ED - A Script Kiddie's Wet Dream
- Thread starter raeat
- Start date
I *think* that you can turn your chosen color on and off on the right modules panel.
Yes, you can map changing the thruster color to a key or button. I said he automated it, meaning that software was automatically pressing the button for him "in the background" while he was fighting at the same time.
For those interested in seeing the evidence we collected over the months, please check out the below with BLURRED OUT NAMES (plz no ban hammer)
[video=youtube;GZd-KwxLCbA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZd-KwxLCbA&t=1s[/video]
We have more names of known bots and suspected bots exhibiting this behavior that we were unable to collate sufficient and definitive evidence on.
The attacks continue on us.
[video=youtube;GZd-KwxLCbA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZd-KwxLCbA&t=1s[/video]
We have more names of known bots and suspected bots exhibiting this behavior that we were unable to collate sufficient and definitive evidence on.
The attacks continue on us.
If you want evidence that Bot capability exists without client manipulation, check out these videos.
[video=youtube;bGlhFejzFIo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGlhFejzFIo[/video]
[video=youtube;XcHy6V7qUKo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcHy6V7qUKo[/video]
[video=youtube;huEXWsRptGY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huEXWsRptGY[/video]
[video=youtube;XcHy6V7qUKo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcHy6V7qUKo[/video]
[video=youtube;huEXWsRptGY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huEXWsRptGY[/video]
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Well blow me down - they are all in solo or PG.
I'll get my glass ball out and see if I can help you.
I have a question: where is the line between a keyboard macro, Voice pack command, other HUD/overlays helpers in Elite and a script bot drawn? I did some searching myself and I saw some script bots made with AutoHotkey, (a perfectly legitimate software) that were capable to take haulage missions, deliver them and return or do a A-B-A trading. They were using screen grabs (comparing them to a pattern - a sort of pixel search) to inform about the status visible in the HUD. I'd say this could be some entertaining weekend project.
But let's say for example, that someone would make a script to land you at given coordinates on a planet and you place it on a macro button of your keyboard; a sort of "landing to POI computer". Would this be considered cheating? Would you use it?
But let's say for example, that someone would make a script to land you at given coordinates on a planet and you place it on a macro button of your keyboard; a sort of "landing to POI computer". Would this be considered cheating? Would you use it?
The former is a full on bot, the latter is an advanced autopilot. The distinction is indeed fuzzy; in this case, the threshold I'm indicating is that the bot operates its chosen portion of the game entirely autonomously to the degree of playing the game continuously. The autopilot can only handle a snippet of time. However, even an autopilot to the degree of navigating from one station to another is sufficiently cheating to be unreasonable. It's automating away a portion of the game that is *designed* to involve frequent user interaction, and therefore enabling unscrupulous people to run entire farms of accounts. They don't need to be efficient on their own because they allow multiplication.
The particular tools used to *build* this functionality, whether Cheat Engine, Autohotkey, Shadowplay, Game Streaming, OpenCV or whatever, are not the issue, although Fdev have specifically requested noone scrape the game's memory.
The only PP automation I can think off is players sitting docked at their home base with a macro refilling their PP cargo every 30min.
The macro would allow you to go to work and come back with a boat load of PP commodities.
Sure it is frowned upon by FD but it is not rocket science either.
As for full on bots, I very much doubt it.
edit: As for the video evidence, why would you run a scripted flight in open?
The macro would allow you to go to work and come back with a boat load of PP commodities.
Sure it is frowned upon by FD but it is not rocket science either.
As for full on bots, I very much doubt it.
edit: As for the video evidence, why would you run a scripted flight in open?
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in a cheap attempt not to look very suspicious?
I'm not sure what FDev could do to detect that, either. If the bot is taking the video output and giving the game standard keyboard/mouse inputs in return, it's basically playing the game. Possibly not very well, which it has to make up for in not sleeping, but there are real players like that.
The obvious solution would be to make the game more difficult - have much more frequent supercruise interdictions, increased interdiction evasion difficulty, and NPCs which persist over logout/login cycles, so any bot relying on that sort of processing just gets chain-interdicted sufficiently frequently that it never reaches its destination. Of course, that would pose a problem for many genuine players as well, and they'll complain on the forums more than the bots do.
![[VR] Merkir](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/141/141091.jpg?1553527154){kind=avatar}
You wouldn't, but those bots were very unsophisticated, and bots in general are never 100% foolproof. Keystrokes get missed due to insufficient time delays in the coding, timing gets out of whack, etc. They get into all sorts of strange and unforeseen states. There are plenty of reasons they could have accidentally been in open. It could have been as basic as the operator accidentally starting the game in open, or automated board hopping gone wrong, or automated logging (after being scanned) failing to enter the right mode.
The bots I saw in the vids were very unsophisticated. I have no doubt the operators didn't get the timing or keystroke delays quite right.
The sad thing is that for every accidental hour in open, you can bet hundreds or thousands of hours were spent in solo/private.
Edit: And even sadder, for every unsophisticated bot operator, you should assume there are many more sophisticated bots out there with more capable operators. You'll just never see them in open.
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Yeah, it would be good to get a solid line on what is and isn't allowed.
Voice Attacks macros seem to be OK with FDev, I'm assuming there's a line in the game rules somewhere that permits the use of basic macros but forbids more advanced ones?
VA macros replace a few manual keystrokes or allows having some bindings tied to voice and not buttons. There is no 'image recognition', automatic playing the game in there.
Your brain is powerful enough to understand that a macro to purchase something every 30 minutes is not an 'alternate keybinding' like saying: request docking'..
Look at this from the dev point of view; How can they detect an auto-pilot?
Can they tell the difference between 'human hand on stick' and input coming from some program/script? Unless the script is very basic then yes, if it's a little clever, then no. Now; looking at those videos; If the ships hadn't crashed into the player and had varied their exit trajectories, it'd be almost impossible to differentiate.
So. How to combat this?
You fight the battles you can win. And that is specifically aimed at something that can effect the BGS or PP systems. In realtime, You place an automated watcher on whatever activity you want to monitor and then look for automation, serial activity. If you want to do it it, offline, then same thing but but use hueristics to look for the same activity.
If a bot/automated activity cannot influence the game, then it is pretty useless.
I was involved into an investigation of botting by a player in a Text based MUD. This player, would login, go to a shop, buy his armour and weapons, food and drinks, and then go to the exact same spot, and kill the exact same mobs. He would then move on to the next spot and do the same. For hours. Never changed. Obviously he was reported, we watched (we were able to shadow any player) saw him perform the same monotonous routine all evening. So. We banned his account. Job done.
Well, no not really. His father contacted us; verified his sons name and account and explained he had some AHD type going on. He basically sat and performed the exact same actions until he went to bed. So we felt obliged, to re-activate his account.
The point of that parable? Nopt everything you see, even with your own eyes, is automated. Detecting true automation to 'beyond doubt', is very, very difficult. So to combat that, you pick the points of high value targets, and watch those. Auto-pilot? Not worth watching. BGS? PP? Absolutely! Mission running? Absolutely!
Finally, I saw someone mention to add more difficulty to interdiction avoidance. That would certainly throw a spanner in the engine, but it'd also make the game less enjoyable. If you want to protect your money, you watch the safe. Not the door. For sure you can create barricades, but how difficult is it then for real customers to do business?
Protect the real assets, the rest is fluff.
Real is not the same as significant. Did you ever play WoW? Just saying...