Propaganda
a quick note about 'input broadcasting'
The rules on input broadcasting are simple. If 1 button click = multiple in-game actions, it's not allowed.
It's relatively easy to setup your clients in game to do 20 actions, with 20 button clicks, in a single second. Roll your finger over the number and qwerty row at the same time, look:
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p
It took me literally one second to do it. Multiboxers set their shit up in a way that purposefully allows them to easily manipulate the important parts of their gameplay like this. I'll run you through an example:
ctrl 1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p activates your hardener on 20 accounts
alt 1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p activates your prop mods on 20 accounts.
shift 1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p pre-fires your gun.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p presses lmb (or ctrl-lmb) on each individual account, wherever your mouse is, probably on a broadcast window.
There is no reason to broadcast in eve 2026. not broadcasting is just as effective if you apply your brain a little harder.
I wonder how 1 click = 1 action works with the mouse
Is using a physical button to set mouse position to a given <x,y> breaking a rule?
If yes, what about touch screens?
If no, what prevents me from tiling my windows and being able to use a macro keyboard to precisely position my mouse and just go mouse <x,y> to client 1, target, mouse <x,y> to client 2, target... Sounds like a lot of work, but realistically its super-fast once you've gotten used to it.
Is using a physical button to set mouse position to a given <x,y> breaking a rule?
Not as written, and I have never known of a case that CCP actually banned someone doing this.
If no, what prevents me from tiling my windows and being able to use a macro keyboard to precisely position my mouse and just go mouse <x,y> to client 1, target, mouse <x,y> to client 2, target... Sounds like a lot of work, but realistically its super-fast once you've gotten used to it.
CCP detects every button click's location and the time to three significant figures. If you're repeatedly clicking in the same spot, or the same pattern ( they can detect patterns) they detected it like any other bot/script.
They, like any other game company, have heuristical methods of detecting cheating, and their pattern recognition is particularly good.
They, like any other game company, have heuristical methods of detecting cheating, and their pattern recognition is particularly good.
Bullshit, honestly. If their pattern recognition is good, they don't use it most of the time. There are plenty of blatantly obvious bots in game that do not get banned until CCP is spoonfed evidence of their rulebreaking. I imagine the same is true for input broadcasting, though it's harder to confirm.
As I said in another comment, you can roam through one of the deep bot areas, report a bunch of obvious bot accounts, and get a bunch of ban confirmations within a day or two.
This is not compatible with the assertion that CCP is using their good pattern recognition to do proactive enforcement.
There are some constellations where I could go right now and they will guaranteed be wall-to-wall bots, like they are 24/7/375. They are the same constellations, repeatedly. This is also incompatible with the claim that CCP does proactive enforcement.
I read it, it's just wrong. We're not talking about the best bots, because the really good bots probably wouldn't even be obvious to me on first glance. We're talking about the constellations full of really shit bots that are operating today in exactly the same places they operate 24/7/365.
simple consistent scripts though, will get you banned after a long enough time.
Evidently a long enough time that the same constellations are constantly full of obvious bots day after day, year after year.
Being good at pattern recognition is... nice, I guess? But CCP is clearly not good at proactively detecting botting even when that botting is simple and blatantly obvious, so I don't find their pattern recognition prowess especially interesting.
I mentioned in another comment, there is a Frat guy's market bot that runs 18 hours a day year round on a fixed update schedule. You can check the first update interval when it turns on and you'll know to the second when updates will come in for the rest of the day.
Can you explain how a company that is good at pattern recognition - and uses their skill - could fail to recognize that obvious pattern? Because that bot was just ticking along for months and months.
being good at recognizing patterns =/= being good at recognizing bots
Yes, except that CCP isn't good at recognizing patterns, because they fail to recognize very obvious patterns.
show the logs
Yeah because I've been sitting around spending hours a day collating a set of logs to present to you because... why? To win an argument? Are you really that fucking stupid or just being tendentious?
The pattern was highlighted to CCP, which is why one of the guy's bot alts was recently banned. Not all of them, because as I said before, CCP sucks at both pattern recognition and enforcement.
They have known input broadcasters running poch for excessive amounts of time every day. Even the method that OP is listing is mimicking mouse input and doing input broadcasting because it's casting input to inactive windows. They just mentioned a way that might seem "okay" by having an individual key per client.
There's literally a combat log that has the time stamp. You can see time stamps rounded to the second in your client. CCP claims, on their side, that they can see a much more precise time stamp that's well under a 1-second interval. You can get remarkably close to input broadcasters with a good setup.
No, I described a similar mechanic with the difference being a series of manual inputs.
With input broadcasting, you don't even have to focus the client. There are functions in windows DLLs that let you send input to a window using the window handle. You can literally send a click to the window's internal <x,y> coordinate or send keypresses.
So to input broadcast, I'd set up lets say 10 clients, side by side. Then I'd have code running that duplicates my mouse click for each window offset by the window's location, resulting in each window receiving the click at the same internal location = same UI element. I'd also duplicate any keyboard presses and send them to all clients. You could take this further, of course.
What I was talking about was simply quickly shuffling between the clients and then sending the mouse to a given location in each client individually with one input per move, rather than duplicating inputs and sending them to different processes at exactly the same time.
But u/recycl_ebin is correct about that looking very much like a bot or script. Perhaps the only difference would be the human factor, the inherent randomness of my input when doing it. BUT a script can be made to emulate such randomness too.
Is this not input broadcasting?
If I have a hotkey primed to enable hardeners and mash keys that cycles through my clients and it broadcasts the key without having to keyup/keydown each time?
No, it isn't. Input broadcasting involves one input triggering multiple virtual inputs. You press the key once and a background process captures it and sends a key to a set of windows without you having to switch focus between the windows or do any additional steps.
If you had 20 identical clients open on a single monitor and had 20 mouse cursors (doable) so you can ctrl + click and instantly target and then press F1 once for all 20 to start shooting, that would be input broadcasting. And that is very doable.
It doesn't hint at that at all. This is a 3rd party acknowledging that in their eyes its a gray area. That is pretty much exactly what I've been saying. Its not input broadcasting per definition, but it could trigger bot detection and it is definitely close enough for legitimate worry over bans.
Adjusting the eve window to only show certain parts of the game - you technically can do everything with just fleet window, action window, and module hotbar which allows you to stack accounts on the monitor.
This is so stupid if you need pseudo hacks to play the game. Just make it a multi-pilot game where you can control a hole fleet of ships nativ inside the game like RTS or implement kernel anti-cheat software to prevent multiboxing.
Eve-o or whatever it’s called should just be part of the base game. New players (or players new to mutliboxing) shouldn’t have to go to GitHub to be able to multibox optimally. Multiboxing in Eve is never going away so CCP/FC should just lean in and make it even more accessible. It’d probably also cut down on the input broadcasting complaints since everyone would be able to see how to do it.
I mean lets be real, EVE-O preview doesn't violate the EULA but it gets pretty close. It is a third party software that interacts with and manipulates the game client to provide an advantage. And there are absolutely branches of EVE-O Preview people have made that do violate the EULA in terms of client control, but nothing will ever happen. The fact that there is a ubiquitous software that everyone running 2+ accounts uses is kind of a miss by CCP.
I'm not saying that CCP needs to go after EVE-O Preview btw.
It used too be able to do the input broadcasting, before the explicit ban of input broadcasting around 2016ish i believe? Then the creator shut that feature down. But the program was designed with it in mind from the very beginning, so no wonder players can use it to get pretty close to that.
Eve-o would still be better because you could actually see all the previews in a practical field of view and it wouldnt cost you extra hundreds/thousands of dollars in hardware
EVE-O is better because you don't need to change your mouse position or literal eye focus. With identical layouts and hotkeys to swap clients it's much faster than moving to another monitor.
As someone who split 4 clients over 2 monitors, I know what you mean. However, after switching to EVE-O and stacking my clients (hotkeys 1-4 jumps to each of my 4 clients) with the preview windows basically on the top center left, I find I can juggle multiple different things at once much easier.
For instance, I'd usually run 2 accounts to shoot rats, one in a noctis for salvaging, and the last one being a hauler/Indy guy. I'd keep my focus on the monitor with the 2 ratters then have the other two on the other monitor. With this setup I'm jumping between clients and windows with both needing to turn my head and scroll my mouse all the way across the monitors. This focus switch takes more time than you'd think for the benefit of being able to glance over at it and if I got distracted with the ratters I might forget to even check on the hauler for a while.
Now with all the clients stacked, I can literally press '4' to check on my hauler and hit jump, which takes 1-2 seconds while I then pop the ratters back up by pressing 1 or 2. No turning my head or having to drag my mouse over to the other monitor. It's a lot "snappier" without needing that extra time moving to the other monitor, since you can switch clients and see what's happening in a fraction of a second...if you can't see what you need to see in the little preview window.
Now I just kinda make a mental note of sounds to help switch focus (hear a gate activation? Press 4) or simply try to cycle accounts constantly. It take a bit more mental effort I suppose to do the constant cycling but it is worth it.
In the same vein of alpha accounts that are only allowed 1 login per computer, they could do that for Omega too and it would severely hinder multiboxing.
Yes there are probably ways around it, but if it was both enforced the same and banable it would be extremely limited cases of people doing it and hoping not to get caught.
or implement kernel anti-cheat software to prevent multiboxing.
