Cheaters World of Tanks. Cheaters in World of Tanks
Many inexperienced or novice players often ask the question: “What if I download cheats for World of Tanks? Because thanks to this, I will not only be able to destroy everyone and everything in battles, but will also receive over 999999999 gold, credits and free experience. After this, I will be able to buy whatever I want, and at the same time I will punish in the same way as I punished when playing with aim in counter!” In general, such players can be understood. The thirst for easy money and quick progress is blinding and nothing can stop the future “nOgebator”. But what a mistake such players make! Don't want to become one of them? Read on.
What are cheats?
Cheat code(cheat) is a alphanumeric code that has a specific purpose. IN computer games Cheats usually make gameplay easier for the player. By entering the appropriate code in the game console or its menu, you can get endless lives, money, cartridges, etc.
Cheats also include so-called “trainers” - special programs that are launched before entering the game and perform essentially the same functions as cheat codes.
Cheats in World of Tanks.
All former counter cheaters and ordinary World of Tanks players should remember one simple thing: cheats on World of Tanks are fiction. There are no trainers or cheat codes for this game. This is due to the fact that World of Tanks - network game. All information relating to the player is stored on the game server. That is why you cannot in any way change it using various programs and codes. The only way changes and influence on the player's information may be caused by hacking of the game server. But, as you understand, this cannot be done without the appropriate “capacity” and a staff of several dozen programmers, and such interference will not go unnoticed.
Brief summary: any codes, cheats and trainers on WoT are pure scam and nonsense.
Prohibited mods in World of Tanks.
Particularly cunning individuals, after unsuccessful attempts to hack the WG game servers, thought: “We cannot create a cheat or trainer, but we can create a mod for the game. What if we made a mod that would give an advantage to the player who uses it? This is how banned mods for World of Tanks appeared.
The following mods are currently prohibited in the game:
1. 3-D skins with penetration zones and detailed location of all tank modules. Using this mod provides a significant advantage. Thanks to this modification, you will be able to deal damage to the modules of the enemy tank with each shot, as a result of which after the second or third hit the module will be damaged, and the enemy will be in an extremely unfavorable situation.
2. Mod that changes the standard tracer color. This mod, when combined with the non-prohibited zoom mod, gives the player playing artillery a tremendous advantage. Literally after one salvo of all enemy artillery, you will know the location of each of them, which will greatly help you in destroying them. Moreover, you will be able to track the colored tracers left after tank shots, which will give you the opportunity to shoot at them even when they are not yet illuminated.
3. A mod that increases the transparency of bushes and trees. This WoT mod allows you to remove tree crowns, as well as all bushes and greenery in battle. Significantly makes it easier to fire on maps with dense vegetation. Using this mod, you will be able to target with much greater efficiency weak areas enemy hiding behind bushes.
4. Laser sight for World of Tanks. Shows where the enemy is aiming. Thanks to this, you can tank damage with much greater efficiency, because you will see where the enemy is aiming, which means you can prevent him from doing so by maneuvering. This mod also displays the direction of your gun. Thanks to this, you will be able to aim much faster and more accurately.
5. WoT free camera mod- allows you to move the camera and look around corners from arcade mode.
What is the danger of searching and downloading cheats?
By downloading cheats for World of Tanks, you will not only not get the desired effect, but also seriously endanger your PC and the safety of your game account. Sites offering to download such content are usually infested with worms and viruses, and the likelihood of a network attack when viewing such a site increases significantly. Do not try to download such content under any circumstances!
What is the danger when installing cheats?
When installing a cheat, you usually run the corresponding installer. However, what such an installer will install is known only to its creator. IN best case scenario, you will pick up “Trojans” and keyloggers, as a result of which, with a high degree of probability, you will lose your account. In the worst case, the installer will launch a banner, after which you will have to completely reinstall the software on your computer. You will also lose your account.
Tips for protecting your account.
First of all, you should not download any cheats or trainers, as well as prohibited mods. They may be equipped with malicious utilities that will not only deprive you of your account, but also damage your computer software. I would also advise installing at least some kind of antivirus program. Even a simple, free antivirus program will significantly increase the security of not only your account, but also your PC.
Conclusion.
Do you still want to download prohibited mods and cheats for World of Tanks? Well, the flag is in your hands. I hope this article has opened your eyes to this problem and you definitely won’t become another victim of scammers and won’t join the list of permanently banned players. Do not download or use cheats or prohibited mods under any circumstances. You can download bladeless content for the game World of Tanks from the official game forum or from our website. Be vigilant, because as the developers never cease to remind: “The security of your account is primarily in your hands!”
omcadmin March 3, 2017 at 10:39 am
Cheaters in World of Tanks
- Games and game consoles
Publications about and how to deal with cheaters gave me the idea to write about cheaters and the fight against them in the popular and fairly well-known online game “World of Tanks”.
"World of Tanks" is a multiplayer online game in the genre of arcade tank simulator, developed by the Belarusian company Wargaming. The concept of the game is based on team tank battles in PvP mode. In the PC version of the game, these are usually teams of 15 players, limited to 15 minutes in time.
For readers interested in technical details, here are a couple of links:
First sheds light on the internal structure and principles of operation of the server part, which allows you to maintain a million active users.
The second is an analysis of the World of Tanks client protocol by one of the enthusiasts.
I must say, I am a former tank fan. I started playing them after “Lineage” with the thought: “there will definitely be no cheats here.” And I was cruelly mistaken - there are cheats in the world of tanks! They radically change the game balance, violate the Fair Play principle and provide a huge advantage to the players who use them.
Let's take a closer look at cheats
Let's start with classification. As mentioned in the mentioned articles, there are public, paid and custom cheats. All this is true for World of Tanks. To certain moment Wargaming denied the existence of cheats. Any mentions of cheats on the company forums were strictly moderated, topics were deleted, and players who posted complaints were banned. After some time, the cheats were called prohibited modifications (mods) and an abstract list of the functionality of sanctioned modifications was published. And finally, at the end of last year, 2016, Wargaming openly admitted the existence of a problem (cheats) and announced the beginning of the fight against cheaters. It should be noted that even before the public recognition of the problem, the company quickly stopped the spread of some dangerous modifications. I will tell you about one such episode in more detail below.Public cheats are easily found on thematic forums, easy to install (you need to copy the files to a special folder in the game client), and also easy to detect (just read and analyze the contents of the notorious folder in the client). Cheat assemblies (packs) with their own installers and configurators are widespread. Advanced cheats are integrated into the client interface, allowing you to change your settings from battle to battle or directly during the game. More simple cheats are configured manually using edits in the config. And there is a category of cheats that work on the “trainer” principle, regardless of the game client.
Example of a modpack panel in a game client
Paid cheats can either be installed in the client folder or loaded into the computer memory after launching the client, leaving no traces on the disk. Some of them are advertised in cheat builds/modpacks and have a limited trial period. As a rule, after the cheat/cheats expire, the modpack is rebuilt with an updated and extended version of the cheat. It is also common practice for modders to embed notifications about the availability of a new version of a pack through the game client.
A paid assembly of cheats can be purchased for a period of one week or more. You buy a key (license) and activate it using the author’s “cheat client”. When you launch the “tanks” client for the first time, it is activated and linked to your game account. The “Cheat Client” (or launcher) provides protection against leaks and key validation on modders’ servers. The authors of the cheat guarantee its update and adaptation to new versions of the game client with compensation for the subscription time required for this very adaptation. Costs range from $4 to $15 per month.
Often, such paid cheats have their own business card website, where you need to register. There is a forum with technical support and news. You can register anonymously, but after linking your game account to the key, nothing prevents cheat authors from collecting their own database of “cheater” nicknames. Some modders have been caught collecting information like this. I’m afraid to even imagine where and when such a database might eventually “pop up” or to whom it might be sold/leaked. More serious modders are limited to generating a special “temporary” user ID only for authorization, without transferring a nickname.
Custom cheats can be either written for the needs of a specific gaming clan, or to bypass some anti-cheat programs. For example, such as ESL Wire. ESL Wire is an anti-cheat program for the electronic sports league - ESL. I didn’t see such a cheat in action, but I know first-hand about the existence of clan builds of cheats. I personally saw one such custom assembly with detailed instructions for installation and configuration. I came across her on the Teamspeak channel of one of the top clans. By the way, regarding the implementation of ESL Wire anti-cheat. The “tanks” game client is launched via anti-cheat and during the tournament process it collects and transmits data to the ESL server before and after each battle/match. Sometimes, due to high server load, this process can take so long that you will simply be late for the start of the next match and will automatically be credited with losing. If at least one player from your team enters a match or tournament without a working ESL Wire anti-cheat, you will also be considered a loss and given a warning. After several such warnings, your team may be disbanded and/or banned.
Now let's move on to the cheat functionality
* Aimbot / Autoaim
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/683/ba4/ba3/683ba4ba39e64607ab436a3cc9215367.jpg)
A typical scenario for using an aimbot looks like this: you auto-aim an enemy tank with the right mouse button. The sight is aimed at the tank and accompanies it until auto-aim is canceled or the player transfers the sight to another tank. During the maintenance process, the following are taken into account and calculated:
- Distance to the target, speed and trajectory of the enemy. In particular, such sights are able to “predict” the trajectory of the enemy’s movement even after he leaves the field of view (light or drawing circle);
- A correction is introduced in relation to the flight speed of the currently loaded projectile (velocities vary depending on the type of projectile and tank gun);
- The presence of objects under fire and no objects between you and the enemy are taken into account (a landmine or cumulative, for example, will stop any fence that gets in the way, while armor-piercing and sub-caliber shells are not afraid of this);
- The probability of armor penetration is calculated depending on the location of the enemy tank, the visibility and inclination of different sections of its armor, the presence of screens or tracks in the path of the projectile.
- The reduced (effective) thickness of the armor at the aiming point and the probability of penetrating it are calculated, taking into account the distance, the drop in armor penetration of the current projectile at different distances and obstacles between you and the enemy, which reduce this armor penetration by a known amount.
Auto-shot can be configured as an option. It can be turned on and off during the battle at the moments the player needs. It can be triggered with both full and partial aiming (summary). It can have different settings depending on the distance to the target (it makes sense to completely close down when shooting at long distances and not wait too much close up). Auto-shot is very convenient on fast and dynamic tanks, for example, when you need to circle around another tank without being distracted by aiming and shooting. For some time it was dangerous to use it after the introduction of shot detection without pressing the left mouse button, but it became possible again as soon as cheats learned to emulate this very click.
Example of an aimbot settings panel
The aimbot can also be configured to dynamically capture and hold in sight a selected point on the armor of an enemy tank directly during the battle. You can enable or disable the in-game sound notification when an enemy tank is captured by auto-aim. The aimbot allows you to capture even a target that is behind an obstacle. Alternatively, you can set up automatic capture of an enemy in a certain field of view and/or prioritization of the enemy based on remaining strength points and degree of danger (say, be the first to destroy the enemy who is already aiming at you and whose shot can finish off your tank). In clan and team battles The aimbot can be configured to automatically focus and shoot at an enemy selected by your commander. The aimbot is beloved by artillerymen, since it makes the above amendments itself (and the approach time of an artillery shell can be 5-8 seconds), plus it draws a circle of scattering fragments, which allows you to shoot without straining even at targets behind cover and moving equipment at a great distance.
