Few questions from a minetest newbie

[craftox]

Hello, i found about minetest a few days ago and fell in love with it.
I was a minecraft player a few years ago and i remember always wanting to create some mods but it seemed so difficult and even those who managed complained that every new version broke their mods so i never tried. Well now i might give it a try but in minetest.
I skimmed through a lot of forum threads and wiki pages but some things are not 100% clear to me so i have a few questions.

1) I couldn't find the requirements for running a server? What kind of a CPU? Does Minetest use more than one core? How much Ghz? How much ram? How much bandwidth? Per player? What is the maximum number of players a single server can hold?

2) If i use any mod/game from someone else and modify it i need to publish my modifications? What is the standard way of doing this? Just release it somewhere visible or do i need to contact the creator and give it to them?

3) Mods are automatically downloaded to clients from the server? Is everything executed on the server and then just results sent to clients? Are mods allowed to be closed-source (if they're not from someone else)?

4) Does minetest have a problem with cheats & exploits? For what should i watch out? Can a player spoof data like their inventory, position or is the server authoring all of this (like in csgo)? Minecraft had a very nasty cheat that let you see where certain ores are (i don't know if it's still relevant today) ... it is one of the reasons why i quit since there wasn't (as far as i know) a solution for it back then.

5) What is some expensive (performence wise) scripting stuff that a newbie moder should avoid? So i don't kill my server with lag ...

6) Can the default chat be changed? Like the size, font, position? It's hard to see up there

7) Is there or are there plans to implement voice chat in minetest?

Thank you for reading and hopefully you can answer my questions :)

[Linuxdirk]

3) Mods are automatically downloaded to clients from the server? Is everything executed on the server and then just results sent to clients? Are mods allowed to be closed-source (if they're not from someone else)?

Due to concept mods are loaded on server and the client only gets the results. So no need to transfer mod code to the client. There are client-side mods in the planning gut currently not functional in the originally intended way but only as locally provided mods. In short: Install server mods and don't worry.

And yes, mods can be closed-source if you want that. You're not allowed to advertise them here and you cannot publish them via the content database.

[Hume2]

I have answers to some of your questions.

2) It depends on the license of the mod/game. If it has no license, you can't do anything. If it has a license specified, you have to do everything according to the license. We usually post the mods on this forum and to the Content Database.

3) Yes, they are. Almost everything is server-side. Minetest Forum allows posting only mods/games with free licenses but you can find non-free mods elsewhere.

5) A thingy called ABM can lag the server properly when overused.

[dawgdoc]

A bit more:

1) Server requirements will depend on which mods are used and how many players you wish to host at a time. I have seen servers with as many as 50 concurrent players. Yet there are those who host a private server on a RaspberryPi. On the RPi you are limited to a few players, probably 3 or fewer is best, definitely no more than 5. You would also have to avoid resource hungry mods. (Technic, Pipeworks, etc.)

6) Chat can be changed. Look through the Advanced Settings menu and see if it will help. There are font settings, but I don't think you can change the position from the settings. In the Main Menu, click the Settings tab, then the Advanced Settings button at the bottom left. Expand these drop downs:: Client > Graphics > Menus. Font settings are about 6 to 12 items down that final expansion. There are also mods to change the console and the player chat. Some are regular mods and others are Client Side Mods. See which works best for you.

THT

[Festus1965]

4) yes
this are own compiled cheated minetest clients that try and get use of fly, fast and noclip, also try to open or even attack from more distance than standard = 4 nodes

also there are massive lot of clones like FreeMiner, MultiCraft, Exploration and a lot m nore that can join, some
* have also inbound cheats like above
* they even adverb with this cheats, as
* some of them make money by adding advertising, what often leads to a times out of gamer

It is possible to stop them most with checking the used names, but not that problem with them - if your online moderation, or use [Mod] border to shut down join new player during you are not on.

[sofar]

You're asking the right questions. And the answers above are all great.

However, because your questions are not very specific, it's difficult to give an exact answer because each license is different. For instance:

If i use any mod/game from someone else and modify it i need to publish my modifications?

That really depends on a lot of other factors:
- do you intend to redistribute the modified code?
- did you put the code on a server?
- or are you just playing by yourself with the code?

After you pick one of those, the answer could depend further on whether the license is AGPL, GPL, or permissive, etc. etc..!

For best results and answers, maybe it's best to pick an example mod so we can explain the particular rights granted by the license of a particular mod and explain what and what not can be done with it.

