Market Discussions

I'd like to hear how others deal with market bots if at all.
There are ways to combat these but it does require diligence and work. First thing to remember is that since you are dealing with a bot you are at an advantage. The person is most likely AFK so he is bound by the limitations of both the software and his wallet. One tactic I will use in nullsec works as follows;

Ship Quantity Price
Raven 1 170,000,000
Raven 3 171,000,000
Raven 1 176,000,000
Raven 1 220,000,000
Raven 2 220,000,000

I will buy up the first five ravens and then turn around and slowly work my buy order price up to say 180mil.
Then I will turn around and sell all five Ravens one after the other to the bot as frequently it will continue to replace buy orders after making a purchase. Make sure to sell the ships one at a time so that you don't sell the ship to yourself.
When driving the price up one can minimize risk by making the order cover minimal ground, say 5 jumps as apposed to regional. This makes it less likely that people will sell to you. In all likelihood you can do this before people see your high buy order price and sell you ships at slightly reduced prices.
That person will wake up the next day with five ravens that can take a good deal of time to sell and they now have 800mil less isk in their wallet to play with. This can be done multiple times and it really can cause a good deal of trouble to the individual and throws a wrench in the works of their finely tuned software.
I've found it's worth it in the long run even if I'm taking a small loss.

Another tactic I use which may sound sort of ridiculous is to start crying in local repeatedly
"SUCH AND SUCH IS USING EVE MARKET BOT!" Multiple times.
I have found this makes people nervous and they will turn off the bot for a period of time giving you some breathing room in which to compete on a level playing field.

A third tactic which can be difficult if you're not wealthy but can be effective is to raise all those buy order prices up so high on expensive ships that you empty the persons wallet. Then you have a little freedom to play on the ships you're more interested in.

Doing all of these things at once can cause a great deal of grief for someone running a bot and doesn't have the skills to compete on level a playing field.

Please share any tactics you have used to compete with with fake market gurus who use market bots.
Let's trample the posers into the dirt.

To sum up, predictable behavior. And I'm not talking about one person I'm talking about multiple individuals throughout the galaxy. Frequently they have no bio and do not engage in conversation because they are alts that aren't payed attention too. Yes yes some may not be bots. Obviously we're not going to be 100% certain on any of them or CCP would ban them immediately. There will always be some question but when a character sits in a station 18 hours a day and is able to modify orders every 5 minutes for hours on end day after day there is a very good chance they are a bot. This is not a debate on whether or not someone knows for a fact that a particular individual is using a bot. The point is the bots are out there and they can be defeated.

So what exactly is it that you're attempting to argue here?

That I'm not 100% sure when someone is a bot? Lol...

Well now that you've stated the obvious why don't we try and stay on topic.

To answer the thought process in your mind when you posted that statement;
HA! Oh yes you'd better BELIEVE I understand why some people don't like to talk about bots.
The less people talk about them the longer it will last Lol...

But alas, when one gets a rash on ones privates one must seek medical assistance lest the rash continue to worsen and become raw and painful.

For this reason we gather together and talk about these things.

I wonder why an honest market maker who does his due diligence would covertly defend bots on an eve forum?

Does anybody know?

Hmmmm...

BTW one of the most effective ways we can deal with these bots is by reporting them to CCP.
Funny enough I neglected to mention that in my first post.

Sure I could start posting links to market bots but what do you suppose would happen?
This thread would be closed. Why? Because CCP knows damn well what these bots are and doesn't want to be sharing that sort of information.

It's actually rather humorous. You do realize that in taking the stance that market bots don't exist not only are you not fooling anyone but you're flagging yourself.
I challenge you to find one dev to come on here and say that they aren't prevalent in the game.

Now, I appreciate the bumps and all, but why don't we keep the thread on the informational topic that it should be on. I assure you that arguing that particular point isn't going to increase your tradeskills any. That comes only with practice and one cannot achieve such skills with a bot.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=881327#post881327

/thread


Then why do you feel so threatened? Go, make some money with your superior tradeskills and leave us alone.

Except most market tools such have an upper buy limit and lower sell limit that is entered before it goes live. I've not seen a single market tool that does not have this.

The difference is how much one bot can do. One wild market bot can take several good profit areas, whereas a single ratting bot won't do much to affect others.

Regarding your raven "method". Are there bots in these nullsec places you're doing?

I was rereading the thread and realized how weakly I pointed out that reporting them is effective.
People have disappeared after my reporting them but one can never be sure if it was due to the reporting or any of the other tactics listed above.

Another tactic that I failed to mention is that many individuals I believe set there bots not to jump more than a certain number. Say if an item is 80mil and you suddenly jump the price to 100mil the bot won't follow.
This can be advantageous especially in situations where it's just you and the bot competing.
All one has to do in this situation is drop the buy order down to say 40mil then after he follows you down to 40,000,001 you then jump the price back up to say 70 and the bot will sometimes stay at 40.

Again this is not effective in all situations but I have found it to frequently be the case and some simple poking and prodding can help you figure it out.

Sort of an addendum:
Frequently there is only one market bot in control of a region as they have driven other botters out.
Prices can get driven up when using some of the above tactics. When prices get too high and the botter is active one can use this time and lower overall buy prices.

If the bot is active and their buy order is 80mil when an items sell price is 110mil one can lower their own buy price to say 40mil. If there is only one botter in the region and no other competitive buy orders aside from yours, the bot will most likely lower its buy price to 40,000,001 on the next go-round.
After the bot has lowered its price you are once again ready to do battle.

Remember this is only effective if there are only two competing buy orders, yours and the bots.