I thought login in and out was the eassiest part of the bot..
Automation and Scripting - An investigation into further abuses of BGS and Powerplay
- Thread starter CMDR Tom D
- Start date
There has to be something that can be done about the botting.
Unfortunately it’s becoming harder to detect and ban. Bots are getting much smarter.
There is a group that we are dealing with that I have always suspected of botting or hacking. The worst case is hacking and I would not be surprised if someone found out how to get their client to do some dev magic.
Unfortunately it’s becoming harder to detect and ban. Bots are getting much smarter.
There is a group that we are dealing with that I have always suspected of botting or hacking. The worst case is hacking and I would not be surprised if someone found out how to get their client to do some dev magic.
FD can detect dev magic, specialy if it involves skiping any step a normal user couldn't do.
The other day I thought I faced a trading bot, turned out it was just a lazy commander watching HBO at the same time, he blew up with 300 Paladium in its cargo because he was waiting for a show to finish before jumping, his answer: meh, that I can recover in just one run LOL
New CZ NPCs now have phasing weps. That may help the situation.
Nope. That isn’t the case.
If you want this game to grow you have to accept how people play and make it impossible to do the things that you don't want them to do. Combat logging is a great example. Put a 15 minute combat log timer in. Problem solved. But they don't do that. It makes you wonder if they want there to be real consequences in the game. Lets take botting. Botting is legal in alot of games. I don't like bots, but if they were in the game and couldn't combat log then we could blow them up. Consequences. Then get rid of the last problem which is solo and private group. Make solo only available until you get the third rank of any rating, and private groups only available till you get your 5th rank. Then make it force you into open. Or just make it open. Welcome to a simulation. You got blown up? welcome to the game.
Unforgiving gameplay mechanics with great player communities are what make simulations work. As soon as you start trying to cater to one playstyle or make certain game mechanics illegal then its not a simulation and its not what was promised. Fix the game mechanics and help new players by talking to them after you blow them up. For alot of players, this game sucked until they got blown up and that invigorated them to want to get a better ship. Freedom is dangerous. Don't try to tame it.
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get rid of solo and private groups?
Just never going to happen. They are part of the original product promise (in lieu of offline mode) and cannot be removed.
Why you think they are a problem is beyond me however.
Please dont make this about the hotel california debate, there are plenty of other threads to smear that nonsense in. This thread is about the use of Bots vs human effort- which kills any powerplay or BGS game. These are two aspects of the game that have brought longevity of player interaction (and continued purchases!!). Kill those and you lose a significant portion of the active player base. Open only does not solve that problem as has been detailed in this thread.....
If they are actually doing what's claimed, then they are cheating, and being a paying customer doesn't make one exempt from the rules.
I’m still rather at a loss as what, exactly, these supposed bots are doing.
Anybody want to share some specifics?
Anybody want to share some specifics?
Because if we accept this as legit, the game changes completely. It will essentially turn to EvE where instead of you yourself flying the missions and doing the combat, you direct agents to do this for you. Since it is massively more powerful than human CMDRs can ever achieve (short of paying people), it would mean that everybody will have to adopt the use of bots or perish. BGS and PowerPlay would become entirely automated. If not, you'll just lose.
In PowerPlay they run fast-track merits in a volume that is impossible to counter by human players. In the BGS, they run missions continuously 24/7, completely overwhelming what a group of human CMDRs can do. This leads to maximum daily influence deltas that are impossible to counter. This will get things moving during pending conflict states, building huge leads before the conflict starts. Then, they use hacks during armed conflcit to dish out massive damage (one-shot kills) while not taking any damage to win wars.
The main thing to take away from this is simply that it creates a volume of activity that human players can't counteract. When you're hit by bots, you lose. Whatever you do.
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Cheating is rife in every online game and I gaurantee you that upwards of 50% of the player base is cheating.
There is nothing you can do about it, I used to play CSGO and it's unbelievable how many are cheating and they get away with it even with vac and overwatch which takes out 1000's in waves can't deal with them all.
And they keep coming back!
I've seen videos of CMDR's where they are blasting away with all guns yet have no charge or pips to weapons and no one bats an eye [where is it] .
Maybe the sentient AI has shown up and wan't to control the PP in ED?
There is nothing you can do about it, I used to play CSGO and it's unbelievable how many are cheating and they get away with it even with vac and overwatch which takes out 1000's in waves can't deal with them all.
And they keep coming back!
