I smartbomb myself so I know how this works and how it needs to be done.
I tested other smartbombers and those I tested are 100% using macros. The “EF” guy in Ahbazon is most likely even input broadcasting, but even though I submitted a ticket at january, It is august and he is still allowed to do this ■■■■ anyway. CCP support refused to answer my question whether scripting smartbombs via AutoIt is legit. That they can’t disclose such informations (with addendum that if you have to ask then it is probably not legal lol). Since the EF guy wasn’t banned then I guess it is.
Just a short explanation for those who never tried smartbombing and therefore don’t know how it works. First of all, smartbombs cannot be “stacked”. If you have 7 bombs (Praxis) you need to press 7 keys to activate them. Second, the keys cannot be pressed simultaneously - if you just smash the F keys with all your fingers at the same time then you can hit either your keyboard input limit, or more likely EVE server input limit (which then results to you not killing the target). The simple keyboard or mouse macros that just records and repeat sequence of keys leads to this - sometimes (not always) one of the modules will be activated slower or not at all. So each bomb needs to be pressed with slight delay in matter of miliseconds (because the target, depending on ship type, is vulnerable just a second or two). This is perfectly doable with fingers. But here is the thing - if you kill the target with your first 1-3 bombs, then if you do it manually, if you still have another bomb you will hit capsule and that in highsec means a huge penalty to your status. Which is how I tested the smartbombers - used almost dead shuttle and checked if they hit my pod or not (they didn’t => the keys were pressed with delay that can’t be achieved by human reflexes). If you watch UedamaScout you can see this happening too - very often you can see shuttle arriving to Shera gate and then you can see a capsule for a second or two before another cycle zapps it => advanced automation.
So it is as it is. But I am interested what is your opinion on the matter. Where is the draw line between a harmless macro and cheating in your opinion?
The smartbomber used all 4 bombs as he killed and looted his target.
I suppose that I can accept a possibility that he is that precise with an actual fingers. Maybe more than one test would be needed to objectively tell. I just know that I always hit the pod when I smartbomb already damaged shuttle as I am not using any macro to do it.
That’s incredibly stupid. They should 100% tell players whether an action ingame is within the game rules or not. Or does the answer depend on WHO does it?
It’s either legit or not.
Btw, the keyboard limit is not a problem in many mechanical keyboards, they have a rollover feature which means in some cases you can roll your head on the keyboard and it will recognise every single input.
Okay, well there is still server input limit for sure. You can see that if you make simple keyboard macro that will press F1 F2 F3 F4. Sometimes only first 1-3 keys are recognized by server. Of course it is possible that those who does this are using simple macro without ms delay and are just hoping for the best, but I sincerely doubt.
But that is my question - when it is cheating? When the macro requires special program? Or when the macro allows to do something that human would not be capable of? Or (and I heard this opinion) only when the players is not present at the computer?
AFAIK omegas are the only ones allowed to cheat within this game.
@Vokan_Narkar it is difficult to prove cheating from the player’s point of view… although it might be obvious to us, we are not the ones running the show. However as we know, EVE uses no anti cheat software (I guess EAC was too rich for their blood?) so I would hazard to guess a lot of people are cheating, running bots, and macros in this game. Without the gate keeping they will flock in your door and maybe CCP wants to place population above honesty and fair play.
Meanwhile the games using EAC are faced with people using hardware cheats. When the company fights back the cheaters make new weapons. Some are using 2 PC’s to play action shooters. The clean PC receives mouse and keyboard input commands from the “dirty” PC that is watching a live stream of the other PC. The dirty PC running the cheating software is just viewing the game and telling the clean PC how to move. How insane is that for you?
If alt tab was used to switch between game clients, would that be faster than mouse travelling between game clients?
Though there would still require as many buttons pressed depending on the number of smartbombs fitted, ie 7 keys along with switching clients.
I use to think they would have a scout at one gate and they time the travel via a stopwatch to guess the timing to have all smartbombs active by the time a capsule leaves subwarp on the next gate
If we are talking about multiboxing smartbombers, that is isn’t doable at all without macros. The player in question claims that he is using pedals and pressing the buttons with his toes. Thats ■■■■■■■■.
But anyway, yes alt-tab is faster than moving mouse. Still alt-tab actually takes about half a second itself, so that cannot be used for something where your time frame is 2 seconds total (and even less for shuttles). However there is EVE-O which allows you to switch client with any key you bind, so basically his macro is F1 to F7 then 1 (to switch client) then F1 to F2 then 2 and so on.
There is no way you can press 39 buttons within 2 seconds with a slight delay so server recognizes the input by fingers (and toes). And without failing to execute this sequence most of the times.
CCP won’t ban him though, he persuaded them, like Ivicek, that the other characters are controlled by his 4 brothers or that he is using pedals or whatever. Or maybe CCP thinks that the destruction that both of them are causing is healthy for the game, I don’t know. It is as it is. The discussion is really not about “Does they use scripts?” - that is given. The discussion is where is a line between harmless simple macro and cheating. I am not so sure myself really.
TBH maybe it is time for CCP to allow stacking smartbombs, the way how it works really forces anyone to script.
" Their findings hit on a major point of human-computer psychology: pure timing tests consistently showed using a mouse was faster than keyboarding, but users just as consistently swore that their keyboard efforts were faster. "
Which confirms what I have thought all along…that mouse can be way faster than keyboard but people just don’t realise it. I know this from warping multiple gates. During passing through the stargate the ‘warp’ icon disappears…but…if you already have the cursor on the space where it will re-appear then you can click it instantly, for example.
Well it all depends on a setup really, and where on the screen you need to click/where to move mouse. I suppose it is not that straight forward for sure. In some cases alt-tab can be faster, in other cases moving mouse would be definitely much faster.
Alt-tab doesn’t scale well with more accounts. It is going to be slower the more accounts are at play.
My experience with multiboxing even two characters is that on a fleet warp the two characters do not arrive at exact same time even if pre-aligned. Even at best there’s a tiny separation. I’m guessing part of this is also down to what part of the server click the warp is picked up for each ship. And the same would apply to weapons with any form of time cycle.
This though seems like arm movements were used throughout the test where one might suggest that would be greater movements than mouse travel times.
It might be possible to only use a mouse and beet the keyboard for the same function though in this case of smartbombing event it would not be the same outcome.
In case of multiboxing smartbombing, which really just isn’t humanly possible, but if it was you cannot use mouse at all. You need to press say 7 or even 8 buttons and super fast so you need to have both hands on the F buttons. Moving your hand to mouse and back is just nonsense in this exact case. In fact even moving fingers to ALT+TAB is just not doable, switching clients needs to be done with single button shortcut very close to F keys and even then the executon, with more than 2 clients is extremely difficult.
Ask EF how he does it, I asked him and he answered and I even stayed on his side learning
Then I learned I would have to buy a new keyboard with a special feature, it is a feature that let’s you smoothly smash many keys and the signal doesn’t get lost.
If your keyboard is standard, there’s kinda like IRQ “conflitcs” and then not all bombs will activate
Not defending him or nothing, but I think he is legit, once you stay on his side you can see the bombs being activated one by one and the damage is split nicely between the alts
edit: I even have his key configuration explained by himself in my email, but I won’t disclose it here since it was a private conversation between him and me and I don’t think it would be ok posting it
