Auto Banning & Controlling Team Killing
Controlling Team Killing and Banning undesirable players

Addressing Team Killing
Servers now have a complete team killing / banning system that should significantly reduce team killing online. The concept is simple: team-kill a number of times and you will automatically be banned from the server for a period of time set by the server administrator. Because team kills can be accidental, the concept of grief also exists: following a team-kill, if you don't team-kill again for a period of time, you are forgiven for your team-kill. These settings are customizable by the server administrator(s) using server console commands.

sv_tk_ban n
Specifies the number of "team kill points" required for a player to be kicked and banned from a server. See section H for additional information about Controlling Team Killing and Banning undesirable players.

sv_tk_grace [time]
Set the grace period during which a player can only be credited with one TKP. For example, if set to 3s, a player can only be credited for one team kill every 3 seconds, preventing an accidental grenade explosion from crediting multiple TKP to a player.

sv_tk_cooldown [time]
Set the cool down period after which a player will be forgiven one TKP if they have not committed another team kill.

sv_unban [player name]
Allow the player with the given name to join the server again.


In addition to the system above, players are no longer penalized for being killed by someone on their team and respawn time penalty for a team-killer is multiplied by the number of teammates he killed, rapidly leading to very long respawn times for team killers.


The Halo CE Dedicated Server has a system to control team killing in online games.

At its core, the system is very simple. It's also very flexible and allows server administrators to tweak servers to reflect settings they deem appropriate to provide the best game experience to their users. Here's how it works:

Every time a player kills someone on their team, they are awarded a "team killing point" (let's call them TKP). If a player is awarded a certain number of TKP, they isare automatically kicked and banned from the server. To set the number of TKP required for a user to be kicked and banned, server administrators use the sv_tk_ban console command. For example:

sv_tk_ban 4

sets the number of TKP required for a player to be kicked and banned to 4.

When a player reaches the number of TKP necessary to be kicked and banned, they are automatically expulsed from the server. They will remain banned from the server for a period of time specified using the sv_tk_penalty console command. In addition to this, this period of time can also be set to take into account repeated offenses. This means if a player gets enough TKP to be kicked and banned for 5 minutes, then comes back and misbehaves again, their banned period can be larger. It's possible to set as many as 4 different levels of punition. Upon the fifth offense on the same server, a user is banned indefinitely. Of course, the server administrators can always consciously choose to unban the player.

sv_tk_penalty 5m 1d 0
sv_tk_penalty 5m 1h 8h 1d

The first example above will, for a server, set the first offense punition to 5 minutes, the second offense to 1 day and the third one to an indefinite ban (0 means indefinite). The second example will set the offense punition to 5 minutes, the second to 1 hour, the third to 8 hours, and the fourth to 1 day. On the fifth offense, the player will be indefinitely banned from the server.

Because team kills can be accidental, we also introduce a "cool down" period. If a player gets a TKP accidentally and doesn't kill another teammate for the duration of the cool down period, the TKP will be forgiven. For example:

sv_tk_cooldown 5m

will set this cool down period to 5 minutes.

The last aspect of the team killing system is that, once again, by accident, a rocket explosion or a grenade can kill three of your teammates. This poses the risk of registering three TKP instantly, improving the chances of improperly banning an accidental team kill. To address this, the concept of a "team kill grace" period exists. This period is the delay (in seconds) that must expire before a player can be credited with an additional TKP.

sv_tk_grace 3s

sets this period to 3 seconds. Once again, this means that if a player kills 4 teammates within a 3 seconds period, he will only be credited with 1 TKP.

Finally, it is possible to ban players individually using their player index. The sv_tk_players console command has been updated to display players' TKPs and their cool down period timers.