The Future of Reflection

It might interest you all to know that the idea of using the java.lang.reflect package as a means to automate runescape was first conceived in a conversation between ruler_eric (as he was then known, I hear he just goes by ruler now). Shortly thereafter I developed the first reflection interface to the RS client that did anything useful (sort of at the request of solarwind, who was the only person stupid enough at the time to keep bugging me). Later reflection evolved at the hands of hardcore bot devs to fully replace the injection bots that had been king.

When I first worked on it, I had a bit of a different idea of what it should be (when compared to what it became). I intended it to be more of a utility to simplify the tedious parts of color scripting. I assumed injection would remain the java way of doing things, because in some ways it is more powerful, although more detectable and unstable. In this light, I never intended to implement object finding or anything of that sort. Reflection in pure java forms implemented these "color replacing" functions because they needed them to do anything at all, and they already had the injection based approach to model off of. They went their own way, then, after I added reflection functionality to SMART, reflection devs here implemented the java-bot approach to reflection, ultimately replacing the stability of color with the instability of reflection.

Now that Jagex has significantly changed the inner workings of the client, the algorithms developed in Aryan (the first "injection" bot --- it really decompiled the client and applied regexs to the source code, then recompiled) that were the base of all injection/java-reflection bots are invalid and since the client is currently in a highly obfuscated and corrupt state unlike it was in the days Aryan was developed, it is highly unlikely that this will ever get fixed, at least in any short amount of time. Why? There's very little/none of the old guard left that understood the client well, no one has had to play with bytecode from scratch ever, and the client is in a terrible state. Put simply: Java based bots are not going to come back in the short or mid term.This means no one is going to implement things that could replace color, simply because no one that knows how is around or wants to, and thus color is now (again) the only way to bot, and will remain that way for quite some time. So, I was thinking, why not try to re-implement my original conceptualization of reflection? What is that you ask?

Reflection should have done the following (stable):

• Given your current location
• Allowed you to click specific tiles on the minimap (for walking)

These features were/are relatively easy and simple to maintain.

Other (less stable) things reflection could offer well:

• Let you click specific on screen objects (in a static way, i.e. by tile and height)
• Your current animation / hp / info about your player
• Access to the settings array that (used to at least) hold the answers to on-screen randoms, etc.

These are significantly more likely to break/change, but still pretty simple.

These are the things I intended reflection to do, more or less to aid color scripts by giving them stability over long distances / information about things that are not easy to derive by examining colors in even an advanced way. (tl;dr read the other red text and: ) I believe minimap-based walking and location information is very achievable on the short term. Further I believe the other things I intended for reflection are achievable mid/long term. But no one is going to bother/be successful at implementing anything more advanced in at least the short-mid term. I'm curious:

Is SRL open to Reflection being re-implemented in such a way? Please vote.

To be honest, I'm happy using color for walking, with SPS and old fashioned ddtms and all that.

That being said, it would be awesome to see reflection working again as you described it.

No, please no.

I have been waiting for the day where scripting would become interesting again, and finally the day came. Scripting is now a challenge, just like it used to be in the good old days. It's finally a mind-bugging and fun challenge that kept me from just aimlessly browse the internet and waste hours.

Let SRL become 100% color again and let it flourish like it once did. It was a good time and I truly miss it..

E: Kinda unhappy you made this topic in the public forum :(

I imagine this is not as easy as you make it sound, otherwise surely other botmakers would've (re?)turned to this method already?

-RM

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Originally Posted by Zyt3x

No, please no.

I have been waiting for the day where scripting would become interesting again, and finally the day came. Scripting is now a challenge, just like it used to be in the good old days. It's finally a mind-bugging and fun challenge that kept me from just aimlessly browse the internet and waste hours.

Let SRL become 100% color again and let it flourish like it once did. It was a good time and I truly miss it..

E: Kinda unhappy you made this topic in the public forum :(

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I would have to argue that your desire to do things the hard way as a scriptwriter is not affected by my possibly providing a tool for others to use. I would also argue that it's of more relevance to non-devs and more relevant to leaches, since they are the people ultimately using the scripts and are the most effected by the quality/magnitude of available scripts. Arguably, if development was easier, there would be more/better scripts.

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Originally Posted by Sir R. M8gic1an

I imagine this is not as easy as you make it sound, otherwise surely other botmakers would've (re?)turned to this method already?

-RM

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The interesting point here is that other botmakers have to implement a full bot, I only have to provide some useful info since SRL/Simba is complete on it's own. Reflection in this way is only a tool, hardly a bot.

I prefer life without it, honestly. However, if SPS doesn't get worked out fairly soon, I wouldn't mind being able to continue tile walking with reflection.

