Automation and Scripting - An investigation into further abuses of BGS and Powerplay

[sollisb]

Silence, as they say, is consent.

The only response we've received from FDev in this thread has been a call for silence (go through official - read: inefficacious - channels). They hope the matter will just go away, but it is not just going away for we players.

And now we are being told talk of how to make bots work is not permitted here. So non-cheaters are not even allowed to have the information to get back on an even footing with the cheaters, who, remember, are still are not being dealt with by FDev.

That is favouratism for the bot-makers, and is utterly deplorable and shameful.

And the cheaters look gleefully on as their bots break the rules and the game.

The question is; What do you want FDev to do? Monitor every account? 24/7? And.. Even if they did, a decent coder could write something they cannot detect. And.. so far all I've seen, is someone claiming, one system out of thousands is being targeted. The only evidence is apparent auto undock. The rest is supposition at best.

I think this is being blown way out of proportion to the 'actual' problem, which in my mind, is a tiny minority. Not saying it's right, but FDev resources aren't endless. And what they do have I'd prefer to see fixing the bugs and giving us more play things.

 

[Macros Black]

"Since all the bots ran applications that reported CAPI data to Third party developer services , and were not using them anonymously , we were able to track their movements"

I'm curious as to how you got access to CAPI data for named accounts from these third party developer services?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

"Since all the bots ran applications that reported CAPI data to Third party developer services , and were not using them anonymously , we were able to track their movements"

I'm curious as to how you got access to CAPI data for named accounts from these third party developer services?

Friends in high places.

 

[CaptainKirby]

The question is; What do you want FDev to do? Monitor every account? 24/7? And.. Even if they did, a decent coder could write something they cannot detect. And.. so far all I've seen, is someone claiming, one system out of thousands is being targeted. The only evidence is apparent auto undock. The rest is supposition at best.

I think this is being blown way out of proportion to the 'actual' problem, which in my mind, is a tiny minority. Not saying it's right, but FDev resources aren't endless. And what they do have I'd prefer to see fixing the bugs and giving us more play things.

Why are you even participating in this discussion? According to you...

1) there's barely evidence of cheating.
2) only a minority of players is affected by the cheating.
3) FDev can't do anything about it, because
4) cheating is easy and cannot be detected.

But:

1) The evidence is clear enough to convince FDev in the past to ban accounts. And it was just detected by simple observation by players, not even by much more effective algorithms like there are in place in other games.
2) AOS has 100-ish members. Mahon has at least 1000-ish pledges. And that's just the amount of players that are demonstrably affected. Where's the threshold of affected players at which you consider this issue to be relevant?
3) FDev has way more data to use for bot detection than you seem to believe. Every popular game has to fight cheaters, and the efforts to create detection algorithms will pay off when it helps to prevent players from quitting the game due to cheating.
4) FDev created a highly complex game. I trust them to have decent enough coders to use all the data they have and create algorithms that detect the scripts of any decent coder, simply because they got a huge edge thanks to the previously mentioned data and their understanding of the game mechanics.

This whole debate is a no-brainer. If they can't handle these bots, the game is pretty much dead already. It's like the end of the bees, the flowers and the humans. First, the BGS and PP will die. Many player groups will lose their motivation. Then PvP will die and the last player groups will break up. Then the community will go silent. And that's effectively the end of ED.

 

[sollisb]

Never understood this love of the shadow server that seems to infect FDev's punishment policy. I mean seriously, get caught botting and you should be out of the door.

'Oh but they can't affect the BGS on the shadow server!' Great. Pretty sure they can't affect the BGS with a permaban either.

Frankly, you could set them on fire for all I care.

*shrugs*

Maybe it's because Fdev allow automation via voice attack? Maybe it's because they have no actual proof? You cannot just go around terminating access because some randomer on the internet accuses someone of using a bot.

 

[sollisb]

Why are you even participating in this discussion? According to you...

1) there's barely evidence of cheating.
2) only a minority of players is affected by the cheating.
3) FDev can't do anything about it, because
4) cheating is easy and cannot be detected.

