Does FDev care about botting?

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Hundreds of the damn things working in perfect synchronisation, landing on the traffic report.
How do you know this, especially as you say they are not in Open? Or just hyperbole because you're upset that you're losing?

Anyway - report them to Frontier with any proof you have. Normally naming the system is enough to get your actual opponent to stand up and admit they are just outplaying you though 🤷‍♀️
 
There is a well known cheat site that discusses most things like this and several others. I'm reading one now where someones made an autopilot from system to system, inc fuel scooping. Current FDev bans are 7 days for some. Cheating is rife in all games. ED is no different, dismissing it is mistaken. Never underestimate the lengths some people will go to. I feel FD make an error forbidding its discussion and pretending it does not exist. We should be open, only by the combination of FD and the community can it be tackled effectively. But no, Fdev like most other devs keep the fight (or lack of it) to themselves.
I monitor it to see whats up with my fps games. ESP is my main pain. I know its being used widely on a game I play.
 
My little fledgling space commune recently bumped up against a much larger player group, and a diplomatic misunderstanding nearly led to us getting steamrolled; we had little intent of picking a fight we couldn’t win, but according to their envoy we inadvertently ‘opened the door’ in a few systems that a suspected bot wreaking havoc could breach... I’d be interested to know what ways if any player groups have to identify bot activity, they’re much larger and more experienced than us so I have no reason to doubt their words but as has been pointed out here, how can you be sure?
 
Officially, FDev is very much against it...how much they enforce their rules in practice is anyone's guess.

The ability for players to have multiple accounts (an overtly pay-to-win situation) is a huge force multiplier and can be used with or without bots.

Lets say for arguments sake that there is a bot problem.....

1. How does one employ bots
2. What can they do
3. Do you have links to sites where one can obtain said bots

I am just interested is all :unsure:

No one is going to link any botting sites as that is explicitly against the forum rules.

That said, in general terms, a bot emulates inputs based on simple feed back mechanisms to automate the operation of a ship beyond what would be practical otherwise. The goal is to reduce the player work required to iterate influence generating transactions, preferably to near zero.

Since accounts are cheap and all the in-game progression mechanisms broken, one person can easily build a fleet of CMDRs with high-end gear and operate them all simultaneously. It doesn't take take anything particularly fancy to automate simple A to B missions, especially since almost everything except launch and initiating the the jump to the destination already has in-game automation tools. Bots that are far less complex than what I've seen in other MMOs could run these missions with essentially no player input at all and all the player would have to do is check on them from time to time to rebuy ships that were occasionally exploded (probably due to some scripting error that ran them out of fuel after an interdiction or missed drop out...non-optional NPC encounters are impotent, even against unattended ships) or refill credit reserves with a couple of shared wing missions.

The problem is you have no evidence to convince anyone, zero, zip, zilch. Why should FDEV take any notice of you if you can't produce evidence, the answer is they won't.

FDev should have a much better grasp of what's going on than any player analysis would be capable of providing. The problem isn't that they don't know, it's that they don't provide any assurances that they are enforcing their rules. I know that other forms of prohibited behavior go unpunished or result in slaps on the wrist that do little to discourage future abuse and in the absence of some convincing statement from FDev, I have to assume that botting is rampant, because the tools for it are readily available and a large subset of players aren't going to have any qualms about violating rules that are not enforced.

Even if no botting is occurring in the scenario the OP is referencing, the OP's faction may very well be driven to bot themselves on the assumption that their opponents are doing so. If the OP then gets away with this (they absolutely should not, but very well may), their presumptions would be validated and they'd then be playing by a superior set of rules, available only to cheaters, which would inspire others to cheat.

I’d be interested to know what ways if any player groups have to identify bot activity, they’re much larger and more experienced than us so I have no reason to doubt their words but as has been pointed out here, how can you be sure?

You can't be sure about any given occurrence. You can be sure that bots exist and are used, but there is no way to tell, from anything players have access to, if automation is being used or if someone just has a lot of accounts and some extra time on their hands.
 

Deleted member 182079

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I have no wish to complicate matters further by inviting human traffic into the system in question.
Well, thanks for nothing then.

Fwiw, I had a look at your faction on Inara, 120+ members, present in 114 systems of which you control 104.

Edit - and that's just one PMF your squadron seem to be supporting, there are more with similar stats.

As a lone CMDR trying to dip my toes into the BGS here and there my sympathies have just dropped like a lead balloon.
 
We actually control 904 systems. Those 104 are only the core. Hence our surprise that an individual commander, with no outside support, suddenly found 180 Annacondas to bring
 
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