I have written several threads on OSS licenses on these forums. Please feel free to PM me personally if you have a specific question about licenses, and browse through various of my posts about choosing licenses and other relevant discussions. It's always OK to ask.

[sofar]

7) Is there or are there plans to implement voice chat in minetest?

Great question. There are some patches to integrate with mumble (positional audio), and I believe MT shouldn't reinvent the wheel. However, in-game voice chat might be highly desirable for many players, and I think it's something we should certainly entertain implementing - it's going to need work though :)

Having an in-game solution would make sense due to the cross platform nature of MT. We'd want it available on all platforms.

[MineYoshi]

1) I couldn't find the requirements for running a server? What kind of a CPU? Does Minetest use more than one core? How much Ghz? How much ram? How much bandwidth? Per player? What is the maximum number of players a single server can hold?

It depends on the mods and the number of players; the more the faster the computer needs to be not to have a laggy server. Though hardware from the year 2030 is not needed; something at least decent (>2010) can run a decent server. You set up the number of players a server can have in the "minetest.conf" file with the max_users variable, and I don't think there is a limit but I haven't tested it nor there is any information on github about it as far a I searched; the biggest server I've seen had over 70 players, but I think hardware also plays a great part as I don't think too many people have hardware that supports over 100 players at the same time.

2) If i use any mod/game from someone else and modify it i need to publish my modifications? What is the standard way of doing this? Just release it somewhere visible or do i need to contact the creator and give it to them?

Check the license of the mod: the license will say what to do and how to do it, what you can do depends on the license. All the mods here have different licenses, so checking what it says if you don't know is a good idea. If you don't know about FOSS licenses: read this as it might be useful.

3) Mods are automatically downloaded to clients from the server? Is everything executed on the server and then just results sent to clients? Are mods allowed to be closed-source (if they're not from someone else)?

Yes. As long as it's compatible with Minetest any mod can be used no matter the license. There is also some information sent from the client and you have the client-side modding too.

4) Does minetest have a problem with cheats & exploits? For what should i watch out? Can a player spoof data like their inventory, position or is the server authoring all of this (like in csgo)? Minecraft had a very nasty cheat that let you see where certain ores are (i don't know if it's still relevant today) ... it is one of the reasons why i quit since there wasn't (as far as i know) a solution for it back then.

Yes; nevertheless you can find those hacked clients on servers too. You can even do that thing about the ores if you're skilled enough to modify a client yourself too.

6) Can the default chat be changed? Like the size, font, position? It's hard to see up there

For the colours you can use CSM Mods. You can also change the font and the font size setting with the following lines on your minetest.conf, but not the position I think.

Thank you for reading and hopefully you can answer my questions :)

You're welcome, chum. :D

[craftox]

Almost all of my questions have been answered. :D
The only thing that i'm still confused about are the cheats which i want to prevent (as much as possible).

Is there a way to detect if somebody is using a modified client? Can i auto-ban those players?

And i'm still not clear on how much control these modified clients have. For instance a player spoofs their inventory so they get a stack of diamonds ... does minetest perform some sanity checks on the server side or i should do those myself?

[rubenwardy]

Modified clients can only do what they have control over. For example, player movement is done on the client side, so they can fake fly and noclip privileges - but not fast, as Minetest has protection against this. They can also fake actions, such as key presses and GUI events (ie: submitting formspecs). Modified clients have access to all the information they are given, including the positions of valuable nodes near them.

Modified clients cannot fake contents of inventories or give themselves items unless there is a bug in a mod.

It is not possible to detect modified clients, and it never will be. Minetest is open source, which means that any modified client can just lie and say they are unmodified.

[craftox]

Modified clients have access to all the information they are given, including the positions of valuable nodes near them.

:(

Modified clients cannot fake contents of inventories or give themselves items unless there is a bug in a mod.

Awesome. Less things to worry about.

[Astrobe]

Modified clients have access to all the information they are given, including the positions of valuable nodes near them.

:(

Adapting to the limitations and constrains of a game engine is a necessity. That's what you do already when you ask what are the hardware requirements etc.

There are ways around this problem, but you have to be creative.

One possibility is to not have valuable nodes. Instead you can make the act of retrieving those nodes the value-added activity. For instance if you change the "level" of a node to high, digging it will require high-level tools or wear the tool fast - which indirectly costs other resources (the ones used to make the pick to dig an ore, for instance) (assuming free tool repair is disabled).

