How to Detect Minecraft X-Ray Hacks: A Comprehensive 2024 Guide

X-ray hacking is one of the trickiest exploits to catch on a Minecraft server. Cheaters can see valuable ores through solid blocks, often without any obvious outward signs. This gives them an unfair advantage, letting them gather resources far more efficiently than legitimate players, which can wreck your server’s economy if ores are used as currency. In this guide, we'll cover proven methods and automated tools to help you spot X-ray users and keep your server fair for everyone.

Understanding X-Ray Hack Behavior

X-ray mods work by making most standard blocks, like stone and dirt, completely transparent. This leaves only valuable ores visible, allowing a user to see them through walls and deep underground. As the OPBlocks community puts it, "X-ray is one of the harder hacks to detect because it doesn't have visual cues; watching mining patterns is best."

Some tell-tale signs of X-ray use are:

• Finding ores at a rate that just doesn't seem natural.
• Mining in a straight line directly to ore veins, with little to no exploration.
• Tunnels that consistently ignore worthless blocks like stone or dirt.
• Discovering deep, hidden ore deposits that they couldn't have seen from a cave or the surface.

Using PaperMC's Built-In Anti-Xray

PaperMC servers come with a built-in Anti-Xray system that features three different engine modes. This feature works by hiding or faking ore placements, rendering X-ray hacks useless.

Configuration Options

To enable Anti-Xray, you'll need to edit your paper-world-defaults.yml file:

• Set enabled: true to turn it on.
• Pick an engine mode that balances performance with the level of protection you need.

Engine-mode 1 works by replacing hidden ores with other blocks, like stone. However, it only affects ores that are completely surrounded by solid blocks, so it won't hide any that are exposed to air in a cave.

Engine-mode 2 offers stronger protection by scattering fake ore blocks throughout the world. If you set it up correctly, this mode can even hide ores exposed to the air, giving you much better coverage against X-ray.

Active Detection with the XrayDetector Plugin

If you need to monitor for cheaters in real-time, the XrayDetector plugin is a great tool that automatically tracks suspicious behavior. It analyzes how people mine and assigns suspicion points to each player over time.

Key Features

The plugin uses a four-tier system to alert your staff as soon as a player's suspicion level gets too high. It keeps an eye on how efficiently someone is finding ore and flags anyone who's collecting it at a rate that seems impossible through normal play.

Staff can use commands like /xray tp <player> to invisibly spectate a suspect, letting you directly confirm if they're cheating without tipping them off.

What to Look For Manually

If you're trying to catch cheaters by hand, you'll need to watch how people are mining. Keep an eye out for these red flags:

• Direct pathing: Someone who digs in a perfectly straight line to a vein of ore, bypassing any need for exploration.
• Efficiency rates: Mining trips that yield a suspiciously high amount of ore compared to the amount of stone cleared.
• Timing patterns: Finding valuable ores way more frequently than chance would allow.
• Behavioral changes: A player who suddenly becomes an expert miner overnight with no good explanation.

Proactive Measures

If you're looking for an even more comprehensive way to stop cheaters, there are specialized services that can identify potential cheaters before they even join your server. They work by analyzing a player's history and flagging suspicious accounts, helping you maintain a clean server from the get-go.

HackedServer.org is one such service. It offers advanced cheat detection for server owners who are tired of dealing with cheaters and hacks. It aims to protect your community by stopping troublemakers before they can cause any harm.

Implementation Strategy

For a solid defense, start by enabling PaperMC's built-in Anti-Xray on engine-mode 2. Layer on the XrayDetector plugin for active, real-time monitoring and staff alerts. It's also a good idea to get a feel for what normal mining looks like on your server. This will help you spot unusual behavior much faster.

Combining regular observation with these automated tools gives you the best defense against X-ray, ensuring the game remains fair and fun for your legitimate players.