Don't forget that once you've downloaded the game, you are not actually permitted to use it.
3.(e) [You are not permitted to] use any ... manual means to access the Game or any Online Features...
Long running macro's threat by FD - What exactly is a long running macro?!
- Thread starter clinton
- Start date
Don't forget that once you've downloaded the game, you are not actually permitted to use it.
3.(e) [You are not permitted to] use any ... manual means to access the Game or any Online Features...
It's ok - just macro up a bot to do it and you'll be fine
They covered that too.
3.(e) [You are not permitted to] use any robot, spider, scraper, or other automated or manual means to access the Game or any Online Features...
They covered that too.
3.(e) [You are not permitted to] use any robot, spider, scraper, or other automated or manual means to access the Game or any Online Features...
Pah - just rig up a bunch of old floppy drives, take the cases off, and use them to initiate keypresses using midi to stepper motor
There's nothing in the TOS about using musical instruments
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Pah - just rig up a bunch of old floppy drives, take the cases off, and use them to initiate keypresses using midi to stepper motor
There's nothing in the TOS about using musical instruments
I think the (entirely racist) no robot clause would cover that.
Hmmm - how about attaching optocouplers to a goldfishes bum? With a properly digital system to decode said goldfish, it would be a semi-random and completely organic initiator to send keypresses depending on the urm, goldfish delivery, completely under human control as the goldfish needs fed in the first place
That is hilarious .. +Rep for making me laugh (and the follow up bot response)
You'll notice that Dav did not use the word exploit in relation to 1 tonne trading at any point.
The use of "long running macro's" is covered in the EULA/TOS anyway.
So 1 tonne trading can be done by hand and is not an exploit where as setting up a macro to do exactly the same thing is...
The idiotic thing about this 1 tonne trading macro idea is that the UI is so slow that a macro would not be faster anyway.
So no clarification yet as to a fix for the transaction based BGS and all the problems that brings with it for balance.
This problem has been ticketed -with evidence- for over a year, really hope they bring in a fix soon
The use of "long running macro's" is covered in the EULA/TOS anyway.
So 1 tonne trading can be done by hand and is not an exploit where as setting up a macro to do exactly the same thing is...
The idiotic thing about this 1 tonne trading macro idea is that the UI is so slow that a macro would not be faster anyway.
So no clarification yet as to a fix for the transaction based BGS and all the problems that brings with it for balance.
This problem has been ticketed -with evidence- for over a year, really hope they bring in a fix soon
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I think it's less about speed than it is needing to be present and to do a tedious and repetitive task.
Evidently FDev figured trading one ton at a time would be prohibitively boring for people to abuse it, but a macro makes it viable.
Again you are assuming I said words I did not making your entire rant a waste of time.
EDIT: I'm in the process of replying in full to this post which is so full of the most basic and obvious info that I am a bit shocked it even needed saying but it shows me the level I need to talk at... Won't be long, just a quick meeting to attend.
Right, meeting over...
Lets start by looking at my original comment:
While I do not deny what you have said regarding servers I do consider it very basic knowledge when discussing this matter and so I want to go over a few points so you might understand where I am coming from. Firstly Frontier are a 'for profits' company. They pay the bills but they also make all the profit. Now when it comes to protecting your companies servers you need to take many things into account not least the workload they will face and of course to many transactions will have an effect - We are still in the obvious area of understanding here.
However, while you wanted to be all concerned about there servers Frontier are trying to take the stupidly easy/lazy way out of the problem by trying to tell us we can no longer use macro's. It is up to them to protect there server/database systems from such workloads, not ours. Not ours in the slightest. Now being concerned about the servers is actually what some of us have been discussing or raising instead of trying to teach me about simple server loading methods.
Read whats below as I don't think you saw it when you first replied to me.
See, there I am proposing that the solution is in how transactions are tracked and compiled and then processed as a batch taking away the need to impose any from of company rule on the players which would be a rather big change to the EULA that they would have to get us to agree to again, you cannot just impose new rules as and when you wish without the agreement of the user.
Others, who I accept are also in the software industry commented too with similar solutions, all of which are about Frontier writing their code to prevent the servers being hit in the very basic manner your talking about... See we are well past the problem here and going for solutions - you may want to join in with that.
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Having tried it for testing purposes I can confirm. It is not fun gaming. I can't imagine many doing this for a sustained period (without automation). Its effectiveness as a bgs tool is therefore somewhat mitigated.
Even the the nature of the bgs rules means that it would take a sustained campaign of weeks of this kind of action to do any substantial damage to a faction. The apocalypse is not upon us.
With the earlier suggestion of fixing this by accumulating all transactions over the "dock period" so 100 x 1t sold over the dock period would become 1 x 100t sale.
The issue with that is likely separating factors. I mean clearly when you sell 1t you should get some of the benefits right away... but not all?
So you should get the creds immediately, and the rep immediately but the gain should not "kick in" until you undock?
