Proposal Discussion: Things that could help player groups identify a possible bot attack

CMDR Jal'Bur

C
To kick off the discussion on the first point in this thread [ Anti-Botting Agreement | Frontier Forums ] and to continue on from the discussions on the [A-BA Discord] there are a few practical changes that frontier could make to the game to allow players to better identify suspect accounts and report them to frontier for verification.

The open-only discussion has been thrashed to death and frontier have made no indication that they will ever implement it. It would only be a partial solution to BGS and PP botting anyway, due to how p2p networking works. A clever operator of a bot could ensure that they never instance with other players via p2p. Even if one were able to instance with a botter at best open-only would lead to video evidence of robotic flight behaviour or video evidence of god-moding, which frontier would still need to verify.

So the ideas that have come up so far centre around providing players with better information regarding activity in a system beyond the existing in-game panels, including:

  • more detailed traffic reports. Currently there is no way to tell if 90 pythons on the traffic report is 90 different pythons or 1 python making 90 visits. Showing the top 10 visitors to the system and how many times they visited over 24 hours could be a way of flagging suspect pilots.
  • longer bounty boards, not just top 5 but maybe top 20 and better crime reports - showing a more detailed break-down of who is picking up bounties
  • a better bounty report, showing for example the top 10 CMDRs dropping bounties over 24hrs
  • better trade reports, showing not just what is being sold but how much, including the average profit margin

The intent of this post is to kick off discussions on this one area of how to spot a bot and how to make it easier for players to spot bots and report them to frontier. There are holes in this idea. Go ahead and point them out ;)

The weight of opinion is leaning towards slightly more detailed traffic reports - ie.. an indication of unique accounts involved. Everything else requires compromising too much subterfuge. It should be restated for those who are struggling to understand, that only FD can decide if anything untoward is going on. The sole purpose of this suggestion is to explore community acceptable ways to decrease the number of false positives when reporting possible cases.
 

BL1P

BL1P
I think for who has visited the system ( the traffic report ).
There should be anonymity, only if you dont dock.
If you dock then you are known to the system authorities and your details can be recorded.
But in the traffic report it should list how many different pythons for example have jumped into the system and not say 20 pythons if it was the same python 20 times.
As for the Docking list it should give Ship name, Ship id and Cmdr name.
You supply those when asking for docking and so it cannot be avoided except by not docking.

Edit: if you are scanned by security without docking you should loose the anonymity too.
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
Currently you can divine information about murder and bounties with a bit of recording. I don't think the detail needs to be too much greater than that on other areas, to be an indication of "worthy of a look.
 

Bashy81

B
what id want to help identify cheats is a top5 Inf board at each system. But that would change the game , becoming more than ever an escalating exploit-grind race, encourage more bullying and bitterness in some cases & give bigger groups an added advantage. it would help lone commanders see what theyre up against tho & consequently have more effect on the galaxy, if that's their bag. One small change, lots of knock on effects. Is it worth it? hmmm
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
CMDR Jal'Bur said:
  • more detailed traffic reports. Currently there is no way to tell if 90 pythons on the traffic report is 90 different pythons or 1 python making 90 visits. Showing the top 10 visitors to the system and how many times they visited over 24 hours could be a way of flagging suspect pilots.
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I don't see how 1 python making 90 visits could be immediately determined as suspect, or any number of visits for that matter
  • longer bounty boards, not just top 5 but maybe top 20 and better crime reports - showing a more detailed break-down of who is picking up bounties
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I don't see how this matters either; I can accrue multiple multi-billion credit bounty in minutes if I wanted. Is that suspicious?

  • a better bounty report, showing for example the top 10 CMDRs dropping bounties over 24hrs
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Again, I saw another player with enough for an FC in a single bounty drop. Would that be considered suspicious?
  • better trade reports, showing not just what is being sold but how much, including the average profit margin
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What does that matter for spotting bots?

