Like ratting's any better.

It is - marginally.
It also pays more.

Since this type of gameplay (multiboxing several ice miners with ISboxer) concerns you that much, may we assume you have chosen Ice mining as your major profession then?

....I also have concern for other players who do use ice mining as their main profession.

There is also the ISBoxer issue. It looks like there are several barge swarms that are most likely ISBoxer run. That is, its one player controlling 10 or more ships all at once with the aid of ISBoxer. This is legal as the commands still are triggered by a player.

Player selects undock, ISBoxer clones the command, tells all ships to undock.
Player tells ship to warp to the top bookmark (all the clients have a different top BM), ISBoxer tells all ships to warp to the top BM.
Player tells ship to target the top item in the overview (which is set to ice), ISBoxer has all ships target nearest ice roid.
Player turns on ice miners, ISBoxer tells all ships to turn on ice miners.

Half an hour later:

Player tells ship to dock, select all cargo and move to items. ISBoxer clones the commands.

Cycle repeats.

The profit from this will drop as the ice market gets glutted. That is quite different from afking complexes. But a low ice price also makes ice mining not a viable career unless you get 10 accounts and ISBoxer.

CCP: Maybe ISBoxer command cloning needs to be added to the list of things that are "patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play".

Yeah....

I am afraid mining is just that dull.

I never really understood why ISboxer was allowed yet macros and automation are not. But it's entirely up to CCP to decide.

That isn't of course to say we can't make consequences ourselves for users of such programs if we feel it's necessary. We just can't ban anybody. :P

CCP will most likely have to do something about ice mining macks.

isnt that what Goons are for? "Emergent gameplay" and all?

Sure, when it's actually, I don't know, playing the game.

the dev post was about afking in a plex with drones out and repping them in a way that you and your drones wouldn't die, ever, you would log in and sit there all day log in the next day 400mil or so richer.

I see it being no different from hitting your module once an hour and going AFK.

Still different from "launch your drones and start repping them and check back after 8+ hours".

And if they don't, the rest of us will.

So lets say you are NOT using a macro.

You hit your modules and go afk until the cycle is done.

Yet recently went emo in a dev blob about "afk missioning" with drones is not acceptable game play because you are not actually present at your computer

Whats the deal?

CCP will most likely have to do something about ice mining macks.

So if someone was to mine while not at there screen while only coming back once the cargo is full, which could be over and hour would not be classed as extreme, fair enough if they only do it a couple days a week but if your doing it 7 days a week then I would say its an extreme case of AFK activities.

CCP will most likely have to do something about ice mining macks.

So if I work 12 hour shifts in an office and I can have even running in the background, alt tabbing back every however minutes it is to reactive then alt tabbing away isent an extreme case of afk mining? I would say it is and believe it, people do that.

So lets say you are NOT using a macro.

You hit your modules and go afk until the cycle is done.

Yet recently went emo in a dev blob about "afk missioning" with drones is not acceptable game play because you are not actually present at your computer

Whats the deal?

The rest of us?

Do not put your personal weird obsession with miners, onto the general Eve population.

So lets say you are NOT using a macro.

You hit your modules and go afk until the cycle is done.

Yet recently went emo in a dev blob about "afk missioning" with drones is not acceptable game play because you are not actually present at your computer

Whats the deal?

Iirc, the reason they gave is that with ISBoxer, you still have to be there pressing the buttons. When you use macros, you don't have to be at the computer. They just want people to be in control and not an automated process.

no one should have a problem with CCP prohibiting the use of a program to emulate commands anyways.

Even 100% AFK miners will have to come back and do some clicks at some point. The mining barges have a finite amount of ORE capacity and the asteroids have a finite amount of ORE in them. IF you set your miners and go AFK all day, your toon will only really be mining for an hour TOPS