In legitimate mode, the aimbot can draw the preferred point of the shot, taking into account all the above parameters, without controlling the player’s aim. The player can only align the sight with the point suggested by the aimbot and shoot.
A player or clan with such a cheat receives an illusory advantage in the game. There are a huge variety of aimbot sights, both paid and free. Experienced players customize them individually, taking into account ping up to game servers and other timings. In comparison with the in-game functionality of auto-target acquisition, when the player’s gun is aimed exactly at the center of the enemy tank without taking into account any other parameters, this is just heaven and earth. In the version of "tanks" for tablets - WoT Blitz, Wargaming introduced anticipation accounting when auto-acquiring a target, but that’s a different story, it couldn’t have been otherwise - players simply wouldn’t have bothered playing.
From the outside, without cheats, it is quite difficult to determine the use of an aimbot. Often, cheaters shoot themselves, recording and sharing replays of battles. The especially gifted ones were burned by sending the recordings to the LRN (competition for the best replays of the week). If you download such a replay and run it on a clean client, you can see how the sight “jumps” across the enemy’s armor between vulnerable spots. At a great distance from a moving tank, the lead taken by the auto-aim becomes visible in the sight. Although, there are also false-positive visual artifacts. While watching one of my old replays, I saw inexplicable crosshair jumps, although I never had any cheats. On YouTube, with enviable frequency, replays-exposures of cheaters are posted, where illogical and strange at first glance actions of players, their type of “super intuition” when shooting blindly and similar actions are clearly shown and explained.
The cheat can't be countered at all. A skill player can only rely on his experience and skill. If the enemy's aimbot is poorly configured and too inertial, then when the tank turns sharply or stops, such an aimbot may miss you - its lead will not have time to adjust. The effectiveness of the aimbot is somewhat offset by the randomness of armor penetration and aiming. In particular, this is plus or minus 25% of the base armor penetration of the projectile and the dispersion when fired, calculated depending on the distance to the target using a special formula for the distribution of hits in the aiming circle. This is not a Point-and-Shoot model, you were aiming at the commander's hatch, completely zeroed in, and in the end the projectile went closer to the edge of the circle and you missed. It is also impossible to influence what is calculated on the server - penetration/non-penetration and the number of hit points removed.
* Wallhack / X-ray
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/7ec/3d0/116/7ec3d01163c546dab103c5485a5a3abf.jpg)
Allows you to see enemies behind any number of obstacles, drawing the outlines of enemy and/or allied tanks. In close combat, it makes it possible to control the enemy without turning your camera and performing acrobatic tricks in order to look around the corner and understand what he is doing. You can see where the enemy’s weapon is deployed and attack him at a safe moment, when he is distracted or looking in the other direction. You can also estimate the time it takes for the enemy to turn the tower to you, come at him from around the corner and have time to shoot.
At medium and long distances, the cheat mod allows you to assess the location of the tank, see and aim in advance at the place behind the obstacle where the hull or turret of the tank will first appear. When the enemy moves behind obstacles that can be shot through, you can easily hit the enemy by shooting and targeting his silhouette.
It doesn’t counter at all, it only shoots at players’ replays in rare cases.
* Laser pointer
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/c41/647/08b/c4164708b5ef4a45b763dabdf0c54f6b.jpg)
A “laser” beam emerges from the muzzle of each enemy tank, allowing you to see where the player is looking or what part of your tank he is targeting. The cheat gives experienced players the opportunity to adjust the position of their own tank and by turning the hull or turret to increase the chance of not being penetrated. In other cases, the cheat performs a purely informative role, displaying information about the direction of the enemy’s or ally’s gun. For example, around the corner, in the immediate vicinity, one enemy is visible, but there are two rays. Consequently, he is being covered, and one of his allies further away is waiting for your appearance. The one you didn't take into account because of the range.
It's only based on screenshots.
* Disabling objects under fire
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/a49/791/817/a497918172e1434591160eef4ce1a0ca.jpg)
By activating this cheat, your client stops drawing all those objects that a currently loaded projectile can penetrate. The armor-piercing one is loaded, and your client removes the brick fence from the rendering. And if a land mine is loaded, the fence is in its place. The “benefits” of the cheat mod are obvious.
Maps are already overloaded with various small “beauties” in the form of cars, benches, fences, various kinds fences, lanterns, etc. objects. They get in the way in the sight and are capable of stopping a high-explosive or cumulative projectile.
* Tundra
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/b7d/110/f36/b7d110f366fe4d58b1fd70e3fa459325.jpg)
This is a cheat for removing vegetation. The game has many different game locations (maps). There is vegetation in various places on the maps. This includes grass, bushes, and trees. The cheat is able to “expose” the map by removing all bushes and trees from the player’s screen, completely or partially. By removing the bush, it will not “light up” an invisible enemy, but it will greatly facilitate aiming when the enemy is behind a veil of greenery and only one of his markers is visible.
An ordinary player in a normal client needs to “move” the mouse under the enemy marker in order to highlight his silhouette, understand how he stands or moves and which parts of the enemy tank are open to shooting. When moving and behind obstacles, the task becomes more difficult, which was the goal of the developers. The cheat negates the presence of foliage and the difficulty of aiming. The cheater can clearly see the enemy tank, and coupled with the X-ray, its location. He can easily aim and take the desired lead. Or use an aimbot. Worst of all, a cheater can easily target across the entire map those places on the map that are usually not visible because of the greenery and where enemy vehicles usually accumulate in ambush.
Options are possible with incomplete switching off of greenery, or switching off only in sniper mode. You can customize the display of tree trunks and branches, and adjust the percentage of transparency of the bushes. You need to see the trunks in order to go around them, and the bushes in order to hide in them yourself.
Tundra can also be found as a separately launched trainer.
It burns in replays when the player immediately aims at the tank without preliminary caressing of mouse manipulations. I remember a case when one of the Wargaming employees was burned for replaying the use of the tundra.
* Destroyed objects and fallen trees
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/f96/cd2/ce4/f96cd2ce4ee34abb9bb2f04adcdd998b.jpg)
It would seem that a well-known truth is not to convey unnecessary information to the client. A cheater with a mod for destroyed trees sees all the objects on the map that are destroyed during the battle. The advantage of this kind is difficult to overestimate. In the case of consistently breaking objects and their location, you can evaluate the enemy’s movement on the map, estimate the amount of equipment that has gone to a certain direction, or track down the last remaining player. Knowing where the enemy is sneaking up from, you can wait for him, converge on the place where he leaves, or simply shoot blindly at the place where something fell/broke.
In clan battles, cheaters easily determine the enemy’s plans, implementing tactics that are beneficial to themselves depending on the enemy’s travel. Knowledgeable clans try to counter cheaters by shooting objects on the map and creating the illusion of movement in the opposite direction. But the reality of some maps is such that it is simply impossible to drive through without breaking something somewhere. Left alone against a cheater, you need to drive extremely carefully so that if you break some kind of car or tree, you don’t give away your location. In a word - fail. Almost epic.
* Displays the location of the enemy team.
And this is already an epic fail. There was, because Wargaming quickly neutralized the implementation known to me and banned everyone, including the author of the cheat.The battle is played by 15 vs 15 players. In simple, so-called In random battles, you do not see the enemy until you encounter him in person or your ally transmits data about his location. The cheat showed the location of all enemy tanks from the very beginning of the battle.
This was implemented quite simply. IN popular fashions, both legal and not, the author of the cheat slowly built in the functionality of sending a location allies to your server. The most infected were different fashions, ranging from simple sights to cheat assemblies. As critical mass accumulated, when the spread of “infected” mods went so far that in almost every battle there was at least one infected player, a paid implementation of the cheat mod began. Persons close to the emperor, the author of the cheat, used a purely client version of the cheat, displaying for themselves the entire team of opponents. The rest, I guess, were “double agents.”
It is not known for certain how the cheat was leaked. But we can definitely say that the authors rushed, without providing their brainchild with proper protection. From the information that was leaked, it can be assumed that Wargaming intercepted traffic and, possibly, control of the cheat’s command center. And then they banned the exposed clients. There was an uproar and modders began to clean out the “leftist” code from their assemblies. There were few survivors of the ban, and new version The author is already distributing his cheat in strictly limited quantities.
It's hard to say whether anyone else has similar working versions or not. By and large, scripted mods that run in the client are able to work with the network regardless of the client itself. They check the time on ntp servers, are friendly with Google analytics, notify players about new versions, authorize players and send information to the websites of their developers. This list of “legitimate”, in quotes, actions is in no way controlled by the game client. According to unconfirmed information, Wargaming itself used a similar trick during the “Tank Aces” competition and quietly collected information about modifications installed on the client side. After which there was a wave of bans.
* Recharge timer
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/177/e3c/9b6/177e3c9b60c948309a4cc46220d77202.jpg)
Guns in the world of tanks each have their own reload time. You won't be able to cheat here; you won't be able to shoot before the seconds allotted to you. The reload time is affected by the installation of a gun rammer or an improved ventilation module, the level of pumping of the crew, the presence of the combat fraternity skill, adrenaline rush and additional rations. Taking everything into account, it is realistic to increase your rate of fire by 10% -15%. The longer your gun takes to charge, the greater the gain from this 15%.
The reload timer cheat shows the status of each enemy/ally tank and the time until its reload ends. Either a stripe above the tank, or an animated timer in seconds. Right next to his marker. As soon as the enemy fires, the timer starts counting down. Knowing that the enemy’s tank is discharged, you calmly go out and shoot him safely. In addition to everything, smart timers count and show the number of shells remaining in the enemy drum, if you encounter one.
* 3D collage models of tanks and their modules
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/7cb/94b/195/7cb94b1952e74f26b86f3318f09bbccf.jpg)
Cheating and prohibited are those that draw the so-called collided model of the tank and/or allow you to see the internal location of critical modules of the tank and crew members. Colors vary depending on armor thickness. The redder the color, the stronger the armor. With the cheat it will be easier to target a small area of the opponent’s tank. If the main part of the tank is hidden behind an obstacle, then even a small area sticking out from behind the cover will contrast greatly with the background of standard map textures. All that remains is to calmly aim and fire accurate shot. A simpler and more legitimate version of the cheat mod only draws or shades vulnerable areas and modules on the tank’s armor. The cheat can be configured to work constantly, in the sight or by pointing at the enemy.
* Red balls at the artillery shot location + artillery reload timer
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/8fb/4cf/c6f/8fb4cfc6fdbf41b6bb32cb9f6fed5417.jpg)
Thanks to the cheat, you can easily calculate the location of enemy artillery. A red ball is drawn in the place from which the shot was fired. Variants of the mod can also draw the flight path of an artillery shell when playing on other classes of vehicles. Often used in conjunction with a cooldown timer. The display is customizable. The cheat is possible due to the transfer of information about the shot/tracer to the client. It works even if the enemy is outside the light, but after his shot the tracer fell into the field of view of an ally or caused damage to any tank from your team. The cheat will process this data and display information about recharging on your screen.
