Forums » Suggestions
I originally floated the idea in this thread: https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/35965?page=2#414208
If a ship hasn't moved for 30 minutes, F/A mode is disabled automatically.. For rp reasons we could say its a power saving feature. The practical reason is to mitigate spotters (allowing them to be pushed adrift). F/A can't be turned back on until there is meaningful interaction from the pilot.
This would be implemented for all player ships including unattended capital ships. (So there would be zero work around of a spotter being placed in a cap ship turret).
If a ship hasn't moved for 30 minutes, F/A mode is disabled automatically.. For rp reasons we could say its a power saving feature. The practical reason is to mitigate spotters (allowing them to be pushed adrift). F/A can't be turned back on until there is meaningful interaction from the pilot.
This would be implemented for all player ships including unattended capital ships. (So there would be zero work around of a spotter being placed in a cap ship turret).
Sounds like a reasonable way to mitigate spotters and just blatant afkers, without realistically harming real pilots afaik. +1
All this change would do is result in the spotter-bot-programmers adding a condition to have their bots /explode if they're pushed outside the NFZ. Then they respawn in an empty ship and resume spotting.
You could argue that splash from an /explosion beyond the NFZ should incur penalties if it doesn't already, but that's also easy to work around. Just have the bot check proximity and activate turbo to make room if it lacks space to /explode cleanly. It could also run a timer, and if it takes too long to get clear (perhaps it's obstructed by a roid, or being PCBed), it could just log out and swap to an alt parked at the same station.
A more reliable way to make this actually inconvenience them is by having it do something like popping up a captcha when people are idle too long, to totally shut them down until they prove their humanity. But wait, didn't the devs implement something like that already last year? Why yes, they did. If people are successfully running spy bots again, then either something broke, or they found a way around the captchas; either way these simplistic "just detect if they're obviously a bot lol" suggestions are redundant.
You could argue that splash from an /explosion beyond the NFZ should incur penalties if it doesn't already, but that's also easy to work around. Just have the bot check proximity and activate turbo to make room if it lacks space to /explode cleanly. It could also run a timer, and if it takes too long to get clear (perhaps it's obstructed by a roid, or being PCBed), it could just log out and swap to an alt parked at the same station.
A more reliable way to make this actually inconvenience them is by having it do something like popping up a captcha when people are idle too long, to totally shut them down until they prove their humanity. But wait, didn't the devs implement something like that already last year? Why yes, they did. If people are successfully running spy bots again, then either something broke, or they found a way around the captchas; either way these simplistic "just detect if they're obviously a bot lol" suggestions are redundant.
Captchas can be bypassed for fully subbed accounts. Which are the accounts spybots use, Pizza.
Not according to this, though admittedly that guy's not the most reliable source.
Also, if spy bots (which are explicitely not wanted by the devs) are being done via subbed accounts, then that's great! It means that once they're identified, the devs can kill the accounts, ban the credit cards or pay-pals associated with them, and pocket the leftover account balances. Everybody wins!
Also, if spy bots (which are explicitely not wanted by the devs) are being done via subbed accounts, then that's great! It means that once they're identified, the devs can kill the accounts, ban the credit cards or pay-pals associated with them, and pocket the leftover account balances. Everybody wins!
Captchas can be bypassed for fully subbed accounts. Which are the accounts spybots use, Pizza.
No, they can't. We're much more aggressive about CAPTCHA usage on freemium accounts, but there are anti-bot features implemented for Subscriber accounts as well, and that has been true for some time.
Whatever the bots are doing these days (I haven't looked), they're probably on more sporadically than they used to be.
Basically, what Pizza says is correct. Particularly: either way these simplistic "just detect if they're obviously a bot lol" suggestions are redundant.
There are a number of options that are possible. Not limited to, but including..
- We could get a lot more aggressive and invasive, both with CAPTCHAs and other options. This will probably impact "real" players as well.
- We could strip all radar mechanics out of the plugin sandbox, which would make a whole lot of plugins stop working. That would make it into a real-time memory-analysis or OCR problem on the client, which is a hell of a lot more technically challenging.
