EVE General Discussion

I'd say it's about even. 1 person running 20 accounts won't be nearly as effective as 20 people running 1 account each.

This is pretty much the end of that argument. While I was in RvB there was a guy who ran a 4 account multibox setup (Hi SG-1 Team) to 'solo' and we took him out with 3 guys who were working together on comms. There is no 'power advantage' to multiboxing unless you are talking about mining, and lets face it, there is more than enough to go around with that.

With the recent news of the Eve-uni multi box botting scandal, I think it is time to ban multi box programs.
Any program that allows 1 player to operate 30 characters, even just for movement, should not be allowed. Why are they allowed to hit 1 button and insta warp 30 characters to safety instead of dealing with the consequences of not being able to manually move them all in time to prevent a gank. A click is a click and any program that duplicates one is not following the spirit of action vs. consequence that this amazing game is based upon.


I, Kal Mindar, deem that multi boxing programs are a EULA breaking form of automation that undermines the integrity of this game.


Edit:
This is pretty sad. I have never seen such a lack of reading comprehension in my life. I started this thread to petition against ONE thing only and that was Duplication of clicks via a 3rd party program.
From there, you guys have talked about fleet warp being duplication? Really? An in game feature is 3rd party software?
Ban multi boxing? Are you kidding? No one said anything about one person being able to control multiple accounts.
OP is just mad/poor/idiot/etc..... I use 4 accounts to play this game, I multi box, I have plenty of $ thank you for isboxer or more accounts.

Give your collective heads a shake. This thread is about a program doing the work that a person should have to do in order to keep the playing field even. Eve central fine. Spreadsheets fine. Pyfa fine. None of these perform in game clicks for players. You have to understand clicks are what sets the tempo for how long it takes to do things. Automate any part of it and it undermines the level playing field that must be there. Anyway, some really great posts for both sides of the discussion. Just too bad so many people seem to have missed some simple points to keep this thread on topic. Hopefully CCP got some good player input and can use it to continue making this game freaking amazing.

I love you all.

Fly safe o7.

Kal

I'd like to hear more of this story. Was his problem simply lack of combat experience? Poorly skilled pilots? Poorly fitted ships?

Let's put this in a way where the semantics can't get in the way:

botting is power amplification by allowing acquisition of in-game resources beyond the potential of a human player.

duplication is power amplification by allowing in-game performance beyond the potential of a human player. Duplication can be achieved by software or hardware, as ZK has shown.

1 player controlling 20 ships is capable of more decisive combat outcomes than 20 players controlling 1 ship each: it's hard to rep through alpha strike, as opposed to 20 shots arriving over a 3 second period, allowing the logistics pilots to keep the target alive through each salvo.

When ice harvesting, it is quite possible to run a fleet of 40 ships without any form of power amplification. The upper limit for a single human is probably 150 ships, allowing 2 seconds for handling each ship's ice harvester cycle. Of course you could simply run each ship until the hold is full, so you only have to act when the ship needs to warp to station, warp to belt, target ice and start harvester: this lifts the maximum number of ships that a single human can handle to whatever the sol node can handle.

One established limit for Starcraft is about 300 actions per minute: 5 actions per second. Translating to an ice harvesting operation, you'd be hard pressed to make those 5 actions count for anything: there are limits to how quickly the game responds to instructions, and there are limits to how quickly the application can become responsive once you Alt+Tab to the game. But assuming there are no limits, the actions required for running a large fleet are simply Alt+Tab, click+drag. That's 150 mining ships handled per minute, with a cycle time of 3 minutes, giving a hypothetical maximum fleet size of about 450 ships that a human could conceivably control without any form of power amplification beyond a computer capable of running that many clients, or enough computers running that many clients, with keyboard sharing software such as Synergy (without keystroke broadcasting complied in) or Teleport. But I doubt even the keenest Starcraft player would manage to spend three hours harvesting ice at that rate without burning out, getting bored or simply suffering joint strain.

Arguing that action broadcasting doesn't amplify the power of a single player is nonsensical: if ISBoxer didn't make it easier to run 7 clients at once, why would you pay for it? What does this tell you about power amplification? It tells you that the level of power amplification afforded by ISBoxer is worth $50/yr (approximately 4 months worth of subscription). If it wasn't providing an advantage, people wouldn't be paying for it.

How many people would give up ice mining if they had to emit all those keystrokes manually for every ship in their fleet instead of using the aid of a keystroke replicator?

Uh what? 1 miner controlling 20 accounts is going to make more isk than 20 miners each handling 1 account. PER CLICK even.

Not cycle.... but PER CLICK. That is where the argument comes from.

and that makes you generate more isk than 20 people controling 20 accounts... how?

1 person netting the profits of 20 accounts mining? Imagine it takes 20 accounts to get $1000, and you compare splitting it between 20 people, or 1 person (both have equal costs yes I know) but it only costs say... $915 to run the plex for all 20 accounts combined. You have 20 shares of profit split equally versus those 20 shares given to 1 person.

The 1 person gets more isk at the end of the day. Simple math really.