That's why I gave a non-boffin warning. I'm happy to bow to your wisdom.
This, of course, depends on Power Play actually mattering. It could go away completely and I wouldn't really notice. My only involvement in Power Play has been purely module collecting. The people, places and politics couldn't matter less.
I haven't participated in a CG in I can't remember how long. I've never gotten invovled in CG's because the outcome has mattered, only the income. Thargoids do not interest or concern me. I've seen them, scanned them, shot them, cleaned up station messes they've left. But they are going to continue to do what they are going to do regardless of our participation. And I don't think I've even flown through Lave in over a year. It's of no interest or use to me. If the star went nova and the system were sucked into a black hole, I'd still not notice. Unlike many, I don't have any ties to the 1984 version or any other bits of historic Elite.
That's exactly what makes them unimportant... "Don't like it here, then leave." applies far too much to Elite. There's no real reason to bind one's self to any particular system. There's no actual benefit to it. If we had player bases, or some actual financial ties - investments paying weekly or the like, then there would be an actual reason to take an interest in things. If boarders could actually be closed to pilots of one power or another - or we could actually belong to our Player Named Factions (which we can't currently, potentially ever).
as as has been pointed out this could be accomplished by a single determined commander. i've flipped systems with larger populations solo against groups of commanders for one simple reason...
pmf's or groups of players who are adept at expansion but don't pay attention to wars in other systems they have conquered and left behind.
i call it the alexander the great syndrome.
pmf's or groups of players who are adept at expansion but don't pay attention to wars in other systems they have conquered and left behind.
i call it the alexander the great syndrome.
You’ve been here for years, and I have no idea why.
Your constant presence on the forums seems to indicate some sort of seeking of validation through community, but you constantly rubbish everything is a shared communal asset. You put down anything that you can’t directly own by yourself.
Why are you even in this thread?
Groups care about the systems they hold collectively, as much as you do about your ships and bank balance.
Group’s claims to systems is no less real than your claim to ships. Or wealth. Or whatever virtual thing it is that you do actually care about.
Botting is a huge threat to the game and will be devastating to the community.
There are now 3 posts looking at the notion of “If they’re doing it - you should too”
In eight months time it will be irrelevant who did it first or who fired the first shot.
Everyone will have their eyes on GitHub and be tinkering with code and a couple of spare accounts.
The BGS will become a toxic wasteland.
Good death to Alliance! Alongside Fed and Emp.
Sole Hunter
Banned
imagine botting in a game with no trading and with minimal sandbox elements lol.
Maybe I’m an idiot (its been known) but I’m not getting your point.
This is my first MMO so I’ve got nothing to compare it to.
Are you saying that botting is usually done for personal wealth? Or are you saying that trade has very little BGS effect? Are you saying that the type of claim that a group has to systems their PMF governs is so “at arm’s length” that no one would do it?
Genuinely interested in your take on this.
Sole Hunter
Banned
Yes, people bot for personal gain and to do RMT.
it's a powerful incentive. whenever games present any type of reward for any type of 'grind' (in its most wide meaning) there is always people ready to pay real money for it instead. if the game itself does not offer that option the next best thing is to pay others for the grind, and here is where bots can become very lucrative.
i think he means that having random balls on a map tagged with some pmf name that only a 0.00028% of the playerbase would even notice is really low value and hardly anyone would pay real money for that. i would agree but that's subjective, and there is always that guy. i don't think, however, that this volume would be remotely comparable to what other games can generate. by the way, this isn't limited to mmo, any game with grindy 'progression' and with no ingame 'paid shortcut' option is susceptible to create a parallel market.
Truth be told, I have no need for the community or any validation. What little we can actually own really is the only thing that does matter in the game. Everything else is akin to pre-rendered backgrounds. They're just there. Now, if I could actually destroy a station, a megaship, a planet, a star, an entire star system... then they'd matter.
I get that groups like to play their little herd-and-guard games, but they're not what this game was designed to be. It's not Elite: Risk or Elite: Twilight Imperium. Hate to break it to people, but it's just not. Not any more than Windows is a Solitaire delivery system. It's just the smallest portion of what it does. I liken it to purchasing an entire airport and airline just to book a flight to Rio.
How? In what way?
