Mounts, mount stamina & 'speedhacking'

[Clx-]

I'm currently battling with these age old problems in the design stage of my shard.

I'm sure you're all familiar with what I'm talking about. How to make mounts 'work' in the present day of high-speed connections and 'speed cheat' programs.

I realise that a lot of shards have simply decided that the best way to deal with the issue is to remove ridable mounts altogether, but this isn't an option I'm comfortable with.

The obvious solution is to severely limit mount stamina. I've tried this on other shards, and it's just frustrating - probably after years of being able to run and run and run. I will be limiting mount stamina, but not enough for it to solve the problem, simply because I feel it creates other issues.

So, what else is there? Would it be possible to limit mounts to walking speed whilst in combat mode? Has this been tried?

Speed-hacking: Is there a solution? I've noticed a few shards claiming to have 'detection and prevention' programs or scripts, but I am entirely ignorant of this and what it involves.

Thanks for any replies!

 

[Vorspire]

Speed hacking died a long time ago, it's almost impossible to find a RunTime overclocking application that will work with the UO client.

RunUO also has "fast-walk" tracking, which is basically an algorithm that will detect when a netstate is making too many movement requests and reject them if needed.
Though RunUO has a sequenced movement algorithm for handling movement request, rejection and acknowledgement, which already makes it pretty solid.

I haven't seen anyone come up with a speed hacking question or problem since RunUO 1.0

 

[Clx-]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer. Makes sense!

 

[Norman B. Lancaster]

I get the impression you are looking at the PvP implications of mount speed (because it has very little impact on PvE ). You might want to hop on over to - and see how they implemented mount stamina. It works fairly well. When your mount is out of stamina, you have to hop off and back on to refresh it. This means that when you're running up to Shame to mark a rune it's not that big of an inconvenience, but when you are trying to run away from a gank squad mounted on Nightmares (which have much higher stamina), you'll be stopped just long enough for your pursuers to get on screen and throw that Flamestrike they had precast since before they ran through the gate.

You could take it a step further and require that the user feed the mount to restore their stamina. This is what OSI shards did in the UO:R era, but at the time the stamina drop rate on mounts was such that you could run from the West Bank to Empathy Abby on a store-bought horse before you needed a refresh. It really didn't impact PvP much at all.

 

[Clx-]

Thanks for the post, appreciate it. I've tried UOSA, and my dissatisfaction/irritation with the way mount-stam worked there is a big part of what has prompted me to look into other options. I'd like to limit mount stam to a degree, but more in line with recent OSI methods (I last played in 08). I'm really looking for options beyond that, such as limiting the run speed of mounts when in combat, or something else.