From what I understand, Macroing is not allowed and is a bannable offense, is that correct? I’m still seeing people using macros. The two most evident ones are some miners with 15 accounts and a couple of suicide gankers with 15-30 alts (I think one name is variations of Jfirst-name + Kusion and another guy INSERT CORP NAME HERE). These are all automated macro’s that insta lock / shoot / mine across 20 clients at once.
Maybe the miners could possibly get away with the eve-O preview, as their reaction is not time critical, but the gankers that have 20-30 catalysts (no they are not different guys), target and fire at the same time and hit the AB to keep up with the target across all clients at the same time, thats a macro / bot / script.
Why is this allowed? What possible value does this bring to the game?
Why should it take 2 seconds per character? Major commands like warp and calling the target are fleet initiated from one character, then all he has to do is activate each client and trigger the attack on the flagged target. By customizing his overview and configuring his screen to have the client windows tiled as tidy boxes all visible at the same time, all he has to do is move his mouse a short distance from client to client to click the appropriate target and trigger his weapons.
You’ll notice varied Damage Dealt by his ships, which means they aren’t all firing at the same time and are spread across multiple ticks because it does in fact take a few moments to control each ship.
Kusion has videos of himself ganking and proving that he doesn’t use macros. He’s VERY fast at using Eve-O. Just because YOU can’t do it, doesn’t mean people are using macros because they are fast.
Especially when it comes to mining…mining is lazy and easy to run 15 accounts without macros.
the simple answer is that CCP will not end botting because it means more subs paid. the recent changes to mining that increased cycle time made it possible for them to add even more accounts within the cycle. As to the fleet responses you see, remember fleet and squad warp moves the entire group. cycling through targetting and firing with multiple screens displaying only needed UI elements is very quick.
There are no videos of anyone, including Kusion, running 28 EVE-0 alt windows, and ganking a freighter or something, and getting all ships to fire on a target in 10 seconds by switching windows, half second per window WITHOUT macros. That’s not happening manually. I used to play Starcraft 2, was reaching 300-350 APM but not if you have to switch windows.
The miners from what I saw were just botting, scrips targeting roids, moving mins etc. These people were AFK half the time.
Nope, not with 40 accounts you dont. If I was to see a video of that being done across 30-40 accounts in 10 seconds, without a macro I would stand corrected.
You keep upping your counts here. Every time you move the goalpost, your argument is weakened. Stick to the facts of the situation, not hypotheticals.
You said it should take 2 seconds (an entire server tick) for a player to control a single character. This is blatantly false. I refer you to Kusion’s actions when ganking; he at most runs 23 characters at once (all of his gank alts are in his corp, which has only 23 members at present). ‘40’ is thus irrelevant to the argument. Kusion has streamed his display while doing multi-boxed ganking. He has significant physical skill in executing the necessary commands to switch between his clients, has cleverly organized his desktop to optimize his visual workspace, and uses EVE’s client settings to minimize strain on his system for rapid client switching. Dude is legit. Your inability to match his performance does not mean he is cheating, only that he is better at multiboxing this activity than you are - due to player skill, computer setup (hardware capabilities), or a combination thereof.
No argument on the probability that there are botting miners out there. That said, the simple existence of a group of multiboxed miners does not inherently confirm botting or use of macros. mining is a minimal interaction activity - it is entirely possible to control 20 mining ships without resorting to macros or botting. The ships may not be individually as efficient as 1 ship attentively managed, but sheer numbers runs to the favor of the multiboxer - to a point. This has been exhaustively hashed over on these forums countless times.
So yeah: as others have said, report someone if you think they are a bot, but if you want to accuse someone in the forums bring some proof. Post combat logs showing those 40 ships delivering an alpha strike all on a single tick. Post video of Faction Warfare runners getting stuck on the gate when their script is derailed by a bumper. Post video of mining fleets all chewing on the same nearly depleted rock for a full cycle. Post something other than ‘well I can’t do that so they cannot possibly do that’ idiocy.
A pro can type commands fast, if he knows what he’s doing. Well prepared, you just have to type “enter - F1 - tab - enter - F1 - tab - enter - F1 - tab - …”
3x 25 key klicks in ten seconds is no problem at all. And as we have learned that orders in EVE Online are executed in clicks (not immediately, i.e. the game “collects” orders for a second or more and executes them the next second), it seems like many of them act simulateously.
It is only allowed if all of the clients are subbed. So 25 accounts mean 12’500 Plex, 36’562 m ISK, or more than 250$/€ (regarding buddy programs and bargains) for a month.
How exactly do you “see” these assumed scripts? You are just sitting here giving your opinion because you can’t accept the fact that it’s easy to mine on 15+ accounts without cheating for some reason. I’m certainly not saying people don’t bot, there are plenty of them…but just because someone is running 15 accounts efficiently doesn’t instantly imply they are using scripts.
I can personally attest to how very reasonable it is for some to control up to 20 accounts. There are a few factors that make this easy:
Exact same UI element placement. Size and position.
The 20 accounts are doing the same thing (ganking)
Cascading window setup that shows a bit of each clients overview. Just move the mouse and click as you move it.
Having weapons and modules preactivated.
It takes a lot of work ahead of time to set these clients up perfectly for it to work like this. It also takes a lot of practice and dexterity since it’s repetitive actions. I can also confidently say that while he appears to be perfect with machine-like accuracy and timing… he’s bound to make mistakes that result in a failed gank.
Every couple months someone wanders in and complains that Kusion is a botter. This must be your month. He’s probably been reported more than any single player in this games history. He’s very, very good at what he does, which you can actually watch videos of. You could have just googled his name and found all the other whining threads I’m sure.