Long running macro's threat by FD - What exactly is a long running macro?!

You agreed to play by certain rules, and there are certainly rules you can break without violating consumer law or doing anything illicit with your hardware.

If you use a macro to play the game for you, you are a cheater and steps should be taken that you aren't able to do so for long and don't see any benefit from the cheating you've done.

You are fully entitled to use your property as you see fit, and Frontier is full entitled to kick you out of their game for cheating should that use constitute such.

Except I don't use macro's or scripts. I do however defend my rights one of which is to be able to use my property as I see fit and in accordance with the EULA's I have agreed to IN THE ORDER I AGREED TO THEM <-- Really important part. So far Frontiers EULA is sa far down the list that it is funny, meanwhile the agreement I have with M$ allows me to use the task manager when ever I wish and no other company rule can deny me that right but as I've said all along I don't cheat despite how you've worded your comment to imply I do. Might be wise for some of you to stop putting words in others mouths.
 
IIRC Frontier changed this to encourage you to trade in more than 1 thing - ie - not haul full cargo loads of the same item.
It also helps the little guys hauling around smaller units of stuff over those with T9s.

I don't see why they felt the need to do that : a T9 will still be more effective than an Adder, as it should be.
Besides, adding that mechanic without telling anyone is supposed to help... who? The geeks who keep the forums open while playing?
 
Last edited:
A bot can get feedback from the game, a macro can't. That's the difference.

A macro can't get feedback from the game ? Ermm, sure, ok mate.

10s search on Google - https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=18241 - screen reading and macro changes depending upon the screen (which is analagous to feedback)



Except I don't use macro's or scripts. I do however defend my rights one of which is to be able to use my property as I see fit and in accordance with the EULA's I have agreed to IN THE ORDER I AGREED TO THEM <-- Really important part. So far Frontiers EULA is sa far down the list that it is funny, meanwhile the agreement I have with M$ allows me to use the task manager when ever I wish and no other company rule can deny me that right but as I've said all along I don't cheat despite how you've worded your comment to imply I do. Might be wise for some of you to stop putting words in others mouths.

The "really important part" is actually irrelevant.

In order to use ED you have to agree to an EULA / ToS .. if you do not agree (due to you putting priority on conflicting EULAs / other ToS) then technically you can't play ED <shrug> By playing it you're accepting their EULA / ToS
 
Last edited:
Except I don't use macro's or scripts. I do however defend my rights one of which is to be able to use my property as I see fit and in accordance with the EULA's I have agreed to IN THE ORDER I AGREED TO THEM <-- Really important part. So far Frontiers EULA is sa far down the list that it is funny, meanwhile the agreement I have with M$ allows me to use the task manager when ever I wish and no other company rule can deny me that right but as I've said all along I don't cheat despite how you've worded your comment to imply I do.

I have every right do as I wish with my systems and software, irrespective of any EULA or laws that say otherwise. No force on this Earth could stop me.

I'd still be cheating if I used taskmgr to end EliteDangerous64.exe in order to give myself any in-game advantage, and were I to do so, I should be punished harshly enough to make the consequences of my cheating much more negative than anything that could have happened had I not cheated.

Might be wise for some of you to stop putting words in others mouths.

I didn't put any words in your mouth. I was very careful to preface everything with "if" and present it as a hypothetical.
 
As mentioned above, there is evidence that the no. of transactions is not the only factor taken into account by the simulation.

But the fact that people are spending time or using macros to force a large number of tiny transactions and that FD are clamping down on the macros means that they are clearly an important part of the mechanics. If the number of transactions didn't matter, only the size and quality of them, then nobody would bother using macros and this whole discussion would be moot.
 
Maybe they are doing both? Fixing the issue and sending them emails, because telling them that they are exploiting and should stop / not repeat it in similar cases sounds like a reasonable action? Personally I couldn't care less if they get banned from the game.

They said last night in the livestream that they have some long and short term ideas in terms of fixes/changes. That does not seem to be well known in this thread. Watch it, it was a great livestream.
 
They said last night in the livestream that they have some long and short term ideas in terms of fixes/changes. That does not seem to be well known in this thread. Watch it, it was a great livestream.

I generally don't do their live streams - can you give a rough estimate as to where they stated such things to help narrow down the search ?
 