It's actually not hard for us to permanently stop all spy-bots. But you guys might not like the secondary ramifications, like to plugins, or "shops".
Thus, we've been minimally-invasive, to date.
But, I do think spybots are fundamentally stupid, and game-breaking, as they confer a bit of an excessive awareness advantage to particular "elite" player groups.
No, they can't. We're much more aggressive about CAPTCHA usage on freemium accounts, but there are anti-bot features implemented for Subscriber accounts as well, and that has been true for some time.
Whatever the bots are doing these days (I haven't looked), they're probably on more sporadically than they used to be.
Basically, what Pizza says is correct. Particularly: either way these simplistic "just detect if they're obviously a bot lol" suggestions are redundant.
There are a number of options that are possible. Not limited to, but including..
- We could get a lot more aggressive and invasive, both with CAPTCHAs and other options. This will probably impact "real" players as well.
- We could strip all radar mechanics out of the plugin sandbox, which would make a whole lot of plugins stop working. That would make it into a real-time memory-analysis or OCR problem on the client, which is a hell of a lot more technically challenging.
It's actually not hard for us to permanently stop all spy-bots. But you guys might not like the secondary ramifications, like to plugins, or "shops".
Thus, we've been minimally-invasive, to date.
But, I do think spybots are fundamentally stupid, and game-breaking, as they confer a bit of an excessive awareness advantage to particular "elite" player groups.
I would argue that Observational Player Accounts are the natural progression of the extensive safety mechanics of the game. Some of which are:
1. Capitol System safety (can not shoot same nation in capitol systems)
2. Monitored sectors that do not contain stations or wormholes
3. Infinite Turbo ships that exceed 180mps
4. Excessively sized spherical jump zones at wormholes
5. Excessive turret counts in Capitol systems
6. Excessive range disparity when directly following another ships (i.e. running ship gets a 1k plus distance on pursuer after jump)
7. Infinite fast jumps with no repercussions to power cell or delay for successive jumps
Continually adding mechanics that restrict players who pirate or simply just like to shoot whatever they see is going to lead to those players evolving new ways to find/track targets.
1. Capitol System safety (can not shoot same nation in capitol systems)
2. Monitored sectors that do not contain stations or wormholes
3. Infinite Turbo ships that exceed 180mps
4. Excessively sized spherical jump zones at wormholes
5. Excessive turret counts in Capitol systems
6. Excessive range disparity when directly following another ships (i.e. running ship gets a 1k plus distance on pursuer after jump)
7. Infinite fast jumps with no repercussions to power cell or delay for successive jumps
Continually adding mechanics that restrict players who pirate or simply just like to shoot whatever they see is going to lead to those players evolving new ways to find/track targets.
Evolve into jumping into sector to see what is there. Easy fix.
Continually adding mechanics that restrict players who pirate or simply just like to shoot whatever they see is going to lead to those players evolving new ways to find/track targets.
That's an ironic claim, considering this technology was arguably first popularized by traders, and not pirates. But, that's simply because "information awareness" is power, no matter who has it.
And that's the fundamental problem. I'm willing to accept some mild gray-area of "advantage" that players may gain externally, by buying a faster computer, or living closer to the server, or being a member of a well-organized guild.
But, certain special people having external access to magical bots that tell you where everyone is in the game, is not okay.
If it was built into the game in some way, with well-established parameters of access, that would be one thing (I've considered stuff like this, where NPC convoys of factions where you have high standing could tell you who they've "seen recently", etc).
But if it's arbitrarily under the control of some player group, and the whims of who they happen to like? No, that isn't cool.
That's also why a discussion of "dis-advantages to pirates" has no place here. Like, I'm fine with discussing gameplay changes that specifically impact pirates (in some other thread), but again, they have to be well-established and available-to-all, not some random elitist sub-group of the community.
Spy-bots are also inherently bad for the server. It makes operating our game more expensive, and makes it worse for players, because Sector Daemons are kept artificially online for longer periods of time. It makes "background" server updates more problematic, as we can't organically propagate Lua changes as easily across the game SDs (more of them have to be manually killed and forced to restart).
