Ok, I don't want to interrupt Bit's thread beacuse this idea goes off in a different (although similar) direction as his. However...
Don't get pedantic when I ask you to make the assumption that PATeam can develop a client that works on Windows, *nix and Mac. This client would be able to uniquely identify a computer based on things such as CPU info, HDD serial number, OS installation key, etc. Users can download this small client and run it on their machines without requiring administrator/root privileges. So we can infer that if the user is running PA can uniquely identify which computer a user is logging in on (as we can use this downloadable program for some form of authentication).
Now, each Planetarion account can have ONE 'home computer'. When an account is created it is 'homeless' and once the owner is on their own computer which they will use as their primary machine for the round, they can perform some action which sets that computer as the 'home' of the account.
When the user logs in from their defined 'home computer' they have full unrestricted access to the game, as you'd expect.
However, if they login from a machine that isn't their 'home' they get restrictions placed on what they can do. I suggest the following:
- The user cannot make any fleet arragement movements
- The user cannot do more than 2 scans per tick
- The user cannot start more than 1 construction and 1 research until logged back in from their 'home computer
- The user cannot launch each fleet more than once until they have logged back in from their 'home computer'
The idea of this is that if the user is staying at a friends, they can still do some essential actions on their planet but it isn't fully playable. If the user were at a LAN party and taking their own computer, they are unrestricted because they are using their 'home computer'.
This system allows for army barracks, schools, colleges and Universities as users can set one of the public computers as their 'home' and ensure they use the same public terminal each time.
If two or more accounts wish to have the same 'home computer' PATeam can place heavy survilance on those planets. A good excuse would be required such as proof the computer was a public terminal in a library or barracks for example.
If the user does not use the downloadble client to authenticate at any point or does not have it running, their planet is restricted in the same way regardless of the computer they are logging in from.
Each account would be able to change their 'home computer' once per round. This allows users to change in the event of a computer upgrade or replacement or moving house, etc.
This stops most multis as they would have all our eyes on them if they used the same computer for multiple accounts and I think enforcing that each account needs a unique computer to play fully will stop all but the most determined cheaters.
Now tell me what I've missed, where my logic faulters and how this would never work. But do it's constructively and sensibly please. :-)