I like the idea. Those points you mentioned above were all I ever used Reflection for anyways. With anything else, it is simpler (and more fun!) to use color.

Walking.. thats the only reason we need reflection.

Everything else is more stable and almost as fast with Colour. Not to mention, very easy to maintain and update, should one code it correctly ;).

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Originally Posted by Nava2

Walking.. thats the only reason we need reflection.

Everything else is more stable and almost as fast with Colour. Not to mention, very easy to maintain and update, should one code it correctly ;).

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SPS is pretty great and so is radial walking, still.

I dunno about all the oldies saying colour only.. it's never ever going to be as accurate so admit that. Try writing a livid farm script in all colour.. You'd spend days whereas reflection you'd spend probably an hr or two. Again we come down to the colour vs reflection argument. The ease of being able to put a script together in minutes is what we need.. Clearly not a lot of the leechers are going to try to learn colour scripting just to bot. That's not gonna happen. Most will get tired n leave. If reflection came back for SRL before powerbot or whatever, then u will have the most members u ever had and the other bot communities will try to learn your method of course. That's the only learning that will be done.

Absolutely yes.

Walking + 1. Nothing else is needed :)

~Home

I disagree on many points in your post.

Do whatever you want and let other people do what ever they want, always.

Walking/objectfinding and a few things that might help randoms (interfaces might be hard to do though?). That's all we essentially need. Just like KYAB days and early reflection days here, that all was working just fine.

If you say it is possible.....then it's going to happen anyway. If not here then somewehere at our friendly neighbors. And, correct me if I am wrong, there has got to be a certain challenge in this for you, right?

And since I know my Ben :) little longer then most of you....there will be no way to stop him.

But, I am not voting because I dont care about reflection. Never used it, never will. Color's good enough for me. As long as we stay out of trouble, I am neutral to this.

SPS works for finding the position, not for route calculation, if you can get me the grounddata hook, I'd be very pleased. And maybe something to extract images from the client(if this is possible)

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Originally Posted by mormonman

I disagree on many points in your post.

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= Yes or no?


~Home

I'll be honest, I think rs is better off without it. But if you think its for the best, you're the One with the ability.

With the ability given back, what's to stop the Reflection developers from expanding onto it? Is this a limitation you're giving intentionally to prevent Jagex from trying to stop it, or is this just information that you can get easily from the client without Jagex breaking it?

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Originally Posted by Home

= Yes or no?


~Home

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First off Ben belittles other people, and then asks if we want to cripple our potential...Its a no.

The only thing that Reflection can do that color can't is identifying stacked items on the ground, or other items that you can't actually see. If you can see it, you can do it with color, including the "easy" things you mention.

Since we can't provide a fully functional reflection bot, it is probably better for people not to have a crutch, and just learn how to use color proficiently in the first place.

I voted yes, but mostly for the stable things

I think walking is the only issue some people have

I appreciate your work Ben, we all do. But I personally believe it's time to let reflection take a rest. Maybe in the future, yes. But for the short and mid term we should stick to color.
For those saying walking is hard and not efficient, its not hard. RRW works just fine.

Yes. I don't see why not. Is it hard to keep it up to date?

I say no because I never used it because I don't know how. I also don't trust it right now as jagex has cracked down on it so it probably has a good detection for it. But I am interested in walking to a specific tile

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Originally Posted by Killerdou

SPS works for finding the position, not for route calculation, if you can get me the grounddata hook, I'd be very pleased. And maybe something to extract images from the client(if this is possible)

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What do you mean? Unless I'm missing something, SPS can do whatever tile walking could.

My vote is no, for reasons already given.

E: I feel it's kind of a useless post in the public section because obviously more people are going to vote yes. They just want scripts and an easy way of scripting.

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Originally Posted by Coh3n

What do you mean? Unless I'm missing something, SPS can do whatever tile walking could.

My vote is no, for reasons already given.

E: I feel it's kind of a useless post in the public section because obviously more people are going to vote yes. They just want scripts and an easy way of scripting.

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SPS doesn't know where you can walk and where you can't, reflection could do that

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Originally Posted by Zyt3x

No, please no.

I have been waiting for the day where scripting would become interesting again, and finally the day came. Scripting is now a challenge, just like it used to be in the good old days. It's finally a mind-bugging and fun challenge that kept me from just aimlessly browse the internet and waste hours.

Let SRL become 100% color again and let it flourish like it once did. It was a good time and I truly miss it..

E: Kinda unhappy you made this topic in the public forum :(

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I voted yes and after reading your post I changed my mind. I liked the days when people actually used colour, and when SRL member applications contained scripts without reflection. I think in this year I have only seen one or two applications where it was only colour.

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Originally Posted by Killerdou

SPS doesn't know where you can walk and where you can't, reflection could do that

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Not in this case, this reflection is very basic. No isReachable().

