false DefaultMaxHeight: 63 ProtectedBlockValues: EMERALD_ORE: Value: 50 MaxHeight: 35 DIAMOND_ORE: Value: 100 MaxHeight: 20 Worlds: world: '' world_nether: DefaultMaxHeight: 256 world_the_end: DefaultMaxHeight: 256 |
EnableMetricsTracking let's you disable metrics tracking. More about this at the bottom of this page.
New player starting points are how many points an entirely new player to your server (meaning he's NEVER been on your server before) will start with. The points are used to break blocks, like DIAMOND_ORE, which by default costs 100 points.
Points earned per hour played is the speed at which players get points. In this example, players get 800 points per hour, so on average, they can mine 8 diamonds per hour indefinitely without ever being temporarily blocked from mining.
Maximum points is the "buffer" players build up. Players don't spend ALL their time mining for diamonds, so this buffer gradually fills up with points. This means players who take breaks from mining will be less likely to encounter the mining speed limit.
In this example, because the starting points setting is much less than the cost of mining a diamond, this means that an entirely new player who has just joined the server can't mine ANY diamonds right away. This helps stop xrayers, who often start xraying right away, and will likely encounter the limit and either quit or complain (the latter helps you catch them).
You can add other ores as well, but generally xrayers don't bother to gobble up non-diamond ores, so those other ores probably aren't worth spending CPU cycles on tracking.
Cutom block definitions allow you to define new ore names by id and sub id (sometimes also called data). Read more about this below in the tekkit related section.
Protected block values is the place where you write down the default values for the ores you want to be protected by default in all worlds for which the plugin is enabled for. Additionally you can provide an ore-specific default maxHeight value for each of those. Read about maxHeight values below.
Default max height determines the default max height for all ores which don't have a specific maxHeight value set. Players are free to mine (break) as much ores they want above this height. This is useful for example to block players from mining to many diamond ore (which, in a default minecraft world, is only located below height 16), but at the same time allow them to place and break it again in their houses above that height with their fortune pickaxes if they like too, without having to reduce their point stock for that.
Now, there is the "Worlds" section:
This section determines the worlds in which AntiXRay shall be enabled and at the same time allows you to overwrite some of the default values specific for each world:
DefaultMaxHeight will overwrite the default max height from above, but only for this world.
ProtectedBlocks lets you add or overwrite ore values and ore specific max heights for this world.
In the example snippet below you can see how to use that: the example sets the value of diamond ore to 75 and it's height limit to 63 in world 'world' (maybe this world uses some custom world generator which generates slightly more diamond ore, up to height 63..).
Also you can see that the default max heights were increased to 256 in the nether and end worlds. By default players wouldn't be able to, for example, break diamond ore there (after placing it there of course) below height 20, because the section of default protected blocks from above restricts diamond ore by default in all enabled worlds if it is mined below height 20.
The world specific default max height value however overwrites all previously default max height values. So players can freely place and mine diamond ore again in the nether and the end.
In general heights get overwritten in this hierarchy:
default max height < default protected ore max height
< world specific default max height < world specific ore max height
More information on minecrafts default ore heights can be found in the minecraft wiki: http:www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Ore
If you want to add a world but not want to overwrite any default values or heights do as follows:
Let's say the world you want to add in order to enable AntiXRay in it is called "mining_world". Then create an (empty) section with the worlds name by putting 2 quotation marks behind the colon without anything between these, like so:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 |
Worlds: mining_world: "" world: ProtectedBlocks: DIAMOND_ORE: Value: 75 MaxHeight: 63 world_nether: DefaultMaxHeight: 256 world_the_end: DefaultMaxHeight: 256 |
Without the colon or the empty quotation marks the plugin wouldn't be able to read the world name and it would get removed after the next reload.
More detailed block type specifications and Mods
You can also specify block types by id instead of name. This might be useful if you want to protect some custom blocks which got added by some mod.
Note however that there are mods this plugin doesn't quite work well for because they introduce new methods of mining which completely bypass plugins.
Also note that AntiXRay will automatically replace the block ids in the config with the material name, if it finds a matching one.
Also you can specify the data value (subid) for protected blocks by adding the data value to the block name/id separated by a tilde (~). Data values for blocks are usually used to differ between different states of the block (ex. the rotation of log or stairs, whether or not redstone ore is glowing, the color of wool, the growing state of plants, etc.). If you don't specify a data value it will default to -1, which is used to specify that the data value shall be ignored. This could look like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 |
ProtectedBlockValues: 999~12: # maybe some custom modded block Value: 50 MaxHeight: 35 WOOL~14: # red wool, for example purposes Value: 100 |
Where's the Database Option?
By design, there is no database option. This is one of a few cases where using a database is definitely more trouble than it's worth, and possibly detrimental to performance. There are only TWO integer values stored per player. That integers are read from file only once per login, and written to file once per logout (or when you shut down the server). There's no need for a database, and besides that, it will slow your boot trying to establish the initial connection.