* Three-color indicator of direction and target availability
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/bd7/776/a30/bd7776a30486404794b4505aa5dcce49.jpg)
The cheat displays the direction and distance to enemies with arrows, simultaneously informing the type of enemy equipment. But the main trick of the cheat is that the color of the arrow depends on the availability of the enemy. If you see a green arrow, then the enemy is far away and you are safe. If the arrow is displayed in red, then the enemy fighting machine is next to you, but you cannot shoot at it, since it is hidden behind a barrier. Well, the most useful color is purple - the enemy is in a position that presents the possibility of shooting. Both you and he will be able to cause damage. The cheat allows you to quickly respond to an emerging threat, even if you are in the sniper scope. If without the cheat the player needs to constantly turn the camera and evaluate the possibilities of shooting, then with the cheat you can safely play, relying on this target designator.
* Cheat Shadow
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/815/cfa/262/815cfa262afb410585d71802fc296b01.jpg)
In place of the last display of the enemy combat vehicle, its transparent outline and name will be drawn. If the unlucky opponent has not started to move, then it is even possible to target the weak spot. The shadow will be displayed until the tank lights up somewhere else or disappears after the time you specify. A handy thing if the enemy suddenly disappeared from the light and you didn’t have time to shoot. Often used in conjunction with the “sphere on impact” mod.
Alternative shade option
* Sphere at the point of impact
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/c1d/c21/b5d/c1dc21b5d66c4317b6c213f872302aee.jpg)
If a blind shot at an unexposed enemy reaches the target, then a 3D sphere (ball) and a message about hitting the enemy will appear at the point of contact between your projectile and the armor of the enemy tank. You will not be able to understand whether the enemy has been penetrated or not, but you will definitely receive information that someone has been hit. With a sufficient rate of fire, you can see how the sphere “crawls” back. You can continue to shoot, “groping” for the enemy. When firing land mines from large-caliber guns, damage is almost guaranteed.
* Red pillars with multi-colored markings
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/027/c1f/b71/027c1fb713314e0b8bad16345751ab8a.jpg)
Red pillars is a cheat mod that places a long bright pillar at the position of an enemy tank located outside the rendering frames of the game client. At the bottom of the column there is a color gradation that helps to understand the location of the enemy relative to the horizon. The height of the colored marks approximately corresponds to the height of the tank. To put it simply, there is no need to shoot at an opponent if at least the blue mark is not visible. The cheat is in demand due to the different rendering range of enemy tanks and the projectile flight range, which is almost one and a half times greater than the rendering. When the frequency of displaying pillars is about once per second, shooting at targets moving fast in the distance is problematic. But slow and stationary targets turn into good targets. Variations of the mod draw a tank model instead of pillars.
* Thickened colored tracers after a shot
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/57c/4ca/08b/57c4ca08b56b42bd8bc61bbdc3265aec.jpg)
The cheat displays colored tracers after shots are fired. After any of the tanks fired a shot, this cheat mod draws a thicker tracer and it does not disappear immediately as in the standard version of the game, but disappears with some delay. The color of the tracer also changes, depending on the type of projectile being fired. Regular armor-piercing shells are marked in white, cumulative ammunition is marked in purple, a high-explosive shell is marked in yellow, and a sub-caliber shell is marked in light blue. Colors are customizable and may differ from those shown. By and large, the time of the cheat mod has passed; it was relevant in the past, when information about all tracers, even unexposed opponents, was transmitted to the client. But progress does not stand still. We came up with and implemented the following idea.
* Attack line or reverse tracer cheat mod
This cheat is similar to the “Colored Tracers” mod, but works in reverse side. In other words, this is a reverse tracer. For example, if someone shot at you and hit you, then a tracer is drawn from you in the opposite direction towards the enemy who shot at you. In the settings, you can set the time the attack line disappears, and so that it is displayed only from unexposed opponents.* Cheat for artillery. Firing along a mortar trajectory
In the world of tanks, a shell from a gun sent vertically upward will return after some time. If you shoot an artillery land mine in this way, you can destroy yourself. In the game, artillerymen have a unique sight that allows them to aim and shoot at any target throughout the game location from a bird's eye view. Various self-propelled guns (self-propelled artillery installations) have different projectile flight trajectories. For some they are flat, for others they are steeper. You can get the hang of it and “throw” the projectile over a hill or over a mountain. To a place where the enemy considers himself safe, say behind a stone. But with a sufficient height of cover, it is impossible to throw a projectile.Smart heads came up with a cheat that allows you to aim at an enemy by raising the gun vertically upward. A regular game client does not allow you to do this, and the cheater definitely gets burned, shooting and hitting in this mode. But you can shoot at any tank behind arbitrarily high obstacles - the shell will literally fall on its head, following a mortar trajectory. Considering that many tanks have a thin turret roof, there is a high probability of penetration and causing maximum possible damage. You can only feel relatively safe under a bridge or similar shelter. The cheat was demonstrated on video and I have not seen it in the public domain. His further fate is unknown to me.
This is what it looks like
* Sniper scope for artillery and artillery scope for tanks
The mod is practically useless if all the others are available. Moreover, in latest updates Artillery games have officially given a sniper mode. Using an artillery sight on an ordinary tank is a dubious pleasure. Artillery in sniper mode becomes damn effective.* Automatic fire extinguisher, repair kit and first aid kit
Players in the world of tanks lose a lot of strength points and receive critical damage to modules due to the fact that they do not have time to press and use the fire extinguisher in time after the tank caught fire. An automatic fire extinguisher can be used. But the thing is that the price of this consumable is a little more than six times higher than the price of a manual one. If your goal is to earn as much silver as possible, using automatic fire extinguishers is not a good idea. The cheat mod turns an ordinary fire extinguisher into an automatic one, pressing the activation button for you in case of a fire. The mod is detected quite simply by the player’s incredibly fast reaction. Therefore, a config was attached to it, and the player was given the opportunity to choose the response time, emulating human behavior. By default, it fires with a delay of 0.3 seconds.The repair kit and first aid kit can be configured for automatic use when certain modules of the tank or crew members are damaged. For example, with a damaged ammo rack or a wounded loader, the reload time increases and you lose precious seconds for repairs or treatment. With an automatic repair kit and first aid kit, this time is reduced to a minimum, increasing your chances on the battlefield. The mod can work with two types of consumables at the same time (if available). First, a manual consumable is used, then a “gold” consumable.
* XVM
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/f69/3a2/bf0/f693a2bf08cf46b2b69c1cf9afc15fcf.jpg)
Not a cheat in Wargaming's understanding. In fact, it is, providing information about the rating and combat effectiveness of all players who got into battle with you. And since there is no way to prohibit the release of your statistics in personal account on the Wargaming website or in the game client menu, everyone has information about you: from a bunch of third-party aggregator sites to similar mods right in the game. At first, players were interested in seeing who they were playing with, but over time, this information began to lead to many in-game conflicts. Inexperienced players with low ratings are trolled, and even worse, insulted. The experienced ones are focused and unanimously, purposefully “cut out.” There are often situations when artillery “grazes” only one skill player throughout the entire fight, because he considers it the most dangerous adversary, capable of reversing the outcome of the battle.
Many players were happy about Wargaming's initiative to combat cheaters. Others were skeptical. At the moment, a player who is caught using cheats for the first time will face a two-week ban. If you fly in again, such a player will receive a “permanent”. The first wave of bans affected mainly players using free cheats. After the first wave, my friends bought themselves a paid subscription to one of the most popular cheat packs and happily survived the second wave of bans. Wargaming is slowly tightening the screws, setting a course for integrating all useful mods into its client and reworking the very principle of loading mods by the client. But according to my feelings, they are powerless in the face of dynamic loads and injections. To do this, they will have to write an analogue of the ESL Wire anti-cheat or an analogue of the 4game launcher for Lineage. This long haul, and cheaters can sleep peacefully until one of the company’s game masters burns them to death based on a screenshot.
P.S. I know there are fans of tanks here, so for those interested, I have about 40k battles and 56% victories with a turquoise WN8 rating. I only used the Jove modpack + Battle Assistant. I'm currently playing WoT Blitz. While searching for screenshots, I came across Tundra for Android. If this is not a fake, then a start has been made there too. Sadly.
Publications about cheating in shooters and how Valve fights cheaters gave me the idea to write about cheaters and the fight against them in the popular and fairly well-known online game “World of Tanks.”
"World of Tanks" is a multiplayer online game in the genre of arcade tank simulator, developed by the Belarusian company Wargaming. The concept of the game is based on team tank battles in PvP mode. In the PC version of the game, these are usually teams of 15 players, limited to 15 minutes in time.
For readers interested in technical details, here are a couple of links:
First sheds light on the internal structure and principles of operation of the server part, which allows you to maintain a million active users.
The second is an analysis of the World of Tanks client protocol by one of the enthusiasts.
I must say, I am a former tank fan. I started playing them after “Lineage” with the thought: “there will definitely be no cheats here.” And I was cruelly mistaken - there are cheats in the world of tanks! They radically change the game balance, violate the Fair Play principle and provide a huge advantage to the players who use them.
Let's take a closer look at cheats
Let's start with classification. As mentioned in the mentioned articles, there are public, paid and custom cheats. All this is true for World of Tanks. Until a certain point, Wargaming denied the existence of cheats. Any mentions of cheats on the company forums were strictly moderated, topics were deleted, and players who posted complaints were banned. After some time, the cheats were called prohibited modifications (mods) and an abstract list of the functionality of sanctioned modifications was published. And finally, at the end of last year, 2016, Wargaming openly admitted the existence of a problem (cheats) and announced the beginning of the fight against cheaters. It should be noted that even before the public recognition of the problem, the company quickly stopped the spread of some dangerous modifications. I will tell you about one such episode in more detail below.Public cheats are easily found on thematic forums, easy to install (you need to copy the files to a special folder in the game client), and also easy to detect (just read and analyze the contents of the notorious folder in the client). Cheat assemblies (packs) with their own installers and configurators are widespread. Advanced cheats are integrated into the client interface, allowing you to change your settings from battle to battle or directly during the game. Simpler cheats can be configured manually using edits in the config. And there is a category of cheats that work on the “trainer” principle, regardless of the game client.
Example of a modpack panel in a game client
Paid cheats can either be installed in the client folder or loaded into the computer memory after launching the client, leaving no traces on the disk. Some of them are advertised in cheat builds/modpacks and have a limited trial period. As a rule, after the cheat/cheats expire, the modpack is rebuilt with an updated and extended version of the cheat. It is also common practice for modders to embed notifications about the availability of a new version of a pack through the game client.
A paid assembly of cheats can be purchased for a period of one week or more. You buy a key (license) and activate it using the author’s “cheat client”. When you launch the “tanks” client for the first time, it is activated and linked to your game account. The “Cheat Client” (or launcher) provides protection against leaks and key validation on modders’ servers. The authors of the cheat guarantee its update and adaptation to new versions of the game client with compensation for the subscription time required for this very adaptation. Costs range from $4 to $15 per month.
