Sure, and I could suggest that Frontier fix the bot problem by executing anyone who runs a bot for offences against the state. It might actually be easier for Frontier to take over the world and make cheating a capital crime than to come up with a loophole-free definition of "in Open" and "attack" for BGS actions, but neither is likely to feature on their corporate objectives.
Automation and Scripting - An investigation into further abuses of BGS and Powerplay
- Thread starter CMDR Tom D
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Not so based on your "no affecting player factions in solo/PG" concept which is quite frankly a ridiculous and trollish concept.
Further more, as already pointed out to you several times: Player Factions are just Player requested NPC Factions as opposed to Guilds. Forth-coming squadrons are the closest to the Guild concept but they neither directly affect nor are affected by the underlying BGS. They may support a given PP Power and/or minor faction but that does not mean they are part of that PP Power or faction - they are external agents who are notionally aligned with it. That is it.
Your "alleged fix" is not a fix - it is a troll, nothing more.
For what it's worth, from a CV standpoint the mail slot is possibly the most challenging aspect to automate. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why Frontier a while back got rid of the "undock-and-relog" method of exiting the station. It's not that the slot is a terrifically hard problem, but a viable automation needs to have a >99% success rate, especially in cases like leaving the station where failure equals a mission failure and a rebuy. The visual environment around a station entrance is tricky enough that even a well-tuned analyzer will occasionally lock onto some other rectangular feature and fly towards that instead. If there are trade-loop-bots running now (and the evidence seems to suggest that there are), either someone has put a very considerable effort into solving this problem, or else it's a human-sometimes-in-the-loop solution. One pilot could multitask quite a few such bots via some kind of KVM switching if the scripts simply brought the human in to line up on or otherwise identify the slot.
And as another poster wrote, they could start adding checks that look for computer vision software running in memory. All such client-side countermeasures are ultimately futile, because once you're exploiting the game via impersonating a player rather than through technical hacks, there's no real limit to how well you can pretend. Endgame there is, point a camera at the screen and feed in the bot's inputs via a RaspberryPI presenting as a keyboard and mouse.
You could surely design minigames that would be quite difficult to automate. The problem is that ED allows you to escape from any dangerous situation provided you aren't destroyed in under 15 seconds. Back when the suspected bots were flying in open, it was reported that they would simply menu log if scanned or interdicted. Given the infinite patience of bots, a script could do that all day until it lucked into an instance where it doesn't face the Turing Test minigame.
No, in the end the only real solution is for Frontier to police this. If it is a high enough priority for them, they have all the data they need to sort out accounts that are performing beyond what a human could reasonably achieve. As CV/ML/AI advances, it will not be possible to prevent all game automation, but the scripter who wants to remain undetected can be limited to doing no better than a really dedicated human player.
While I have a small amount of admiration for the coders who have developed these bots (it still took a fair amount of effort to do), it is still abhorrent to ANY MMO game to have bots doing work that humans could not possibly achieve in the same timeframe.
Unfortunately, it is 100% impossible to stop. The ability to read a screen AND translate this to readable and actionable data by a script is unstoppable.
There is only one way to effectively block this sort of thing from happening, and that is to use system-invasive monitoring software to look for running processes that could be used to run such scripts - Python interpreters, or exe's that inhabit specific memory addresses, etc. I believe WoW and Blizzard games did (or still do) use such tools.
Unfortunately, there are MANY useful external tools for Elite that also use such things, and they would probably be blocked too.
Because no bot appears to interfere with Elite's running code, I fear absolutely nothing automated can be introduced to stop bots, and it can only be reported and acted upon by visual observation.
Unfortunately, it is 100% impossible to stop. The ability to read a screen AND translate this to readable and actionable data by a script is unstoppable.
There is only one way to effectively block this sort of thing from happening, and that is to use system-invasive monitoring software to look for running processes that could be used to run such scripts - Python interpreters, or exe's that inhabit specific memory addresses, etc. I believe WoW and Blizzard games did (or still do) use such tools.
Unfortunately, there are MANY useful external tools for Elite that also use such things, and they would probably be blocked too.
Because no bot appears to interfere with Elite's running code, I fear absolutely nothing automated can be introduced to stop bots, and it can only be reported and acted upon by visual observation.
I read somewhere in the thread about an idea for a CAPTCA system - but unless the 'question' was so badly obscured to make scanning it impossible, it would be trivial for a bot to read the question, pick out the keyword and using a database created by the developer, to just match the image to the keyword - FDev are not going to spend many development hours on introducing a system that would ultimately inconvenience players. (personally I wouldn't carfe too much, as long as the CAPTCHA was infrequent).
And minigames are, after all, learnable processes that could easily be adapted by a script. IF a script can undock, hyperspace, refuel and dock all by itself, adding minigame rules would very likely be trivial. I don't know if these current bots can escape interdiction (apart from the boost/highwake option) - but I bet coding that in wouldn't be too difficult, after all, all it needs is to know the x/y location of the escape vector and constantly move the ship in that direction.
Further more, with a suitable setup there are ways that automation tools can be used without the system being affected by them even knowing the tools are being used. There are (at least) TWO main ways this can be done, but I will not go into the details here as it could potentially be seen as advocating cheating - which I do not condone.
