this you cannot do, per EULA
however, you can do cltr, alt shift etc with any button combination and be whithin EULA
You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play
I agree with you partially, but hear me out.
First of all, that specific example doesn’t pass the “accelerated rate” test for two reasons:
For example, if I’m getting into a fight with my Rifter, it makes no practical difference whether I hit a single macro key on the left side of my keyboard, or use three fingers on my left hand to press three of the F keys to activate those weapons. Or even if I have to activate a whole rack, I can slide my hand across the entire set of F keys just as quickly and easily as hitting a macro key. All it does it let me keep my body in a more comfortable position—an ergonomic convenience factor, that’s it.
Now if we’re talking a key combination that performs multiple unique commands, like more than one kind of control+shift+key command in succession, then chaining those would fall under automation.
Another factor to consider is that speaking from a strictly practical sense, no one has ever been or would be punished for something as benign as this specific example. CCP is simply not that petty, or stupid. They have thousands of bots using memory/screen scraper technology and complex AHK automation to contend with, and aren’t going to go after players using their Logitech macro keys to activate their weapons in an effort to avoid an uncomfortable posture and “claw hands.” Their monitoring systems don’t watch for such minor instances, or simply ignore them (for example, consider the case when you “prefire” your weapons before targeting someone, which would result in your weapons activating at the same time regardless of what keys you pressed and when). Botting literally paid for my college during the worst recession in history, and paid for my health care, so I have some experience with how these systems work.
That said, I invite anyone who’s unsure about this to file their own ticket to get an answer. Just make sure to be specific about the intended use case.
No need for tickets, issue has already been covered multiple times. You can try to word-weasel it any way you like specifying your “intended use”, that won’t change the fact it’s against the EULA.
Please see:
and:
for reference.
(Only responding because this concerns possible account action for players.)
That was posted while I was away from the game. My ticket was from much earlier than that.
Still, unless those ISDs were also GMs, I’d take their words with a grain of salt.
I mean, really? Will that enforcement be based on the honor system, or what? How are they going to detect a wooden stick? There will always be activation entropy even if you press a bunch of keys with an object like that. Sounds like they were just winging it.
File a support ticket, people. An ISD forum post is not an authority on the matter, especially if your use case falls within the EULA.
To be fair, that ISD uses both “allowed” as “prohibited” in their answer.
AFAIK Kezral has it correct but I’ve never put it to a GM if you’re allowed to do more or not, simply because I don’t make use of it.
I don’t either. Only simple command bindings. In recent memory, I’ve only used the weapon macro when I collected statistical data by shooting an alt or a friend, which doesn’t fall under any “accelerated acquisition of in-game anything” language. In genuine combat situations, grouping weapons is vastly more efficient because of the quicker reload management.
But I can tell you right now that even if someone were to do something like this in actual combat (or using a “stick,” lmao), they wouldn’t be punished (or even observed) for it. CCP’s anti-botting efforts look for completely different behavior.
I’d take anything @ISD_Sakimura said with a grain of salt. He was definitely on the more “carebear” end of the spectrum and didn’t always post from a neutral or objective standpoint. Haven’t seen him around for a long time…
That being said…
Basically this. When in doubt, always file a support ticket and get an answer for your particular case.
I’ll make a support ticket if no one else has by now, lets avoid spamming the GM’s 
Just refer them here maybe?
Also I’d like to know what their policies are for disabled people who requires this sort of technological accommodation just to come close to playing normally. I don’t fall into that category, but I am curious.
Referring them here has the high chance of them getting lost in different scenarios meaning the answers will be convoluted. I’ve created a ticket with the following:
Hello,
I’d like to get some clarification on what is allowed or not in regards to macros. Here are two scenarios, could you please state if they are allowed and if not why so?
I have two weapon groups, one on F1 and the other on F2. I want to activate both weapons groups at the same time so I create and use a macro that simply does “press F1, press F2”
I have a module on F1 (cloak), I want to stop the ship and cloak up so I create a macro that does “press control and space, press F1”
Thank you.
Might need to clarify the first point for them to explain that full weapon grouping functionality is available in the game (not that they wouldn’t know about it, just that they might not think of it from that perspective). The second example sounds like a hard “no” as is.
From my understanding, which isn’t based on anything really, even the first one is a nono. That is why I gave two options to see what, if any, the limit is.
I think the first one will simply be a matter of the GM who gets the ticket. It doesn’t really fall under the language of the EULA in terms of the benefits that it can provide. But if they say that it’s not allowed, that will be nice to know as a more recent answer. Like I said, I don’t use this anymore anyway, and I doubt anyone else would want to either. I guess if I ever want to collect single weapon damage data again, I’ll just slide my hand across the F keys. Or use a popsicle stick. I wish them luck in catching me do that.
If you check the thread, not just that one snippet, the ISD is saying “Binding an in-game hotkey to another key is allowed”, and “Binding F1-F8 to a key is prohibited”.
The difference is that if you group all your weapons, they are grouped and all fire at the same target. If you starting binding multiple F-keys to different weapon firing patterns, then you can have “weapon groups” beyond what the game allows. You can fire all, or you can fire F1-F4 and F5-F8 at two different targets, etc.
It’s pretty simple and pretty clear. One keypress per action. But hey, keep trying to rules-lawyer it, who knows something interesting may turn up.
I can already do that by hitting 4 F keys with 4 of my fingers as a single block. And firing at a different target would require switching targets. Generally speaking it’s better to keep your weapons in more than 1 group when you have more than 3 weapons anyway, so there’s zero practical difference in that regard.
The simple math is that a person can physically manage 4 weapon groups with one hand as easily as they can manage 4 individual weapons.
It all comes down to an unenforced “book rule” and nothing else.
You can already do that ingame. Have 5 weapons grouped and a 6th to individually shoot other targets to get on more killmails, fcs hate this trick.
Which is not the point. The question is if you would be allowed to macro it so one keypress activates both weapon groups. Afaik it’s not allowed but as said I’ve never bothered delving in to this much as it doesn’t affect me.
Lets just wait for what the GM answers back.
Oh I understand the earlier discussion of macro weapon groups versus grouping weapons ingame. And my guess is that anything beyond ‘1 (combination) key press = 1 action’ would be prohibited, but I’d like to see an official stance on that as well.
I was only responding to your statement that you cannot can set any combination of weapon groups ingame, because you can.
it would become a grey area/nono on a ship where you have different weapon systems due to hardpoint restrictions. LIke a dragoon with 5 high slots but only 3 hardpoints of each type. So it can be fit with 3 light missle launchers and 2 autocannons……or whatver. Since those weapons when grouped would bind to F1 and F2. I would assume in that case its a clear violation no?
I get that in the case you had all the same weapon type the binding to one key is achieved by grouping so in theory its no different. But thats the kind of grey area where they would probably look at worst case and to avoid confusion just say no?
I dont know. spit balling
But is it really a violation in practice if you can make 2 weapon groups, and then activate both at the same time with your middle and index fingers? I would understand the perspective if the game functioned in a way where you can only activate one module or group at a time, but as is you can press whatever combination of keys you need to activate everything at once.
Also, let’s imagine a situation in which a player only has their index finger on their left hand. Should that player be penalized in efficiency by having to hit two weapon group keys individually, compared to a person with a regular hand who can hit both at the same time?
Macros are oftentimes convenience factors, and not cheating tools. Pretty much every other game allows macros. In WoW, for example, you can bind entire rotations to a single UI element.