Often, such paid cheats have their own business card website, where you need to register. There is a forum with technical support and news. You can register anonymously, but after linking your game account to the key, nothing prevents cheat authors from collecting their own database of “cheater” nicknames. Some modders have been caught collecting information like this. I’m afraid to even imagine where and when such a database might eventually “pop up” or to whom it might be sold/leaked. More serious modders are limited to generating a special “temporary” user ID only for authorization, without transferring a nickname.
Custom cheats can be either written for the needs of a specific gaming clan, or to bypass some anti-cheat programs. For example, such as ESL Wire. ESL Wire is an anti-cheat program for the electronic sports league - ESL. I didn’t see such a cheat in action, but I know first-hand about the existence of clan builds of cheats. I personally saw one such custom assembly with detailed installation and configuration instructions. I came across her on the Teamspeak channel of one of the top clans. By the way, regarding the implementation of ESL Wire anti-cheat. The “tanks” game client is launched via anti-cheat and during the tournament process it collects and transmits data to the ESL server before and after each battle/match. Sometimes, due to high server load, this process can take so long that you will simply be late for the start of the next match and will automatically be credited with losing. If at least one player from your team enters a match or tournament without a working ESL Wire anti-cheat, you will also be considered a loss and given a warning. After several such warnings, your team may be disbanded and/or banned.
Now let's move on to the cheat functionality
* Aimbot / Autoaim
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/683/ba4/ba3/683ba4ba39e64607ab436a3cc9215367.jpg)
A typical scenario for using an aimbot looks like this: you auto-aim an enemy tank with the right mouse button. The sight is aimed at the tank and accompanies it until auto-aim is canceled or the player transfers the sight to another tank. During the maintenance process, the following are taken into account and calculated:
- Distance to the target, speed and trajectory of the enemy. In particular, such sights are able to “predict” the trajectory of the enemy’s movement even after he leaves the field of view (light or drawing circle);
- A correction is introduced in relation to the flight speed of the currently loaded projectile (velocities vary depending on the type of projectile and tank gun);
- The presence of objects under fire and no objects between you and the enemy are taken into account (a landmine or cumulative, for example, will stop any fence that gets in the way, while armor-piercing and sub-caliber shells are not afraid of this);
- The probability of armor penetration is calculated depending on the location of the enemy tank, the visibility and inclination of different sections of its armor, the presence of screens or tracks in the path of the projectile.
- The reduced (effective) thickness of the armor at the aiming point and the probability of penetrating it are calculated, taking into account the distance, the drop in armor penetration of the current projectile at different distances and obstacles between you and the enemy, which reduce this armor penetration by a known amount.
Auto-shot can be configured as an option. It can be turned on and off during the battle at the moments the player needs. It can be triggered with both full and partial aiming (summary). It can have different settings depending on the distance to the target (it makes sense to completely close down when shooting at long distances and not wait too much close up). Auto-shot is very convenient on fast and dynamic tanks, for example, when you need to circle around another tank without being distracted by aiming and shooting. For some time it was dangerous to use it after the introduction of shot detection without pressing the left mouse button, but it became possible again as soon as cheats learned to emulate this very click.
Example of an aimbot settings panel
The aimbot can also be configured to dynamically capture and hold in sight a selected point on the armor of an enemy tank directly during the battle. You can enable or disable the in-game sound notification when an enemy tank is captured by auto-aim. The aimbot allows you to capture even a target that is behind an obstacle. Alternatively, you can set up automatic capture of an enemy in a certain field of view and/or prioritization of the enemy based on remaining strength points and degree of danger (say, be the first to destroy the enemy who is already aiming at you and whose shot can finish off your tank). In clan and team battles, the aimbot can be configured to automatically focus and shoot at the enemy chosen by your commander. The aimbot is beloved by artillerymen, since it makes the above amendments itself (and the approach time of an artillery shell can be 5-8 seconds), plus it draws a circle of scattering fragments, which allows you to shoot without straining even at targets behind cover and moving equipment at a great distance.
In legitimate mode, the aimbot can draw the preferred point of the shot, taking into account all the above parameters, without controlling the player’s aim. The player can only align the sight with the point suggested by the aimbot and shoot.
A player or clan with such a cheat receives an illusory advantage in the game. There are a huge variety of aimbot sights, both paid and free. Experienced players configure them individually, taking into account ping to game servers and other timings. In comparison with the in-game functionality of auto-target acquisition, when the player’s gun is aimed exactly at the center of the enemy tank without taking into account any other parameters, this is just heaven and earth. In the version of "tanks" for tablets - WoT Blitz, Wargaming introduced anticipation when auto-capturing a target, but this is a separate story, it was impossible otherwise - players simply would not have bothered playing.
From the outside, without cheats, it is quite difficult to determine the use of an aimbot. Often, cheaters shoot themselves, recording and sharing replays of battles. The especially gifted ones were burned by sending the recordings to the LRN (competition for the best replays of the week). If you download such a replay and run it on a clean client, you can see how the sight “jumps” across the enemy’s armor between vulnerable spots. At a great distance from a moving tank, the lead taken by the auto-aim becomes visible in the sight. Although, there are also false-positive visual artifacts. While watching one of my old replays, I saw inexplicable crosshair jumps, although I never had any cheats. On YouTube, with enviable frequency, replays-exposures of cheaters are posted, where illogical and strange at first glance actions of players, their type of “super intuition” when shooting blindly and similar actions are clearly shown and explained.
The cheat can't be countered at all. A skill player can only rely on his experience and skill. If the enemy's aimbot is poorly configured and too inertial, then when the tank turns sharply or stops, such an aimbot may miss you - its lead will not have time to adjust. The effectiveness of the aimbot is somewhat offset by the randomness of armor penetration and aiming. In particular, this is plus or minus 25% of the base armor penetration of the projectile and the dispersion when fired, calculated depending on the distance to the target using a special formula for the distribution of hits in the aiming circle. This is not a Point-and-Shoot model, you were aiming at the commander's hatch, completely zeroed in, and in the end the projectile went closer to the edge of the circle and you missed. It is also impossible to influence what is calculated on the server - penetration/non-penetration and the number of hit points removed.
* Wallhack / X-ray
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/7ec/3d0/116/7ec3d01163c546dab103c5485a5a3abf.jpg)
Allows you to see enemies behind any number of obstacles, drawing the outlines of enemy and/or allied tanks. In close combat, it makes it possible to control the enemy without turning your camera and performing acrobatic tricks in order to look around the corner and understand what he is doing. You can see where the enemy’s weapon is deployed and attack him at a safe moment, when he is distracted or looking in the other direction. You can also estimate the time it takes for the enemy to turn the tower to you, come at him from around the corner and have time to shoot.
At medium and long distances, the cheat mod allows you to assess the location of the tank, see and aim in advance at the place behind the obstacle where the hull or turret of the tank will first appear. When the enemy moves behind obstacles that can be shot through, you can easily hit the enemy by shooting and targeting his silhouette.
It doesn’t counter at all, it only shoots at players’ replays in rare cases.
* Laser pointer
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/c41/647/08b/c4164708b5ef4a45b763dabdf0c54f6b.jpg)
A “laser” beam emerges from the muzzle of each enemy tank, allowing you to see where the player is looking or what part of your tank he is targeting. The cheat gives experienced players the opportunity to adjust the position of their own tank and by turning the hull or turret to increase the chance of not being penetrated. In other cases, the cheat performs a purely informative role, displaying information about the direction of the enemy’s or ally’s gun. For example, around the corner, in the immediate vicinity, one enemy is visible, but there are two rays. Consequently, he is being covered, and one of his allies further away is waiting for your appearance. The one you didn't take into account because of the range.
It's only based on screenshots.
* Disabling objects under fire
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/a49/791/817/a497918172e1434591160eef4ce1a0ca.jpg)
By activating this cheat, your client stops drawing all those objects that a currently loaded projectile can penetrate. The armor-piercing one is loaded, and your client removes the brick fence from the rendering. And if a land mine is loaded, the fence is in its place. The “benefits” of the cheat mod are obvious.
The maps are already overloaded with various small “beauties” in the form of cars, benches, fences, various kinds of fences, lanterns, etc. objects. They get in the way in the sight and are capable of stopping a high-explosive or cumulative projectile.
* Tundra
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/b7d/110/f36/b7d110f366fe4d58b1fd70e3fa459325.jpg)
This is a cheat for removing vegetation. The game has many different game locations (maps). There is vegetation in various places on the maps. This includes grass, bushes, and trees. The cheat is able to “expose” the map by removing all bushes and trees from the player’s screen, completely or partially. By removing the bush, it will not “light up” an invisible enemy, but it will greatly facilitate aiming when the enemy is behind a veil of greenery and only one of his markers is visible.
An ordinary player in a normal client needs to “move” the mouse under the enemy marker in order to highlight his silhouette, understand how he stands or moves and which parts of the enemy tank are open to shooting. When moving and behind obstacles, the task becomes more difficult, which was the goal of the developers. The cheat negates the presence of foliage and the difficulty of aiming. The cheater can clearly see the enemy tank, and coupled with the X-ray, its location. He can easily aim and take the desired lead. Or use an aimbot. Worst of all, a cheater can easily target across the entire map those places on the map that are usually not visible because of the greenery and where enemy vehicles usually accumulate in ambush.
There are options with incomplete turning off of greenery, or turning off only in sniper mode. You can customize the display of tree trunks and branches, and adjust the percentage of transparency of the bushes. You need to see the trunks in order to go around them, and the bushes in order to hide in them yourself.
Tundra can also be found as a separately launched trainer.
It burns in replays when the player immediately aims at the tank without preliminary caressing of mouse manipulations. I remember a case when one of the Wargaming employees was burned for replaying the use of the tundra.
* Destroyed objects and fallen trees
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/f96/cd2/ce4/f96cd2ce4ee34abb9bb2f04adcdd998b.jpg)
It would seem that a well-known truth is not to convey unnecessary information to the client. A cheater with a mod for destroyed trees sees all the objects on the map that are destroyed during the battle. The advantage of this kind is difficult to overestimate. In the case of consistently breaking objects and their location, you can evaluate the enemy’s movement on the map, estimate the amount of equipment that has gone to a certain direction, or track down the last remaining player. Knowing where the enemy is sneaking up from, you can wait for him, converge on the place where he leaves, or simply shoot blindly at the place where something fell/broke.
In clan battles, cheaters easily determine the enemy’s plans, implementing tactics that are beneficial to themselves depending on the enemy’s travel. Knowledgeable clans try to counter cheaters by shooting objects on the map and creating the illusion of movement in the opposite direction. But the reality of some maps is such that it is simply impossible to drive through without breaking something somewhere. Left alone against a cheater, you need to drive extremely carefully so that if you break some kind of car or tree, you don’t give away your location. In a word - fail. Almost epic.
