Bots and EULA...

[Sylveria]

Like what though specifically?

The trouble is these threads often to turn into HOWTO guides with people wanting to know and other people wanting to be clever and explain it all.

I ended up reporting a bunch of posts in previous threads and mods (rightly imho) stepped on it.

As I stated earlier I'm not looking for a how to guide but as an example when you drop into orbit with a station it's always random as to your alignment. How does someone automatically align with the station and the slot every single time? You also have random docking numbers for pads every time you dock.

For me to believe it would be possible to automate an account completely those particular variables would have to be resolved. I'm not saying it's impossible but rather implausible considering those factors alone.

 

[Stealthie]

I thought Open-only PP was FDev's plan to allow players[/i to punish bots for them.

As I stated earlier I'm not looking for a how to guide but as an example when you drop into orbit with a station it's always random as to your alignment. How does someone automatically align with the station and the slot every single time? You also have random docking numbers for pads every time you dock.

Erm.... docking computer.

 

[bitstorm]

As I stated earlier I'm not looking for a how to guide but as an example when you drop into orbit with a station it's always random as to your alignment. How does someone automatically align with the station and the slot every single time? You also have random docking numbers for pads every time you dock.

For me to believe it would be possible to automate an account completely those particular variables would have to be resolved. I'm not saying it's impossible but rather implausible considering those factors alone.

Well I mean a bot could read the hud just pixels isn't it. Pretty sure you could dock a ship using hud only + a docking computer.

 

[Sylveria]

What I seeing is they are using Pictures to get an idea of a location. Then take another picture to adjust from. It not like the old Bots I use in Lotro that follow a set commands For farming or cooking. I think it mostly the advancement of Captcha bots. They are using them in the game. For Captcha it all about pictures. Then you add with the older bots and you have an I win button.

And docking pad numbers?

Departure distance from those random docking pad numbers? Or does it log off the account and log back in repetitively until it gets the exact same numbers again?

Something is awry here with the conclusion. If it were possible to achieve the exact same results without any sort of human interaction or effort... I'd be in complete agreement as to the conclusion. I've yet to see myself get the exact same pad number and alignment every single time I enter a station's orbit.

If the first scenario is indeed the case, it makes detecting such quite simple- Frontier simply looks for logoffs/relogs in the same vicinity repetitively by the same account. Not too difficult to spot an account doing this 20-30 times until it gets the exact trajectory/pad number it wants, after all, right?

Well I mean a bot could read the hud just pixels isn't it. Pretty sure you could dock a ship using hud only + a docking computer.

Good point. What about departure from random docking pads? Docking computer doesn't engage on departure, after all.

I suppose it could over-compensate distance to counter this. Length of station + X distance.

 

[bitstorm]

Good point. What about departure from random docking pads? Docking computer doesn't engage on departure, after all.

I suppose it could over-compensate distance to counter this. Length of station + X distance.

As I say these inevitably turn into HOWTOS.

Which for me I don't think should be on the forum.

 

[Sylveria]

As I say these inevitably turn into HOWTOS.

Understood. I personally welcome Frontier to "investigate" my account- as I don't engage in such activity. I'm just trying to fathom how it's even remotely possible, but now consider myself "educated" on the matter. I'll say no more on that.

As I said, I don't abide cheating.

 

[Arkadi]

What I remember Frontier makes a difference between full automated bot-accounts and macro-using, because many HOTAS setups come with macro-functionality, also Voice-Attack is kind of a macro-program. But I think the borders blur easily. I really doubt that it is possible to fully automate a ship for any more complex task in game with macro-scripting only. But I am no expert at this and maybe some can do things I can't even imagine. But I highly doubt it.

Using any other additional programs, other then macro-software, that mess with the game would clearly be against the Eula I'd wager.

 

[bitstorm]

Understood. I personally welcome Frontier to "investigate" my account- as I don't engage in such activity. I'm just trying to fathom how it's even remotely possible, but now consider myself "educated" on the matter. I'll say no more on that.

Well this is a public form isn't it.

Undock => Thrust up for x seconds => Thrust forward for y seconds.

This seems obvious to me.