And here we have just another shining example as to why I do not care about the BGS, factions, powers, or politics... because someone is always going to find some way to game the system in their favor, and at the very end of the day, it really makes no difference anyways.

As long as the missions pay in credits, I don't care whose credits they are, as long as they're mine in the end.
 
And here we have just another shining example as to why I do not care about the BGS, factions, powers, or politics... because someone is always going to find some way to game the system in their favor, and at the very end of the day, it really makes no difference anyways.

It would be much harder to game the system if we had transparent mechanics with common sense in it - instead of artifical, more or less hidden, and gamey features.
 
Agreed,

I have thought about using a macro to do the sell amount per ton rather than drop a bulk load off, but even though my index finger is pretty shot after a gaming session,, it sort of comes with age...I wasn't even aware of this exploit, or what ever people want to call it, till i read about it on the forums. But in the interest of fair play and me being me..I diddnt nor use any other sort of macros.

Even if it isn't the only factor involved selling 1 ton or selling 100 one at a time shouldnt work out more than selling the 100 as bulk, or am I missing something here.

I dont use macro's of any kind and for selling and buying I dont see it as an issue as there shouldn't be the issue for it to have in the first place.

No I dont hence why I have edited my post...after thought is a wonderful thing :)

I think what I was saying is why is it like it is...selling 100 one at a time of a same amount should be equal to selling 100 all in one go ..right...

i think, the point here is that the data taken into account makes no/not enough difference between 1 player selling 100 tons of personal weapons 1 T at a time, and 3 players selling 2 tons of personal weapons 33 times during two ticks by making deliveries in their eagles...

basically, from "how the game is usually played", the current design allows somebody in a hauler making 10 delivery runs like crazy to influence a system as well as somebody making 10 delivery runs in his python - the python will have a bit more effect, but both have an effect.

if you would only calculate "total transaction" (100 t sold = 100 t sold, no matter when, and from whom) that would mean that either a python can influence a system massively in a single run (with 240 T of cargo), or that a hauler doing 5 runs can't influence the system at all...

all of this only gets a problem imho when the guy in the python starts "maximizing" his effect by selling his 240 T one ton at a time.

basically, played as intended, the current system rewards "effort" more than "shipsize".

all would look different, if the data taken would for exampel sum up transactions per instance per player. not sure how much more data that would need - 50 000 markets or so in the galaxy. the current design is very slim on data taken into account for calculating states and influence .


___


edit: nevertheless it is never good game design imho, when a game "rewards" people by not playing the game, and sitting in a station waiting for spawns - whether that is rare goods, powerplay commodities, stacking missions, or 1 t-trading. the same I'd say for waiting for USS spawns to spawn...

for me that's a major difference of this case to influence-manipulation through bountie-transactions. if somebody prefers to go 20 times for USS and cash in a single bountie over RES farming, i think the game rewards at least playing the game ;-)
 
basically, played as intended, the current system rewards "effort" more than "shipsize".

But the problem is that, played optimally as implemented, the system rewards effort far too much. So much so that effort eclipses pretty much every other variable, so much so that players are willing to develop and use macros to try to reduce the amount of effort involved, as the effort doesn't really offer any challenge or thought but simply repeating the same set of instructions over the same set of menus over and over and over again.

This massive emphasis on effort at the actual buying/selling step has shifted the emphasis on trading away from looking at trade routes, flying around and staying safe and onto the sheer monotony of buying/selling things 1 tonne at a time. Is this effort that we want to be rewarding or is it effort that should be reduced so that we can put more effort into things that provide more meaningful gameplay? I for one would rather be playing Space Trucker rather than Manual Database Entry 2917.
 
But the problem is that, played optimally as implemented, the system rewards effort far too much. So much so that effort eclipses pretty much every other variable, so much so that players are willing to develop and use macros to try to reduce the amount of effort involved, as the effort doesn't really offer any challenge or thought but simply repeating the same set of instructions over the same set of menus over and over and over again.

This massive emphasis on effort at the actual buying/selling step has shifted the emphasis on trading away from looking at trade routes, flying around and staying safe and onto the sheer monotony of buying/selling things 1 tonne at a time. Is this effort that we want to be rewarding or is it effort that should be reduced so that we can put more effort into things that provide more meaningful gameplay? I for one would rather be playing Space Trucker rather than Manual Database Entry 2917.

fully with you, see my edit.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
I generally don't do their live streams - can you give a rough estimate as to where they stated such things to help narrow down the search ?

