At what point Autohotkey becomes cheating?

This is an ethical question.

I've been using Autohotkey for improving my keyboard layout for COH2. As far as I know this is allowed by COH2 itself.

Then I saw people using AHK for reinforcing squads with only 1 keystroke (5x sending the reinforce button with one keystroke).

Then I created a script that would do the same, but for all units in the field (also by just sending keystrokes).

But then I saw AHK had more options that could be useful for automating certain aspects of the game.

I ended up making a script that would reinforce all units in the base, and also send them to a certain waypoint on the map after they had been fully reinforced and healed (all by pressing 1 key).

For me this script saves a lot of tedious work, making the game more fun to play. At the same time it might give an unfair advantage because my reinforcing goes smoother than my enemies reinforcing. It will save me some precious time better spend battling my enemies.

My logitec gaming mouse also has hardware build-in to send a series of keystrokes, can this also be considered cheating?

The only difference with my latest script is that it also sends mouse clicks and actually reads pixels from the screen (a feature of AHK) so that it sends it's commands more accurately. I could remove the reading of pixel colors from the script, or even the sending of mouse clicks, but that would make the script just less effective, but still advantageous over not having these kinds of scripts.

By the way, AHK also supports timers. One could time an opening by building the correct types of units at certain times. This way you will always have the perfect opening.

I've posted my script here, but it was not allowed, because it was considered cheating.

But is it? I am not manipulating or hacking the game mechanics or changing the game or game-memory itself. If AHK is allowed, at what point does the scirpt become cheating?

What do you guys think?

at what point does the scirpt become cheating?

Wikipedia, Cheating in online games:

Scripting
Scripting is the use of a program or game feature to automate certain actions or behaviors. The use of scripts may or may not be considered cheating, depending on the behavior involved, and whether said behavior is replicable without the use of such script.

For me this script saves a lot of tedious work, making the game more fun to play. At the same time it might give an unfair advantage because my reinforcing goes smoother than my enemies reinforcing. It will probably safe me some time I can use for paying attention to micromanaging my battles.

This is not replicable without script so I'd say it is cheating.

I like the question.
And scripting sounds like a pretty good answer. That is the point where tides turn.

anything involved autohotkey, except changing keyboard layout is cheating

Autohotkey scripts will never be flexible enough to be considered cheating on a competitive level.

Take reinforcing with 1 click for example:
- You don't always want to be reinforcing all squads, sometimes conserving manpower to make another unit while only reinforcing an important elite squad is a better course of action.
- If you do want to reinforce all squads, how can you be sure you had enough manpower to do so with 1 click without checking each squad? Maybe one squad ends up with 1 model not being reinforced because of this, so you have to reinforce it manually anyway.

What's important is to not let reinforcing distract you from the battlefield by having to move the camera to your base. You can do this without a script:
1. Open tacmap
2. Drag-select all units in base sector
3. Close tacmap
4. Tab through each squad you have to reinforce and send all full health squads out of the base.

You can do all this without keeping your eyes from an important engagement, you'Il only select the squads in your base and have complete control over which squads you want to reinforce. In this game you don't have to do allot of actions to be good and managing where you're focusing your attention will have much more impact.

Autohotkey scripts will never be flexible enough to be considered cheating on a competitive level.

I doubt that. Autohotkey is more flexible that you might think at first. It's capabilities are very similar to that of many programming languages.

It can for example detect the color of every pixel shown on screen. Combine that with certain coordinates that give specific information about a squad, and you can easily see the type of a squad and how much veterancy it has.

I agree that it will be extremely difficult to make these kinds of decisions autonomously on a competitive level, but it can reduce the time a competitive player spends on managing reinforcements by pressing one of several buttons that will automate the reinforcement strategy that is currently desired.

- If you do want to reinforce all squads, how can you be sure you had enough manpower to do so with 1 click without checking each squad? Maybe one squad ends up with 1 model not being reinforced because of this, so you have to reinforce it manually anyway.

AHK can just read this information from screen and do the math. Or it can just send the command to reinforce regardless if it's possible. And if it's not, than just repeat the same script a while later. No need to manually reinforce.

