Can I make an IRL robot that plays MCOC for a highschool robotics contest, or will I get banned?
Thorki
Member Posts: 60 ★★
Hello! I'm currently in highschool and am involved in my highschool robotics team. We're all making teams and proposing projects for the spring, and I had an idea for a robot which uses computer vision to play video games, primarily on the iphone because tapping & swiping are easier mechanical functions than console controllers. Would we be allowed to make this sort of robot, or would this be considered cheating per the terms and conditions? To be clear, this would NOT be a software bot like some people have used for things like necropolis (not sure how those even work, haha). It would be an IRL robot taking video of the game and processing it live. We want to stay within the rules here.
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Comments
The rules applicable to this situation are:
- You cannot share accounts with any other player
- You cannot modify the game code or resources in any way
- You must play on authorized and supported platforms only
- You may not violate fair play as determined by Kabam’s sole discretion
Note: I am not an official representative of Kabam, and this is just my own personal interpretation of the rules. I have no authority or discretion in this matter.
In my own personal judgment, you’d be reasonably safe if:
1. The robot has its own account that it, and only it, ever plays.
2. The robot does not join an alliance with other human players.
3. The robot does not enter any competitive game mode, including Battlegrounds and Arena.
At worst, the robot itself might get banned. But if it is playing its own account, that shouldn’t be a problem. You might want to consider getting the robot its own phone though, because you don’t want it playing on your own personal device. I would imagine you’d be doing that anyway, as you wouldn’t want a robotic mistake to crush your own personal phone.
Again: I am not a Kabam representative, and I am only expressing my opinion. I have no responsibility for or discretion to regulate fair play on MCOC. This is just the opinion of someone who has been around the block many times. Personally though, I wouldn’t mind seeing this actually work.
but if you do end up doing this, and feel comfortable with doing what I’m proposing pls share the video here, I would love to see
Said computer vision is something very advanced in the field of computer engineering
Self driving cars uses cameras and LiDAR to see the surroundings and these are very advanced technologies and software
You might just end up with a robot that just tap and swipe a phone screen but can't win matches against Kabam's advanced AI bcos it can't really interpret what's going on in the game
But I think if it's for a school project. The beginning of the game does not have all of this and a proof of concept would be more than reasonable. If you could get it to win more than 50% and show that it doing some things like parry, dex, intercept somewhat effectively, then you will get an A.
Huge thanks to DNA3000- I understand that you aren't an official representative from Kabam but you're obviously very well versed here.
I'll try and update the community on the progress we make (if any is made at all! You're right JESUSCHRIST, it might be beyond our abilities, we'll see).
Also, there is no advanced AI controlling MCOC’s defenders.
Is it possible?
Yes it is possible but it will take a good amount of resources to get it done perfectly
Can it be done with a budget, yes you can but the results will be sub par, is that sufficient for a high school project, I think so
So you mount a phone and a camera facing the phone screen
The camera feeds 60 FPS to a computer, you need to code a software that can interpret what is going on in the game from the images it receives
The computer needs to have the processing power to process the images and decides what to do, the computer sends the instructions to 2 or maybe 4 mechanical arms that can do the actions that a human does with mechanical fingers
Tapping, holding a tap, swiping etc
The mechanical fingers need to exert the right amount of pressure and react fast enough to fight against the AI if not you will never win a single fight
As a high school project, that's massive amount of work to do, still worth trying maybe
Outside of the high school project, can the entire setup replaces a human grinding arena, yes it can but with the amount of resources thrown into it, you need to grind a tremendous amount of units to get your investment back
You might start with the training mission that teaches parry.
Good luck. I'm rooting for you.
I pose the reverse question: do you know everything Kabam looks for when they look for cheating? Can you be sure nothing a robotics team ever does would ever do any of those things. It is always the thing you don’t think of that is the thing you get caught for.
Here’s an obvious one: you leave the robot running and forget to turn it off, and it plays for seventy-two hours straight. Now, of course it seems unlikely anyone would test a robot in this fashion, but the question is: did you think of it in the first place?
So @Thorki, what’s your robotics core software engine in your class? Are they using ROS, or something more streamlined? I remember stumbling upon that when I was looking at OpenCV a few years ago, specifically when analyzing the question of how complex could bots reasonably get in less than expert hands. Man, I wish this stuff existed back when I was in high school. I would be having so much fun (and also probably be completely banned by now).
I'm still not sure if it was a troll or a really serious silly time waster of an idea. The game was on fire (not the good kind) and they were placing big hopes on what sounded to me exactly like a high school science project experiment...
But for a true school project I think it's a great idea @Thorki 😁 Good luck!
Obviously for a mobile device need a capacative touch device like a stylus.
Don't have a stylus? Then I've seen videos where a piece of raw chicken on a motor (or even a drill) is spun to auto swipe tinder 😂
More info here:
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/281785/input-system-update-sept-2021-engine-upgrades-robots-and-more