You don't need to hack anything to cheat. Just ask the guys running more than one account. I actually made an honest attempt to come back into the game until at about day 2 at 2 in the morning I'm flying at the edge of the map low enough where my drones were above me, and low and behold here comes 2 enemy planes right to me. Next night same thing same squad.
Years ago it wasn't real noticeable, but now with 5, 10 or 15 to a side it becomes real obvious, real fast. New players won't put up with it. The game is hard enough without having to deal with that. There's too many other games out there.
Also, new players need training. I found the training arena to be empty and broken as well as any reading material about the game, such as Soda's Aircraft evaluation page sorely out of date. And the maps...after 6 or 8 years since I played...still the same maps and same tired old players milking them at 30 thousand feet. In the week I did play last month, everyone I talked to had no less than 12 years playing. The majority were closer to 20 years in game. It's no wonder to me that 100 players online at once is considered a good night around here. If these things aren't fixed, new players won't stick around long enough to see any "hacking".
Uptown! Im sorry I missed your come back.
As for why they found you, its the new dar.... well not that new to us old timers. Hitech changed the "dot" dar to the airplane icons and made it so when an enemy flys near (not sure of the distance, 10k or so) the icon pops up, no matter the alt. So what those guys did was saw a dar bar in the sector you were in and flew across the sector until one of them lite you up and then they could fly strait to you.
It was setup this way to make it easier for newbs....and anyone else to "find" the bad guys so the game wasnt so boring/hard to play. Down side is it makes NOE very difficult, especially for goons, which is why most capturs are now done with an M3.
The game has changed and most of the old timers still here just adapted. Those changes sometimes makes it harder for those coming back.
Maybe time for hitech to code in the anti-cheat program that other games I play use. It will settle all of the issues of your a hacker or you cheat
Just my 2 cents
Im sure Hitech is running many monitor programs to watch for any type of crap some people feel they need to employ. The only cheating going on in this game is what people who have easily wounded pride make up in their own minds. They scream HACK!!! but all it is, is the player was either better at that moment, or the one screaming hack isnt as good as they think they are, and are just too stupid to realise it.
There are very few players in this game that have earned the reputation of being Aces, but there are alot more who THINK they are and just cant handle the truth.
I believe this game is far more secure than most games out there. On top of that, if you leave your ego at the login page and just play the game its a lot of fun!