CODE. hotline?

To all the CODE. Agents out there, is there a general contact Agent to reach out to if we think we’ve stumbled upon an actual botter (or someone acting very bot-like)?

Of course I could just open a ticket, but… you know how that can go.

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How can we help you? Do you need our advice how to bump/gank him? What have you tried already and what ship is the bot-aspirant (or actual not) using?

2-day-old character, in a 2-day-old corp, flying a Retriever. Observed warping into the middle of belts, then slowboating to Scordite rocks. Randomly they would abandon a rock and warp to another belt. Has T1 light drones out.

I was a bit bored and began wandering around while cloaked, generally creeping about. Stumbled onto this guy and watched him for a bit, then gave him a gentle bump (subsequently decloaking). Just wanted to see if he was awake. No reaction at all, no realignment, continued mining. I shrugged it off and recloaked, sat and watched for a bit. He moved on to another belt after a few minutes, and had not exhausted his current rocks. Followed him, same behavior.

I’m not sure I want to try ganking, myself, but I figured this was exactly the kind of odd behavior you all would be interested in checking out.

I think you should totally gank him. Scan his fit, calculate the damage required and then go for it!

Here are some guides to get you started: http://www.minerbumping.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1

Appreciate it, and I might try it, but the question was really about how to contact a CODE. rep and get them on the scene quickly when this kind of thing is observed.

Well it worked, I’m here and help you get the miner killed :grinning:

I’ll shoot you a mail in-game later on with more info, thanks!

Wanted to add @Aiko_Danuja, since they seem to be pretty involved in this sort of thing. :slight_smile:

Don’t forget the prints :sunglasses:

Sorry, not sure what this means.

Take pictures when y do it ! We want to see

They don’t gank botters unless they fly low tank ships and even then they probably won’t help you and tell you that it is under their level to “gank for ordinary plebs” and you are supposed to gank it yourself.

Also they don’t gank outside of highsec, in case your botter was in low/null.

Yeh, there are definitely bots out there. I’ve seen rets that always do the same thing, they warp to the rock, slowboat to the rock, gently bump into the rock, always the same, then activate lasers, and immediately without delay begin warping the moment anyone in CODE enters the system. There was a group that did that all the time, even if we warped through with one pod. Did it several times in a row, and they always kept warping off with perfect timing, and then one day they were all gone after I reported this to CCP.

In Amarr, I often see bot ventures. If you kill them, the pod will stay in the belt until the bot is ‘done’ mining, then the pod warps to station, and then the pod comes back out to keep mining! :crazy_face:

I found the websites of one of the ‘companies’ which sells mining bots, for an extra fee you can even get an added feature which will respond to conversation requests and try to make conversation.

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Last week a killed a retriever that was orbiting an ice roid. I fd-up the warp-in a bit, managed to kill the ship but not the pod. After sitting there for 5min the pod started to orbit the ice roid again for at least an hour (that’s when I left). It’s pretty obvious that the other miners just ignore that stuff and don’t care to report, otherwise there would not be so much bots around.

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I’ve been having a little more cloaky fun, it’s very informative. Warp into a belt and find a Venture or Retriever, approach and let the cloak fall. Count to 10. If no reaction, lock 'em. A couple of times no one would react at all, others they’d warp out the second the lock began.

I fitted a ship scanner and went poking around. Found a Vexor fitted with Miner II’s, Expanded Cargo II’s, mining rigs, etc. Just sitting in the middle of the belt. Bizarre.

Edit: Apparently “mining Vexors” used to be more common, but weren’t that great to begin with. I’m not sure why you’d fit one (T2 no less!) given how cheap barges are.

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Some cruisers used to have mining bonuses before the Venture existed. The Vexor was one of them. Carebears rarely update their ships or even notice such changes even if they where like a decade back.

According to E-UNI it’s still got the mining yield bonus for drones, so that’s something. I guess.

Is that the phone for your main or just for your market alt?

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I present the Vex-o-miner!

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Oh man, where is this abomination mining?

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Auvergne.

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