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Originally Posted by Killerdou

SPS doesn't know where you can walk and where you can't, reflection could do that

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As always it's up to the script writer to not be an idiot and make correct paths.

I voted no, but I think it's a hard question. Why should I restrict others from using reflection? It has no con except that color scripts will be looked down to. All the arguments about making things too easy, that's something you chose yourself. Using the tools you want to make a script is part of setting up the right challenges and experiences you want to achieve with writing this script. But I voted no for myself, not for the community. I don't need it, I don't want it anymore.

Also, I read someone saying something about safety. That's a non issue, with reflection we are doing nothing more than 'reading' the variables out of the java program. We do not change any DLL or even jar. We do not use any code injection. SMART is the only part that is detectable.

I think a poll should be made in members and see the results there...
@zyt3x I agree and feel the same way you do.

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Originally Posted by masterBB

I voted no, but I think it's a hard question. Why should I restrict others from using reflection? It has no con except that color scripts will be looked down to. All the arguments about making things too easy, that's something you chose yourself. Using the tools you want to make a script is part of setting up the right challenges and experiences you want to achieve with writing this script. But I voted no for myself, not for the community. I don't need it, I don't want it anymore.

Also, I read someone saying something about safety. That's a non issue, with reflection we are doing nothing more than 'reading' the variables out of the java program. We do not change any DLL or even jar. We do not use any code injection. SMART is the only part that is detectable.

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About your last paragraph, were not so sure anymore... Since jagex fucked up there client there's alot of stuff we don't know or unsure of. Pyroryan may have an idea in the upcoming weeks however.

I say yes. Reflection walking is the thing color bots need to be completely flawless. Yes, we have SPS; however, i'm sure it isn't 100% accurate as reflection could be.

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Originally Posted by Wizzup?

SPS is pretty great and so is radial walking, still.

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One question. I hear about radial walking a lot, and I've used it in a lot of my scripts. Is it okay to use radial walking in loops(until it finds the final color on the minimap)? I'm asking because I might make a script to apply for Members and Radialwalk would make everything much much easier.

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Originally Posted by DeSnob

One question. I hear about radial walking a lot, and I've used it in a lot of my scripts. Is it okay to use radial walking in loops(until it finds the final color on the minimap)? I'm asking because I might make a script to apply for Members and Radialwalk would make everything much much easier.

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I would say that's a very efficient way of using it. ;)

I dont see why everyone who is against ref walking is against it. Reflection is to color, as botting is to playing legit. Just because reflection is easy to use means we dont want it? Seriously? Can you guys even get your head around that idea? You are giving up something more efficient(reflection) and choosing the long/hard way(color/SPS). If thats the way you think then you should'nt even be botting in the first place since its more efficient than playing legit.

Also ref is not just used to walk in case you guys didnt read OP, Ben said that it could be used to get info about your player(e.g: animation?can u do that with color? NO)

Not only Reflection makes it easier to script, it also takes less computing power. If you knew how SPS works and compare it with how Reflection works you'll realise that reflection takes like a fraction of the cpu power to get the same result with more accuracy(so less greenhouse gases?). The only 'valid' reason i see for not using reflection is that it will undermine color walking. When it comes to technology 'Old is Gold' does not stand true(in most cases)

Kingkong you witnessed what jagex did to reflection right. Sure it's more efficient but it's no where near reliable as it once was. In the real world most successful companies choose something reliable and work to make it better instead of something unreliable but somewhat efficient.

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Originally Posted by DeSnob

One question. I hear about radial walking a lot, and I've used it in a lot of my scripts. Is it okay to use radial walking in loops(until it finds the final color on the minimap)? I'm asking because I might make a script to apply for Members and Radialwalk would make everything much much easier.

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Yes. Like

Simba Code:

Repeat
  RadialWalk(...)
  clicks := clicks + 1;
Until FindSymbol('mining') or (clicks > 30) or finddtm(...);

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Originally Posted by NCDS

I prefer life without it, honestly. However, if SPS doesn't get worked out fairly soon, I wouldn't mind being able to continue tile walking with reflection.

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I agree with NCDS on this. An accurate way to find tiles on the MS and MM would be wonderful, I think that's all I would ask for from Reflection at this point.

Infact, if you'll read through all the posts, tiles for walking is what everyone is wanting. Going without reflection has forced (atleast some) of us to learn how to do everything before, but rather with color. No doubt walking can be done with color, but I doubt color will get to that point.

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Originally Posted by KingKong

Also ref is not just used to walk in case you guys didnt read OP, Ben said that it could be used to get info about your player(e.g: animation?can u do that with color? NO)

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I just wanted to comment on this, because everyone else ignored it.

Actually, we can. Check out animation.scar. :)