What's important is to not let reinforcing distract you from the battlefield by having to move the camera to your base. You can do this without a script:
1. Open tacmap
2. Drag-select all units in base sector
3. Close tacmap
4. Tab through each squad you have to reinforce and send all full health squads out of the base.

That is actually a great idea! You just made my script a lot more effective

Wikipedia, Cheating in online games:

This is not replicable without script so I'd say it is cheating.

Wikipedia gives a vague description on whether scripting is cheating. It says it may or may not be... Who decides? And what do they mean by replicable? Autohotkey just sends a series of keys and mouseclicks. That is replicable by a human. It can also read information from the screen, this is also replicable by a human. Nothing in my script does anything a human couldn't replicate.


Also Wikipedia, Cheating in online games:

Cheating in online games is defined as the action of pretending to comply with the rules of the game, while secretly subverting them to gain an unfair advantage over an opponent.[1] Depending on the game, different activities constitute cheating and it is either a matter of game policy or consensus opinion as to whether a particular activity is considered to be cheating.

My AHK script is doing neither of those. I would say AHK is not considered cheating as long as Relic says it's okay to use.

But I do agree it can give people an unfair advantage. But so does having a faster internet connection, a smoother gaming mouse, gaming keyboard, etc..etc... or just a faster human brain

Wikipedia gives a vague description on whether scripting is cheating. It says it may or may not be... Who decides? And what do they mean by replicable? Autohotkey just sends a series of keys and mouseclicks. That is replicable by a human. It can also read information from the screen, this is also replicable by a human. Nothing in my script does anything a human couldn't replicate.


Also Wikipedia, Cheating in online games:


My AHK script is doing neither of those. I would say AHK is not considered cheating as long as Relic says it's okay to use.

But I do agree it can give people an unfair advantage. But so does having a faster internet connection, a smoother gaming mouse, gaming keyboard, etc..etc... or just a faster human brain

Bruh, you asked when people think AHK is considered cheating. Someone gives you a reply that implies what you're doing may be cheating, and you say "that's not cheating, its only an unfair advantage." There's the law, and then there's the spirit of the law. It should be common sense that anything conferring unfair advantages is cheating. If all you want to do is defend your use of AHK, what's the point of opening this thread?

There's the law, and then there's the spirit of the law.

?? My man spirit?

Bruh, you asked when people think AHK is considered cheating. Someone gives you a reply that implies what you're doing may be cheating, and you say "that's not cheating, its only an unfair advantage." There's the law, and then there's the spirit of the law. It should be common sense that anything conferring unfair advantages is cheating. If all you want to do is defend your use of AHK, what's the point of opening this thread?

Well... just trying to get a little deeper in the discussion. I want to hear some good arguments. I already said that it seems like cheating to me. But perhaps we can come to some kind of consensus here.

[...]
I doubt that. Autohotkey is more flexible that you might think at first. It's capabilities are very similar to that of many programming languages.

It can for example detect the color of every pixel shown on screen. Combine that with certain coordinates that give specific information about a squad, and you can easily see the type of a squad and how much veterancy it has.

I agree that it will be extremely difficult to make these kinds of decisions autonomously on a competitive level, but it can reduce the time a competitive player spends on managing reinforcements by pressing one of several buttons that will automate the reinforcement strategy that is currently desired.


[...]
AHK can just read this information from screen and do the math. Or it can just send the command to reinforce regardless if it's possible. And if it's not, than just repeat the same script a while later. No need to manually reinforce.


[...]
That is actually a great idea! You just made my script a lot more effective

You could make endlessly complex automation scripts that take every possibility into account and the time it would save would still not be significant in a (high-ish ranked) match.

I'd advise you not to spend time on creating dumb automation scripts like:
Show Spoiler
It only takes control and decision-making away from you and won't improve you as a player. The scripts would also make suboptimal decisions, despite how much you'd finetune it.

Instead use scripts that improve your control and prevent misclicks:
Show Spoiler
These scripts only do 1 thing so you know exactly what will happen if you use them. I'm not including selecting all infantry in the base sector, because it would also take control away. If you learn to do it yourself, you can decide where to move your mouse after drag-selecting the units in your base. Meanwhile, these scripts have no ifs or buts attached.