Long running macro's threat by FD - What exactly is a long running macro?!

[Sylow]

If somebody wants to affect the BGS in the most effective way that player has to sell the cargo one ton at a time.

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Might be just me, but if THIS is true, then i would not look at the macro user but at the one who designed the BGS...
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Mind you, i generally am also not a friend of macros. So while this game made me put a handfull of them on my HOTAS so i have buttons for "four pips to shields and two to engines" and the likes, i think that in a well designed game macros give no significant benefit. If something as "simple" as the BGS (sorry, it's large but as far as i know not utterly complicated) can be abused by something as simple as selling cargo ton by ton instead of in one transaction, i would say that the mechanics there are broken and need adjustment.
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[Farmboy]

I own my keyboard, should imagine all of you do too... No company has the right to tell me how I use the hardware attached to my machine or the machine itself. If I choose to set up a macro or even write some code to do a job when a key or combination is pressed then that is entirely up to me. Not some other company whom I have a loose agreement with, especially when the macro software EULA was accepted before the Frontier one.

Sorry Frontier but part of being a software developer is to stop exploits by coding them out not telling us how to use OUR property to which you have no rights to do so.

When what you are doing is effectively a DOS attack on their server infrastructure, then I think they are well within their rights to ask you to cease and desist.

But the better answer is, as many have pointed out, for there to be no actual (or even perceived) benefits to artificially inflating the number of sales transactions.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

I don't believe that this is the complete picture, there are limits built in to the system. As discussed on another thread, to use this method takes a significant level of dedication (without the use of macros) to be effective. To damage a faction significantly, even unopposed, would take a period of months and can be defended against. …

I tested the method (by hand) and the result was a obvious influence change even after just selling around 200 tons (small system). It was a positive change as I sold "good" stuff. Maybe selling "bad" stuff is different.

Missions are more effective, but getting missions can be problematic. Trading is almost always possible. It's an addition and a fast method.

Anyway, it should be fixed.

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I don't believe that this is the complete picture, there are limits built in to the system.…

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Might be just me, but if THIS is true, then i would not look at the macro user but at the one who designed the BGS...
…
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Ah, sorry. Got some wording wrong. It's not the most effective method in an absolute way, it's the most effective method for influencing the BGS by trading. Sorry about that.

 

[goemon]

i think another typical use-case is powerplay - start your game in the morning, and have a macro pick up powerplay commodities every x minutes, while you are at work.
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Agreed. Shouldn't be too hard to track all transactions of a CMDR
per day and add them up to a pool.

bad idea, because it would make the BGS a rich mans hobby for large ships.

transaction based influence change allows players in eagles and adders to have some effect from early on the game, while any system that change that to a "total tons over a day/ total value of bounties claimed" etc. in effect makes it either to easy to influence a system in large ships, or too hard to influence a system in a small ship.

anyway, it shouldn't be too complicated to fix it in another way, for exampel adding up transaction per instance (e.g. you have to undock - supercruise and go back for an additional transaction effect).

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

i think another typical use-case is powerplay - start your game in the morning, and have a macro pick up powerplay commodities every x minutes, while you are at work.
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bad idea, because it would make the BGS a rich mans hobby for large ships.

transaction based influence change allows players in eagles and adders to have some effect from early on the game, while any system that change that to a "total tons over a day/ total value of bounties claimed" etc. in effect makes it either to easy to influence a system in large ships, or too hard to influence a system in a small ship.

What you've said makes sense from a game design point of view however a simple transaction by commodity per visit limit to a station would solve the issue. E.G. You have 32 tons of cargo, and a limit of 3 transactions per docked session, this allows for you to make a mistake and sell the items but if you just had a brain fart and realised you did actually need them you can still purchase them. Same goes for sales. This of course would not be impacted by taking any form of mission which could/should use a different limiter if any.

 

[Jukelo]

bad idea, because it would make the BGS a rich mans hobby for large ships.

transaction based influence change allows players in eagles and adders to have some effect from early on the game, while any system that change that to a "total tons over a day/ total value of bounties claimed" etc. in effect makes it either to easy to influence a system in large ships, or too hard to influence a system in a small ship.

anyway, it shouldn't be too complicated to fix it in another way, for exampel adding up transaction per instance (e.g. you have to undock - supercruise and go back for an additional transaction effect).