It's just bad, and dumb, and in no way is it ever going to be acceptable here. So, let's go ahead and never try making this BS argument again.
This discussion is about ways of limiting it. Not whether it should be acceptable, that's already been clarified, for quite some time.
That's an ironic claim, considering this technology was arguably first popularized by traders, and not pirates. But, that's simply because "information awareness" is power, no matter who has it.
And that's the fundamental problem. I'm willing to accept some mild gray-area of "advantage" that players may gain externally, by buying a faster computer, or living closer to the server, or being a member of a well-organized guild.
But, certain special people having external access to magical bots that tell you where everyone is in the game, is not okay.
If it was built into the game in some way, with well-established parameters of access, that would be one thing (I've considered stuff like this, where NPC convoys of factions where you have high standing could tell you who they've "seen recently", etc).
But if it's arbitrarily under the control of some player group, and the whims of who they happen to like? No, that isn't cool.
That's also why a discussion of "dis-advantages to pirates" has no place here. Like, I'm fine with discussing gameplay changes that specifically impact pirates (in some other thread), but again, they have to be well-established and available-to-all, not some random elitist sub-group of the community.
Spy-bots are also inherently bad for the server. It makes operating our game more expensive, and makes it worse for players, because Sector Daemons are kept artificially online for longer periods of time. It makes "background" server updates more problematic, as we can't organically propagate Lua changes as easily across the game SDs (more of them have to be manually killed and forced to restart).
It's just bad, and dumb, and in no way is it ever going to be acceptable here. So, let's go ahead and never try making this BS argument again.
This discussion is about ways of limiting it. Not whether it should be acceptable, that's already been clarified, for quite some time.
I never claimed it was acceptable nor was I arguing. I stated that its the natural evolution of having extensive safety mechanics in the game.
That's like saying the "natural evolution" of having rules in a game is that people will find ways to cheat. That isn't a meaningful or useful discussion point. Cheating is not "natural", it's a willful act of violating or exceeding the boundaries of the game, to gain a substantial and unfair advantage.
It really looks more like you're dragging the subject off-topic to discuss some unrelated personal pet peeves. Don't do that.
Let's get back on topic here. I pointed out some options and ramifications above.
It's also possible that we could add some kind of "vote" style mechanic, where people can tag a given character as a suspected bot, and it can eventually (not immediately) pop up a captcha on the next docking, or next-login of the given user (and various other conditions I won't call out). Something that would make this non-invasive to users, so people couldn't use it against one another during combat, but could still request confirmation that a character was a "real person".
This won't be perfect either, but it might be mitigating in some ways.
It really looks more like you're dragging the subject off-topic to discuss some unrelated personal pet peeves. Don't do that.
Let's get back on topic here. I pointed out some options and ramifications above.
It's also possible that we could add some kind of "vote" style mechanic, where people can tag a given character as a suspected bot, and it can eventually (not immediately) pop up a captcha on the next docking, or next-login of the given user (and various other conditions I won't call out). Something that would make this non-invasive to users, so people couldn't use it against one another during combat, but could still request confirmation that a character was a "real person".
This won't be perfect either, but it might be mitigating in some ways.
incarnate wrote:
But if it's arbitrarily under the control of some player group, and the whims of who they happen to like? No, that isn't cool.
Kind of on topic, does you opinion on this issue extend to players(not dedicated spotters) running spotting plugins(enterleave/tcft2/anyx/voce/etc) whose intel is only shared with who like as well?
But if it's arbitrarily under the control of some player group, and the whims of who they happen to like? No, that isn't cool.
Kind of on topic, does you opinion on this issue extend to players(not dedicated spotters) running spotting plugins(enterleave/tcft2/anyx/voce/etc) whose intel is only shared with who like as well?
Actually no I'm not trying to drag it off topic. One is the result of the other, its that simple. If you want to say they are mutually exclusive then I guess that's the way it is.
Actually no I'm not trying to drag it off topic. One is the result of the other, its that simple.
You're being deliberately obtuse. One IS NOT the result of the other, like I said in my initial post. Pirates weren't even the first ones to do this at-scale, which basically invalidates your entire theory that this is a "natural progression of limitations on pirates". Posting your opinion over and over, and stating it "as-fact" does not make it any more accurate.