Dav Stott on Live Stream said:
Single unit trading and people using it to artificially inflate the effect on the background sim - it's not ideal, we have a few short and long term ideas about it, we are actively talking about it, it is under active consideration but I have absolutely nothing to announce today - but we hear you loud and clear, trust us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGqndJFKOfA;t=40m15s

Dav Stott on Live Stream said:
Commanders who are consistently using macros to automate long running tasks whilst they are away from the keyboard can expect bad news in the post from the Support Team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGqndJFKOfA;t=40m35s
 

With any luck they also ruin the lives of the mouth breathers running and creating trader bots that essentially do the entire process of launching, jumping and docking and trading while afk. Thanks in no small part to the docking computer. Odd that whenever this module breaks a certain very vocal group get really upset ....even though it's completely unnecessary for any human flying their ship.
 
Along the same lines, you could batch all buy/sell operations at a given port into a single BGS database transaction which is only committed when you undock (or change instance possibly) This way no limit is actually imposed in userspace, yet the number of DB transactions is kept down.

I like that

I don't know about others but when I bulk trade I like to carry a variety of cargo, so say I was buying cargo at an Agricultural Port, I would split my cargo capacity between each of the food stuffs and cash crops.
Didnt maximise profit but made more sense to me.
Did not realise the multiple transactions would have a greater effect in the BGS

One successful trade run per docking, regardless of individual transactions sounds fair
 
Last edited:

They didn't really say anthing of worth / note .. what a non issue :)



Odd that whenever this module breaks a certain very vocal group get really upset ....even though it's completely unnecessary for any human flying their ship.

Let me stop you there sunshine ... I use the docking computer; I don't bot / cheat; it's not necessary to use the DC I agree but neither is manual docking; and yes I get upset when the computer tries to kill me ... who wouldn't ? :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
They didn't really say anthing of worth / note .. what a non issue :)





Let me stop you there sunshine ... I use the docking computer; I don't bot / cheat; it's not necessary to use the DC I agree but neither is manual docking; and yes I get upset when the computer tries to kill me ... who wouldn't ? :rolleyes:


I would never equip one. It takes no time to dock and spots for modules on ships are limited. Turning it off and being inconvenienced by changing up your routine is not on the same level as all the npcs spawning without weapons they can use. Yet the DC not working gets the same if not more attention that such instances of regressions in the game. Hell, they'll make a special update where not much else but a fix to the DC is made but they'll let the other issues go for a month+ until whenever the next regularly scheduled update is ready.

This is a game where the squeeky wheel gets the most attention and for something not any more than a minor convenience feature to get that kind of attention tells me there's a lot of squeaking and way more than a few people who are using it as intended would be making.
 
But the problem is that, played optimally as implemented, the system rewards effort far too much. So much so that effort eclipses pretty much every other variable, so much so that players are willing to develop and use macros to try to reduce the amount of effort involved, as the effort doesn't really offer any challenge or thought but simply repeating the same set of instructions over the same set of menus over and over and over again.

This massive emphasis on effort at the actual buying/selling step has shifted the emphasis on trading away from looking at trade routes, flying around and staying safe and onto the sheer monotony of buying/selling things 1 tonne at a time. Is this effort that we want to be rewarding or is it effort that should be reduced so that we can put more effort into things that provide more meaningful gameplay? I for one would rather be playing Space Trucker rather than Manual Database Entry 2917.

"Please, give us a simple command to request docking!"
"Hell no, we want you to manually go to the side panel and needlessly press ten keys instead"

A smaller scope, but just the same point.
 

raeat

Banned
The devs have it within their power to change things.

Perhaps they could make the trading depending on credit value, that accumulates until the tick.
The credit value would be the same whether sold in 1 tonne (chunks) or 200 tonnes at a time (for example). I guarantee you, if it is equalized, players will choose the one big sale over 200 minor transactions. Calculate the credit values during the tick. It's not like we see what is happening anyway.

Don't be accusing players of exploiting, when all they are trying to do is lessen the tedium of a tedious function of the game.
This is a dev problem, not a player problem.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom