Like someone else said Jita is a crazy full of traders...probably 3/4 or more are station trading. Some other regional hubs are alot more new-trader friendly as you might be competing against 200-300 players rather than 500-1000 on a particular item.
Keep a minimum of 3 buy/sell orders for each item that lets you raise or lower prices on one of the orders to keep competitive. More if it is a high demand/high trade item. People doing that can seem like bots just cause every few minutes or even seconds you can update to out-bid the competition.
Also don't get caught up in updates thinking you have to be the one on top. Think about your bottom line: your % return. Every buy order you increase decreses your profits. Sometimes its best to not chase the market and switch items your flipping.

There are definitely bots and they are easy to spot if you have been trading for a while. Reporting them most of the time does not do anything to be honest. I have reported several in Amarr and nothing happened.

And no real trader in their right mind would continue to bid with only 0.01 ISK, especially when you are in a market pvp with someone else at that moment. I am talking purely of Buy orders tho, sell orders I do not care much.

If you are being constantly outbid .01 ISK even with using different methods of price manipulation you are definitely against a bot.

Here how it usually goes;

I put a buy order for item X for 460,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me with 460,000.01 ISK
I than outbid the bot with 460,003.56 ISK ( totally random with usage of mouse wheel)
The bot outbids me with 460,003.57 ISK
I again change the order to 460,012.23 ISK (again mousewheel)
The bot outbids yet again with 460,012.24 ISK (.01 again )
I get tired after a while and change the buy order to 470,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me 470,000.01 ISK.

This is a prime example of a bot. No player would go out of their way to type again the random number I generated with mousewheel and increasing it with only .01 ISK. It just does not make sense, especially if you are managing 100+ orders at a time.

Unfortunately, there quite a bit of people who uses these bots and they will straight out refuse that the behavior I just described is not a bot. Not much to do really.

There's a few hardcore traders in Dodi, because it is, actually a pretty lucrative market if you have market dominance. You are a less productive trader competing against constant updaters. Many markets in Dodi aren't updated frequently outside of a few, which makes for the avid traders within to quickly cycle though their orders and efficiently update, since most wont require an update/ or a minimal scroll-wheel flick.

You've laid out why you're not good enough for this market. Deal with the facts. You'll know a bot when you see it, and you're still lookin.

"not saying its not possible to make money Station Trading, I am just saying that if something isn't done about the trading bots - it soon will be. Anyone who has been trading for any period of time will tell you that bots are getting worse."

-It'd hold a bit more clout if you're a notable Jita trader saying this, not a guy being outplayed in #3.

The problemwith trading bots is that you can take the **** with them really easily and make billions in a matter of hours. CCP does not enforce botting unless you really start making massive amounts of isk, RMT or upset other players.

You could easily run 5 mining bots or ratting bots and not get even a warning off CCP. Start using a market bot which can easily rack in a few billion per day then you'll **** peeps off and get a warning or a time ban when they complain to cpp.

There is also a lot of macro EULA legal software that can update 100's of market orders every 2 mins that is totally legit in the game rules. You have to click 'OK' every order but it does the maths for u insta .01 isking the best order, you have to create a spreadsheet but once it's up you can just hit ok all day. You can make billions legit with this but don't get the spread sheet wrong because you can also lose billions too. :)

I recentely caught a dude using a market bot and petitioned him, he was back on 23/7 after 7 days no doubt after his first time ban, oh well he has got 2 time bans to go before he even gets threatened with a ban. (his bot purchased over 75 buy orders at 2 units each in under 2 mins.) 75 buy orders set up by a human in under 2 mins. Looks like you botched your spread sheet there dude!

As to those who say botting is unfair, understand this. EVE's allinces and markets were built on the backs of botters. To tell new players not to bot and to actually enforce a no botting game would be unfair. You would simply have mega rich players who used bots versus new players who have not. The only way CCP could implement a no botting rule practically would be after a full server restart which is not going to happen. Bots are part of eve love them or hate them they are here to stay. No one is forcing you to bot and no one is stopping you from botting unless you RMT or take the ****.

This dude is using a spreadsheet and a program tied into the market api. It's totaly EULA legal, the program automaticaly generates the .01 isk number, all he has to do is copy paste or click ok depending on the program he is using. The reason this macro is legal is that it in no way automates anything within the eve client. The user must manually click the ok on the order or copy and paste the number.

With a good set up you can get this down to 4 keyboard commands ie ''q'' copy from spread ''w'' open eve client (or move mouse x distance), ''e'' double click order (or right adjust order) ''r'' paste/ enter.

Now repeat 50 times every 15 mins while youu pvp on your null sec main.

There are definitely bots and they are easy to spot if you have been trading for a while. Reporting them most of the time does not do anything to be honest. I have reported several in Amarr and nothing happened.

And no real trader in their right mind would continue to bid with only 0.01 ISK, especially when you are in a market pvp with someone else at that moment. I am talking purely of Buy orders tho, sell orders I do not care much.

If you are being constantly outbid .01 ISK even with using different methods of price manipulation you are definitely against a bot.

Here how it usually goes;

I put a buy order for item X for 460,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me with 460,000.01 ISK
I than outbid the bot with 460,003.56 ISK ( totally random with usage of mouse wheel)
The bot outbids me with 460,003.57 ISK
I again change the order to 460,012.23 ISK (again mousewheel)
The bot outbids yet again with 460,012.24 ISK (.01 again )
I get tired after a while and change the buy order to 470,000.00 ISK
The bot outbids me 470,000.01 ISK.

This is a prime example of a bot. No player would go out of their way to type again the random number I generated with mousewheel and increasing it with only .01 ISK. It just does not make sense, especially if you are managing 100+ orders at a time.

Unfortunately, there quite a bit of people who uses these bots and they will straight out refuse that the behavior I just described is not a bot. Not much to do really.

In short, What i have learned from this topic is that, using 3rd party software that pretty much automates market order control/modificaltion is ACCEPTABLE by both the players and CCP. This is good to know, everyone please welcome another "legit" 3rd party user into the market.

Live and learn!!

In short, What i have learned from this topic is that, using 3rd party software that pretty much automates market order control/modificaltion is ACCEPTABLE by both the players and CCP. This is good to know, everyone please welcome another "legit" 3rd party user into the market.

Live and learn!!

The 0,01 thing is the most annoying mechanic you can find in an MMO these days.
Selling stuff on the market should be about ones ability to find lucrative items and negotiate prices (more like an auction house).

In real life how many companies and traders are changing their prices 1 cent 50 times a day ?

Three times I tried to stay in the station trading game and even though I found good items I just didn't had the time and will to play the 0,01 ISK game for too long. No wonder that people use bots as this is the most boring 'activity' you can have.

Please don't take it as a rant, like " OMG this **** bores me so it must be stuuuupid and who ever does it is a no lifer".

Even the recently implemented email alert system

On a side note. What is this email alert system?

yk