 This is Witchspace news, for Friday the 12th of February 2021, I'm CMDR Buur. In this weeks news, Frontier acts on the in-game slavery issue, the anti-botting alliance is covered in PC Gamer and Down to Earth Astronomy will take you to Colonia to unlock the engineers. If you enjoyed this video remember to hit like and subscribe and if you'd like to help support the work of this channel you'll also find us on Patreon, links to everything you need are in the description below. The in-game slavery issue that we reported on last week continued to rumble on again this week until Tuesday when stories started to emerge that Frontier had taken punitive action against the players acting as slavers. Whilst Frontier had acknowledged they were aware of the issue and had even issued a Galnet story on the in-game system warning players that it was happening whilst still keeping it in universe they made no comment on their feelings toward the issue and whether any further action would be taken. YouTuber ThePilot posted a video interview with one of the ringleaders of the operation which I've linked below. And it makes for fascinating viewing if only to see the look of exasperation on the pilot's face on hearing the answers to some of his questions. Whether as a result of the interview or whether it was a coincidence I suspect we'll never know but following publication of the interview rumours started to circulate that Frontier had taken action against the perpetrators of the slavery ring. The news source was originally, albeit second hand, one of the slavers themselves and here at the pit at least we treated the news with a healthy degree of scepticism after all if the community believes that the slavers are no longer able to operate but that information is false then it only serves the slavers further allowing them to hide in plain sight. However after a while screen grabs of part of an email purporting to have come from Frontier were apparently also circulating. If the email is to be believed and in lieu of anything official from Frontier on the matter which is extremely unlikely to happen at this point it does seem to be the case that having identified the individuals concerned they have been stripped of their fleet carriers removed from open or private group play restricted to solo only and told that none of their actions in solo will have any effect on any other players. We can only assume from that that Frontier is able to filter out actions they take from the background simulation essentially making any gameplay they participate in on those accounts at least meaningless. An anti-botting alliance of over 160 player groups is proposing ideas to identify and combat players that are using automated systems to execute repetitive behaviour in the game and thereby affect change in the BGS or powerplay system. The anti-botting alliance members have all signed an open agreement stating that they will not use bots or automation in the game something that is unsurprisingly specifically forbidden in the game's user license agreement. The movement has garnered the attention of PC Gamer Magazine online who in turn reached out to Frontier who responded by saying that whilst they are constantly engaged in anti-cheek detection they do quote take care to ensure that the tools and methods used to detect the use of bots remain discreet in order to prevent malicious users finding ways to avoid them unquote. Player up until now have never publicly acknowledged that cheats in the game have been detected and dealt with whereas a number of other online games make a point of publicly announcing the numbers of players banned from their services. Despite these very public and headline grabbing announcements the nature and number of the announcements that they have to make never appears to publicly at least diminish which may give an indication as to why Frontier mostly choose to stay silent on the subject. And YouTuber Down to Earth Astronomy is offering a free ride on a fleet carrier to Colonia and back again to unlock the engineers there for any players that want to. The highly organized expedition leaves the bubble on the 25th of February and will be returning on the 1st of March. As we reported recently the Colonia engineers required levelling up to reach their maximum potential eventually this was achieved via community driven effort called Operation LeForge and as a result the engineers now have some unique blueprints and abilities that are not available anywhere else. In a video detailing the expedition that I've linked below Astro details what you'll need to prepare for the journey, how to achieve those preparations and how to join the expedition. It's not all hard work however as the expedition also takes in a couple of optional sightseeing opportunities during its visit. Links to everything you need to join the trip are below. That's it for now, thanks very much for watching, we'll be back later this week with more videos until then, O7 commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack. We very much look forward to seeing you next time.