If that doesn't work 100% all you need to do is repoint your ship slightly so the big black letterbox shape is in the middle of your screen.

Again, seems obvious and even trivial tbh.

I will now report my own post!

 

[Sylveria]

What I remember Frontier makes a difference between full automated bot-accounts and macro-using, because many HOTAS setups come with macro-functionality, also Voice-Attack is kind of a macro-program. But I think the borders blur easily. I really doubt that it is possible to fully automate a ship for any more complex task in game with macro-using only. But I am no expert at this and maybe some can do things I can't even imagine. But I highly doubt it.

Using any other additional programs that mess with the game would clearly be against the Eula I'd wager.

Indeed. This was one of many questions I had regarding automation when "botting" was mentioned... if voice recognition and HOTAS macro setups are being targeted here, it's a slippery slope when it comes to what one considers "automation"...

Personally, I don't use either- FYI

 

[Sylveria]

Well this is a public form isn't it.

Undock => Thrust up for x seconds => Thrust forward for y seconds.

This seems obvious to me.

If that doesn't work 100% all you need to do is repoint your ship slightly so the big black letterbox shape is in the middle of your screen.

Again, seems obvious and even trivial tbh.

Obvious depends on the context. I don't actively think of automating my account.

 

[Stealthie]

Well this is a public form isn't it.

Undock => Thrust up for x seconds => Thrust forward for y seconds.

This seems obvious to me.

If that doesn't work 100% all you need to do is repoint your ship slightly so the big black letterbox shape is in the middle of your screen.

Don't forget, the station actually tells you when you're aligned via the scanner, with the station-blob becoming an up-arrow or down-arrow depending on your vector.

If you have the tools and the knowledge, I guess designing bots to overcome obstacles is quite an interesting challenge.
It's just using them to do stuff like earn credits or have an effect on the BGS that's a crappy thing to do.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

What I remember Frontier makes a difference between full automated bot-accounts and macro-using, because many HOTAS setups come with macro-functionality, also Voice-Attack is kind of a macro-program. But I think the borders blur easily. I really doubt that it is possible to fully automate a ship for any more complex task in game with macro-scripting only. But I am no expert at this and maybe some can do things I can't even imagine. But I highly doubt it.

Using any other additional programs, other then macro-software, that mess with the game would clearly be against the Eula I'd wager.

Trade plugins have a serious effect in the game and the BGS, yet are well tolerated...

Using macros have been forbidden in many competitive games. If I give all my pips to system instantly just by saying "shields" it's a pretty big advantage as well.

So yeah, lines are blurry and cheating is in the end just dependent on the perceived fairness people have regarding a mechanism. EULA's are also there just to prevent FDev's product financially and limit additional softwares usability in the context of a game. For example, FDev tolerates voice attack, because it complements their product and is well perceived by the community, but EULA is there to forbid it's use if needs be.

Modding support has been dumped but additionnal softwares datamining the game are tolerated. This is totally , classic FD style.

As for OP, well yeah, bots exists in any online game. EULA cant do squat about it, and FDev will only hunt them if it starts to compromise their real cred income.

 

[Auronio]

Quite frankly, the players don't know, even if they may assume. Frontier can however, investigate it using their own logs- especially in regard to recent systems and gameplay. If they notice particular account(s) that affect a system with an unusual pattern, within a short amount of time, it might warrant further investigation. If not, it could very well be random accounts at different times, so that wouldn't be justified as "botting" activity.

The lesson to be learned here, quite simply is thoughts are not facts. Just because someone thinks something might be happening, doesn't preclude it to be truth.

IMO Frontier should also be taking accusations of botting, cheating, or any other form of circumventing the game as seriously as they would the offense itself. Too many times have I seen others propagandizing by using such charged terminology rather than actually investigating the issue before they make wanton accusations.

The consequences for botting, cheating and the like could be account bans... which affect people IRL. That's not a "game". I'm sure if it was the same for those who accuse others without proof there'd be a lot less of it going on.

Very good summary and post.

I see the Bot accusation most often in the context of powerplay and 5C. Assuming that dedicated players/groups work against certain powers and doing detrimental stuff like preparing/expanding unprofitable systems in order to weaken the attacked power.

