I've just been enjoying the EveNews24 articles on bots, and I am wondering if there is any definite way that another player can tell if the miner he has in his weapon sights is a bot or a real player?
I am assuming that repetitive actions on the part of the target do not always mean the target is a bot, as mining is very repetitive. Is there something you can do that would tell you one way or another if the target is a bot?
Tony Moore
[ Editor ]
This is a difficult one but there are a few pointers that may indicate a bot or not.
Drones - bots tend not to use them as they just die too often
Distance warp-in - bots often warp to 150+ kms of a belt for the bot to "assess" the belt before warping in to the roids.
Sudden disappearance - bots are sometimes programmed to warp to a safe or station if a character flagged as low sec status or with a bounty appears in local.
Random local chat - some bots are programmed to recognise the character's name if posted by another player in local chat. There will be a random generic response like "Hi y'all" or similar. Post the name again with a genuine question and you'll get the same or similar response that doesn't relate to your question.
However, NONE of these are fool-proof so don't assume a character is a bot without some good evidence.
Man this list makes me want to go and “act like a bot” using this list as a guideline. Just to see who thinks I might be. mAnd if they do attack me concordokken.
jonnykefka
In 0.0, bubbles can be a powerful tool for catching at least the stupider bots. Even if they dock up when a non-friendly jumps into system they will often continue warping to the same location when you leave, get caught in the bubble, and when you come back they'll sit there thinking in their stupid little bot minds that they are safe in their POS or station. I expect that more sophisticated bots at this point are capable of recognizing and dealing with this tactic, however, as it has been well-publicized.
Local chatter, convos, or eve-mails can also be good tools for identifying bots, but people may not respond if they speak a different language or are just shy. It's a good rule-out for people who are NOT bots, however.
Being logged on 23/7 is sometimes a good cue, but specifically being logged on and active. A lot of people will just leave themselves perma-logged-on to make their prime hours difficult to trace, but no human can actually do things in EVE for 23 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Beyond that it gets difficult. If you've got a very good understanding of how bots work and what data they read from EVE, you could try to find some way to mess with their input and confound them, but you're as likely to do something that would be considered an "Exploit" doing that as the bots themselves.
The only ones with the tools to truly, unambiguously identify bots are CCP, but they haven't been great about enforcing anything. If, based on the above, you suspect that someone is a bot you might as well report it since it can do you no harm and the GMs might take action, but realistically it's a crapshoot.
Oh, and if you have someone you're pretty sure is a bot, report them to their alliance, even if the alliance is hostile to you. Often an entire corp will be bots so it's not worth reporting at the corp level, but alliances have to be a little on guard because if there is any traceable evidence that they are allowing known bots CCP can screw them proper. Also, at least in 0.0, blues will be much more able to identify bots because most bots won't try to hide when blues show up and they can be more readily observed.
I’m guessing the “Being logged in 23/7” can only be checked if you are also logged in 23/7. Is that correct?
A good understanding of bots and discussions on how to avoid being caught can be quite good to read. If you have good intentions, and by good I mean total destruction of the scripted pest, you can e.g. read up on “public demands” forum.
Re: Being logged in 23/7, there’s also getting a few friends with different TZ coverage to help you out…
Darina Smirayne
[ Moderator ]
Asking a question in local might help, but if you don't get an answer then there is nothing learned.
Yeah you can only prove that someone is NOT a bot, you cannot prove that someone IS a bot……
randy mcfoyle
[ Editor ]
Mining Bots:
Bots don't use drones
Bots tank rats and don't fight back. Their tank is always passive shield and aims to the specific rats that visit a system.
All mining bots do is to mine. You won't find them also doing trading and also doing missions. Whilst not all bots are mining bots - I understand that you also get courier bots, trade bots and the like.
They tend to be in the same system all the time.
Bots have no qualms of warping in and mining the same roids as you do - even if those roids are mined up.
Bots tend to go in packs. Therefore there are usually a couple of mining bots to a single system.
Bots never can mine. Nor do they use haulers to take mins to a station.
Bots tend to have a 0.0 security status.
Bots are online 23/7
Misconceptions about bots:
Bots do not always belong to NPC corporations, despite what anyone may say. Bots can be in bot corporations. Bot toons may have a checkered employment history because everytime you wardec their corp, everyone resigns into a new corp.
CCP seldom if ever responds to petitions about bots
well… it also depend on the person behind the bot… if it’s a normal person that do play EVE normally… but just sets on a bot when he/she goes to work/school/sleep… most of those won’t cover…
consortium agent
cerneus
[ Editor ]
There was a group of bots can-mining once. 3 hulks + occator.
Rare but happens.
Scary! Next step will be a Pandemic Legion fleet wiping out NC’s sovereignty with no real players behind the ships!
Owen Hughes
[ Editor ]
Pop their mining ship. If the pod keeps warping back in it's a bot. If they start swearing at you in local it's a human player.
sir_substance
McFloyds answer covers the behaviour of almost every career miner, except for the 23/7 bit.
My mining setup covers all his points except 5, 8 and 9, and there are many legit miners who cover 5 as well.
8 Is a good sign, but by no means definitive. Almost all miners will have killed a few rats at some point when they first started out, so they should have slightly positive sec, but that's easy for a bot to fake, and not obligatory for a real miner.
This would be best placed as a comment to Randy McFoyle’s (not McFloyd) answer rather than an answer in itself.
+1 and +fav, because this question is asked very often and i’ve discussed this issue with corp members as well.
A very interesting question