I used to have database support, and one of the problems was that the database was used so infrequently that the connection would fall asleep. I will not add the database option back in unless in the future, something about the above changes so that there's either a LOT more data, or very frequent changes to data.
Using a Block Ratio Instead
If you'd rather require players to mine more coal or break more stone to earn more valuable ores instead of making them wait an amount of time, you need to do three things. First, set the points per hour to zero. Second, set the "cost" of the other blocks you want players to break to a negative amount. Then when the player breaks those blocks, he will GAIN points, taking him closer to mining. Finally, update your messages.yml to explain that the player must break more stone or other ores (depending on your configuration), instead of telling him he will get more points by waiting. For example, if you wanted to allow players to mine one diamond per 100 stone broken, you'd do this:
- points per hour: 0
- starting points: 0
- DIAMOND_ORE: 100
- STONE: -1
- In messages.yml: "You're finding a lot of diamond! You have to break more stone before you can collect this ore."
Commands
/antixray help -> Overview over the possible commands.
/antixray reload -> Reloads the configuration and message files.
/antixray check [player] -> Shows you your or another players current points. I do NOT recommend you to give your players the ability to check their current points as they can use this information to avoid reaching their limit in order to avoid that you get a notification about them!
/antixray set <points|counter> -> Sets the players points or counter value. I do NOT recommend you to use this to reset your players points whenever they reach their limit (by doing so, you are wasting effort and you will make the limit useless)! This command is mainly meant for debugging purposes and trying out different mining limit settings.
Permission nodes
antixray.monitorxrayers (default: op) -> The player will get notified when a player has reached his mining limits and notifications are enabled.
antixray.bypass (default: false) -> Allows the player to freely mine any block without being checked by Anti X-Ray. Usage on own risk..
antixray.help (default: false) -> Allows a player to view the help page which contains information about the commands. Default: op
antixray.reload (default: op) -> Allows a player to reload the antixray configuration and message file.
antixray.check.self (default: op) -> Allows a player to view his amount of remaining mining points.
antixray.check.others (default: op) -> Allows a player to view an other players amount of remaining mining points.
antixray.set (default: op) -> Allows the setting of a players stored values, like the amount of remaining mining points.
Notice
This plugin uses Hidendra's Metrics class to report usage stats to mcstats.org. This is giving me (and you) an idea of how many servers are actually using this plugin. You can disable this by setting "AntiXRay.EnableMetricsTracking" to 'false' in the config.
Chinese Translation (v1.9.0)
A chinese translation by song_xin of this plugin's description, its config settings and messages can be found here: https://github.com/SongXin1015/translate/tree/master/Anti%20X-Ray
More Great Plugins!
If you like this plugin, check out these plugins too:
- Grief Prevention
- Prevents ALL types of grief.
- Easy for players and admins, mostly automatic.
- Players claim land to prevent theft and house wrecking.
- Automatically warn, mute, and kick or ban spammers.
- Blocks dumping lava and setting fire on another player in non-PvP servers.
- Disable fire damage, spread, or both.
- Wipe away ugly builds with a right-click - no database required!
- Automatically prevents spawn camping in PvP servers.
- Prevent damage to the surface by limiting lava and water placement, and TnT damage.
- Automatically clean up hanging tree tops.
- Includes a creative mode for creative worlds.
- Optional siege mode for build-based PvP.
- Population Density
- Automatically assigns new players to wilderness where they'll find other new players and plenty of space, wood, and ore.
- Optional teleportation system which can't be abused by players to escape combat or save them from being lost.
- Login queue to guarantee fairness when the server is full.
- Optional reserved spots for administrators.
- Automatically removes idle players when the server is nearly full.
Donations
If you like this plugin, consider supporting its development by making a donation.
Thanks in advance!
@Liger_XT5
Trading ore points with players is not the idea behind this plugin. Allowing players to mine more than the well-set mining limits or bypass them makes this plugin useless against hackers.
If your players run out of their mining cap because of more naturally ore in your world you can try to find a better mining limit that fits for your case and edit the default ones.
But I do not suggest that if not really necesarry. Setting up a to high limit will keep the complaints away from you but will also allow hackers to gain more advantages over your normal playing users as they currently do. Without these limits this plugin would be useless against hackers. The skill is to find a limit that exactly fits the common mining rate.
There are multiple reasons for why players have to wait to keep mining ores (and complain):
That's it. It's all about limiting. Limiting the hackers and trying to limit them that exactly that much normal players aren't bothered too much/often. And still if a normal player should have a lucky day and reaches the limit there shouldn't be any real loss for him.. Mining is not everything.
So try to figure out how much ore you can naturally find in your world, how many ore veins there are and how big they usually are. And then set the limit you think that should be good to go. Better too low than too high. Running sometimes in "out-of-ore-points" is not a big problem for a normal minecraft playing user than giving hackers a contant bonus over them..