Kind of on topic, does you opinion on this issue extend to players(not dedicated spotters) running spotting plugins(enterleave/tcft2/anyx/voce/etc) whose intel is only shared with who like as well?
That's a reasonable discussion to have, and one that I would prefer more feedback from the community about. I have mixed feelings about it.
- Anyone is arguably capable of manually messaging their guild with the ships they see, but automating it at scale does eventually increase that advantage pretty dramatically.
- People who "happen" to leave their ships hanging around in high-value transit areas, while they're "afk" for lengthy periods, starts to definitely cross a line where it's unclear if they're being a bot, or actually playing the game.
I would say it's nowhere near as egregious and obviously-bad as running a large network of idle bots whose exclusive purpose is to provide intelligence on the movements of players to a technically-advanced subgroup of the userbase.
But, it does start to get into pretty gray-area territory. If people truly want all "auomated spying" activity to be eliminated, then probably the only way us to remove all Lua access to client radar data, which would impact everything from Targetless to spotting-plugins to actual persistent spy-bots.
To date, I've been trying to pursue options that are minimally invasive, and "mitigate" the issue without actually permanently resolving it. But, the recent threads (including this one) indicate that isn't enough for some people, so I'm open to further feedback on that, and what trade-offs you're willing to accept to make things meet your goals.
But just to eliminate one point from discussion: We do not have the long-term time or resources to personally chase after every person who runs a bot and ban them, and then their 1298391 successive accounts that they create via 32984923 different VPNs. So, if you're reading this and saying "The devs just need to take action!", you need to let go of that and join reality. We might do something temporarily, but trying to do this administratively as a long-term solution leads to madness. So, we can either:
1) Mitigate things. Automated heuristics. Player-tagging of suspected bots. Whatever. It won't catch all of the people, all of the time, but it will probably make it "more annoying" to run a bot, and there's a long history of successfully preventing people from doing things by making them annoying (say, copy protection, for instance). It would have no impact on people who "automatically share" information while they're actually playing (people who "go afk" for long periods could be subject to the same bot-tagging as anyone else), so we would just have to accept that as a fact of life.
2) Shut down automated data acquisition and sharing via Lua APIs. This will clear up 99% "spy" of cases, and will dramatically elevate the technological requirements for engaging in this kind of information sharing. It will also break any plugin that has any awareness of anything. Lists of prospected asteroids and their contents? Nope. Special flagging of nearby ships and sounds/actions on their movements or distance? Nope. Visual changes to radar, beyond that of "skins"? Nope.
You're being deliberately obtuse. One IS NOT the result of the other, like I said in my initial post. Pirates weren't even the first ones to do this at-scale, which basically invalidates your entire theory that this is a "natural progression of limitations on pirates". Posting your opinion over and over, and stating it "as-fact" does not make it any more accurate.
Kind of on topic, does you opinion on this issue extend to players(not dedicated spotters) running spotting plugins(enterleave/tcft2/anyx/voce/etc) whose intel is only shared with who like as well?
That's a reasonable discussion to have, and one that I would prefer more feedback from the community about. I have mixed feelings about it.
- Anyone is arguably capable of manually messaging their guild with the ships they see, but automating it at scale does eventually increase that advantage pretty dramatically.
- People who "happen" to leave their ships hanging around in high-value transit areas, while they're "afk" for lengthy periods, starts to definitely cross a line where it's unclear if they're being a bot, or actually playing the game.
I would say it's nowhere near as egregious and obviously-bad as running a large network of idle bots whose exclusive purpose is to provide intelligence on the movements of players to a technically-advanced subgroup of the userbase.
But, it does start to get into pretty gray-area territory. If people truly want all "auomated spying" activity to be eliminated, then probably the only way us to remove all Lua access to client radar data, which would impact everything from Targetless to spotting-plugins to actual persistent spy-bots.
To date, I've been trying to pursue options that are minimally invasive, and "mitigate" the issue without actually permanently resolving it. But, the recent threads (including this one) indicate that isn't enough for some people, so I'm open to further feedback on that, and what trade-offs you're willing to accept to make things meet your goals.