IIRC that was indeed the idea behind the transactions vs bulk balance. However I think it's a bad system and IMO it's trying to fix a non-problem. Rich/experience players simply should be able to influence the game world much more than poor or inexperienced ones without diminishing returns.
Now there is something to be said about an economy relying on multiple suppliers being more robust than an economy relying on just one, and according to that multiple CMDRs selling 1t each should have slightly more effect than one big 100t transaction, but that should be based on the number of CMDRs involved, not the number of transactions.

 

[Farmboy]

What you've said makes sense from a game design point of view however a simple transaction by commodity per visit limit to a station would solve the issue. E.G. You have 32 tons of cargo, and a limit of 3 transactions per docked session, this allows for you to make a mistake and sell the items but if you just had a brain fart and realised you did actually need them you can still purchase them. Same goes for sales. This of course would not be impacted by taking any form of mission which could/should use a different limiter if any.

Along the same lines, you could batch all buy/sell operations at a given port into a single BGS database transaction which is only committed when you undock (or change instance possibly) This way no limit is actually imposed in userspace, yet the number of DB transactions is kept down.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Along the same lines, you could batch all buy/sell operations at a given port into a single BGS database transaction which is only committed when you undock (or change instance possibly) This way no limit is actually imposed in userspace, yet the number of DB transactions is kept down.

Also a good solution.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I own my keyboard, should imagine all of you do too... No company has the right to tell me how I use the hardware attached to my machine or the machine itself. If I choose to set up a macro or even write some code to do a job when a key or combination is pressed then that is entirely up to me. Not some other company whom I have a loose agreement with, especially when the macro software EULA was accepted before the Frontier one.

Incorrect.

Whilst Frontier can't tell you what to do with your hardware they are well within their rights to tell you how you can use their software.

That is what an EULA is all about - you want to use thier software and to do so is by accepting it under certain conditions.

Now, proving you're automating things can be tricky ... but that's another topic for a different thread.

 

[Flavourless]

...multiple CMDRs selling 1t each should have slightly more effect than one big 100t transaction...

Why this?
If there is a market with a demand, then the market doesn't care how the demand gets filled.

In the game it's all about letting players think they can influence something and that they are not insignificant.
But the whole point of the Elite genre is precisely that you are insignificant and merely trying to survive against all odds.
Those who want to control the galaxy are not in the spirit of the genre.

 

[Daitya Zo]

I own my keyboard, should imagine all of you do too... No company has the right to tell me how I use the hardware attached to my machine or the machine itself. If I choose to set up a macro or even write some code to do a job when a key or combination is pressed then that is entirely up to me. Not some other company whom I have a loose agreement with, especially when the macro software EULA was accepted before the Frontier one.

Sorry Frontier but part of being a software developer is to stop exploits by coding them out not telling us how to use OUR property to which you have no rights to do so.

That's ridiculous. Your statement is ridiculous. For instance, WoW has the right to put into its terms of use, that you can't run a bot around harvesting rare nodes to the extent that the player base cannot get to them and use the commodity as planned. It's not a single-user game-- you can't automate tasks that can effectively do things so fast that you damage the experience of other players (auto-aim bots which destroy all other players' chances of winning any conflicts, for instance).

The server isn't your property. Running scripts which send things at lightspeed to servers used by other players to play the game, and which affects their gaming experience. is certainly against terms of service.

Your comment is like saying, "I own the keyboard, therefore I have every right to hack someone's bank account and take all their money, legally." It's just such a closed-minded and simple-minded way of approaching ... nevermind. I doubt you'll get anything I say. It's like saying, "I'm allowed by Microsoft to use windows, therefore, I can write windows code on my machine that shuts down public utilities and crashes airplanes. No, you can't. Not legally. Windows EULA does not let you crash airplanes with no repercussions, hahahaha.

 

[bitstorm]

I've used long running macros.

It was for Powerplay for the fast track for Prismatics, you literally have to sit there and run hundreds of clicks waiting for the server to respond for each one.

Not ashamed, the click click click mechanism is silly.