You'd likely need another layer which stores the "faction influencing" gains till later, but I have a feeling separating each part might not be so easy depending on how all the factors interact. For example if, behind the scenes, the faction rep is linked to the total amount of CMDR rep in existence, you'd end in a position where you keep selling cartographic data and your rep doesn't move, then on undock a sudden a huge gain.
You would also have to remove the "accumulation" happening on logoff/logon since if that was possible people would just work it into their macros. End result might be lots of things you do on a station change nothing until you undock, which I think would be a frustrating experience.
Just speculation of course but given how interconnected Dav suggested the data is, I think there might well be such complications.
The other option, scaling it linearly and not giving lower amount a boost would work but it would be a shame to lose that due to a few folk gaming the system, it is a nice "leveller" for CMDRs in smaller ships.
The issue with that is likely separating factors. I mean clearly when you sell 1t you should get some of the benefits right away... but not all?
So you should get the creds immediately, and the rep immediately but the gain should not "kick in" until you undock?
You'd likely need another layer which stores the "faction influencing" gains till later, but I have a feeling separating each part might not be so easy depending on how all the factors interact. For example if, behind the scenes, the faction rep is linked to the total amount of CMDR rep in existence, you'd end in a position where you keep selling cartographic data and your rep doesn't move, then on undock a sudden a huge gain.
You would also have to remove the "accumulation" happening on logoff/logon since if that was possible people would just work it into their macros. End result might be lots of things you do on a station change nothing until you undock, which I think would be a frustrating experience.
Just speculation of course but given how interconnected Dav suggested the data is, I think there might well be such complications.
The other option, scaling it linearly and not giving lower amount a boost would work but it would be a shame to lose that due to a few folk gaming the system, it is a nice "leveller" for CMDRs in smaller ships.
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You'll notice that Dav did not use the word exploit in relation to 1 tonne trading at any point.
The use of "long running macro's" is covered in the EULA/TOS anyway.
So 1 tonne trading can be done by hand and is not an exploit where as setting up a macro to do exactly the same thing is...
The idiotic thing about this 1 tonne trading macro idea is that the UI is so slow that a macro would not be faster anyway.
So no clarification yet as to a fix for the transaction based BGS and all the problems that brings with it for balance.
This problem has been ticketed -with evidence- for over a year, really hope they bring in a fix soon
It's still an exploit, doesn't matter what Dav didn't say. Common sense should be enough. Also it doesn't matter if you are using a macro or doing it by hand. It's still an exploit.
Is it intended gameplay to buy 500 units and sell them one by one? No.
Is there an unintended advantage to selling 500 units one by one? Yes.
EDIT
To clarify, before someone feels the need to disagree: So if it's not intended, why does the advantage exist? To allow small ships a contribution to the BGS, without it their efforts would be meaningless compared to bulk trading.
/EDIT
Clearly an exploit.
I agree with the rest, just wanted to clarify the exploit part
It's all about intention, especially with the use of macros it could even be a DOS attack, but since the intention is to manipulate the BGS in an unfair manner it's just an exploit.
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Really FD, you have long and short term ideas to prevent single unit trading but absolutelly nothing to announce today ?
FD what does mean long term solutions when you are looking into something ?
One month, half a year, one year, more then one year ?
I only know what you mean with short term solutions. Its called accusing people of using 3rd party tools and blackmailing people to ban them if they try to reveal weak spots in the BGS instead of working with them together to find a solution for this problem.
And remember for influencing the BGS you dont need macros you just need to stupidely push some buttons on your keyboard for a minute.
A friend of mine who discovered this single unit trade mechanic 2015 got this mail by FD half a year ago.
By the way he never used this single unit trade stuff against any other play factions or in a bad way to influence the BGS for others, he just tested it in his own systems on his own faction.
*shrug*
When I deliberately did this to test the BGS and report it on the bugs forum, FD said/did no such thing to me.
Frankly, I call shenanigans. But whatevs...
And your point is? This is 100% fair, your friend should be lucky that he wasn't banned completely. BTW, he doesn't own a system or faction. It's also not about 'revealing weak spots' it's just exploiting.
Yeh.. That was my (exact) take on it.
And it would therefore rather than hit the servers once with "sell 500 tons", it would do "sell 1 ton" five hundred times second after second, minute after minute.
I don't think they're worried about scripts doing client side stuff like controlling pips and anything like that. Indeed it would be impossible for them to even detect the difference between someone using a macro to do it, or someone simply being good on the controls. And more importantly it makes no difference to the hit on the servers/network etc.
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Sure it is not a coincidence that all the fuss comes from people who did not actually try doing it.
No, the fuss comes from people who say "how dare you to call that exploiting!", there wouldn't be so much fuss about it if people would just accept that it's against the rules, that something will be done about it and those who use exploits will be contacted by FDEV to remind them that it's against the rules. Quite simple.