It entails two assumptions. First that 5C exist independent on any governing power - in theory you could also have powers working against others using some of their CMDRs as moles within the enemy's organization.
And second - that the methods of 5C entail usage of Bots. It could be just very commited players playing within the set rules just opposite to another player group's objectives.

I neither say that 5C does not exist nor that they couldn't use Bots. However some more evidence would help.

Until then - the power I'm working for will continue to suffer from whoever is attacking us.
o7

 

[Turd Ferguson]

https://www.frontierstore.net/ed-eula/

so Voice Attack is cheating and against game rules?

 

[krylite]

I'm aware of the argument... just wondering how one can actually do it, considering to automate something, some variables have to to be consistent. If you just set up macros to fly a ship a certain way or hit buttons in a certain order, great- but how does it intuitively know how to avoid other ships flying around, in the docking slot, or those sort of things? What about random interdictions?

I guess what I'm asking here is how one could possibly completely automate an account with 3rd party software, given all the random variables in this game. Not saying it's completely "impossible" but for me to believe the accusation, I'd have to know that first it could logically be done to begin with. Just simply pointing a finger and saying "You're botting!!!!" doesn't cut it.

Outside of the docking slot, most of the time npc ships would rather avoid your ship as they have an "awareness" distance around them. As for bumping into ships on the way out or elsewhere, the botted ship could have a routine which detects an abnormal deviation from its current vector. It could either slow down or reverse and attempt to regain its original direction and speed. As for docking, usually a ship just needs to get into docking range, initiate the docking permission and let the docking computer take over which of course being part of the game knows where the docking axis is and has procedural actions to approach it. Someone had shown automatic sequential jumping and maneuvering away from suns using a scripting language with a library of general graphical shape recognition functions. (I can't seem to find the video anymore on yt) Back in the late 90's shape recognition by code through cameras was in the research stage which eventually led to general shape and face recognition for cameras, robots with ccd's, today's smartphone cameras, and now with scripting languages for "botting" games.

 

[Lestat]

And docking pad numbers?

Departure distance from those random docking pad numbers? Or does it log off the account and log back in repetitively until it gets the exact same numbers again?

Something is awry here with the conclusion. If it were possible to achieve the exact same results without any sort of human interaction or effort... I'd be in complete agreement as to the conclusion. I've yet to see myself get the exact same pad number and alignment every single time I enter a station's orbit.

If the first scenario is indeed the case, it makes detecting such quite simple- Frontier simply looks for logoffs/relogs in the same vicinity repetitively by the same account. Not too difficult to spot an account doing this 20-30 times until it gets the exact trajectory/pad number it wants, after all, right?

Here a good read Automation and Scripting An investigation into further abuses of BGS and Powerplay

A few things jumped out at us for around 6 different CMDRs (Names will not be shared to adhere to forum/reddit rules)




Their departure patterns were all identical

Take off from pad, take roughly 30 seconds to fly vertically upwards from the pad, align with the airlock and fly out at <100ms with gear down.
Maintain heading to directly out of the airlock to roughly 10km, clear of the station mass lock and come to a complete stop, then align with the destination system.
Raise gear, charge FSD while stationary.
Full throttle and jump.

Their builds were identical.

Cutters or Anacondas
Most of the accounts were harmless rank
All shield boosters and 1 point defence
No other internals than cargo racks and shield generators
Docking computer

Always carrying:

3 types of cargo to the brim (probably to maximise BGS influence effects, the study of which is detailed here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...-for-Influence)
Passengers
Preparation merits.

No situational awareness

The CMDRs were not responding to comms in any manner.
They would not deviate from their course, even when a player was in the way or they were being rammed
They would effectively combat log, and leave the instance at the event of a Scan (including whilst docked on a pad), or coming under attack Immediately, most of the time. They would also log if they were stuck or loitering in the airlock (this included player scans and NPC scans detailed in the below video)

Troll Player names like (paraphrasing) CMDR ILikeToTroll (not real don’t search) & Troll ship names such as “I Prep Soholia” and “Soholia for Mahon”

 

[jonesskill]

IMO, this is no-sense.

