How important are anti-cheat plugins?
Are paid anti-cheat/esp plugins worth it in your opinion?
Do you recommend any specific anti-cheat plugins?

i dont know of any good paid anti cheat plugins but stuff like arkan or automated stash traps are minimum requirements

Goldie

i dont know of any good paid anti cheat plugins but stuff like arkan or automated stash traps are minimum requirements

So Arkan works well? Because I don't know many people who use it.

Sadly you throw your money in the trash if you buy paid "anti-cheats" for now. Developers do not want to make something good, nor does Facepunch wants to improve their EAC, detection, or do something... I am not sure if BIG servers like Rustoria, PixieRust, UKN and etc actually LIE to scare cheaters and do not have anything or just use private Anti-Cheats and say at the same time WE CARE for the community and Rust when they actually do not care because they ban cheaters from their servers to fix their problem and just send cheater to other sevrer and then cheater comes to your server and f*ck it up, your hard work, other legit players, what's the point?

Currently, you can google these plugins, BIG THANKS TO DEVELOPERS, for putting effort and creating something for the community than nothing!

AntiESP - Despite the fact that causes problem like blinking chests and other entities sometimes and my players cry that its better without it and I removed it its great paid plugin to prevent ESP hackers when raid bases and see via debug camera/esp inside the chests/TC/furnaces or whatever. 

EspDetection  - Great Idea but a lot of false positives but you can check this paid plugin as well...

AntiMacros - Almost thought that this plugin is epic but again great idea and a lot of problems. Stops real macro players while normal people (no matter how many hours they have) if they practice the weapons in CombatTraining servers will cry why recoil is weird. Do not check the plugin description that says people won't notice... When tried this plugin some players told me WHY THE HELL WHEN SPRAY AK 8-9Bullet comes straight down or in a different direction f*cking my whole spray when I play legit. And I again have to remove it or legit players cant hit anything properly or control the gun recoil like its supposed to be.

Arkan - again great plugin but a lot of false positives. I know people that play legit and know how to shoot with guns... They have false positives with M249, LR-300, ak sometimes, etc... The PLugin works fine only if you have a blatant cheater that claims he can control AK recoil like I used to ban one with 20+ violations in my tournament like 20+ violations for every kill he had also violation for NR. If he's not obvious doing crazy spray all the time would be hard to check.

ADR - Auto Demo Record - Great addition to Arkan and EspDetection and StashTraps because if player have violation it's gonna record him and send recordings to discord BUT again fail at some point. If player A violates for No Recoil and kills player B recording starts when player B is already dead. and if there's no player C and D after that so player A (potential scripter) can do more kills and capture them on the recording you just recording is useless. Also, recordings are like spectate too... broken First Person only and you can fly around on DebugCam but that's all, you cant see from the player POV in proper 1st person because rust suck about this.

I do not know any more anticheat plugins for now and sorry for this big novel above.

In conclusion, I think that all anticheats are sometimes good and useful but cant catch cheater or tell you 100% "HE's cheating" and you have to ban at your decision and cant use this anticheat logs to prove something if chearer ask WHY I am banned. Then you most of the times feel bad because players say in chat or whatever they cry HE's hacking, see this moment... you are not online to spectate him all the time and you can't know the moment they talk for, you see logs fine or full with detections and you ban player then he's not EAC banned for months and you feel bad because false ban someone.

Flammable

Sadly you throw your money in the trash if you buy paid "anti-cheats" for now. Developers do not want to make something good, nor does Facepunch wants to improve their EAC, detection, or do something... I am not sure if BIG servers like Rustoria, PixieRust, UKN and etc actually LIE to scare cheaters and do not have anything or just use private Anti-Cheats and say at the same time WE CARE for the community and Rust when they actually do not care because they ban cheaters from their servers to fix their problem and just send cheater to other sevrer and then cheater comes to your server and f*ck it up, your hard work, other legit players, what's the point?

 

Currently, you can google these plugins, BIG THANKS TO DEVELOPERS, for putting effort and creating something for the community than nothing!

AntiESP - Despite the fact that causes problem like blinking chests and other entities sometimes and my players cry that its better without it and I removed it its great paid plugin to prevent ESP hackers when raid bases and see via debug camera/esp inside the chests/TC/furnaces or whatever. 

EspDetection  - Great Idea but a lot of false positives but you can check this paid plugin as well...

AntiMacros - Almost thought that this plugin is epic but again great idea and a lot of problems. Stops real macro players while normal people (no matter how many hours they have) if they practice the weapons in CombatTraining servers will cry why recoil is weird. Do not check the plugin description that says people won't notice... When tried this plugin some players told me WHY THE HELL WHEN SPRAY AK 8-9Bullet comes straight down or in a different direction f*cking my whole spray when I play legit. And I again have to remove it or legit players cant hit anything properly or control the gun recoil like its supposed to be.