* Displays the location of the enemy team.
And this is already an epic fail. There was, because Wargaming quickly neutralized the implementation known to me and banned everyone, including the author of the cheat.The battle is played by 15 vs 15 players. In simple, so-called In random battles, you do not see the enemy until you encounter him in person or your ally transmits data about his location. The cheat showed the location of all enemy tanks from the very beginning of the battle.
This was implemented quite simply. In popular mods, both legal and not, the author of the cheat slowly built in the functionality of sending a location allies to your server. A variety of mods were infected, ranging from simple sights to cheating assemblies. As critical mass accumulated, when the spread of “infected” mods went so far that in almost every battle there was at least one infected player, a paid implementation of the cheat mod began. Persons close to the emperor, the author of the cheat, used a purely client version of the cheat, displaying for themselves the entire team of opponents. The rest, I guess, were “double agents.”
It is not known for certain how the cheat was leaked. But we can definitely say that the authors rushed, without providing their brainchild with proper protection. From the information that was leaked, it can be assumed that Wargaming intercepted traffic and, possibly, control of the cheat’s command center. And then they banned the exposed clients. There was an uproar and modders began to clean out the “leftist” code from their assemblies. There were few survivors of the ban, and the author is already distributing a new version of his cheat in strictly limited quantities.
It's hard to say whether anyone else has similar working versions or not. By and large, scripted mods that run in the client are able to work with the network regardless of the client itself. They check the time on ntp servers, are friendly with Google analytics, notify players about new versions, authorize players and send information to the websites of their developers. This list of “legitimate”, in quotes, actions is in no way controlled by the game client. According to unconfirmed information, Wargaming itself used a similar trick during the “Tank Aces” competition and quietly collected information about modifications installed on the client side. After which there was a wave of bans.
* Recharge timer
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/177/e3c/9b6/177e3c9b60c948309a4cc46220d77202.jpg)
Guns in the world of tanks each have their own reload time. You won't be able to cheat here; you won't be able to shoot before the seconds allotted to you. The reload time is affected by the installation of a gun rammer or an improved ventilation module, the level of pumping of the crew, the presence of the combat fraternity skill, adrenaline rush and additional rations. Taking everything into account, it is realistic to increase your rate of fire by 10% -15%. The longer your gun takes to charge, the greater the gain from this 15%.
The reload timer cheat shows the status of each enemy/ally tank and the time until its reload ends. Either a stripe above the tank, or an animated timer in seconds. Right next to his marker. As soon as the enemy fires, the timer starts counting down. Knowing that the enemy’s tank is discharged, you calmly go out and shoot him safely. In addition to everything, smart timers count and show the number of shells remaining in the enemy drum, if you encounter one.
* 3D collage models of tanks and their modules
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/7cb/94b/195/7cb94b1952e74f26b86f3318f09bbccf.jpg)
Cheating and prohibited are those that draw the so-called collided model of the tank and/or allow you to see the internal location of critical modules of the tank and crew members. Colors vary depending on armor thickness. The redder the color, the stronger the armor. With the cheat it will be easier to target a small area of the opponent’s tank. If the main part of the tank is hidden behind an obstacle, then even a small area sticking out from behind the cover will contrast greatly with the background of standard map textures. All that remains is to calmly aim and fire an accurate shot. A simpler and more legitimate version of the cheat mod only draws or shades vulnerable areas and modules on the tank’s armor. The cheat can be configured to work constantly, in the sight or by pointing at the enemy.
* Red balls at the artillery shot location + artillery reload timer
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/8fb/4cf/c6f/8fb4cfc6fdbf41b6bb32cb9f6fed5417.jpg)
Thanks to the cheat, you can easily calculate the location of enemy artillery. A red ball is drawn in the place from which the shot was fired. Variants of the mod can also draw the flight path of an artillery shell when playing on other classes of vehicles. Often used in conjunction with a cooldown timer. The display is customizable. The cheat is possible due to the transfer of information about the shot/tracer to the client. It works even if the enemy is outside the light, but after his shot the tracer fell into the field of view of an ally or caused damage to any tank from your team. The cheat will process this data and display information about recharging on your screen.
* Three-color indicator of direction and target availability
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/bd7/776/a30/bd7776a30486404794b4505aa5dcce49.jpg)
The cheat displays the direction and distance to enemies with arrows, simultaneously informing the type of enemy equipment. But the main trick of the cheat is that the color of the arrow depends on the availability of the enemy. If you see a green arrow, then the enemy is far away and you are safe. If the arrow is displayed in red, then the enemy combat vehicle is near you, but you cannot shoot at it, since it is hidden behind an obstacle. Well, the most useful color is purple - the enemy is in a position that presents the possibility of shooting. Both you and he will be able to cause damage. The cheat allows you to quickly respond to an emerging threat, even if you are in the sniper scope. If without the cheat the player needs to constantly turn the camera and evaluate the possibilities of shooting, then with the cheat you can safely play, relying on this target designator.
* Cheat Shadow
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/815/cfa/262/815cfa262afb410585d71802fc296b01.jpg)
In place of the last display of the enemy combat vehicle, its transparent outline and name will be drawn. If the unlucky opponent has not started to move, then it is even possible to target the weak spot. The shadow will be displayed until the tank lights up somewhere else or disappears after the time you specify. A handy thing if the enemy suddenly disappeared from the light and you didn’t have time to shoot. Often used in conjunction with the “sphere on impact” mod.
Alternative shade option
* Sphere at the point of impact
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/c1d/c21/b5d/c1dc21b5d66c4317b6c213f872302aee.jpg)
If a blind shot at an unexposed enemy reaches the target, then a 3D sphere (ball) and a message about hitting the enemy will appear at the point of contact between your projectile and the armor of the enemy tank. You will not be able to understand whether the enemy has been penetrated or not, but you will definitely receive information that someone has been hit. With a sufficient rate of fire, you can see how the sphere “crawls” back. You can continue to shoot, “groping” for the enemy. When firing land mines from large-caliber guns, damage is almost guaranteed.
* Red pillars with multi-colored markings
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/027/c1f/b71/027c1fb713314e0b8bad16345751ab8a.jpg)
Red pillars is a cheat mod that places a long bright pillar at the position of an enemy tank located outside the rendering frames of the game client. At the bottom of the column there is a color gradation that helps to understand the location of the enemy relative to the horizon. The height of the colored marks approximately corresponds to the height of the tank. To put it simply, there is no need to shoot at an opponent if at least the blue mark is not visible. The cheat is in demand due to the different rendering range of enemy tanks and the projectile flight range, which is almost one and a half times greater than the rendering. When the frequency of displaying pillars is about once per second, shooting at targets moving fast in the distance is problematic. But slow and stationary targets turn into good targets. Variations of the mod draw a tank model instead of pillars.
* Thickened colored tracers after a shot
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/57c/4ca/08b/57c4ca08b56b42bd8bc61bbdc3265aec.jpg)
The cheat displays colored tracers after shots are fired. After any of the tanks fired a shot, this cheat mod draws a thicker tracer and it does not disappear immediately as in the standard version of the game, but disappears with some delay. The color of the tracer also changes, depending on the type of projectile being fired. Regular armor-piercing shells are marked in white, cumulative ammunition is marked in purple, a high-explosive shell is marked in yellow, and a sub-caliber shell is marked in light blue. Colors are customizable and may differ from those shown. By and large, the time of the cheat mod has passed; it was relevant in the past, when information about all tracers, even unexposed opponents, was transmitted to the client. But progress does not stand still. We came up with and implemented the following idea.
* Attack line or reverse tracer cheat mod
This cheat is similar to the “Colored Tracers” mod, but works in the opposite direction. In other words, this is a reverse tracer. For example, if someone shot at you and hit you, then a tracer is drawn from you in the opposite direction towards the enemy who shot at you. In the settings, you can set the time the attack line disappears, and so that it is displayed only from unexposed opponents.* Cheat for artillery. Firing along a mortar trajectory
In the world of tanks, a shell from a gun sent vertically upward will return after some time. If you shoot an artillery land mine in this way, you can destroy yourself. In the game, artillerymen have a unique sight that allows them to aim and shoot at any target throughout the game location from a bird's eye view. Different self-propelled guns (self-propelled artillery units) have different projectile flight trajectories. For some they are flat, for others they are steeper. You can get the hang of it and “throw” the projectile over a hill or over a mountain. To a place where the enemy considers himself safe, say behind a stone. But with a sufficient height of cover, it is impossible to throw a projectile.Smart heads came up with a cheat that allows you to aim at an enemy by raising the gun vertically upward. A regular game client does not allow you to do this, and the cheater definitely gets burned, shooting and hitting in this mode. But you can shoot at any tank behind arbitrarily high obstacles - the shell will literally fall on its head, following a mortar trajectory. Considering that many tanks have a thin turret roof, there is a high probability of penetration and causing maximum possible damage. You can only feel relatively safe under a bridge or similar shelter. The cheat was demonstrated on video and I have not seen it in the public domain. His further fate is unknown to me.
This is what it looks like
* Sniper scope for artillery and artillery scope for tanks
The mod is practically useless if all the others are available. Moreover, in the latest updates of the game, artillery was officially given a sniper mode. Using an artillery sight on an ordinary tank is a dubious pleasure. Artillery in sniper mode becomes damn effective.* Automatic fire extinguisher, repair kit and first aid kit
Players in the world of tanks lose a lot of strength points and receive critical damage to modules due to the fact that they do not have time to press and use the fire extinguisher in time after the tank caught fire. An automatic fire extinguisher can be used. But the thing is that the price of this consumable is a little more than six times higher than the price of a manual one. If your goal is to earn as much silver as possible, using automatic fire extinguishers is not a good idea. The cheat mod turns an ordinary fire extinguisher into an automatic one, pressing the activation button for you in case of a fire. The mod is detected quite simply by the player’s incredibly fast reaction. Therefore, a config was attached to it, and the player was given the opportunity to choose the response time, emulating human behavior. By default, it fires with a delay of 0.3 seconds.The repair kit and first aid kit can be configured for automatic use when certain modules of the tank or crew members are damaged. For example, with a damaged ammo rack or a wounded loader, the reload time increases and you lose precious seconds for repairs or treatment. With an automatic repair kit and first aid kit, this time is reduced to a minimum, increasing your chances on the battlefield. The mod can work with two types of consumables at the same time (if available). First, a manual consumable is used, then a “gold” consumable.
* XVM
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/f69/3a2/bf0/f693a2bf08cf46b2b69c1cf9afc15fcf.jpg)
Not a cheat in Wargaming's understanding. In fact, it is, providing information about the rating and combat effectiveness of all players who got into battle with you. And since there is no way to prohibit the publication of your statistics in your personal account on the Wargaming website or in the game client menu, everyone has information about you: from a bunch of third-party aggregator sites to similar mods right in the game. At first, players were interested in seeing who they were playing with, but over time, this information began to lead to many in-game conflicts. Inexperienced players with low ratings are trolled, and even worse, insulted. The experienced ones are focused and unanimously, purposefully “cut out.” There are often situations when artillery “herds” only one skill player throughout the entire battle, because it considers him the most dangerous enemy, capable of reversing the outcome of the battle.