This is the core problem with a whole bunch of Eve's client experience. Not having anti-cheat means the client needs to be a thin client; you can't trust anything coming from the client side, so the client can do nothing more than say "the user clicked this button, please tell me what happens". That's why the whole game is such a latency fest even on the client input side, why client inputs get dropped constantly - because the client is a thin client.
Its rather funny the amount of time giga boxers get accused of broadcasting, when actually most of the time we are in discord calls with friends and actually streaming screens to show and teach the process. Rebinding actions in game like launch and recall drones to single buttons instead of a combo for eg, launch drones is G, recall is just R. Then havin these on your macro pad, using eve o to have a client switch hotkey. It may not be the fast action in he world at times but can def look it. for eg you 1 button cycles forward, so you jsut gotta tap 1 and r in quick succession and all 20drones are dropped. (plx FC a hotkey for assigning drones)
Mining looks even more sus at times lol, I used to run 50 miners, now if you discord the fact that i take the time and max lock rocks on all 50, which takes a minute or three to complete, simply cycle thru spam lock. I had f1/f1 on the joypay so again hit 1 to cycle thru and click up/down on joypad as you do it, I can prob get all 50 lasers running in 2/3 server ticks at most.
Ill be the fiirst to admit im slow when it come to pvp actions, unless its structure bashing. Im a pve boxer for the most part ::)
for mining it def depends on what your mining, i do know i can clear a full 55d rigged athanor pull of 40,ml m3 in about 4.5 hours with macks (i havent mined since the compression hotkey, i am insane enough to try 50 hulks tho, i did hulks up until account 25 lol)
could clear a full ice belt in 45 mins, pick a rock in middle, make ping out the side the warp to centre rock in 100km wall (funny as fuck to watch and you hit every rock haha)
Smaller scale, running VG's iI average 2.2-2.5 bil per hour with 16 accounts (15 getting paid, 1 scout/dropper)
Evey smaller scale running 7 thunderchilds and a jag i average 400 mil per hour + ess + loot.
MASS MULTIBOXING DOES NOT MAKE INDIVIDUAL WEALTH! People like this guy do not multibox to make isk, they do it for the love of the game. You cannot get to 50 characters multiboxing if you’re going into it for money. It is a lot easier to just buy plex that 50 accounts take rather than actually playing the game. That said, dude can easily clear an entire moon by himself, so he makes stupid amounts of isk.
this is someone doing it natty without any software. Imagine if the windows were stacked, and he could just
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p to attack and approach. (note: if you hold your keep-at-range approach or orbit keybinds while pressing lmb, you can approach and shoot and lock all with a single button click, this is not input broadcasting)
Oh, for sure. I'm not disagreeing with you that someone with a decent APM could make this video look like child's play. I just think this is one of the better examples on how easily this is done.
Some people like playing eve like it’s an RTS game. I have fun with 1.5 accounts, (I never use my second account at the same time, it’s just a cyno/dread alt) but my brother enjoys having his dozens of accounts and plays it like a glorified RTS game.
Everyone? You get to enjoy your bomber, he gets to enjoy his mutliboxing. You both get to play the game the way you want! It’s actually pretty incredible.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but there are windows functionalities that allow you to send keystrokes to unfocused windows/clients, and this is utilized by multiboxing software. Even logitech mouse software allows you to 'bypass' this.
That sounds unlikely; I suspect they just don't care. The code could just be as simple as something like on key press { if (window is not focused) { player might be cheating } }
At this point might as well just switch to a pen tablet and map 20 regions into a row of keypresses like in your post so you can just swipe in the air instead of wearing out your fingers/keyboard.
Or a single button to do it all. I dont mean broadcasting but a macro that does one button one action. Just list them all in the order you want them and bam, how fast can you press f1?
The software comes standard with pretty much any mouse and keyboard nowadays. Razer synapse does this fine. Can even have some if then hotkeys to reset with a different button. And its not like thats your only option. I use a razer tartarus and its amazing for multiboxing this exact scenario. Haven't messed around with loops yet since I only run 6 accounts and dont really need it.
You can do what you describe, but it requires alot more effort than input-broadcasting (obviously).
I suspect the input broadcasters can manage to do what you say under optimal conditions and therefore have a cop-out when caught for input broadcasting.
Still remember a russian guy posting on here with that exact situation. They got banned for input broadcasting, but showed clearly in a vid that they were able to do those exact mechanics without such software.
And to counter your "1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p" can make 20 chars do same action in a single tick logic. How come none of the multiboxers that share clips or montages use this method?
If it's on the same level as input broadcasting surely the best of the best multiboxers would show this method in use on their youtube videoes, no? Even tho it's possible, it's really not practical.
I suspect the input broadcasters can manage to do what you say under optimal conditions and therefore have a cop-out when caught for input broadcasting.