I've seen videos of CMDR's where they are blasting away with all guns yet have no charge or pips to weapons and no one bats an eye [where is it] .
Maybe the sentient AI has shown up and wan't to control the PP in ED?
Yeah this is absolute and if anyone in the community wants to try to claim or act like this is just another ‘approved play style’ that we should ‘accept’, I’d seriously have to ask the question; what are you smoking?
This game was meant to be played, by actually players at the controls of their ships that have to use some actual learned skill and real time decision making, to achieve a desired outcome.
This transcends any debate this community has ever engaged in; be it Combat Logging, Modes, PvP vs. PvE, etc.
None of us should be ok with this, Frontier in the least. These accounts should be banned and the IPs logged and banned by FDev, and anti botting measures should be coded and implemented into the game.
How is this not a hack? Does FDEV ban hackers or not?
Oh they do. But sometimes gaming companies let bots stay for a bit so they can detect their movements and other things. WoW does this too.
For this they usually end up banning in waves. Instead of a case by case basis.
But with how cheap the game is, and how you don't have to engineer, be seen in open, literally there is no threat to the bots. *cough* just like human players *cough*
They get to skip all the risk and reward, they get to skip all the meat of the game and start going to work against anyone.
This is why colonia is full of alt accounts and human players. Its why Engineers are locked behind the ones in the bubble before you can access those ones out there.
Nobody needed engineers then, and they dont need them now.
Because Elite has no rules set for linear progression. They can just skip to late game gameplay and start wars or dunk on people.
It sucks.
Well that makes actual sense, thank you for a concise answer.
I’m going to assume the normal channels have been contacted (support@frontier/community@frontier) and this either is under investigation or has not yielded an immediate resolution.
Not so sure what 56+ pages of posting is going to do, except give material to those doing this to do things to themselves I can’t say, but we all know what they are. Packet data would have to be sampled from Frontier’s end. An undercover operation to infiltrate and expose this is likely to fail as well. Mega-damage hacks are likely being accomplished via memory injection, and this typically requires an additional layer of software to detect, like the oft-broken PunkBuster, which can be very obvious to anyone doing this level of coding.
And while I am an admitted BGS non-manipulator and PowerPlay module tourist, I am not unsympathetic here either. But I do realize that official investigations of this nature are not always quick nor are results immediate. I do think an official statement along the lines of “We are looking into this, and actions, including litigation will be taken” would go a long way towards bringing this under control.
Unfortunately, this will become increasingly common; just like memes, the tactics of harassment and gaslighting are repeated online and people subconsciously or deliberately copy the examples which prove most effective. In this case, this is typical abusive behaviour where they deliberately turn around what they're doing and claiming other people are doing it... with the aim of either discrediting the original complainant, upsetting them by destroying their reputation, and trying to get them to doubt their sanity by crowd-sourcing everyone else into their targeted bullying.
And I've not just had that personally, but I'm watching someone trying to do exactly this with the BGS simulation in Elite Dangerous too. Look at the ratings for United Imperial Dairies. Frontier have confirmed it's just been a single person since June trying to over throw them. July was when I first notice this, and as you can see, I've held it consistent since then, but by my estimate, he's putting in 8 hours a day or more to try and overthrow it, even months later. Before this he dedicated a month or so to removing them from another system. I know who it is; alongside bizarre comics ranting about the harassment he's sent to an Ex-girlfriend, trying to forge it as if I were the one doing it, my stalker has dropped plenty of claims to be active here too.
People ask then why someone would bother botting the BGS; there's your reason. Genuine mental illness or just a pure hate filled drive to do anything to harm someone else they've become obsessed with, no matter how trivial it may seem from the outside.
Indeed, the fact it is seen as trivial becomes a weapon itself. When I tried to discuss it here previously, all it did was raise myself as a target for some of the names in this thread mocking the OP too; any admission of suffering makes you a further target for more bullies. And those who lack empathy, or just attention to detail won't spot whether it's part of a wider pattern of stalking and harassment; so when they say "it's just a computer game", they accidentally minimize your suffering.
Of course, if they're botting and you're not... you lose. If you bot to try and keep up, they gloat they've dragged you down to their level, and try and get your account banned for the same botting, because they know it'll hurt you more than it hurts them.
That is why Frontier, and everyone else, needs to leave no space for cheats and other parasites on the human soul. Because once cracks start appearing, the whole wall comes down sooner or later.