Many players were happy about Wargaming's initiative to combat cheaters. Others were skeptical. At the moment, a player who is caught using cheats for the first time will face a two-week ban. If you fly in again, such a player will receive a “permanent”. The first wave of bans affected mainly players using free cheats. After the first wave, my friends bought themselves a paid subscription to one of the most popular cheat packs and happily survived the second wave of bans. Wargaming is slowly tightening the screws, setting a course for integrating all useful mods into its client and reworking the very principle of loading mods by the client. But according to my feelings, they are powerless in the face of dynamic loads and injections. To do this, they will have to write an analogue of the ESL Wire anti-cheat or an analogue of the 4game launcher for Lineage. This is a long way, and cheaters can sleep peacefully until one of the company’s game masters burns them to death based on a screenshot.
P.S. I know there are fans of tanks here, so for those interested, I have about 40k battles and 56% victories with a turquoise WN8 rating. I only used the Jova modpack + Battle Assistant. I'm currently playing WoT Blitz. While searching for screenshots, I came across Tundra for Android. If this is not a fake, then a start has been made there too. Sadly.
GamesPublications about cheating in shooters and how Valve fights cheaters gave me the idea to write about cheaters and the fight against them in the popular and fairly well-known online game “World of Tanks.”
"World of Tanks" is a multiplayer online game in the genre of arcade tank simulator, developed by the Belarusian company Wargaming. The concept of the game is based on team tank battles in PvP mode. In the PC version of the game, these are usually teams of 15 players, limited to 15 minutes in time.
For readers interested in technical details, here are a couple of links:
First sheds light on the internal structure and principles of operation of the server part, which allows you to maintain a million active users.
The second is an analysis of the World of Tanks client protocol by one of the enthusiasts.
I must say, I am a former tank fan. I started playing them after “Lineage” with the thought: “there will definitely be no cheats here.” And I was cruelly mistaken - there are cheats in the world of tanks! They radically change the game balance, violate the Fair Play principle and provide a huge advantage to the players who use them.
Let's take a closer look at cheats
Let's start with classification. As mentioned in the mentioned articles, there are public, paid and custom cheats. All this is true for World of Tanks. Until a certain point, Wargaming denied the existence of cheats. Any mentions of cheats on the company forums were strictly moderated, topics were deleted, and players who posted complaints were banned. After some time, the cheats were called prohibited modifications (mods) and an abstract list of the functionality of sanctioned modifications was published. And finally, at the end of last year, 2016, Wargaming openly admitted the existence of a problem (cheats) and announced the beginning of the fight against cheaters. It should be noted that even before the public recognition of the problem, the company quickly stopped the spread of some dangerous modifications. I will tell you about one such episode in more detail below.Public cheats are easily found on thematic forums, easy to install (you need to copy the files to a special folder in the game client), and also easy to detect (just read and analyze the contents of the notorious folder in the client). Cheat assemblies (packs) with their own installers and configurators are widespread. Advanced cheats are integrated into the client interface, allowing you to change your settings from battle to battle or directly during the game. Simpler cheats can be configured manually using edits in the config. And there is a category of cheats that work on the “trainer” principle, regardless of the game client.
Example of a modpack panel in a game client
Paid cheats can either be installed in the client folder or loaded into the computer memory after launching the client, leaving no traces on the disk. Some of them are advertised in cheat builds/modpacks and have a limited trial period. As a rule, after the cheat/cheats expire, the modpack is rebuilt with an updated and extended version of the cheat. It is also common practice for modders to embed notifications about the availability of a new version of a pack through the game client.
A paid assembly of cheats can be purchased for a period of one week or more. You buy a key (license) and activate it using the author’s “cheat client”. When you launch the “tanks” client for the first time, it is activated and linked to your game account. The “Cheat Client” (or launcher) provides protection against leaks and key validation on modders’ servers. The authors of the cheat guarantee its update and adaptation to new versions of the game client with compensation for the subscription time required for this very adaptation. Costs range from $4 to $15 per month.
Often, such paid cheats have their own business card website, where you need to register. There is a forum with technical support and news. You can register anonymously, but after linking your game account to the key, nothing prevents cheat authors from collecting their own database of “cheater” nicknames. Some modders have been caught collecting information like this. I’m afraid to even imagine where and when such a database might eventually “pop up” or to whom it might be sold/leaked. More serious modders are limited to generating a special “temporary” user ID only for authorization, without transferring a nickname.
Custom cheats can be either written for the needs of a specific gaming clan, or to bypass some anti-cheat programs. For example, such as ESL Wire. ESL Wire is an anti-cheat program for the electronic sports league - ESL. I didn’t see such a cheat in action, but I know first-hand about the existence of clan builds of cheats. I personally saw one such custom assembly with detailed installation and configuration instructions. I came across her on the Teamspeak channel of one of the top clans. By the way, regarding the implementation of ESL Wire anti-cheat. The “tanks” game client is launched via anti-cheat and during the tournament process it collects and transmits data to the ESL server before and after each battle/match. Sometimes, due to high server load, this process can take so long that you will simply be late for the start of the next match and will automatically be credited with losing. If at least one player from your team enters a match or tournament without a working ESL Wire anti-cheat, you will also be considered a loss and given a warning. After several such warnings, your team may be disbanded and/or banned.
Now let's move on to the cheat functionality
* Aimbot / Autoaim
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/683/ba4/ba3/683ba4ba39e64607ab436a3cc9215367.jpg)
A typical scenario for using an aimbot looks like this: you auto-aim an enemy tank with the right mouse button. The sight is aimed at the tank and accompanies it until auto-aim is canceled or the player transfers the sight to another tank. During the maintenance process, the following are taken into account and calculated:
- Distance to the target, speed and trajectory of the enemy. In particular, such sights are able to “predict” the trajectory of the enemy’s movement even after he leaves the field of view (light or drawing circle);
- A correction is introduced in relation to the flight speed of the currently loaded projectile (velocities vary depending on the type of projectile and tank gun);
- The presence of objects under fire and no objects between you and the enemy are taken into account (a landmine or cumulative, for example, will stop any fence that gets in the way, while armor-piercing and sub-caliber shells are not afraid of this);
- The probability of armor penetration is calculated depending on the location of the enemy tank, the visibility and inclination of different sections of its armor, the presence of screens or tracks in the path of the projectile.
- The reduced (effective) thickness of the armor at the aiming point and the probability of penetrating it are calculated, taking into account the distance, the drop in armor penetration of the current projectile at different distances and obstacles between you and the enemy, which reduce this armor penetration by a known amount.
Auto-shot can be configured as an option. It can be turned on and off during the battle at the moments the player needs. It can be triggered with both full and partial aiming (summary). It can have different settings depending on the distance to the target (it makes sense to completely close down when shooting at long distances and not wait too much close up). Auto-shot is very convenient on fast and dynamic tanks, for example, when you need to circle around another tank without being distracted by aiming and shooting. For some time it was dangerous to use it after the introduction of shot detection without pressing the left mouse button, but it became possible again as soon as cheats learned to emulate this very click.
Example of an aimbot settings panel
The aimbot can also be configured to dynamically capture and hold in sight a selected point on the armor of an enemy tank directly during the battle. You can enable or disable the in-game sound notification when an enemy tank is captured by auto-aim. The aimbot allows you to capture even a target that is behind an obstacle. Alternatively, you can set up automatic capture of an enemy in a certain field of view and/or prioritization of the enemy based on remaining strength points and degree of danger (say, be the first to destroy the enemy who is already aiming at you and whose shot can finish off your tank). In clan and team battles, the aimbot can be configured to automatically focus and shoot at the enemy chosen by your commander. The aimbot is beloved by artillerymen, since it makes the above amendments itself (and the approach time of an artillery shell can be 5-8 seconds), plus it draws a circle of scattering fragments, which allows you to shoot without straining even at targets behind cover and moving equipment at a great distance.
In legitimate mode, the aimbot can draw the preferred point of the shot, taking into account all the above parameters, without controlling the player’s aim. The player can only align the sight with the point suggested by the aimbot and shoot.
A player or clan with such a cheat receives an illusory advantage in the game. There are a huge variety of aimbot sights, both paid and free. Experienced players configure them individually, taking into account ping to game servers and other timings. In comparison with the in-game functionality of auto-target acquisition, when the player’s gun is aimed exactly at the center of the enemy tank without taking into account any other parameters, this is just heaven and earth. In the version of "tanks" for tablets - WoT Blitz, Wargaming introduced anticipation when auto-capturing a target, but this is a separate story, it was impossible otherwise - players simply would not have bothered playing.
From the outside, without cheats, it is quite difficult to determine the use of an aimbot. Often, cheaters shoot themselves, recording and sharing replays of battles. The especially gifted ones were burned by sending the recordings to the LRN (competition for the best replays of the week). If you download such a replay and run it on a clean client, you can see how the sight “jumps” across the enemy’s armor between vulnerable spots. At a great distance from a moving tank, the lead taken by the auto-aim becomes visible in the sight. Although, there are also false-positive visual artifacts. While watching one of my old replays, I saw inexplicable crosshair jumps, although I never had any cheats. On YouTube, with enviable frequency, replays-exposures of cheaters are posted, where illogical and strange at first glance actions of players, their type of “super intuition” when shooting blindly and similar actions are clearly shown and explained.
The cheat can't be countered at all. A skill player can only rely on his experience and skill. If the enemy's aimbot is poorly configured and too inertial, then when the tank turns sharply or stops, such an aimbot may miss you - its lead will not have time to adjust. The effectiveness of the aimbot is somewhat offset by the randomness of armor penetration and aiming. In particular, this is plus or minus 25% of the base armor penetration of the projectile and the dispersion when fired, calculated depending on the distance to the target using a special formula for the distribution of hits in the aiming circle. This is not a Point-and-Shoot model, you were aiming at the commander's hatch, completely zeroed in, and in the end the projectile went closer to the edge of the circle and you missed. It is also impossible to influence what is calculated on the server - penetration/non-penetration and the number of hit points removed.
* Wallhack / X-ray
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/7ec/3d0/116/7ec3d01163c546dab103c5485a5a3abf.jpg)
Allows you to see enemies behind any number of obstacles, drawing the outlines of enemy and/or allied tanks. In close combat, it makes it possible to control the enemy without turning your camera and performing acrobatic tricks in order to look around the corner and understand what he is doing. You can see where the enemy’s weapon is deployed and attack him at a safe moment, when he is distracted or looking in the other direction. You can also estimate the time it takes for the enemy to turn the tower to you, come at him from around the corner and have time to shoot.
At medium and long distances, the cheat mod allows you to assess the location of the tank, see and aim in advance at the place behind the obstacle where the hull or turret of the tank will first appear. When the enemy moves behind obstacles that can be shot through, you can easily hit the enemy by shooting and targeting his silhouette.
It doesn’t counter at all, it only shoots at players’ replays in rare cases.
