Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
missions, trading, combat.
Proposal Discussion Anti Botting Agreement Idea 3.1 Player incentivised, VR compatible in-station "not-a-literal-Captcha"
- Thread starter Jane Turner
- Start date
Two-stage docking procedure.
1. Request docking (please finally implement a direct key-bind for this FDev).
2. You then receive a randomly generated docking authorisation code on your HUD, made up of four letters or numbers that you’d use your Up, Down, Left, and Right menu navigation keys to enter in. For example you might get the code 1134213 which would correspond to an input of U-U-L-R-D-U-L. The mapping for this would be displayed in a legend on your HUD.
Once you’ve repeated back the authorisation code, your docking request is approved and you’re assigned a landing pad.
Of course, the authorisation code would not be something that could be read through the API, so botters couldn’t automate the process.
Personally I wouldn’t find this onerous, but ymmv.
1. Request docking (please finally implement a direct key-bind for this FDev).
2. You then receive a randomly generated docking authorisation code on your HUD, made up of four letters or numbers that you’d use your Up, Down, Left, and Right menu navigation keys to enter in. For example you might get the code 1134213 which would correspond to an input of U-U-L-R-D-U-L. The mapping for this would be displayed in a legend on your HUD.
Once you’ve repeated back the authorisation code, your docking request is approved and you’re assigned a landing pad.
Of course, the authorisation code would not be something that could be read through the API, so botters couldn’t automate the process.
Personally I wouldn’t find this onerous, but ymmv.
Without making changes to the game which would be controversial at best and game breaking at worst the simplest method to tackle bots is to increase in game information about the Commanders who are using the system.
If the station Ui included information on how many unique commanders visited rather than a simple sum total that would help.
If the information then included how many actually docked / used station services that would also help.
If the information also then showed a running total of the BGS bucket for each faction in a similar way to powerplay fortification that might also help BUT would perhaps be a step too far.
Asking for changes to the way the game plays is too high an expectation of what FD will do.
The absolute best you can hope for is more analysis tools.
Also @Riverside , damn son, that is some heavy duty BGSing you are pitching. Where are you based? Just so I know not to accidentally bother you!
If the station Ui included information on how many unique commanders visited rather than a simple sum total that would help.
If the information then included how many actually docked / used station services that would also help.
If the information also then showed a running total of the BGS bucket for each faction in a similar way to powerplay fortification that might also help BUT would perhaps be a step too far.
Asking for changes to the way the game plays is too high an expectation of what FD will do.
The absolute best you can hope for is more analysis tools.
Also @Riverside , damn son, that is some heavy duty BGSing you are pitching. Where are you based? Just so I know not to accidentally bother you!
I would, I don't like pop up ads in real life why the hell would I like them in game.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
That's going to be up next I think - currently we can detect total ship visits and times, but not unique commander numbers. You can divine bounties cashed and murders if you have been collecting data, but everything else is obscured to various degrees - so save your builds for when that one goes live.
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Right, let me throw my plan away together with the bathing water first...
I dunno... BGS game play is one big crippled meta gaming an exploiting fest at the moment anyway. The little factions are getting hammered by the big factions rigging up bounties and killing each others 2nd accounts in wings, and the big factions are getting hammered by bot armies, or so it seems. Fix the darn thing in such a way everybody gets a share, but please without crippling the base game in a way everybody suffers.
Botting is a problem for frontier to sort out, its them giving away accounts for free in the first place.
![[Cancelled Consoleer] boppa_](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/159/159397.jpg?1610496247){kind=avatar}
The problem here is, anything that gets written into the journal can be subject to logic and automation if the 'bot' scripters are given enough time and information.
What is required is something that will ultimately make botting harder and not worth the effort for 99% of the people scripting them. There will always be the dedicated few that see any barrier as simply a challenge to overcome, and that is where Frontier should be employing methods on their backend that can identify and detect automated behaviour.