Yes.. sadly this is also relatively easy - although such things CAN be detected using the processes I mentioned previously.
I think one thing to keep in mind that, ATEOTD, these ARE just script kiddies, and I suspect using such advanced techniques are possibly above them, I don't think we're dealing with master coders here - I mean if they are they really need to do something more productive with their time
(unless these scripts are easily obtainable and for sale - then I guess we'll be in EVE territory (script use there used to be big business - although I have no idea if that still goes on).Edit: I just realised what setup you're talking about - and yes.. that wouldn't be detectable at all. *sighs*
The key point here would be the screen reading/interpretation aspect but stopping that would also necessarily prevent streaming/videos/screenshots - allow any of those and botting would still be possible. Even with out it, blind chance macro based botting may still be feasible.
I agree that adding mini-games is not a viable option to prevent botting and more often than not annoys end-users in general.
Active manual policing of the issues in play is the only real way to deal with botting in general. Yes, automated tools can help identify potential bots and flag the relevant accounts for investigation but should never be used to auto-penalise individuals. The automated means of detecting potential cheaters is anything but flawless nor without room for error.
No, FD can't stop botting. This is undeniable.
Yes, there are some ways for FD to notice when a bot "sticks it up and says Hi". They could implement these even knowing they wouldn't see them all.
However, this discussion is completely wasted, because the other thing you can guarantee is that whatever they are doing FD will say nothing about it. They will maintain OPSEC and neither confirm nor deny anything about how they are are watching for bots or what they are doing about them when they spot them. Because doing anything else would be STUPID, and whatever you may think about their design decisions they sure aren't that.
Yes, there are some ways for FD to notice when a bot "sticks it up and says Hi". They could implement these even knowing they wouldn't see them all.
However, this discussion is completely wasted, because the other thing you can guarantee is that whatever they are doing FD will say nothing about it. They will maintain OPSEC and neither confirm nor deny anything about how they are are watching for bots or what they are doing about them when they spot them. Because doing anything else would be STUPID, and whatever you may think about their design decisions they sure aren't that.
That much is well known - shadow bans are the main vehicle for dealing with breaches of the EULA/ToS/CoC.
We may not know when they are applied to specific accounts - except perhaps if we are personally being sanctioned by the measure.
Because your post suggested you were working together. Which made me wonder how exactly. If the botting is still ongoing then FD don't appear to be very effective so I can only assume they are helping you in other ways.
On occasion the Alliance factions have come across on these forums as somewhat arrogant in their stance against other pmf especially new ones who are inserted in systems you claim. It crossed my mind that this attitude was the result of a close relationship with Fdev.
In the interests of transparency would you be prepared to say just what exactly it is Fdev have done for the Alliance as a result of their collaboration into Bots?
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So you are advocating that frontier run software that spy on whatelse is running on their customers computers? You can't see any way that might go badly?
Not sure what point you are arguing here as at no point have i suggested that this is a game breaking issue. It is however relatively easy and accessible. And wont go away on its own. Of course things need to be prioritised. My commentary was to cahllenge the numerous posts here claiming they doubted bots were possible, or that tehy couldn't fly or dock a ship, or that somehow the solution is to put everyone in open. All three of those views are fallacies.
Agreed. Except can you really imagine a commercial company adding monitoring software t its game to see what else your computer is running? It would be a PR disaster and a potential legal minefield.
I'd be interested to understand HOW you think this is policed by simply looking at available server side data? At what point does the length of your game session and the monotony of your system jumps. station visits and mission selections become strong enough evidence for a commercial entity such as fdev to issue a ban?
The history presented in this thread does suggest that frontier have banned accounts before but only after significant circumstantial evidence has been presented by dedicated player groups to begin the process. I am sure Fdev could do more by having some resources dedicated to the issue but they will always be behind the curve and playing catchup. I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of false flag claims from the community too. There is a point at which the cost to try and do better in tis area simply doesn't produce a benefit.
I think it depends on the why the bots is written.
I think its just as likely that the bots may be written just for the technical challenge of doing something like this, as much as for the in game advantages they may bring. The simplest way to manage interdiction for the bot is just to log out. and then log in again. Remember the bot is most likely still harmelss but has LOTS of cash so expect it to be running an A class cutter. There isn't much in the way of NPCs that are going to be sent against a harmless pilot that are can take down a cutter in 15 seconds.
However if someone wanted the technical challenge, then yes i can imagine them wanting to be able to beat the interdiction mini game - depends if they think it's worth the effort or not?
So basically some people did FD a big favour by adding persistent NPCs to the game
Could always disable docking computers at certain systems just the one in 3 chance "I'm sorry commander but our automated docking system is under maintenance at the moment you will have to dock manually"would prob solve it
It's also a really nice addition to the game without the anit-bot feature.
You could view it that way, but FD do not.So basically some people did FD a big favour by adding persistent NPCs to the game
VoiceAttack is not nofficial and supported tool by FD, Neither, indeed, are any of the external tools. So that lays waste to that argument. I know I use VoiceAttack to automate a lot of stuff. I'm actually almost deaf, so you can imagine, VA is pretty useless to me for anything but it's automation abilities.
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