But:

1) The evidence is clear enough to convince FDev in the past to ban accounts. And it was just detected by simple observation by players, not even by much more effective algorithms like there are in place in other games.
2) AOS has 100-ish members. Mahon has at least 1000-ish pledges. And that's just the amount of players that are demonstrably affected. Where's the threshold of affected players at which you consider this issue to be relevant?
3) FDev has way more data to use for bot detection than you seem to believe. Every popular game has to fight cheaters, and the efforts to create detection algorithms will pay off when it helps to prevent players from quitting the game due to cheating.
4) FDev created a highly complex game. I trust them to have decent enough coders to use all the data they have and create algorithms that detect the scripts of any decent coder, simply because they got a huge edge thanks to the previously mentioned data and their understanding of the game mechanics.

This whole debate is a no-brainer. If they can't handle these bots, the game is pretty much dead already. It's like the end of the bees, the flowers and the humans. First, the BGS and PP will die. Many player groups will lose their motivation. Then PvP will die and the last player groups will break up. Then the community will go silent. And that's effectively the end of ED.

Show me that statistics? Show me the numbers? Oh? You don't have any? What do you have? A YouTube video? Well hallelujah! We're saved. Let's just ban everyone that appears in a YT video.

At the end of the day, my stats tell me the thousands of other player unaffected by this, take way more precedence than this minority.

You guys are fighting over who controls which insignificant system in an online game and how they should do it? And you want a company to spend money on making you feel good. Ok..

 

[bitstorm]

Kirby's got a point here perhaps, Bitstorm. It's a weird twist on the Streisand-effect that might force FDev to actually act on this.
I know a lot of people don't do PP and couldn't give a rats behind about all of this, but don't the people that do actively participate in PP deserve a fair and level playingfield?

Sure, I was suggesting earlier in the thread that Frontier permit bots.

But in open only, while in solo/pg it's a zero tolerance ban.

Not sure how that would play out, but open only bots would mean it's self-policing.

While solo/pg bots is really just about who can buy the most accounts.

You could end up with some really cool bots being built, this would be good publicity for Frontier and it's possible you could end up with combat bots out performing the ED AI. (well you would with engineering i suppose)

I really have no idea if this would be a good idea though, I mean think about the panic AI is causing in the real world, potentially many many unexpected repercussions.

 

[BarryCarlyon]

When I walk the halls of Alliance Discord comms I see Chat Bots that engage with external databases.

All said Discord/Chat bot does is optimal display and update of a Google Spreadsheet.

Basically

- The Discord Bot is to Google Spreadsheet
- What Voice Attack is to Elite.

A shiny macro to jump some hoops.

Not control/play the whole game

 

[BarryCarlyon]

"Since all the bots ran applications that reported CAPI data to Third party developer services , and were not using them anonymously , we were able to track their movements"

I'm curious as to how you got access to CAPI data for named accounts from these third party developer services?

The same way services such as EDDB and EDSM do, locally running journal/CAPI reading applications, such as EDMC, EDDI etc. Any data uploaded to the system is tagged with a unique/temporary identifier for the CMDR doing the uploading using that application.

Next question being: WHY do the bots run EDMC or similar?

See the same reasoning as to why they fly in open.
And they need market data to be up to date to find the best/worst trades to support/damage BGS or money to fast track PP.
And to track how "well" they are doing damaging BGS/influence etc.

 

[NeilF]

In an attempt to bring some rational thought to this as there's some strong comments flying around?

We agree scripts are being used?

We agree to some CMDRs it's a significant issue, while to other, basically no issue at all.

So surely FD need to look at the matter, and if it can be addressed within a sensible time frame of effort in a reasonably effective way, then great! If not, then that's a shame. ie: If bots have tell tale signatures than FD scripts can easily pick up, and then react too (ie: ban accounts), then bingo.

Us throwing around accusations of how important it is, and if FD must do it or not in truth amount to nothing surely? - ie: It's all well and good arguing how important this matter is/isn't... And if FD should/shouldn't address it.. But ultimately surely it comes down to can FD even address it, and is it cost effective for them to do so?

 

[CaptainKirby]

Show me that statistics? Show me the numbers?

Of what?

At the end of the day, my stats tell me the thousands of other player unaffected by this, take way more precedence than this minority.

Show me that statistics? Show me the numbers?

And you want a company to spend money on making you feel good.