I would also consider using it for selling to universal cartographics if I had a very large amount of data.

I also have a logoff/logon macro I've used very occasionally, logging off/on is the ED way for many things.

People simply are going to do repetitive and dull things in the most efficient way possible, clicking things over and over again is not really my idea of fun.

 

[Schlack]

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If something as "simple" as the BGS (sorry, it's large but as far as i know not utterly complicated)

Funniest thing I've read all year, thanks for the laugh. Its only the interaction of every action taken by every player in every populated system according to an ever increasing set of rules.

You know nothing John Sylow

 

[Blackcompany]

I take issue with anything that waists time for the sake of wasting time. Benefiting 1 unit trading over the whole stack does just that.

Exactly.

I feel this way about docking requests, so yes, I have a Voice Attack macro for it. And it's the only macro I use.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Incorrect.

Whilst Frontier can't tell you what to do with your hardware they are well within their rights to tell you how you can use their software.

That is what an EULA is all about - you want to use thier software and to do so is by accepting it under certain conditions.

Now, proving you're automating things can be tricky ... but that's another topic for a different thread.

The keyboard is hardware. I can press any key at anytime - no software license can deny me that right. Also the terms of the EULA are rendered obsolete by other agreements that were accepted beforehand in this case the software ware that came with the keyboard or a routine written just for the same purpose. It's a bit like Windows gives you the implicit right to end any process at any time, I agreed to this before any software companies EULA. Frontier and other software vendors then try to over rule this with their own rules - not laws or acts - company rules, important definition.

Games running via windows require the OS in order to work - even if it is an old DOS game it still requires an OS. Part of the OS's features gives control of the hardware, quite rightly, to the owner/user of the hardware as they have the only rights as to how that machine is used. To then have a company come along and place extra rules on top of those already accepted, some of which deny your implicit right to control your hardware and/or contradict the agreements already accepted are not worth the paper they are written on.

For instance, at no point in any EULA does any company tell you that you cannot make use of the task manager. They can't, they'd get bent over the desk by M$ and spanked hard. If I chose to use the task manager at anytime while my PC is running I am entitled to use it in the way it is intended and there is nothing anyone can do to stop me from using this.

Rules do not override your right to use your PC as you see fit - that is your legal right as the owner of the hardware.

 

[Ben Ryder]

I reported 1t trades and macros back in beta 1.03 December 2014

[video=youtube;ja0P7vl7alk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja0P7vl7alk[/video]

 

[Whitehair]

The keyboard is hardware. I can press any key at anytime - no software license can deny me that right.

Fine. So sit there at your keyboard and press the keys instead of using a piece of software - a Macro to automate the proces.

Problem solved?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Rules do not override your right to use your PC as you see fit - that is your legal right as the owner of the hardware.

The rules cannot, of course, stop one, for example, using task manager to end the game process*. What the rules can do it make it clear that doing it is not acceptable (as it affects the gameplay of others) - and can advise that there are consequences for breaking the rules.

*: and any user process that can't be killed using task manager would seem to qualify as mal-ware, in my opinion.

 

[Sentenza]

This should be aimed at people who use long macros to work in their place "while they are afk".

Well, to me, this just proves they don't know their own game. No way you can have a macro running for an hour while you are away drinking beer, not with transactions timing out every few minutes.

 

[Nerwan]

The keyboard is hardware. I can press any key at anytime

Hmm, philosophically I think this might be more complicated than you think it is. I mean if you use that "right" to press the keys which correspond with "I'm coming to your house and I'm going to kill you!" and then you use the hardware on your mouse to click "send" on the email app then you've committed a crime as far as the police are concerned. What about your tongue? That's actually part of your body but it's possible to use it to do things which are illegal such as slander. So in reality what you do with your hardware does make a difference to whether or not in can fall foul of rules, both legal and contractual.

Also, you get into weird questions about exactly where you're crossing the line with this kind of thing..

If I do a trade repeatedly by hand am I exploiting?
If I use a macro to send key presses am I exploiting?
If I inject a DLL into Frontiers code which reads data from a buffer in memory and then alters one of the bits, am I exploiting?

It's all just the manipulation of hardware at the end of the day... memory chips are hardware too after all..