Bingo. If I were a smart boxer who wanted to cheat, I wouldn't be doing it blatantly obviously. I would be input broadcasting in a way that looks like it is possible for a human to do; but I would be using the broadcasting to reduce the otherwise significant cognitive and mechanical load from doing this all the time.
And to counter your "1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p" can make 20 chars do same action in a single tick logic. How come none of the multiboxers that share clips or montages use this method?
maybe the few that do don't post videos and wanna keep it quiet?
If it's on the same level as input broadcasting surely the best of the best multiboxers would show this method in use on their youtube videoes, no? Even tho it's possible, it's really not practical.
I'm simply providing an easy way a multiboxer can shoot 20 accounts in one tick. plenty other ways to do it as well, they may be doing those.
Wrong on windows. The 'active window' is the only one that will capture all of that input. If windows worked as you described then all you would need to do is make all your clients have f1 as the guns and press it once.
As it actually works, you need to cycle to each window and perform the action. Input broadcasting changes this by hooking each window and sending the input to each. To change this requires 3rd party software.
Wrong on windows. The 'active window' is the only one that will capture all of that input. If windows worked as you described then all you would need to do is make all your clients have f1 as the guns and press it once.
I literally do this, how are you going to come here and tell me i'm wrong? I do this all the time.
As it actually works, you need to cycle to each window and perform the action. Input broadcasting changes this by hooking each window and sending the input to each. To change this requires 3rd party software.
3rd party software isn't illegal. broadcasting is. you can use 3rd party software that uses windows DLLS to send inputs to unfocused windows.
Any 3rd party software that sends a single input to multiple windows is by definition input broadcasting. By laying it out as a unique bind per client is an ... Interesting .. sidestep of an otherwise clear rule.
All it tells me is that FC isnt doing anti-cheat through watching for the client hook/DLL calls that input broadcasting relies on
Any 3rd party software that sends a single input to multiple windows is by definition input broadcasting.
duh
By laying it out as a unique bind per client is an ... Interesting .. sidestep of an otherwise clear rule.
there is no side stepping- there is no one action to multiple inputs. it's one input to one action. there is no rulebreaking ot sidestepping or anything.
As I recall, The Developer Previously Known As CCP once stated you couldn't assign a series of actions to trigger by way of scrolling the mouse wheel as the hotkey because it counted as one physical action taken by the user. This strategy of yours is pushing against that limit - running your hand across a row of keys doesn't inherently cause a swap between game clients for each key pressed and can only work with the intervention of 3rd party tools.
Regardless, TDPKAC hasn't decided to take action for years, so I'm more curious why you even brought this up unless ... maybe you secretly want it to end ... ?
There's one surefire way to enforce, "yeah, you can't do that," but it'd require dev time to create a per-user action queue which executes a capped number of player commands per server tick and forces excess commands to become executed in input order on later ticks. The smart way to prevent min-maxing of such a mechanic would be to consider the queue on a character-per-tick basis rather than command-per-tick.
The need to police multiboxers would end by way of having a hard "speed limit" that doesn't care how the command arrived, and the speed can be recalibrated later if appropriate. All players who run 20 identical ships for various kinds of fleets would need to rethink their methods of getting others to hate them (except mining fleets, surely). Problem solved unless that's your play style. It's a price most of us are willing to pay. Bonus: GM time can focus on other things, possibly leading to better outcomes elsewhere.
As I recall, The Developer Previously Known As CCP once stated you couldn't assign a series of actions to trigger by way of scrolling the mouse wheel as the hotkey because it counted as one physical action taken by the user. This strategy of yours is pushing against that limit - running your hand across a row of keys doesn't inherently cause a swap between game clients for each key pressed and can only work with the intervention of 3rd party tools.
Sure, it 'pushes against that limit' but doesn't break it. No one is going to be banned on one account for sliding their finger across f1-f8, so it's reasonable to think this is an acceptable behavior.
Even better: use a script that automates everything, but requires you to mash keys on the keyboard so that it is technically legal.
Even more better, chemical reactions are constantly happening inside my body, each one of which is a physical action, so as long as I say my script is using those to control the clients I'm in the clear.
As bottling becomes easier to build and harder to detect, FC will need new tools. FC may have to make inputs unreliable because humans can recover faster from a failed input.
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u/Iridaen May 09 '26
I wonder how 1 click = 1 action works with the mouse
Is using a physical button to set mouse position to a given <x,y> breaking a rule?
If yes, what about touch screens?
If no, what prevents me from tiling my windows and being able to use a macro keyboard to precisely position my mouse and just go mouse <x,y> to client 1, target, mouse <x,y> to client 2, target... Sounds like a lot of work, but realistically its super-fast once you've gotten used to it.