It's so broken. In all the ways. And it could so easily be fixed with more straight-forward closer range/higher risk deliveries and decent rewards. You could have both Odyssey and Horizons versions, the former making use of planets, and the latter pickup sites and dangerous space. Could, but haven't. Which is unfortunate. The rewards aren't there, so the time investment and asset risk is just painfully unattractive to pretend you're a space badass.
Doomed anarchies
- Thread starter Obi Wan Naboo
- Start date
Yeah, pilfering is cool, but there's something appealing about a richly rewarding career as a smuggler. It's space trucking with an edge. It's almost a proper profession, you know? And the stealth loop is fun enough that if the associated missions were as rewarding as other things in Elite, I'd be doing it all day. It's a laugh.
That's a shame. I've always wanted to do some smuggling missions, and it seems a pretty s.olid fit for the game's genre.
It should pay well because of the hassle involved compared to normal trading.
Perhaps they could add a feature in Odyssey ports where you can get black market price lists and missions from those random mission givers.
There was a time when it was both lucrative and incredibly fun. Cutting cold and gliding silently though the slot with a hold full of contraband in a rig designed specifically for it felt great. Then came the Great Watering Down and the tragic death of the profession.
I would love to see smuggling get a revamp.
Make Anarchy Great Again! 
Found this old post and am adding some anarchy experience 3 months after the launch of Power Play 2.0. Especially having in mind that "pp 2.0 will not effect / is disconnected from BGS" which is only true to the aspect that it doesn't matter for PP 2.0 which government rules the system.
Actions in the system effect BGS nevertheless.
Combined with this interesting graph from the same document (p. 65) showing the weight of different actions concerning INF, it paints a sad, imbalanced picture of anarchy BGS handling.
Overall, trying to maintain an anarchy system these days feels like being a janitor maintaining a safe playground that is devastated by spoiled kids every week. What started as impressions and raised eyebrows has become sad truth. Because the most influental bucket of bgs (combat/bounties) is not available to anarchies (or only to a very, very limited ammount) and other actions can hardly balance the damage done by bounties and kills, recently amplified by PP 2.0.
In detail, the problems are, imho:
1. Why do bounties cashed at stations controlled by the respective anarchy faction these bounties are against (or for a competing local faction), have an effect on BGS against the anarchy faction?
Whatever one thinks about anarchies (whether it is the Mad Max version of society many have in mind, or if it is the way untouched tribes in the Amazonas live), besides the in-game definition, anarchy is a system of social order without government, almost no public organisation and/or other state-like structures. But there is still a boss (both at Mad Max and the tribes) and no-one can just declare "This slave/house/car/FdL/bed is mine now!" without violating social order.
On the other hand, and this is where the ED system gets highly illogical, no boss/ruling class/caste/group in real life, in a Mad Max or tribe scenario would suffer from any action against them, their members or anybody else on their soil/in their space, when the reward of this action comes from another juristicion (the realm of another minor faction) and their law.
When Mad Max shoots a villain from a gang, on whose head there is a bounty, Max would need to travel back to a police office in civilization to cash his bounty. The gang, their boss, their organization etc. would not be affected by Max' cashing of the bounty, nor by the death of it's gang member more than on a social level, as some might have lost a friend. And even if there were a 'police outlet' at the gang's HQ, it would change nothing as it has no influence on the respective gang/society, as death is part of the deal in an anarchy!
2. No neutrality or opt-out for PP 2.0, unwanted effect on BGS INF by hostile AND friendly PP actions
No powerplay in Shinratra Dezra, so why not elsewhere?
Being surrounded by at the start of pp 2.0 four powers within expansion range (now it's five) made our anarchy system a nice, comfortable acquisition target and we had to decide for a power even if we were not interested in PP2.0. We had realized very quickly that it doesn't make sense (or it is simply said too much effort) trying to block power A from entering by pledging for power B and working against A. Because if there are C, D and E too, who do you block without pledging for someone else every other day, simply said?
So along with this decission comes the effect, that from then on the system was whether a controlled (exploited, fortified or stronghold) or an undermined system, depeding on the pov. And these are by design destinations for weekly assignments given to friendly and unfriendly Cmdrs.
Like "Get bounties worth X Cr in an undermining/controlled system" or "Upload malware in a ... system" and others. To complete these tasks comfortably (and understandably) cmdrs often chose an anarchy system, because one can just land at an Ody settlement, kill every npc without penalty and do their malware thing or scan for bounties.
Unfortunately these actions do have an (massive?) influence on bgs, as the recent weeks have shown. BGS INF goes down when undermining control points go up.
Proof?
We had two wars during which surface settlements were blocked from other actions than conflict zones and - what a surprise! - during these wars there were only very few (like 200) undermining control points added. This most certainly means: No comfortable Ody settlements available, no weekly assignment completion possible there, no merits, no control points, no effect on INF.
Especially from Friday to Sunday, when not in war state, the Public Message Board's Bounty Board has shown bounties of an average 10.000cr, typically for on-foot bounties.
Solution(s)?
As there are other methods to work against an anarchy, especially when there are dockable stations from other factions available, suggestions are
Thanks for reading, hope FDev does...
Objections, suggestions and gold welcome!
Found this old post and am adding some anarchy experience 3 months after the launch of Power Play 2.0. Especially having in mind that "pp 2.0 will not effect / is disconnected from BGS" which is only true to the aspect that it doesn't matter for PP 2.0 which government rules the system.
