Crime & Punishment

Based on your criteria above, I don't think I'd put too much faith in the validity of your blacklist.

Other than that, I'm all for killing bots.

I like Smodab's criteria... if their pod warps back and forth to the station, you probably are dealing with a bot

Lots of players wont accept convos from unknowns.. I don't think this is very definitive.

It's really the flashy red -10 catalysts that worry me the most. Then again they never really say much until afterwards.

Do you have some suggestions for a better way to determine whether a barge is a bot? I've seen some what warp immediately when targeted, perhaps that could be a better cue.

But I've also seen some that don't, so it's a toss-up.

If only CCP gave 2 ***** about botting and banned them? Oh wait they don't. Quit moaning, if you can't beat them join them.

Congratulations on completely missing the point. Because CCP doesn't do anything, we're going to go shoot them. Because we can.

I am confident that CCP really is trying their best to combat the bot problem. But some players here feel that CCP is not doing enough to deal with the bot problem. Therefore, capsuleers throughout New Eden are taking matters into their own hands and are beginning to utilize the new tier 3 BCs and buffed up dessies to wipe them all out however they can. Even before Crucible, we have witnessed a massive spike in aimless suicide ganks ranging from the typical career gankers to the Gallente ice interdiction that allowed the goons to almost corner the market. With enough incentives, more aimless ganks will come.

Communication = Unit Cohesion

Me, Ninjaspud, and several others have already tried creating our own anti-bot group a long time ago. Unfortunately, it was very short lived and it began to fall apart as soon as communication started falling apart (which was just as quick). The channel went quiet for too long and thus I ended up giving up in the end because I felt no one was paying attention. Important lesson: if you're communication is crap, then unit cohesion is crap. I was only able to participate in one gank and that was on a single mackinaw that I didn't know about earlier when I previously reported other possible bots (groups of them).

Experience

I have plenty of hunting experience scouting for possible bots while being careful to not accidentally target innocent miners. Just recently, I came up with an Google-docs form that a player can fill out and submit. The data is then transmitted to an excel spreadsheet that helps compile the data into a useful format that can help trace potential bots and their habits.

During my hunts, I would learn about new patterns and techniques that bots may be using to avoid detection by both CCP and career gankers. One such pattern was so subtle, I didn't notice it until I stepped back and saw the bigger picture. It was so clever, it made sense.

The technique I am talking about here is about spreading the ships. In an ice system in Kamio, I noticed that a bunch of Macks that shared the following traits.

• Same fitting (active shield tanks - shield boosters always on).


• Mining in groups of X (number) ships each (in this case, it was three groups with three macks each).


• Each group was warping back and forth as individuals (not as a group).


• Each character was in a wide array of npc corps (yet for some reason some had closely related names).


• Each group was even space from one another along the chain of ice roids. Possibly to mitigate the loss if one group gets ganked.

Besides that, this group was not talkative in a sense that all eve mail messages (in addition to chat invites) would charge you ISK before being able to submit a request. Even if you accepted the charges, the invites were rejected and the eve mails were rejected as well (on all ships).

Chances are bots may be using similar patterns elsewhere. I haven't been to Kamio in a long time, I don't know if the group I was talking about is still there.

One more thing

Just before communication broke down with the last bot hunters I worked with, Ninjaspud did pass along some important information that may be helpful to you. According to a former bot user (who reported only to Ninjaspud and asked him to remain anonymous), the large number of the bot programs that are out there have a critical flaw. Apparently, they can't swap different mining crystals on the fly as they progress along an asteroid belt (especially for the OCR-based programs). This means that if an OCR-based bot is mining a belt and has run out of veldspar in that belt, it can't swap crystals on the field for the next ore type.

Bot programs that tap into the client directly are able to swap different crystals when needed on the fly, but this makes them more likely to be detected by CCP's ban hammer.

I hope to join you soon in your endeavors and I hope this information has been helpful to you.

Keep track of how long they are in the belts or logged on. If everyone in corp can keep track of how long players are online via watchlist, they can figure out if they're a bot easily: If they're on for more than 18 hours a day (life much?) then they're probably a bot.

Watching a pod warp back and forth from belts is the easiest and most tell-tale way to figure it out. Gank 'em all and let CCP sort it out!

Also, the whole convo thing is a fairly decent way of telling, except that a bunch of people in my alliance usually go AFK with civ shield boosters up and running, usually mining the closest random asteroid (as they clear belts on a regular basis), and warp to station if people in combat ships come to the belt. No one in highsec rats in the belts in anything larger than a frigate...

The only way to get rid of bots is to gank everything, then watch the pods. Also keeping track of how long some toons are actively mining.

If you need to justify ganking miners then you are doing it wrong.

i killed a hulkbot last week. will the OP be sending me the ISK to replace my Tornado?
Pls send the ISK id this is the case and i will repeat on more bots.