Science & Industry

NO,
This is not possible with current game mechanics. That would enable more effective AFK mining. I am sure there are scripts you could run to do that for you, but I believe that would be against the rules. If you want that go ice mining, then the rocks never pop.

There is a reason why ore mining is way more isk/hr than ice mining. Ice mining can be done AFK for 15-20 minutes at a time, while ore mining can go only if you are lucky and in a belt with large rocks 2-3 cycles. The point of the game mechanics is to make AFK play more difficult.

Thanks for the clarification

Indeed, the mining mechanics are so simplistic and intellectually unengaging that terms like "stupidly bad game design" are warranted. Lots of people mine semi-AFK, set the strippers to cycle, then alt+tab out of the game, or resume watching a recorded TV show, then thenreturn their attention to the computer only when they hear the voice cue telling them that a stripper has popped a roid and needs to be set onto a new target (I've been doing this so much, you'll notice, that I can no longer remember exactly what words the voice cue contains).

It is almost certainly impossible to make mining as engaging and fascinating as PVE or PVP is, without making it into an actually combat-like process (and doing exactly that would deter a lot of miners), but over the years there have been lots of proposals for things CCP can do to at least make mining slightly less boring.

Doing so will also make life harder for botters (much harder, and permanently harder, unlike an interface change such as the Inventory change last year), and will also reduce the incidence of semi-AFK mining, both of these will serve to drive up mineral prices, thereby making mining a somewhat more attractive profession, in terms of ISK-per-hour, than it is now.

Um That is exactly what a Macro does. You program it to hit button "A" , then pause XX seconds, Hit button "B", pause XX seconds, Hit button "C", pause XX seconds, then repeat.

A multi box program such as ISBoxer is an emulator that copies your keyboard actions across multiple instances/windows. I expect the only reason a program like isk boxer is allowed is that it is not used by many players, and those who do use it, use it to run many accounts they could not run in any other way. For example that guy that was involved in the "incident" with the Mittani had 75 accounts he used for mining. He used a multi box program, that if CCP decided was a violation would cost them 75 subscriptions.

Not many players use these programs and the ones that do have enough accounts for CCP to not want them to quit.



Yes, some keyboards have integrated macro's that allow you to program key sequences to a single button. those are fine. It is the ones that allow you to add time delay and repetition to the sequence that makes it a violation. A true bot macro is more than just an automated key sequence, it is a sequence that activates certain buttons at given intervals, and can be looped to repeat indefinitely.

Games like SWG actually had an in game system for programing marco's. It seemed odd to me that any game would integrate a system that made AFK activity not only easier to do, but highly effective. Buff bots, farming bots, and survey bots were all very common in SWG.

There were many players in SWG that used marcos for PVP. They would program their combat abilities to automate in a specific order, including delay for skill cooldowns. Then once activated they could devote there full attention to circle strafing and running around to avoid getting hit. As far as I am concerned macro's did as much damage to SWG as the NGE conversion.