Scripted Mugging - is it allowed?

Hello,

within 1 second of returning from Caymans I was mugged, prior to landing I was refreshing ready to immediately store my funds I had returned with. There's no way someone could have manually mugged me in the time it took to complete the attack and mug within 1 second. Is this allowed?

No, I don’t think scripting is allowed, but staff will say as they do in every thread of this type that there is no evidence of any script being used.

Clearly the encouragement is to never ever carry money unless you’re already part of the mega rich and powerful.

if people can buy and then mug in 1 second then they can mug you in 1 second no problem

Is script mugging allowed though?

I’ll tell you this myself:

No. Scripted mugging is not allowed in any way as scripted mugging does not use torns API.

Edit: Using a bot (only one that uses data from the api) that alerts you to potential mug victims, on the other hand, is completely allowed.

There are bots out there that use the API which can keep track of travelling status and can guess with a reasonable accuracy on when you're going to land. Some keep track of just about every 'richer' player and alerts muggers that they're flying to the Caymans. They use a few keys on rotation to get around limits.

The 'flight time variance' update is of no consequence. The mugger can just refresh spam a few minutes before landing as this person did, and income is practically guaranteed if your stats are higher end. There is no way for newer/weaker players to safely store cash before the mug completes, no matter how fast you are.

This is identical to the old retaliation bots back in the IRC days where factions could have a real time feed of attacks and a direct link for a retals. When the API was initially made, incoming attacks on it were delayed by 15 min (iirc) to prevent this sort of thing from happening - however some bots could use the attack feed from the front page which was instant and provided real time attack data. These bots were deemed illegal years ago because it gave too much of an advantage to the few factions that had one and was essentially automation of the game.

I suspect this sort of incident will keep happening as long as the API gives player data in real time. The fact that this sort of thing is now possible is against the spirit of the API when the group designed it. It was intended to make getting data from Torn simpler for tools and getting rid of the need to scrape pages directly - not give a massive advantage to coders.

Adding (back) a small delay to profile data (10-15min) would solve this; or providing a short grace period (like 'security is around' or even just a short amount of 'mug protection') when a player lands. It doesn't have to be long, even 10-15 seconds is a decent amount of time to give them a chance. Otherwise, I can see more and more frustration threads as these bots become more widespread.

This problem will not go away without a real solution in place, even if these bots are deemed illegal.

In any case: if these bots are actually allowed - you may as well scrap the CAPTCHA and allow people to scrape the game pages directly. It's no different than having a bot play your game for you 24/7 anyways. And may as well rename the Caymans bank to 'I will have money in X minutes, come grab some' bank.

You mean THIS ?
[image: i.ibb.co]

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Scripted Mugging - is it allowed?

[image: i.ibb.co]

Does that even override the 10* theatre special? That would surely be not allowed.

as long as you have the stats, the bots apparently will do the whole homework for you.

Just sit tight in caymans and wait for bot alerts on discord.

It doesn't override the 10* theatre special. I checked.
[image: i.ibb.co]
Basically, you can see that they are flying, but not where to or where from.

I'm not sure if that's one that rotates keys but yes, precisely that.

Thank you for the picture proof.

I got buymugged in 2 seconds after returning from abroad. Guess now i understand how.

For the screenshot provided, i am the one that made this 'script'.

It is fully legal. I simply grab data from the api. Which has it's limits.

As for "rotating keys" this is also allowed, aslong as keys are not stolen or aquired through trickery, then its allowed to pool api keys together. (that said, there is also an ip limit, so pooling a lot of keys isn't particularly usefull)


If you ask me if this should be possible/allowed. that might be a different question, i would probably vote to ban this myself.
But i know a lot of factions have this, so while it is allowed i made 1 for my faction.

It probably is why (you aren't tracked by me btw) but plenty of factions have something like this

Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm not disparaging your work or even insinuating that it's illegal. You're just using the tools provided to you and there's nothing wrong with that. It looks like a well made nice bot too :) I'll have to figure out and make one for JFK as well if it's deemed legal.

Rotating keys have always been legal, even if it is against the spirit of having a per-key limit in the first place. I've thankfully not had to implement that myself.

However, I personally don't agree with that it should be allowed or even possible as well. It is way too much of a slippery slope.

Hopefully this thread gets a ched or bogie ruling.

guys, it is all legal - confirmed by bogie end of last year..

also check now, script muggers are making 1-5b daily after new stock was released... luck? sure...

Yeh, i made it after i got hit myself a few times xD (was wondering how they did it)

a simple delay in the api would solve a lot of the issues. It still has its use then, so people will not scrape torn (what the api is there to prevent)
It does require a lot of teamwork currently, so it isn't overly easy, and does promote teamplay

I'd like to see if it's really possible to start a fight> win the fight> and mug a target in 1 second. I sometimes get 3 seconds delay after clicking mug.

Idk how some people can constantly do 3 actions in 1 second without manipulation to a torn page or a bot doing it for them.

But as someone people accused of being a bot when I was mugging for the last year I wouldnt be surprised if they found a grey area to improve performance

i had a look at this myself, (to see if i could check when people bought stocks) but this does not seem possible with the api.
A lot of people fly back from the caymans with money, to test the stocks though