So... I don't see how any of this helps spot bots more? Rather, this would just fuel more baseless accusations.
 

Semivivus

Semivivus
I like some of your suggestions, not for the sake of bot hunting but because I'd like to know more of what's happening in the system I'm in. Otherwise, I believe some folks will get upset over the lack of anonimity, so CMDR lists probably better be restricted to bounty boards.
 

Vetinari

V
Im all for more anonymous information available but not for named ships or Cmdrs, that will lead to witch hunts and false accusations. The top bounties I can live with, that is already there so more of them doesnt make much difference really.

Id like to see Trade stats, lore wise If my group ran the station then we'd expect a tip-off from the market regulators that someone is dumping goods as a loss-maker. This is economic crime or even a terrorist attack in all probability. Either way its probably an attack on the system.. Same could be said for Crime Stats and a potential attacker becomes known.

I would be careful about just looking at results, they can be obtained in many ways by bot-like or heavily automated behaviour, Id be happier with a better more robust reporting procedure that we all had confidence in. Far more people including me will be unaffected but dont want bots or cheats in the game so we can get behind the cause if still remaining sceptical about how many people are actually doing it.

Mostly anonymous would maybe present more data to work with but I do feel Frontier would be inundated with false claims for a long time. But then I think surely an AI or program could analyse that player for Frontier so how difficult is it really?
 

Disemboweled Ego

D
Having extra numbers would let you detect BGS attacks, but not conclusively prove that it's being done by bots unless you can say CMDR X alone did Y amount of stuff over 24 hours which in normal gameplay would take Z hours of gemeplay (where Z is some unreasonably high number for a human to do consistently).

What would you need to prove it most conclusively and how much of that is actually realistic to ask for?

Maybe a good compromise for those worried about anonymity even for the milder aggregated stats would be only having those statistics for ships that have auto-dock and supercruise assist modules - even today using stuff like alexa or other assistants means giving up some privacy for convinience.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
If you are going to want more information, you will require more gaming to go with it. For example- make it so that if you are detected you appear on the traffic boards. That way, you can smuggle yourself in (which requires skill). A hypothetical bot would not care about that, but for a switched on BGS attack it would add more spice. So you could ghost a system if you ran cold, and ran away from scans.
 

Dillon Fallon

Dillon Fallon
This could also be read that you want more information of what other players are doing in your systems so you know what work to do to counter it. Then it becomes a game of who could throw players at the grind. No thanks.

I know you don't care about small groups, but that kind of information being available to larger groups would make it impossible.

Tell you what, how about players can only affect the BGS if you say so? This is an awful idea that forgets that this is a game and not a bot hunting program.

Rubbernuke said:
If you are going to want more information, you will require more gaming to go with it. For example- make it so that if you are detected you appear on the traffic boards. That way, you can smuggle yourself in (which requires skill). A hypothetical bot would not care about that, but for a switched on BGS attack it would add more spice. So you could ghost a system if you ran cold, and ran away from scans.
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I guarantee we'd then be told that bots are being programmed to use silent running.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Dillon Fallon said:
I guarantee we'd then be told that bots are being programmed to use silent running.
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And I'd laugh myself silly if they did. What I don't like seeing is that 'bots' get all the attention when there are gaping mile wide problems which are much more destructive get passed on by. There are far too many ill thought trough / outdated systems in ED that overlap and cause issues. Fix those and I bet a fair chunk of bot problems would vanish.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
Rubbernuke said:
And I'd laugh myself silly if they did. What I don't like seeing is that 'bots' get all the attention when there are gaping mile wide problems which are much more destructive get passed on by. There are far too many ill thought trough / outdated systems in ED that overlap and cause issues. Fix those and I bet a fair chunk of bot problems would vanish.
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The reason there are bots is because people play the game. And some people like to cheat.

I suppose a renewed emphasis on PP might drive people away and thus reduce botting, so maybe you're onto something! ;)
 
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