That's rich coming from a crafter, you profit most from bot-abusers dumping mats at huge discounts. I'm curious what you think EA/Bioware/Broadsword issues are more pressing to address. The GTN inflation is already out of control and bot-abusers only compound the matter. At the end of day, what these abuser's do deserve to be banned; it breaks ToS.

No; my issue is with bots in general, they've just evolved to whichever format proved highest yield of materials. Started with bots gathering nodes "Slicing Nodes" was problem, till patched. I haven't collected nodes planet-side in months, I found it better to just buy low and sell high. Bot-Abusers then sent bot to gather other nodes (Bio, Arch and Scav), but later found it was more efficient to bot out companions through multiple alt accounts. The question remains though; Why hasn't the issue of Bot-users abusing the system be addressed by EA/Bioware. Say monitor certain accounts for any unusual number of logins per day, since the bot is accessing so many accounts and characters it should be flagged as abnormal. Then see if any of those accounts are connected to selling massive amounts of mats on the GTN. Trace back to source and then ban the account. Could also look into the credit balance of suspected bot-abuser accounts, if billions are found is telling they abuse the system.

Please dude, you're telling me you gonna sit there for 8 to 12 hours a day clicking the same boring buttons to run cs missions on 80+ alt accounts etc to keep up with an effortless bot abuser running 24/7 While that bot-abuser is actually living life and enjoying other things life has to offer vs being slave to cs mission clicking craziness c'mon. Its' a fact bots are in SWTOR, they were a problem in past with Slicing Nodes, till the devs finally did something about the abuse. Today the bots have only evolved, and no doubt gather mats 24/7 or have advanced further to actually take control of an account and do the tedious cs missions crap you go on about.

You still have to actually "play" the game and use your skill time etc to try to compete with the bot. Time that the bot has more of, since it runs 24/7. Your work playtime is wasted since it takes no effort by the bot abuser to make even more materials than you. Why do all that "work" when the bot does it effortlessly and without the abuser having to do anything. Just run bot and go play a different game or whatever it is you'd rather be doing than grinding mats. The bot is superior in every way.

I explained Im new to crew missions, and got no notification that I could advance my crew skills bio and arch beyond default cap 600. So today upon reading your post I went to cs vendor Bio Arch trainer and bought Onslaught unlock; now building up from 600 to 700. I imagine when 700LV proto and artifact missions will unlock, just saying that I had only 2 missions at the old 600 cap for bio and arch crewskill missions. I still stand a bot is superior to manual playing of the game process cs missions whatever to amass grade 11 materials Bio Arch and Scav. In one week time the bot will have run not-stop, and a human will need to have slept ate, lived life etc, so after that week of time the bot will have more materials guaranteed. There was also a past issue with bots farming the Slicing nodes here SWTOR, and the devs had to change that area to make it fairer to players. I'd just like to see more care from the devs to take note of certain individuals who abuse bots to gain an unfair edge over normal players like me. It could start simply by making it easier to report a suspected bot user/seller.

Im kinda new to crew missions, but I do have a few companions at influence 50lv. The only missions from my crew skills are Bio and Arch missions with 2 each not 4. Can I unlock more? My crew skills are maxed 700Lv bio arch + biochem From those 2 crew mission from each field Bio and Arch I only get premium grade 11 mats, and that takes 6mins and the mission can fail and get Zero mats. In six minutes a bot can gather way more mats from nodes, Ive collected on Onderon myself the nodes and its crazy how fast they accumulate. Per node about 20-30 prem grade, proto 5-10, rakata artifact 2-5 A "loop" by human Camp Lake Onderon has around 6 of each nodes gathering bio arch and scav all in one area, plus the cave connected for more arch can be done in 1min or 2 depending on movement skill. No doubt my mind bots gathering at 24/7 is more yield, no stopping; constant successful yields from the nodes = hundreds of thousands per 24hrs do the math. And the kicker is you don't need to play the game, just watch netflix and chill why you let the bot make you rich.

Your way is still inefficient compared to bot running 24/7 since you actually have to do all those things your way to get results. Bots just farms massive amounts no user player input needed. How much time and effort do you have to put into the game to "do it your way" as you say. The bot doesnt sleep it farms till you want to sell what its' collected.

Companions missions for gathering mats, bio arch and scav only return premium grade mats. To get prototype and better rakata artifact tier you need to actually gather the nodes yourself. So how do you explain the hundreds of thousands rakata artifact grade mats flooding GTN on the cheap.

I doubt deconstruct will give thousands of high tier grade 11 artifact rakata mats. Only way possible is bots running gathering nodes planet 24/7 As for buying low, sell high; yeah I try to do that too...but how can compete with bots/sellers dumping them so cheap; legit players can't compete period.

Returning player here, and have noticed of late on GTN that there are floods of crafting materials being sold at discount or "dump" prices. This makes it hard for a normal player who started out gathering those mats planetside to make a profit, I can't compete with "bots". So why are bots allowed to run rampant and ruin the market on GTN, it's not fair play. Can we report a suspected seller/cheater/bot who clearly didn't collect those massive amounts of materials him/her self to the authorities here?! PS. Today I did some "rooting" around and talked with a suspected player/bot-user; they tried to play dumb and laughed it off. But I had observed his behaviour and it was not normal. The suspected bot-user tried saying he played "that way" because he was watching netflix while gathering the nodes, but more likely was actually just running configuring the bot to collect while watching Netflix. I know for a fact it takes about an hour of actually dedicating all your player skill into gathering the nodes in area to gather enough to sell (1hr = about 100 artifact tier mats / 300 prototype and around 1000 premium tier mats); so him having 10000's materials is an insane amount of play time no human could endure. Hence why I suspect he cheating and uses bot.