So you want allow your hackers to keep mining/hacking by voting ? Why not giving them the diamonds directly then as voting benefit (I know there a plugins that can already do that)? That way they even wouldn't loose "points" when they vote at the "wrong time".. And normal player still have the same conditions: They can also directly receive additional diamonds, like hackers would if your raise their limit under certain conditions.
I run a server with a somewhat modified world generation. Some players come along oddly larger than normal diamond ore veins. I've tried upping the cap on credits a user can save up, but they still seem to run out of credits.
I've tried setting up an old plugin, clog, that detects users using SpoutCraft and gives them the ignore permission. Why? I use a plugin call ScreenShot that allows me to catch a screenshot of every login and diamond ore mined. And Spoutcraft doesn't allow much room for modding. Clog is too far out of date, though no errors. I'm not a coder, so sitting down and trying to figure it out is outside my abilities.
As a suggestion from one of the really active players, they suggested a better reward for voting for the server on server lists. If a user has hit their max on the ores they can mine for the hours, they could vote for the server and be able to get X credits added to them to allow them to mine more instead of waiting for the rollover time.
Thinking of this, I could set up something like this. I could change the message about waiting before you can mine more ores. Then set up a command to be run upon the vote to add X credits to the player.
The only issues I have come along for the vote feature is this.
If the player mistimes the vote and the hour timer hits, their vote would go to waste.
There is no command for such an idea. :P
Thoughts?
@KennyMcCormickX
Hey, I guess Feed-The-Beast is a mod (?). Does it run with bukkit 1.4.7 R1 ?
The latest version (for 1.4.7 R1) has a config section to add custom blocks via Block-ID and subid. Is that what you are looking for ?
I didn't have time to read all the comments, but I have a question anyway.. I run a Feed-the-beast server that implements bukkit plugins also; Can you add a config file to add/change which items work with this plugin, feed-the-beast if you don't know, Is just a large mod pack for vanilla and has more items, I presume that the ability to add item IDs to the config would work. (if you can't do it already, please add?)
This comment was posted before downloading, so excuse if in-accurate
Thanks
This anti xray plugins seem to be great. I gonna use it.
@blablubbabc
Thank you!
8-1-4 seems to work (no error message).
@Maxwelljones
I never run a tekkit server myself. So, what would you need for it to work ?
I guess you would need a 1.2.5 R4 compatible version (?)
You could try http:dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/anti-x-ray/files/8-1-4/
Or should I try to compile the current version with http:dl.bukkit.org/downloads/craftbukkit/view/01149_1.2.5-R4.0/ or with http:dl.bukkit.org/downloads/craftbukkit/view/01249_1.2.5-R5.0/ ?
Hello!
Im running a tekkit 1.2.5 R4.1-MCPC-SNAPSHOT
Any way to find a compatible version of Anti X-ray?
check your pex thread on bukkitdev and awesome plugin btw, caught tons of xrayers with it! This Plugin + Hawkeye Web interface = Catch anyxrayer 100%
1.6.0
Added
Changed
@xeNiumw0w
It's differently. It will not prevent your players from cheating. It will prevent them to get to much advantage out of it by limiting the amount of ores they can mine per time interval.
For more informations on the differences between this plugin and Orebfusfactor take a look at the "How does this compare to Orebfuscator?"-section above.
Is this seriously better than orebfuscator?
It doesn't work well for modded servers (Tekkit) for a couple of reasons. First, there's no option to enter a block ID and data value instead of a block name, and second, many mods introduce items which allow players to break blocks (like diamond ore) without asking plugins for permission first, so players have workarounds to get ore when they do find it, even if AXR says they shouldn't be able to get it.
I see the plugin can be used in tekkit, how do you define tekkit blocks within the plugin like Uranium and Tungsten? Is that possible?
Thank you.
@BorgataCraft
There's a config option to turn on the notifications. :) Check to see if you have it enabled.
For some reason, I do not see the xray notice when a player has mined too many diamond blocks. I even added antixray.monitorxrayers even though I'm op. However, still nothing. Am I missing something?
All that aside, thank you for creating this plugin. It's so hard to find a good Xray plugin, and this one has been amazing.
Thank you !!
working as normal now, i don't know what happened to the jar file, but i downloaded a fresh one and it's working the right way. same 1.5.9 ver and the same size.
@Crunkatog
I get where you're coming from, but I'm trying to provide a very simple, efficient solution for stopping cheaters. What you're describing adds complexity without stopping cheaters better. You could give some players you trust the antixray.bypass permission, but there's nothing in between no permission and complete bypass.
@CorruptedHelix
Why are you interested in a data dump for a player? If you had the numbers, what would you do with them? I only save the player's current ore points - I don't keep data for the total time he's spent playing on the server, or how many of each type of ore he's collected.
@harlequin135
Yep Helix is right - your old players get the "benefit of the doubt" and are given the max amount of points to start. New players who join the server for the very first time after you install your plugin will start with the -400.
Existing players start with the maximum score. It's only new players, if I recall.
What about existing players? will they start at -400 when they log back in?