Some sort of visual challenge and response - but one that doesn't impair gameplay would be a good first step. Frontier should be doing more though. Fairly uncomplex analysis of back-end player action data should be able to identify automated actions quite easily.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
I'm always a big fan of hearing about such plans and extracting from them elements that work, and finding work arounds for the parts that don't
I just realised this could be accomplished in an easier way. For auto-docking, if the player is made to select the landing pad they’ve been assigned from a grid, it would stifle the bot scripts, as they don’t (or shouldn’t) have the ability to read the assigned landing pad.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Just updated the 1st post with this - it's clearer than what was there and also incorporated @ADAMtheWELSHMANz build.
Eh, anything that isn't a literal captcha is just going to be worked around. I mean, I'd love more dynamic gameplay but the core gameplay itself is so easy to automate and there's no way we're getting some sort of insane Supercruise rework to make travelling more complex than point and wait for the bots.
If this was going to work, I think it'd have to be a literal captcha paired with better bot detection, presenting the typical captcha to accounts that aren't acting human. More sophisticated bots could work around this of course, but in any case captchas alone won't be enough.
If this was going to work, I think it'd have to be a literal captcha paired with better bot detection, presenting the typical captcha to accounts that aren't acting human. More sophisticated bots could work around this of course, but in any case captchas alone won't be enough.
If it's Auto-dock and Supercruise assist that is enabling automation, then perhaps those modules could be subject to a random failure rate - a 'module failed' flag that doesn't get unset until the pilot has manually landed the ship at least once. I realise this would have a bearing on genuine new players' enjoyment of the game.
Bots have been around since before supercruise assist, which ultimately just presses J for you at the right time. I would imagine that lots of bots rely on the docking computer though - the docking process is easily the most complex part of most botted activities. Undocking can be bypassed by relogging, but maybe a captcha of some kind to use the docking computer would be a good idea? Not every time of course, but now that you mention it, that does seem to be an important area for bots.
Decouple PvP bounties from BGS input
The thread in a nutshell
There's a thread in the BGS section called 'Alliance Factions!' or something (cba to find it) that should provide some background to the AEDC story, I met an AEDC player (they were docked) in Beta Comae Bernices I think, he had no idea who I was & struck up a conversation, they were complaining about bots & I asked which systems, he named a few I had flipped. I rattled off a few more I had done & he said I took the game too seriously. I said I was glad he didn't take it so seriously, because it meant I would beat him
Annoyed at the 'bot' accusation I then broke protocol & told him my next target, Wolf 393. I flipped it, retreated them & expanded the faction I put in control a few times just to press home the point, I did it alone. The Squadron I am in usually makes a point of having only a single player work any given system each day, although it's not always the same player each day (for variety).
The TCF one was the election that gained them Azeban Orbital. Their leader used it as an example of bots operating in the region, I knew it wasn't bots & having helpfully explained this (and how I knew) came under attack. The attack was fended off & I directed their expansion efforts (with the assistance of a friend) for a while until I was satisfied they had come to appreciate that I wasn't bluffing.
ETA The impression I got from their leader was that others had told him it was bots.
So no, I don't think bots are a big problem, but false accusations of botting are
I think we need an additional proposal, something along the lines of.....
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
I think they should be BGS inert, like the rest of PvP - but I'm not seeing how that is relevant to bottingDecouple PvP bounties from BGS input
You only need one checkpoint at a vital stage, that bot scripts can’t get around, and that would render their entire automation scripts useless.
It would be enough for example if the auto-docking process didn’t begin until your ship enters the mail slot, or at least gets within a very close proximity to it. This might make auto-docking a little less helpful to those who use it, but it would still do the most “difficult” part of the docking for you.
It’s either that, or an authorisation code, or manually selecting the landing pad I think.
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It isn't, but its as much a BGS issue as botting, hence the rest of my previous post...
Reminds me of an old Windows 95 virus I once had...