I have no idea what everything before the last sentence even means. As for the last sentence... I thought it already was. We only need to count the threads to determine the toxicity. Let's start with the threads that should be merged into the "Where's the Kaboom?" thread - the CL counterpart to "Hotel California".
Goose4291
Banned
They would do now.
However when they first uncovered botting in Elite, it was being done with impunity in open.
Goose4291
Banned
You and I dont see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I agree wholeheartedly with what youve written here.
It's a slippery slope.
So there are a number of systems under automated attack.
Frontier have had those systems pointed out to them. Their response has been underwhelming so far, but rest assured there is already another ticket for this.
They have put the onus on those under attack to provide evidence. I would have thought their logs and telemetry would be better, but whatever - there are groups of us complying and that's fine.
So what that has meant practically is capturing traffic reports and collating the individual ship types into spreadsheets.
Very tedious.
Bots operate around the clock, which has meant that we need to co-ordinate CMDRs around the world across the timezones to get full coverage for data acquisition.
The next problem is getting consistent high frequency sampling.
Which means Alt accounts and automation.
So now I've got an Alt account set up with a script running as much of the day as I can; getting screen grabs of traffic every half hour.
But it needs regular attending as the traffic report moves up and down in the menu.
If I want to run it 24/7 to get the "solid evidence" that Frontier say they want, then I will have to incorporate an OCR reader that can pass a variable back to the script.
That's do-able, but I don't really have the time to devote to that sort of thing. It challenges my critical thinking, and I have to do more than a quick google.
Fortunately there is a lot of expertise in scripting out there, and as I follow the leads and try to turn up versions of this that have been solved by other people, I'm discovering some familiar names and faces.
Hi.
Hello - Yes you.
- No not you, Goose sit down.
You. Yeah you. - "Hi".
- You need to stop this.
I know you know the API inside out and you're covering your tracks pretty well.
Who you are and how you are placed will make it hard for Frontier to acknowledge that it is you.
But eventually they will correlate the accounts to credit cards or IPs or whatever mistake you end up making.
Maybe they'll put in some unannounced tracking into a patch, and maybe this time you won't get a heads-up from your buddies inside.
But if you keep doing it, eventually they'll put a rat trap in the cookie jar. Eventually everyone will know its you. What are doing and how you are doing it.
And while personally nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see you squirm publicly - you are not a nobody.
There are people, good people, who's reputations will be damaged by association. The groups you are involved with and the people you represent.
You need to be able to stand upright in the middle of the crowd and say: "I have done the right thing".
Hating the Alliance isn't going to be enough of a reason.
It might be enough in your clique, but out in public - you're going to embarrass yourself if you stick to that line.
In order to be effective, your bots have to leave a trail. Eventually Frontier will match the external data they are being provided with their own internal data.
You really do need to stop.
Now.
Last edited:
Goose4291
Banned
Isn't it weirdly perverse that to get the evidence of botting Frontier want, you have to run your own bot?
Still waiting for an answer as to how this would be “devestating to the community”.
It’s not like a change in management would suddenly render a system inaccessible, or cause ships of any super power to spontaneously explode, or otherwise cut off some venue of game play.
I get that some people have funny emotional attachments to their Player Named Factions they can’t actually join, and don’t actually belong to, but this isn’t really game play. It’s just mental (not in a seek help way).
I also get that there are rules, one of which is “Don’t do this”, but none of us are official, payrolled Rules Enforcers either.
So the actual effect on the community would not be devestating in any way. Some egos might get bruised, but that’s not game play either.
It’s not like a change in management would suddenly render a system inaccessible, or cause ships of any super power to spontaneously explode, or otherwise cut off some venue of game play.
I get that some people have funny emotional attachments to their Player Named Factions they can’t actually join, and don’t actually belong to, but this isn’t really game play. It’s just mental (not in a seek help way).
I also get that there are rules, one of which is “Don’t do this”, but none of us are official, payrolled Rules Enforcers either.
So the actual effect on the community would not be devestating in any way. Some egos might get bruised, but that’s not game play either.
devastating to the BGS community, as it has already wrecked the PowerPlay community.
Since you don't care for either, and keep telling us that BGS play is meaningless, it is not something you will ever grasp.
Yep, it's as if someone thought they were setting an impossibly high bar.