* Laser pointer
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/c41/647/08b/c4164708b5ef4a45b763dabdf0c54f6b.jpg)
A “laser” beam emerges from the muzzle of each enemy tank, allowing you to see where the player is looking or what part of your tank he is targeting. The cheat gives experienced players the opportunity to adjust the position of their own tank and by turning the hull or turret to increase the chance of not being penetrated. In other cases, the cheat performs a purely informative role, displaying information about the direction of the enemy’s or ally’s gun. For example, around the corner, in the immediate vicinity, one enemy is visible, but there are two rays. Consequently, he is being covered, and one of his allies further away is waiting for your appearance. The one you didn't take into account because of the range.
It's only based on screenshots.
* Disabling objects under fire
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/a49/791/817/a497918172e1434591160eef4ce1a0ca.jpg)
By activating this cheat, your client stops drawing all those objects that a currently loaded projectile can penetrate. The armor-piercing one is loaded, and your client removes the brick fence from the rendering. And if a land mine is loaded, the fence is in its place. The “benefits” of the cheat mod are obvious.
The maps are already overloaded with various small “beauties” in the form of cars, benches, fences, various kinds of fences, lanterns, etc. objects. They get in the way in the sight and are capable of stopping a high-explosive or cumulative projectile.
* Tundra
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/b7d/110/f36/b7d110f366fe4d58b1fd70e3fa459325.jpg)
This is a cheat for removing vegetation. The game has many different game locations (maps). There is vegetation in various places on the maps. This includes grass, bushes, and trees. The cheat is able to “expose” the map by removing all bushes and trees from the player’s screen, completely or partially. By removing the bush, it will not “light up” an invisible enemy, but it will greatly facilitate aiming when the enemy is behind a veil of greenery and only one of his markers is visible.
An ordinary player in a normal client needs to “move” the mouse under the enemy marker in order to highlight his silhouette, understand how he stands or moves and which parts of the enemy tank are open to shooting. When moving and behind obstacles, the task becomes more difficult, which was the goal of the developers. The cheat negates the presence of foliage and the difficulty of aiming. The cheater can clearly see the enemy tank, and coupled with the X-ray, its location. He can easily aim and take the desired lead. Or use an aimbot. Worst of all, a cheater can easily target across the entire map those places on the map that are usually not visible because of the greenery and where enemy vehicles usually accumulate in ambush.
There are options with incomplete turning off of greenery, or turning off only in sniper mode. You can customize the display of tree trunks and branches, and adjust the percentage of transparency of the bushes. You need to see the trunks in order to go around them, and the bushes in order to hide in them yourself.
Tundra can also be found as a separately launched trainer.
It burns in replays when the player immediately aims at the tank without preliminary caressing of mouse manipulations. I remember a case when one of the Wargaming employees was burned for replaying the use of the tundra.
* Destroyed objects and fallen trees
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/f96/cd2/ce4/f96cd2ce4ee34abb9bb2f04adcdd998b.jpg)
It would seem that a well-known truth is not to convey unnecessary information to the client. A cheater with a mod for destroyed trees sees all the objects on the map that are destroyed during the battle. The advantage of this kind is difficult to overestimate. In the case of consistently breaking objects and their location, you can evaluate the enemy’s movement on the map, estimate the amount of equipment that has gone to a certain direction, or track down the last remaining player. Knowing where the enemy is sneaking up from, you can wait for him, converge on the place where he leaves, or simply shoot blindly at the place where something fell/broke.
In clan battles, cheaters easily determine the enemy’s plans, implementing tactics that are beneficial to themselves depending on the enemy’s travel. Knowledgeable clans try to counter cheaters by shooting objects on the map and creating the illusion of movement in the opposite direction. But the reality of some maps is such that it is simply impossible to drive through without breaking something somewhere. Left alone against a cheater, you need to drive extremely carefully so that if you break some kind of car or tree, you don’t give away your location. In a word - fail. Almost epic.
* Displays the location of the enemy team.
And this is already an epic fail. There was, because Wargaming quickly neutralized the implementation known to me and banned everyone, including the author of the cheat.The battle is played by 15 vs 15 players. In simple, so-called In random battles, you do not see the enemy until you encounter him in person or your ally transmits data about his location. The cheat showed the location of all enemy tanks from the very beginning of the battle.
This was implemented quite simply. In popular mods, both legal and not, the author of the cheat slowly built in the functionality of sending a location allies to your server. A variety of mods were infected, ranging from simple sights to cheating assemblies. As critical mass accumulated, when the spread of “infected” mods went so far that in almost every battle there was at least one infected player, a paid implementation of the cheat mod began. Persons close to the emperor, the author of the cheat, used a purely client version of the cheat, displaying for themselves the entire team of opponents. The rest, I guess, were “double agents.”
It is not known for certain how the cheat was leaked. But we can definitely say that the authors rushed, without providing their brainchild with proper protection. From the information that was leaked, it can be assumed that Wargaming intercepted traffic and, possibly, control of the cheat’s command center. And then they banned the exposed clients. There was an uproar and modders began to clean out the “leftist” code from their assemblies. There were few survivors of the ban, and the author is already distributing a new version of his cheat in strictly limited quantities.
It's hard to say whether anyone else has similar working versions or not. By and large, scripted mods that run in the client are able to work with the network regardless of the client itself. They check the time on ntp servers, are friendly with Google analytics, notify players about new versions, authorize players and send information to the websites of their developers. This list of “legitimate”, in quotes, actions is in no way controlled by the game client. According to unconfirmed information, Wargaming itself used a similar trick during the “Tank Aces” competition and quietly collected information about modifications installed on the client side. After which there was a wave of bans.
* Recharge timer
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/177/e3c/9b6/177e3c9b60c948309a4cc46220d77202.jpg)
Guns in the world of tanks each have their own reload time. You won't be able to cheat here; you won't be able to shoot before the seconds allotted to you. The reload time is affected by the installation of a gun rammer or an improved ventilation module, the level of pumping of the crew, the presence of the combat fraternity skill, adrenaline rush and additional rations. Taking everything into account, it is realistic to increase your rate of fire by 10% -15%. The longer your gun takes to charge, the greater the gain from this 15%.
The reload timer cheat shows the status of each enemy/ally tank and the time until its reload ends. Either a stripe above the tank, or an animated timer in seconds. Right next to his marker. As soon as the enemy fires, the timer starts counting down. Knowing that the enemy’s tank is discharged, you calmly go out and shoot him safely. In addition to everything, smart timers count and show the number of shells remaining in the enemy drum, if you encounter one.
* 3D collage models of tanks and their modules
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/7cb/94b/195/7cb94b1952e74f26b86f3318f09bbccf.jpg)
Cheating and prohibited are those that draw the so-called collided model of the tank and/or allow you to see the internal location of critical modules of the tank and crew members. Colors vary depending on armor thickness. The redder the color, the stronger the armor. With the cheat it will be easier to target a small area of the opponent’s tank. If the main part of the tank is hidden behind an obstacle, then even a small area sticking out from behind the cover will contrast greatly with the background of standard map textures. All that remains is to calmly aim and fire an accurate shot. A simpler and more legitimate version of the cheat mod only draws or shades vulnerable areas and modules on the tank’s armor. The cheat can be configured to work constantly, in the sight or by pointing at the enemy.
* Red balls at the artillery shot location + artillery reload timer
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/8fb/4cf/c6f/8fb4cfc6fdbf41b6bb32cb9f6fed5417.jpg)
Thanks to the cheat, you can easily calculate the location of enemy artillery. A red ball is drawn in the place from which the shot was fired. Variants of the mod can also draw the flight path of an artillery shell when playing on other classes of vehicles. Often used in conjunction with a cooldown timer. The display is customizable. The cheat is possible due to the transfer of information about the shot/tracer to the client. It works even if the enemy is outside the light, but after his shot the tracer fell into the field of view of an ally or caused damage to any tank from your team. The cheat will process this data and display information about recharging on your screen.
* Three-color indicator of direction and target availability
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/bd7/776/a30/bd7776a30486404794b4505aa5dcce49.jpg)
The cheat displays the direction and distance to enemies with arrows, simultaneously informing the type of enemy equipment. But the main trick of the cheat is that the color of the arrow depends on the availability of the enemy. If you see a green arrow, then the enemy is far away and you are safe. If the arrow is displayed in red, then the enemy combat vehicle is near you, but you cannot shoot at it, since it is hidden behind an obstacle. Well, the most useful color is purple - the enemy is in a position that presents the possibility of shooting. Both you and he will be able to cause damage. The cheat allows you to quickly respond to an emerging threat, even if you are in the sniper scope. If without the cheat the player needs to constantly turn the camera and evaluate the possibilities of shooting, then with the cheat you can safely play, relying on this target designator.
* Cheat Shadow
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/815/cfa/262/815cfa262afb410585d71802fc296b01.jpg)
In place of the last display of the enemy combat vehicle, its transparent outline and name will be drawn. If the unlucky opponent has not started to move, then it is even possible to target the weak spot. The shadow will be displayed until the tank lights up somewhere else or disappears after the time you specify. A handy thing if the enemy suddenly disappeared from the light and you didn’t have time to shoot. Often used in conjunction with the “sphere on impact” mod.
Alternative shade option
* Sphere at the point of impact
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/c1d/c21/b5d/c1dc21b5d66c4317b6c213f872302aee.jpg)
If a blind shot at an unexposed enemy reaches the target, then a 3D sphere (ball) and a message about hitting the enemy will appear at the point of contact between your projectile and the armor of the enemy tank. You will not be able to understand whether the enemy has been penetrated or not, but you will definitely receive information that someone has been hit. With a sufficient rate of fire, you can see how the sphere “crawls” back. You can continue to shoot, “groping” for the enemy. When firing land mines from large-caliber guns, damage is almost guaranteed.
* Red pillars with multi-colored markings
![](https://i2.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/027/c1f/b71/027c1fb713314e0b8bad16345751ab8a.jpg)
Red pillars is a cheat mod that places a long bright pillar at the position of an enemy tank located outside the rendering frames of the game client. At the bottom of the column there is a color gradation that helps to understand the location of the enemy relative to the horizon. The height of the colored marks approximately corresponds to the height of the tank. To put it simply, there is no need to shoot at an opponent if at least the blue mark is not visible. The cheat is in demand due to the different rendering range of enemy tanks and the projectile flight range, which is almost one and a half times greater than the rendering. When the frequency of displaying pillars is about once per second, shooting at targets moving fast in the distance is problematic. But slow and stationary targets turn into good targets. Variations of the mod draw a tank model instead of pillars.
* Thickened colored tracers after a shot
![](https://i1.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/57c/4ca/08b/57c4ca08b56b42bd8bc61bbdc3265aec.jpg)
The cheat displays colored tracers after shots are fired. After any of the tanks fired a shot, this cheat mod draws a thicker tracer and it does not disappear immediately as in the standard version of the game, but disappears with some delay. The color of the tracer also changes, depending on the type of projectile being fired. Regular armor-piercing shells are marked in white, cumulative ammunition is marked in purple, a high-explosive shell is marked in yellow, and a sub-caliber shell is marked in light blue. Colors are customizable and may differ from those shown. By and large, the time of the cheat mod has passed; it was relevant in the past, when information about all tracers, even unexposed opponents, was transmitted to the client. But progress does not stand still. We came up with and implemented the following idea.
