Maybe this is the cause of the no hits thing, but there are sooo many "bots" in space it's still silly, and using the "oh, but we need an IRC bot!" excuse is just stupid. If the devs wanted an IRC/Jabber link/client I am 100% sure they could make one, also I am sure that anyone with any know-how could make a chatbot jump between two empty sectors every 29 minutes or so...

People are parking bots in stations, just to keep turrets active, to monitor players coming and going etc, it's stupid. And there is nothing a regular player can do to counter it. Keeping entire sectors alive 24/7 just to host these bots is silly, and anyone who disagrees is probably running one.

The 'no hits' thing has nothing to do with bots or idle players, so yeah, I think the TGFT spotter bots are pathetic as well, but they don't cause lag or anything like htat.

The other issue is if we kick any idle players after 30 minutes, they will just run a lua script to re-login and you'll end up attacking those particular functions of lua. Then once those are gone people will use external programs to login and logout automatically.. you see where i'm going with this.

Instead, we could just charge board to players that remain in a station for long periods of time. That'll sort those stingy TGFT tossers right out. Have the board compound so the longer the player is consistently idle in the station (even across logins so they can't just automate login/logout to avoid it). If the player defaults on their board they are evicted from the station in a freebus and their home is changed to nation capital (capital home stations never charge board to members of their home nation).

That will sort the bot problem right out.

Actually that makes sense. But I will point out I first noticed this kind of no hit lag after [blak] setup a bot in Sedina. That's like 7 years ago now? Anyway, that would be a good measure.

[Edit]

Maybe the bots do have something to do with this no hit shite, after-all, every system I encounter it in has one :-P

I have a Lite character that more or less continuously runs VO on my Ouya, which is hooked up to my living room TV. I have it so that when I turn on the TV I can flip down a few channels and be presented with the most recent chat in an expanded window. It's also much easier to just launch from the station when I want to play than to log in and out. I may let my son take this Lite character over some day.

Yeah okay, so there are plenty of legitimate uses for having unlimited sessions... so what? As long as we have unlimited sessions people are going to be able to make spotter bots that cover every little part of the verse for a pittance or even free with use of trial accounts. Are we supposed to allow them to have unequivocal surveillance of station sectors at all times and there be no drawbacks for that?

I've parked my Trident in a useful place for guildmates to use as a reload base and been idle longer than 30min on quite a few occasions.

-1 to doing this unless there's a very real, measurable problem caused by idle sessions.

This is all song and dance trying to cover up the fact that there are zero pirates on right now. If there were, they'd discover a plethora of trading vessels taking advantage of the empty High Space.

-1 to idiotic board times
-1 to preventing people from being idle anywhere for "too long"

Moreover, historically, the opposition will always complain about spy networks. Let's take a walk back in history to where a seemingly identical conversation took place about the Serco spynetwork (just revel in how much yoda sounds like PAkettle):

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/27302?page=1

The dev response to that long winded controversy was "We hear the concern but don't feel change is warranted." [mod edit]

You foolish itani are just asking for someone to create a "measurable problem caused by idle sessions".

Pretty sure the SCIN bots were TGFT too. Of course they make them serco bots and try to frame us for them. They are dirty underhanded bastards like that.

Now you are being competely idiotic TRS. I'm pretty sure of that. It sounds like this entire thread is simply a whiney rant against TGFT at this point.

If somebody creates a bunch of accounts to run bots for the sole purpose of attempting to overload the server with idle accounts, the devs already have the ways and means to find out who is responsible and deal with the problem.

No amount of your forum bullshit is going to change that.

"Instead, we could just charge board to players that remain in a station for long periods of time. That'll sort those stingy TGFT tossers right out."

No it wouldn't. The bot would just home at the station, select a freebus, and undock. As soon as it dies, it would repeat the process.

"You foolish itani are just asking for someone to create a "measurable problem caused by idle sessions"."

Pfft. If the game doesn't have the capacity to handle several hundred idle connections easily, I would be very surprised.

Errm, I started this thread, and I have no problems with TGFT or RED or whoever.

[mod edit]

I think you're mistaking my intentions; I was pointing out a case in my personal experience where a character sitting in a station for long periods of time may not have anything to do with running a bot.

Let's tone down the pejoratives.

[mod edit]

I think the devs would choose the "or not" option.

-1

Something really should be done about this, but the devs don't care, they prioritize more important things. Probably because [TGFT] is a carebear guild that takes care of noobs and turns them into conversions which means money for GS. Imagine the reaction if [FAMY] started using this to kill those same noobs and turn them off of the game.

[mod edit]

Wow, Phaserlight has really chickened out. The PL I know wouldn't take that kinda shit. :D (and I don't have to... thanks :-) -PL)

I will not ever trust a capitol of Australia

This is a bad solution to a problem that barely exists.

You're a problem that barely exists.

[mod edit]