Another possibility is to adopt a particular distribution for valuable nodes; for instance rare but relatively large clusters, or more simply put them very deep or very high. Because MT sends to the clients only relatively nearby nodes, it could make the cheat relatively pointless because players would have to walk far to find those clusters and this travel time is what makes these nodes valuable.

Yet another possibility is to protect those nodes with mobs (i.e. make it so that dangerous mobs spawn near valuable resources). That way, knowing where the valuables are is only half of the job (even more simple: valuables are dropped by dangerous mobs only; players who don't like to fight can dig/farm what "fighters" need, then trade).

Lastly, there are administration tools that can help too (there's no shortage of candidates for moderation position, but not all will do a good job though). Other open source games have to deal with similar issues provide an "observation mode" that help with spotting suspicious players. There's a mod somewhere that does that, along with other administration helper mods.

Screening a little new players and being a bit selective is also a way to keep the cheaters out. Even AAA MMO games with huge staffs and extensive control over the game engine sometimes have "exploits" (unintended use of a combination of features to abuse the game, typically farm faster some item/resource). At the end of the day, someone has to watch a little what the players are doing anyway.

[Festus1965]

maybe first play the game and go especial on old (0.4.17.1 servers with old client) what are flooded with this name123 people, and look what they do and write ... that gives you an example about this cloned users,

then also use new client 5.0 and join some servers, to get also a view about what, and how it works ...

I think that may be faster then ask and answer here some part.

[PolySaken]

Warning: good old cheat engine is super effective for faking privs and making yourself faster.
you can't fake stuff like server, debug or protection_bypass, but fly and noclip are easy to fake.
You can get around the fast protection too, by using speedhack on a float value.

I haven't found a way to block CE

[sorcerykid]

It's easy to cheat even with the official Minetest client. All you have to do is install a custom texture pack that makes stone nodes transparent. Then login to a server, and voila you can see all the ores, and dig straight to them.

In my experience, a simple way to mitigate such exploits to restrict the number of valuable ores that can be obtained by any given player within a given timeframe (and possibly even and across a given distance). If a player surpasses that calculated limit, with a reasonable threshold to allow for some margin of error, then they could face some type of penalty. For example their interact privileges could be revoked temporarily, like for say 5 minutes, so as to discourage any such cheating tactics. Just some thoughts

[rubenwardy]

All you have to do is install a custom texture pack that makes stone nodes transparent. Then login to a server, and voila you can see all the ores, and dig straight to them

Not in 5.0.0 :)

[PolySaken]

All you have to do is install a custom texture pack that makes stone nodes transparent. Then login to a server, and voila you can see all the ores, and dig straight to them

Not in 5.0.0 :)

This never worked anyway.
It only allowed you to see the caves and dungeons, not ores

[TillCoyote]

1. It depends on your game and mods.
7. What for? We don't need it because we have other good services like Discord.

[sorcerykid]

1. It depends on your game and mods.
7. What for? We don't need it because we have other good services like Discord.

So a player is supposed to register an account on a proprietary, closed source software platform administered by a single, centralized commercial vendor to use voice chat for a non-commercial, distributed, open-source multiplayer gaming platform. Meanwhile there is no direct interfacing with the Minetest client, meaning that Discord users can spoof their credentials, even pretending to be the official channel for a given server or a trusted agent or representative (administrator, moderator, etc.) of any given server.

Sounds like nothing could ever go wrong with that :P

PS. Incidentally, I'm aware that Discord now offers Server Verification to prevent impersonation. But the entry requirements for that program specifically prohibit modded servers, which is the very basis of Minetest:

"Servers that are not owned by the game publisher or studio itself, but instead are community-led, don't qualify for Server Verification. You may want to check out our Discord Partner program instead!
We cannot and will not accept applications for servers based around mods for a pre-existing game, whether it’s expanding the base game, a total conversion mod, or a game made using the assets of a pre-existing game. In short, the game needs to be your own IP (intellectual property) using your own OC (original content)."

[orwell]

5) regarding oredetect: there is still discussion going on on how to prevent this (see viewtopic.php?f=53&t=18079). It is not easy because once a hacked client gets the world data, it can do whatever it wants with them...
For the other types of cheats (fly, fast, noclip) there are multiple efforts to implement this both engine-side and as a mod. Example: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=15424

[Wuzzy]

7) Is there or are there plans to implement voice chat in minetest?

No.

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I 100% agree with sorcerykid's rant against Discord, however. I believe there is unproblematic voice-chat software out there, but I never cared enough to actually try them. I like to live in the darkness. ;-)