* Attack line or reverse tracer cheat mod
This cheat is similar to the “Colored Tracers” mod, but works in the opposite direction. In other words, this is a reverse tracer. For example, if someone shot at you and hit you, then a tracer is drawn from you in the opposite direction towards the enemy who shot at you. In the settings, you can set the time the attack line disappears, and so that it is displayed only from unexposed opponents.* Cheat for artillery. Firing along a mortar trajectory
In the world of tanks, a shell from a gun sent vertically upward will return after some time. If you shoot an artillery land mine in this way, you can destroy yourself. In the game, artillerymen have a unique sight that allows them to aim and shoot at any target throughout the game location from the height of their sight. Different self-propelled guns (self-propelled artillery units) have different projectile flight trajectories. For some they are flat, for others they are steeper. You can get the hang of it and “throw” the projectile over a hill or over a mountain. To a place where the enemy considers himself safe, say behind a stone. But with a sufficient height of cover, it is impossible to throw a projectile.Smart heads came up with a cheat that allows you to aim at an enemy by raising the gun vertically upward. A regular game client does not allow you to do this, and the cheater definitely gets burned, shooting and hitting in this mode. But you can shoot at any tank behind arbitrarily high obstacles - the shell will literally fall on its head, following a mortar trajectory. Considering that many tanks have a thin turret roof, there is a high probability of penetration and causing maximum possible damage. You can only feel relatively safe under a bridge or similar shelter. The cheat was demonstrated on video and I have not seen it in the public domain. His further fate is unknown to me.
This is what it looks like
* Sniper scope for artillery and artillery scope for tanks
The mod is practically useless if all the others are available. Moreover, in the latest updates of the game, artillery was officially given a sniper mode. Using an artillery sight on an ordinary tank is a dubious pleasure. Artillery in sniper mode becomes damn effective.* Automatic fire extinguisher, repair kit and first aid kit
Players in the world of tanks lose a lot of strength points and receive critical damage to modules due to the fact that they do not have time to press and use the fire extinguisher in time after the tank caught fire. An automatic fire extinguisher can be used. But the thing is that the price of this consumable is a little more than six times higher than the price of a manual one. If your goal is to earn as much silver as possible, using automatic fire extinguishers is not a good idea. The cheat mod turns an ordinary fire extinguisher into an automatic one, pressing the activation button for you in case of a fire. The mod is detected quite simply by the player’s incredibly fast reaction. Therefore, a config was attached to it, and the player was given the opportunity to choose the response time, emulating human behavior. By default, it fires with a delay of 0.3 seconds.The repair kit and first aid kit can be configured for automatic use when certain modules of the tank or crew members are damaged. For example, with a damaged ammo rack or a wounded loader, the reload time increases and you lose precious seconds for repairs or treatment. With an automatic repair kit and first aid kit, this time is reduced to a minimum, increasing your chances on the battlefield. The mod can work with two types of consumables at the same time (if available). First, a manual consumable is used, then a “gold” consumable.
* XVM
![](https://i0.wp.com/habrastorage.org/files/f69/3a2/bf0/f693a2bf08cf46b2b69c1cf9afc15fcf.jpg)
Not a cheat in Wargaming's understanding. In fact, it is, providing information about the rating and combat effectiveness of all players who got into battle with you. And since there is no way to prohibit the publication of your statistics in your personal account on the Wargaming website or in the game client menu, everyone has information about you: from a bunch of third-party aggregator sites to similar mods right in the game. At first, players were interested in seeing who they were playing with, but over time, this information began to lead to many in-game conflicts. Inexperienced players with low ratings are trolled, and even worse, insulted. The experienced ones are focused and unanimously, purposefully “cut out.” There are often situations when artillery “herds” only one skill player throughout the entire battle, because it considers him the most dangerous enemy, capable of reversing the outcome of the battle.
Many players were happy about Wargaming's initiative to combat cheaters. Others were skeptical. At the moment, a player who is caught using cheats for the first time will face a two-week ban. If you fly in again, such a player will receive a “permanent”. The first wave of bans affected mainly players using free cheats. After the first wave, my friends bought themselves a paid subscription to one of the most popular cheat packs and happily survived the second wave of bans. Wargaming is slowly tightening the screws, setting a course for integrating all useful mods into its client and reworking the very principle of loading mods by the client. But according to my feelings, they are powerless in the face of dynamic loads and injections. To do this, they will have to write an analogue of the ESL Wire anti-cheat or an analogue of the 4game launcher for Lineage. This is a long way, and cheaters can sleep peacefully until one of the company’s game masters burns them to death based on a screenshot.
P.S. I know there are fans of tanks here, so for those interested, I have about 40k battles and 56% victories with a turquoise WN8 rating. I only used the Jova modpack + Battle Assistant. I'm currently playing WoT Blitz. While searching for screenshots, I came across Tundra for Android. If this is not a fake, then a start has been made there too. Sadly.
2 years and 10 months ago Comments: 14
Today, the issue of prohibited mods (cheats) in World of Tanks is very relevant. Players in the comments on various resources claim that downloading cheats for free is currently quite simple, the game administration prohibits the use of cheats, but cases of bans are very rare. There are still many questions that are difficult to find answers to, so Wot-Game interviewed a former cheater, who used prohibited mods for 8 months in a row.
Hello! Surely you are aware of the many complaints and videos in which World players of Tanks brazenly use cheats. One of them actually ended up in the official broadcast Best Replays of the Week. Today, the issue of cheats in WOT is very relevant, although few people knew about them before.
- Please tell us when you learned about cheats and started actively using them?
It all started when I started using mods, I actually learned about them from. The client slowly began to transform into an uber-duper-mega-super spaceship, showing all available information: team HP, damage mod, light bulbs, player statistics, white enemy corpses, white tracks, modified sights, cooldown of the enemy who shot at you and a dozen other different whistles. In general, a standard set of mods that are installed if you check as many boxes as possible and click “Next”.
In my opinion, this whole collection of whistles helped me play, but something didn’t work out. The population seemed to be growing, but slowly.
Why did you start using them: was everyone doing it, or were you just unable to play, or was it just “for fun”?
Actually, because of XVM, I learned that there is such a thing as statistics and decided to raise it to the best of my skills, and there were few skills for 3000 battles, as well as normal equipment in the hangar, and there was also a complete lack of a full understanding of combat.
By about 5,000 battles, the stats seemed to be growing, but the constant running around sites looking for really working mods soared, as did the constant conflicts between mods, which led to the client freezing. With each patch there were fewer and fewer mods.
- What cheats do you use?
On one of the sites there was a section with modifications that provide an advantage. This is how the tundra rocked.
The appetite grew, and the uber client received modifications such as: tracers, red light balls, fallen trees.
The client already resembled a control panel spaceship. FPS dropped from the base 70-80 for my computer to 40-50. Not a problem, we overclock the computer, we get, it seems, stable 50-60 fps.
By about 6000 battles, only a few mods remained: tundra, red balls, fallen trees, and pure XVM with its own config.
And then a fun pack of modifications from ***** *** appeared, and so another thousand battles passed. The statistics were growing at an average rate, and there was already an understanding of what was happening during the battle.
During a cut in battle, the mods almost always slowed down. The calculation of barrel indicators and other dynamic functionality made itself felt, some mods were gradually disabled, and the struggle for FPS began.
Subsequently, ***** *** transferred his pack to a paid basis, which for me completely put an end to its assembly.
The only prohibited modifications that remain are: tundra and automatic fire extinguisher.
After the next update, “the carriage turned into a pumpkin,” but the desire to look for and collect mods never appeared.
Because of this, we now understand who in this game is playing with prohibited mods, and there are a lot of them.
- Do you play on the basis or on a new account?
One account
- Were there any complaints / how many times were you banned?
No, in about 8 months of playing with modifications that provide an advantage, there was not a single complaint.
- Are cheats displayed in replays?
No, and it’s quite difficult to notice them; one can only indirectly assume that the player is using some kind of modification, because the replay stores information only about game events(movement of tanks on the map, shots, lights) + final statistics on the battle.
- How to determine that a player is using prohibited mods?
- Instant fire extinguishing - automatic fire extinguisher. It differs from the gold one in that the gold one allows it to burn for 1 second and then extinguishes, the mod extinguishes in about 0.1-0.2 seconds;
- Red balls of light - shows the location of the art shot. It’s extremely difficult to understand, but if it wasn’t the art that killed you without light, then 95% of what such a mod is worth;
- AIM - auto aim. The tank's barrel, with a slight lag, always follows the camera, which is controlled by the mouse, and if the player's mouse movement does not coincide with the barrel, then the mod is installed. And if the sight is still fixed on vulnerable areas, then 100%, in fact, Alina Rin burned herself with this mod half a year ago;
- Tundra and its derivatives - removing bushes and other flora from the map. It is very difficult to understand whether it exists or not. But some are targeted specifically, for example, OSR issue 101, category defender;
- Fallen trees - shows what breaks on the map. And you can break a lot on the map. In one of the OSR episodes there was a unique one on the YagPz E100, who sensed where the opponents were crawling from, and that’s why he dragged him in.
Alas, it’s easy, VG practically does not fight such modifications in any way.
- Do you know about the wave of bans that is coming in mid-October 2016 and what are you going to do?
I know I'm not going to do anything. Most likely, such a wave will not touch me, here’s why:
- I haven’t skated with cheats for a long time;
- It is almost impossible to prove that I once played with them;
- I'll finish it. A stable 1000 rubles per month + purchase of interesting bonuses.
If they ban me, to hell with it, I’ll have more free time, maybe I’ll take care of the car normally. Or maybe I’ll write a tearful letter and then they’ll unban me.
Many argue that the loss of cheats in the game means the loss of a large percentage of players, and this is very unprofitable for WG, what do you think?
Mostly the heads will roll of clan players who earn gold on the GK without investing almost a penny in the game, and schoolchildren who eat heavily at school and play without bonuses. VG will ban based on business interests. No company will agree to deprive itself of 20% of its profits at once.
Plus, a very large wave of negativity will rise, very large, many will shout that they were banned illegally, that they did not play with cheats, and so on. I might be among them ;)
If I were VG, I would do it a little differently: I would say something like this: “Tomorrow we have a new anti-cheat or we are disabling the ability to install third-party, unverified modifications.” Although, I am more inclined to make some kind of modification store and less hype and likes from normal players.
- What would you advise to beginners who are thinking about using cheats?
As in any game, cheats provide only an imaginary advantage; it will not make you play better. If you really want to achieve something in terms of understanding the game, then only practice (as elsewhere).
For optional viewing, I can recommend YouTube channels of such players who really tell something about the game: EviL GrannY , Lebwa , Vspishka , Meshuggah.
- Thanks for the detailed answers!
Thank you! Good luck!