Actions in the system effect BGS nevertheless.
From BGS Guide 2024 V2, p. 70, by Cmdr Purrfect | Andrew van der Stock, excellent work!
Combined with this interesting graph from the same document (p. 65) showing the weight of different actions concerning INF, it paints a sad, imbalanced picture of anarchy BGS handling.
Overall, trying to maintain an anarchy system these days feels like being a janitor maintaining a safe playground that is devastated by spoiled kids every week. What started as impressions and raised eyebrows has become sad truth. Because the most influental bucket of bgs (combat/bounties) is not available to anarchies (or only to a very, very limited ammount) and other actions can hardly balance the damage done by bounties and kills, recently amplified by PP 2.0.
In detail, the problems are, imho:
1. Why do bounties cashed at stations controlled by the respective anarchy faction these bounties are against (or for a competing local faction), have an effect on BGS against the anarchy faction?
Whatever one thinks about anarchies (whether it is the Mad Max version of society many have in mind, or if it is the way untouched tribes in the Amazonas live), besides the in-game definition, anarchy is a system of social order without government, almost no public organisation and/or other state-like structures. But there is still a boss (both at Mad Max and the tribes) and no-one can just declare "This slave/house/car/FdL/bed is mine now!" without violating social order.
On the other hand, and this is where the ED system gets highly illogical, no boss/ruling class/caste/group in real life, in a Mad Max or tribe scenario would suffer from any action against them, their members or anybody else on their soil/in their space, when the reward of this action comes from another juristicion (the realm of another minor faction) and their law.
When Mad Max shoots a villain from a gang, on whose head there is a bounty, Max would need to travel back to a police office in civilization to cash his bounty. The gang, their boss, their organization etc. would not be affected by Max' cashing of the bounty, nor by the death of it's gang member more than on a social level, as some might have lost a friend. And even if there were a 'police outlet' at the gang's HQ, it would change nothing as it has no influence on the respective gang/society, as death is part of the deal in an anarchy!
2. No neutrality or opt-out for PP 2.0, unwanted effect on BGS INF by hostile AND friendly PP actions
No powerplay in Shinratra Dezra, so why not elsewhere?
Being surrounded by at the start of pp 2.0 four powers within expansion range (now it's five) made our anarchy system a nice, comfortable acquisition target and we had to decide for a power even if we were not interested in PP2.0. We had realized very quickly that it doesn't make sense (or it is simply said too much effort) trying to block power A from entering by pledging for power B and working against A. Because if there are C, D and E too, who do you block without pledging for someone else every other day, simply said?
So along with this decission comes the effect, that from then on the system was whether a controlled (exploited, fortified or stronghold) or an undermined system, depeding on the pov. And these are by design destinations for weekly assignments given to friendly and unfriendly Cmdrs.
Like "Get bounties worth X Cr in an undermining/controlled system" or "Upload malware in a ... system" and others. To complete these tasks comfortably (and understandably) cmdrs often chose an anarchy system, because one can just land at an Ody settlement, kill every npc without penalty and do their malware thing or scan for bounties.
Unfortunately these actions do have an (massive?) influence on bgs, as the recent weeks have shown. BGS INF goes down when undermining control points go up.
Proof?
We had two wars during which surface settlements were blocked from other actions than conflict zones and - what a surprise! - during these wars there were only very few (like 200) undermining control points added. This most certainly means: No comfortable Ody settlements available, no weekly assignment completion possible there, no merits, no control points, no effect on INF.
Especially from Friday to Sunday, when not in war state, the Public Message Board's Bounty Board has shown bounties of an average 10.000cr, typically for on-foot bounties.
Solution(s)?
As there are other methods to work against an anarchy, especially when there are dockable stations from other factions available, suggestions are
- Bounties not issued by the ruling anarchy faction but from another faction present in system cannot be cashed at stations under control of the anarchy faction. Cmdrs need to go to an interstellar factor elsewhere (which by design does not effect INF of the original system) OR find a station owned by another faction in the original system. Respective no bounties at all, not even those from the ruling anarchy faction, if that makes more sense.
Note, based on memory and unempiric impressions: In reference to the explanation in the BGS guide concerning 2021 after the Ody launch, which caused problems for anarchies, this might have been active already but was turned off again with later updates.
- Killing of members of anarchy factions in lawless space must not have any influence on anything (INF, security state, happiness...)
- (If necessary and possible) rebalance the weight of the bgs buckets in anarchies. E. g. if ppl's lives aren't worth anything in anarchies they would be much happier about shiny goods brought to them by non-anarchy factions, wouldn't they? (That's at least what USA has been doing since WW2
)
- Give up anarchies and allow anarchy pmf to change their governments
- Give up trying to rule an anarchy star system and spread anarchy elsewhere, like Shin, Deciat or any other hot-spot with many cmdrs in open...
Thanks for reading, hope FDev does...
Objections, suggestions and gold welcome!
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I'd settle for something as small as the wholesale massacre of an anarchy faction's NPCs at a settlement has some kind of negative impact on reputation.
Personally I think FDev are happiest with option 5.
Personally I think FDev are happiest with option 5.
One masscre certainly not, but several dozens do, although who cares about the Rep if it is a one-time pp task? And ofc there are other factors influencing bgs - like space bounties. This is just an example we could 'empirically' record out of the fog we see in the bgs crystal ball. Well, not see rather...