Yes. I want an enternainment company that I pay to entertain me to spend the money I pay them to make me feel entertained. What do you want FDev to spend the money on? Skydiving?

Seriously, why are you so keen to argue that FDev shouldn't do anything about these bots? Are you using bots? Are you a cheater?

 

[Deareim]

"Since all the bots ran applications that reported CAPI data to Third party developer services , and were not using them anonymously , we were able to track their movements"

I'm curious as to how you got access to CAPI data for named accounts from these third party developer services?

i ll be curious also as beside raw data in EDDB i don t see how you could it unless... ? Especially if you chose anonymity in Ed connector for example.
For clarity sake, it would be nice OP answer that question.

 

[ilo]

Sure, I was suggesting earlier in the thread that Frontier permit bots.

But in open only, while in solo/pg it's a zero tolerance ban.

Not sure how that would play out, but open only bots would mean it's self-policing.

While solo/pg bots is really just about who can buy the most accounts.

You could end up with some really cool bots being built, this would be good publicity for Frontier and it's possible you could end up with combat bots out performing the ED AI. (well you would with engineering i suppose)

I really have no idea if this would be a good idea though, I mean think about the panic AI is causing in the real world, potentially many many unexpected repercussions.

For bots fighting bots there might be other games that already have the API in place. Programmers that want to program AI should use any other game where this is not against the terms.

 

[GG7]

Show me that statistics? Show me the numbers? Oh? You don't have any? What do you have? A YouTube video? Well hallelujah! We're saved. Let's just ban everyone that appears in a YT video.

At the end of the day, my stats tell me the thousands of other player unaffected by this, take way more precedence than this minority.

You guys are fighting over who controls which insignificant system in an online game and how they should do it? And you want a company to spend money on making you feel good. Ok..

GO AWAY!

The proof of how rampant this cheating is is everywhere if you know what you are looking for, and can pick bots out from human players. The group with Mahon did just that and spent months gathering data.

You just don't want to admit there is a problem, so you are throwing up all this nonsense in an attempt to deny/avoid an obvious problem.

If you are not willing to admit the obvious, you are part of the problem.

As I said...GO AWAY! Others who can grasp the ramifications of what is going on have already wasted way too much bandwidth in responding to your inane drivel.

 

[BarryCarlyon]

i ll be curious also as beside raw data in EDDB i don t see how you could it unless... ? Especially if you chose anonymity in Ed connector for example.
For clarity sake, it would be nice OP answer that question.

The identifier is anonymous, (EDDN recently made a change to make EVERYONE anonymous on an ID that changes regularly, which makes this sort of tracking difficult but of course you shouldn't be tracking people via EDDN like this), which means we are doing traffic pattern analysis, watching for heat spots where people perform irregular activities, and watching for particular types of data coming over the feed. And associating that with other information, like BGS influence etc.

The most obvious one is tracking Identifiers that travel via Soholia a metric tonneof times in a week (more than "enough" to maintain a rating level) for example, and correlating that will in game observed behaviour.

Anonymity in EDMC still means you have an ID the ID just isn't your CMDR name.

Edit: An example update consumed by EDDB via EDDN: https://ross.eddb.io/eddn/log/30988985

Note the uploaderID in the header.

 

[oscarolim]

Guess voice attack and similar software should be banned too.

https://imgur.com/dAkBKUX

 

[iFred]

The so called "proofs" are not enough in my opinion. It doesn´t convince me at all, I have seen so many idiots flying in the last 4 years that someone who is leaving a station with gear down going straight for 10 km could be simply AFK.

FD though should be able to extract telemety data from their servers that should make it possible to clearly identify bots.

But regarding the amount of players in total I don´t think that a couple of bots are harming someones gameplay. It might be a problem, but regarding the current situation of Elite we should concentrate on real problems and not on a couple of guys who are disappointed because of powerplay.

 

[NeilF]

OK! I've got the solution... When you ask for docking permission you get:-

 

[Rob At Work]

I am three fifths of a rob ot - is that ok?

ps - just realised if we are rounding up to 1 decimal place then, I'm in trouble

 

[oscarolim]

OK! I've got the solution... When you ask for docking permission you get:-

https://i.imgur.com/Dc2QNMt.png

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...a-clic/ceipnlhmjohemhfpbjdgeigkababhmjc?hl=en