There is no reward on this, like i have said another times, why someone can/will use a bot to manipulate BGS/Powerplay? They will earn nothing and they will have costs and risks for doing this.

Sometimes i think that people come far away to excuse their failures.

PP/BGS manipulation should be a OPEN only feature tho - in that case if you suspect of some player behavior you can report.

 

[Lestat]

IMO, this is no-sense.

There is no reward on this, like i have said another times, why someone can/will use a bot to manipulate BGS/Powerplay? They will earn nothing and they will have costs and risks for doing this.

Sometimes i think that people come far away to excuse their failures.

PP/BGS manipulation should be a OPEN only feature tho - in that case if you suspect of some player behavior you can report.

If you watch the videos you see they are in the Open. Note PP/BGS is something someone noticed Bots. It dose not mean they are doing other things.

 

[DNA-Decay]

PowerPlay and System Governance (BGS) are the only Assets that you can have as shared goals.

So many people care deeply about these things. To me Credits are not rewarding. They are selfish and boring. The shared assets that bots target are much more valuable than mere Credits.

People think I’m paranoid when I talk about anti-Alliance hatred.
But there are folks going to extraordinary lengths to take down the Alliance.

I would love to see an example of botting that WASN’T directed at Alliance PowerPlay or BGS projects.

 

[Jmanis]

so Voice Attack is cheating and against game rules?

Technically, yes. Almost every third party app is against the rules. Modding games (not just FD) for the most part is also against the EULA of those games, but most developers will allow it anyway, and indeed some games explicitly permit it. FD is not one of those games[1]. The key part of this is that the decision to punish someone for being in breach of the EULA is exclusively their decision... and that's something that comes up even in modern legal contexts... just because someone commits an offence does not necessitate they will get punished (or even charged) for that offence[2][3].

This came to a head in EVE Online once... I can't find the article related but my understanding was that a prolific 3rd party app which had been in use for quite a while got banned because it's use started to become quite detrimental to the game (I can't recall if this was Bacon or Somer-blink). CCP banned the app under it's policies on 3rd party apps/botting etc. but the reason they banned it meant that a whole bunch more 3rd party apps that had been in use for years were by-definition in the firing line. CCP went on to clarify that it was their right to apply the EULA as they saw fit (this is true), but like all good nonsensical forum outrage people wanted to protest and yadda yadda yadda. I think it led to CCP rewriting a bunch of that part of the EULA, but I can't find any articles about it now.

But why would any sane person ban something from a game when it's essentially doing positive for the game right? Of course, now someone will argue "But bots are positive!"... but what that someone feels is not relevant. It's what FD feels, and if they think an app is having a positive effect, of course they won't do anything. But if they think it's having a broader negative effect, then banhammer time.

The most relevant bit of the EULA I can find that are somewhat related to this are:

12.4 If we fail to insist that you perform any of your obligations under this EULA, or if we do not enforce our rights against you, or if we delay in doing so, that will not mean that we have waived our rights against you and will not mean that you do not have to comply with those obligations.

Bottom line: Yes, Voice Attack is probably[4] against the EULA, but it's FD's exclusive right to enforce the EULA whenever they like.

[1] According to my reading of the EULA. Ones which support it generally have a section exclusively for modding.
[1] Unless it's a major offence (murder etc.)
[2] At least, in my country. YMMV
[3] Not that my opinion matters, but it's not cheating like you said, more it's "unauthorized software designed to modify or defeat the purpose or experience of the Game"

EDIT: Fundamentally, while I haven't digested the whole ED EULA, most EULAs are basically written in a way where the company can walk away and terminate the enitre game without any meaningful repercussion, and our continued use of the game is always at the grace of the company operating it.

2nd EDIT: Done some more searching and it was things like Somer Blink and other gambling type apps which got banned... tl;dr most comparable services were not doing anything that any other allowed 3rd party app would do... but the apps themselves were very heavily promoting gambling in a PEGI 14+ game... notwithstanding the potential legal ramifications. The EULA got updated to essentially ban "Games of Chance".