Bots In Illinfrik

On Monday night I was surfing the forums and ran across a post discussing payouts for level 4 distribution missions. The post didn't give many details, so I decided to browse r/eve to see if any interesting. I found something right off. Bots in Illinfrik!

Okay, the Reddit poster saw a whole lot of activity on Dotlan, sat on a gate, saw a whole bunch of Wreathes and Badgers with cargoes indicating the pilots were running distribution missions, and said happy ganking. He also compiled a list of names. So I decided to investigate.

The first thing I did was make a brief detour in my trusty Cheetah to Hek and picked up a ship scanner, cargo scanner, and Sensor Booster II. I wanted to scan the fits and cargo to see if the ships were all fit the same. When I got to the Trust Partner station in Illinfrik about 25km off the undock and started scanning ships. The Wreathes were pretty much fit the same. Ship scanners aren't entirely accurate, but the Wreathes were all fit with a Large Shield Extender II and several Medium Shield Extender IIs along with Expanded Cargohold IIs in the lows, along with perhaps a warp core stabilizer. The rigs included one Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer for extra speed and two Low Friction Nozzle Joints Is for additional agility. At least, that's what I remember. I thought I had more time to observe the bots than I had and failed to write down the fits.

Wreathes Undocking

After figuring out the fit, I then decided to dock up and look at the pilot info of the suspected bots. What I saw further convinced me I was witnessing some pretty blatant botting. The most blatant of the bots were all created on the same day, and left the newbie corp 6 days later for a corp named after themselves. But by the time I figured out what was happening, the time was after midnight locally and I needed to get some sleep. Besides, CCP wasn't going to ban the bots before Tuesday, right?

I think there was a ban wave in Illinfrik while I was working. Just a hunch. Looks like I'll have to change the ending of my article. 😄 #tweetfleet pic.twitter.com/zo8fIM3RGP

— Noizy (@noizygamer) December 4, 2018

Since CCP went ahead and banned the bots before I could start taking names, I'm left to explain why botters would choose to operate in Illinfrik. The reason is that Trust Partners, a member of the Thukker Tribe, only has two level 4 distribution agents in high security space. The other high sec agent is located in Atgur, which is in a high sec island. So the only "safe" area to bot in to get those sweet, sweet Thukker loyalty points is Illinfrik.

Well, one more thing. In the Reddit post, the author claims that hundreds of bots were operating. I don't think the number was that high, unless bots were only used two hours a day and the bot operator had 12 sets of bots. From what I can tell, the bot farm generated approximately 600-700 additional jumps per hour going into an out of Illinfrik. Since each mission generates 2 jumps in Dotlan's map(one out of and a second into the system), that equates to the bots running approximately 300-350 missions every hour. Let's say that a Wreathe can run 8 to 10 distribution missions per hour, which based on my experience (and the frequency I saw the bots dock up to get new missions), that leads to a range of 30 to 45 bots running concurrently.

I plan to return to Illinfrik in a few days to see if our botter returns. Something tells me I'm not finished writing about this particular botter.

UPDATE: Someone else was observing as CCP removed the bots from the system.

I actually also went to observe them. And actually saw the ban wave happening. It was not like I saw a GM pass by. But I was taking notes keeping time to see if they where retardedly precise. And a couple hours later all one by one gone.

— Blazigen (@Roydd4) December 5, 2018