But just to eliminate one point from discussion: We do not have the long-term time or resources to personally chase after every person who runs a bot and ban them, and then their 1298391 successive accounts that they create via 32984923 different VPNs. So, if you're reading this and saying "The devs just need to take action!", you need to let go of that and join reality. We might do something temporarily, but trying to do this administratively as a long-term solution leads to madness. So, we can either:
1) Mitigate things. Automated heuristics. Player-tagging of suspected bots. Whatever. It won't catch all of the people, all of the time, but it will probably make it "more annoying" to run a bot, and there's a long history of successfully preventing people from doing things by making them annoying (say, copy protection, for instance). It would have no impact on people who "automatically share" information while they're actually playing (people who "go afk" for long periods could be subject to the same bot-tagging as anyone else), so we would just have to accept that as a fact of life.
2) Shut down automated data acquisition and sharing via Lua APIs. This will clear up 99% "spy" of cases, and will dramatically elevate the technological requirements for engaging in this kind of information sharing. It will also break any plugin that has any awareness of anything. Lists of prospected asteroids and their contents? Nope. Special flagging of nearby ships and sounds/actions on their movements or distance? Nope. Visual changes to radar, beyond that of "skins"? Nope.
I’ll +1 option number 2
2) players straight up won't be able to host their own events when it requires plugins to manage.
I've been spending the past week in particular putting together a new event that i'd hope to test this weekend and regularly host after that once i see and attempt to fix everything currently broken about it, and i'd rather not have to scrap it because of spotters that I don't often run into and don't impact me.
I +1'd the original post here because it seemed like a rather fair way to let pilots deal with these errant spotters on their own, should they slip past Incarnate's net or whatever - a method of tagging a pilot would also be neat; both are non-invasive to pilots actually trying to create new content for the game, and while sure it won't screw over all spotters, but we can still enjoy and grow the game in our own way.
I've been spending the past week in particular putting together a new event that i'd hope to test this weekend and regularly host after that once i see and attempt to fix everything currently broken about it, and i'd rather not have to scrap it because of spotters that I don't often run into and don't impact me.
I +1'd the original post here because it seemed like a rather fair way to let pilots deal with these errant spotters on their own, should they slip past Incarnate's net or whatever - a method of tagging a pilot would also be neat; both are non-invasive to pilots actually trying to create new content for the game, and while sure it won't screw over all spotters, but we can still enjoy and grow the game in our own way.
Honestly, I don't see Option 2 accomplishing anything useful. The sector list is in a fixed place with a consistent font; I've never done OCR, but I cannot imagine it being anything difficult under those conditions. It's 2019, for Asimov's sake. When I consider the prospect of parking bots at a bunch of stations and keeping them all online and non-captchad, the programming for the OCR actually seems like the easy part; it's certainly the more fun part. And then there's the matter of all the lost plugin functionality when you throw the baby out with the bath water. Think of the children!
Personally, I'd prefer Option 3: Create an official means of getting this data, making the bots obsolete while making the data available to everybody instead of a select few. Power to the people, and all that. Besides, am I seriously supposed to believe that none of the station personnel are willing to inform the latest VPR wannabe that they saw me repairing my ship a few minutes ago?
Personally, I'd prefer Option 3: Create an official means of getting this data, making the bots obsolete while making the data available to everybody instead of a select few. Power to the people, and all that. Besides, am I seriously supposed to believe that none of the station personnel are willing to inform the latest VPR wannabe that they saw me repairing my ship a few minutes ago?
The sector list is in a fixed place with a consistent font; I've never done OCR, but I cannot imagine it being anything difficult under those conditions.
It might be fun for you, but the barrier of entry will be much higher, it'll probably make spy-bots far less popular, and even if people did try to run them, they still have all the other (current) contentions and ramifications to deal with.
I mean, you don't see people writing OCR software to get around the CAPTCHA right now. It's entirely possible for people to do that, it's just super annoying.
Realistically, it will shut down the issue.