 

Arkan - again great plugin but a lot of false positives. I know people that play legit and know how to shoot with guns... They have false positives with M249, LR-300, ak sometimes, etc... The PLugin works fine only if you have a blatant cheater that claims he can control AK recoil like I used to ban one with 20+ violations in my tournament like 20+ violations for every kill he had also violation for NR. If he's not obvious doing crazy spray all the time would be hard to check.

 

ADR - Auto Demo Record - Great addition to Arkan and EspDetection and StashTraps because if player have violation it's gonna record him and send recordings to discord BUT again fail at some point. If player A violates for No Recoil and kills player B recording starts when player B is already dead. and if there's no player C and D after that so player A (potential scripter) can do more kills and capture them on the recording you just recording is useless. Also, recordings are like spectate too... broken First Person only and you can fly around on DebugCam but that's all, you cant see from the player POV in proper 1st person because rust suck about this.

 

I do not know any more anticheat plugins for now and sorry for this big novel above.

In conclusion, I think that all anticheats are sometimes good and useful but cant catch cheater or tell you 100% "HE's cheating" and you have to ban at your decision and cant use this anticheat logs to prove something if chearer ask WHY I am banned. Then you most of the times feel bad because players say in chat or whatever they cry HE's hacking, see this moment... you are not online to spectate him all the time and you can't know the moment they talk for, you see logs fine or full with detections and you ban player then he's not EAC banned for months and you feel bad because false ban someone.

Damn bro thank you so much. I literally don't think I could get a better answer than that. 
Btw which one is your favorite/the one you least dislike? And which ones do you still use if any?

I use ADR (auto demo recorder) to record violations and EspDetection because might still post violations for everyone even if the player is a legit and false trigger at random but at least do not cause issues. Use the same way Arkan... daily scroll the discord channel to make it gray instead of white and yeah... I do not even keep watching the logs because I know they are false positives most of the time but if there's a blatant cheater I can catch him easily!... 

I do recommend AntiESP but if people cry that their furnaces are blinking, bags or chest missing or like hide/show appear/disappear like blink blink you might want to remove it if they say its not ok and glitch for them... You decide, but it's not a bad plugin

I do not recommend AntiMacros because everyone thinks that all people script but trust me its possible to learn the AK spray if practice etc and then you add AntiMacros to stop scripters that's GREAT but also you f*ckin PISS ON LEGIT PLAYERS... like you SHIIT ON THEM and they will start crying why my 4th bullet fly left or why after 12th bullet my AK goes straight down to the ground because they actually do not cheat and lear recoil and every change even small one is noticeable because they do not just script in one dot and know the mouse/guns movement. My players ignored the fact that sometimes you have golitch MP5 clip with 50 bullets and made meme... "you know the first 30 bullets of the MP5 but what about next 20?" It's not a big deal and its fun but changing recoil or bullet trajectory / etc for legit players sucks and its not fun anymore so I do not recommend antimacros (personal opinion),

This is why recoil should just be random

Flammable

I use ADR (auto demo recorder) to record violations and EspDetection because might still post violations for everyone even if the player is a legit and false trigger at random but at least do not cause issues. Use the same way Arkan... daily scroll the discord channel to make it gray instead of white and yeah... I do not even keep watching the logs because I know they are false positives most of the time but if there's a blatant cheater I can catch him easily!... 

I do recommend AntiESP but if people cry that their furnaces are blinking, bags or chest missing or like hide/show appear/disappear like blink blink you might want to remove it if they say its not ok and glitch for them... You decide, but it's not a bad plugin

 

I do not recommend AntiMacros because everyone thinks that all people script but trust me its possible to learn the AK spray if practice etc and then you add AntiMacros to stop scripters that's GREAT but also you f*ckin PISS ON LEGIT PLAYERS... like you SHIIT ON THEM and they will start crying why my 4th bullet fly left or why after 12th bullet my AK goes straight down to the ground because they actually do not cheat and lear recoil and every change even small one is noticeable because they do not just script in one dot and know the mouse/guns movement. My players ignored the fact that sometimes you have golitch MP5 clip with 50 bullets and made meme... "you know the first 30 bullets of the MP5 but what about next 20?" It's not a big deal and its fun but changing recoil or bullet trajectory / etc for legit players sucks and its not fun anymore so I do not recommend antimacros (personal opinion),

Ahhh ok thanks. Ima definitely consider the first 3. But what about StashTraps? Are you using that one? If so are you using the free or the paid one?

Purplex115

Ahhh ok thanks. Ima definitely consider the first 3. But what about StashTraps? Are you using that one? If so are you using the free or the paid one?

The automated one is nice