cygnus wrote: How to spot a true botter though? ....
a few hints -- oooof course, I'm not implying any of those is proof enough, just sharing some experiences, in a humorous tone --
* a player targets you and he's rude enough not to even answer your "hello"
how rude!
-> explanation: player was a botter and was using the autotarget with space. It happened to target me instead! I thought he was just digging but wouldn't talk to me ... how rude !
-- that's how we found a first botter -
* a player is supposed to answer a GM request in a reasonable time. Of course, no GM will think a player is botting just because they won't answer, but still, if you don't answer to a GM request, you better be afk
* you see the player over caring, or getting very variated and weird qualities. You can recognize a pattern: prospect, extract, care, care, extrac, care, sit, up, prospect etc
* there seeems to be a preference for safe and mission spots, for obvious reasons. For example, Kami ToT, the mission and node mats. I spotted 2 there.
* player died because of aggro or gas or whatever. Autorespawned and the macro kept on -> effect: a player is continuosly prospecting at the respawn point, kinda weird. Same, player is teleported to nother place and keeps prospecting.
* the macro/script etc is bugged and player randomly says weird text in around chat like '77' '85' or "target source"
* you can prospect your own sources and the botter may target your sources instead of his. A nice way to get extra xp
etc, etc
ps: to be honest, for a while 'bot hunting" was a common sport as well. You can set up "Bounty/Botty hunters" parties