Understand.. I'm not actually advocating for this as "the solution", necessarily, I'm just saying it would likely be effective.
Personally, I'd prefer Option 3: Create an official means of getting this data, making the bots obsolete while making the data available to everybody instead of a select few.
What do you mean by that, in practice? Like a non-optional Buddy List that anyone can search and query for your current position, within the game-client? Is that really something you want?
We have entire player archtypes avoiding each other already, like Traders staying offline when Pirates are playing. How does removal of surprise and uncertainty improve VO?
We have people who already grief and chase and hunt one another to the extreme; this just removes any possibility of playing quietly.
Sorry Pizza, that seems like a super terrible idea.
It might be fun for you, but the barrier of entry will be much higher, it'll probably make spy-bots far less popular, and even if people did try to run them, they still have all the other (current) contentions and ramifications to deal with.
I mean, you don't see people writing OCR software to get around the CAPTCHA right now. It's entirely possible for people to do that, it's just super annoying.
Realistically, it will shut down the issue.
Understand.. I'm not actually advocating for this as "the solution", necessarily, I'm just saying it would likely be effective.
Personally, I'd prefer Option 3: Create an official means of getting this data, making the bots obsolete while making the data available to everybody instead of a select few.
What do you mean by that, in practice? Like a non-optional Buddy List that anyone can search and query for your current position, within the game-client? Is that really something you want?
We have entire player archtypes avoiding each other already, like Traders staying offline when Pirates are playing. How does removal of surprise and uncertainty improve VO?
We have people who already grief and chase and hunt one another to the extreme; this just removes any possibility of playing quietly.
Sorry Pizza, that seems like a super terrible idea.
No, not to the extent of the buddy list. That's universal coverage; way beyond what the bot networks provide. No, I'm thinking more like bribing station officials to send you periodic updates about who they've seen in their sector (i.e. a subscription snitch service). It would give people an idea of what general area I've been in, but as it would be limited to stations it would not be able to tell which wormhole or asteroids I'm camping, nor track me if I go elsewhere without visiting stations (so if I want to throw them off, I could camp a wormhole in Odia, but then go over to Pelatus for repairs). The data would be presented in an Informants tab in the PDA, updated every fifteen minutes, and you'd need to physically visit each station first to arrange the bribes and set up the recurring payment (subscriptions could be aborted anytime via PDA; physical visits are only needed to start them, not stop them). The end result is a bit less real-time than a bot network, but a lot less hassle to maintain.
Though I should clarify, when I said I'd prefer that, I meant I prefer it over Option 2. Option 1, assuming it doesn't make gameplay onerous, is my overall preference. I meant to say that in the first place but forgot. I do value privacy, just not as much as I value the utility that plugins bring to the table.
Though I should clarify, when I said I'd prefer that, I meant I prefer it over Option 2. Option 1, assuming it doesn't make gameplay onerous, is my overall preference. I meant to say that in the first place but forgot. I do value privacy, just not as much as I value the utility that plugins bring to the table.
So, the problem with the "gameplay oriented bribing of local officials", is that no one who currently runs a spy-bot network is going to choose some gameplay system with a lot of limitations, over their own system with much fewer limitations. And if we just "accept" spy-bots, they will continue to proliferate.
This is why "making the data available to everybody instead of a select few" has to exceed the capabilities of the existing spy-bots, or why would people bother? And if it genuinely does exceed the capabilities, it basically destroys a major aspect of the game, which isn't.. okay, by me.
But, anyway, it's good to know that, in actuality, your vote is for Option 1.
And again, for anyone else reading, I'm not advocating for eliminating (or seriously compromising) plugins either, I'm just trying to candidly lay out the options and ramifications.
This is why "making the data available to everybody instead of a select few" has to exceed the capabilities of the existing spy-bots, or why would people bother? And if it genuinely does exceed the capabilities, it basically destroys a major aspect of the game, which isn't.. okay, by me.
But, anyway, it's good to know that, in actuality, your vote is for Option 1.
And again, for anyone else reading, I'm not advocating for eliminating (or seriously compromising) plugins either, I'm just trying to candidly lay out the options and ramifications.