Lockdown has no "minimum timer" anymore as it's purely a function of the security status and where the needle sits. It's not like it was when it could happen independently.I had my info from a random reddit post from 2020, of course that's not really that much better than "we think".
Still, it would be interesting to see the stats of what players are doing right now in the system, and of how much the sudden negative random event influenced things.
Considering how tiny the system is, and how people have been doing lots of bounty hunting, my best guess is that it must be 3 days minimum, or a lot of players actively working to extend the lockdown. Though I think lockdowns also have a maximum time that's going to run out in a few days, which would make the effort to stop the CG from completing completely useless.
Trailblazer Echo - Universal Cartographics lockdown
- Thread starter Gunhed
- Start date
Is there somewhere where the devs wrote this down, or is this all info from players experimenting?
cant say ive seen lockdown take less than 3 days
It's just how it operates now... if you're after FD saying "The minimum timer for lockdown is..." you won't find that, AFAIK FD have never formally even acknowledged that detail of mechanics (deliberately). Timers don't exist anymore for Lockdown, Civil Unrest, Civil Liberty, Famine, Bust, Boom, Investment, as they're entirely slider driven i.e you can't have a simultaneous lockdown/civil unrest like you could when they could occur at the same time (and had minimum timers).
There's a lot of outdated information out there which some groups still use.
Well, what is a player supposed to do, then? Stuff like "Lockdown is a function of the system state" is not really telling me anything. What and how is player action influencing states?
im not really sure what you are asking...
lockdown is a low security state. if nothing else, thats mentioned in the station ui. you lift it by raising the security level of the system. kill criminals and turn in bounties seems to me like a logical assumption even without any additional source of information.
of course there is the social aspect of the game, where you can just ask others what does it mean. and of course there is the sandbox aspect of the game, where it naturally invites people to produce 3rd party tools that provide additional support.
and of course you can just play the game, try things out, see what sticks and proceed based on that.
or you can sit on your hands and bawl and wait for better people to do the thing for you.
but based on your forum profile you seem to be part of this game for a pretty good time, so forgive me for being confused with this seemingly being a novelty to you.
i really dont know what kind of answer you are expecting...
its like me saying that libluini or your pfp doesnt mean anything to me so why should i talk to you? or idk...
I don't understand your question?
It's not a function of 'system state' (that's not a thing?), it's a function of security status, which is shown in the status screen in system.
Things which would've caused lockdown now reduce security status... things which would remove lockdown or civil unrest now increase security status.
Security status itself is a slider going from, lowest to highest, Lockdown, Civil Unrest, None, Civil Liberty.
Things which increase security include handing in bounty vouchers, trading weapons and completing relevant missions/ scenarios.
Things which decrease it are violent crime, smuggling weapons, and relevant missions/ scenarios.
FD don't put information out there about these things because it's not meant to be front-of-mind for people playing. That not being the case is a bit of a design flaw...
So... "what's a player supposed to do?"... answer is nothing, since it's not meant to be front of mind. But, you can play and observe what happens, or intuit (e.g bounty hunting sounds like the right thing to do to fight a lockdown, right?)
I'd just ignore it and do something else. People who are already involved are pushing it to the correct ending for the CG 
I'm afraid preventing other players affecting your or my game isn't really possible in a game that happens in one single multiplayer galaxy. I'm sure that's exactly the way it's designed and the way Braben for sure likes it.
If this situation is the worst example of 'negative experience' for the majority, it's fine.
You're right, I'm sure it's different cohorts of players.
Some players have caused this, fdev gave (probably other) players the chance to respond, not really sure what else they could do tbh.
Players sometimes complain there's no player agency, and then we complain when players do affect something.
Either way fdev will probably sort it in the end one way or another.
AFAIK, the most effective means to degrade security in this circumstance is to commit violent crimes. This doesn't mean you have to kill the target, though murder has more effect than assault, but it can be faster to just pepper a bunch of clean targets at a nav beacon, so you get a whole bunch of assault bounties, then run away when the whole instance is tagged, rinse and repeat. That way you avoid notoriety and large murder bounties.
Smuggling weapons is one I enjoy because you make good profits, degrade security and don't cop fines/bounties (unless you stuff up...) or tank your reputation... but because BMs get shut down during lockdown, it's not an option unfortunately.
(Edit: imo, lockdown shouldn't shut down station services, which would clear this right up. Instead it should drastically increase security around ports in relevant jurisdictions... mandatory scans as part of docking requests, deploying hardpoints results in a warning, followed by a fine, followed by bounty and destruction... among other things)
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Wouldnt be surprised if some group/s are out there getting giggles out of prolonging the lockdown.
And I am all for it. This game needs to stop nannying CGs.
It's an excuse to dip into combat again after getting triple-Elite, test some things, start training up an NPC now that I finally need not care about the XP penalty, and so on. I haven't been exploring and surely don't need the credits or module.
And I'm pretty morally stanced against sabotaging & undermining the efforts of others who are working towards a common goal with no ill intent or consequence themselves. I still am salty about Jaques.
The Lockdown was a concerted effort by a group of players in the first place. Of course those same players are going to continue trying to keep the lockdown in place, and now that it has become well publicized, there is a counter happening, but there will be other players and groups that are going to join in trying to keep the lockdown. Watching the station report, bounties issued has been consistently higher than bounties claimed...indicating that the lockdown very possibly, even likely to persist through the Tuesday extension.
It's worth noting it's not necessarily a raw issued vs claimed equation (although you do acknowledge that i think)
Just considering that component... as a general rule, 10 x 1,000cr claims != 1 x 10,000cr claim, though the specifics are a bit opaque. Also, it's unlikely a 1000cr bounty issue is the exact opposite of a 1000cr claim.
It also wouldn't include mission effects, scenario effects or other considerations.
Not trying to "correct" here, just putting more info out there.
Its one aspect I never tested back in 3.x. It would be easy to do though:
find a low / nil traffic system (each line a new tick)
shoot one NPC ship (for assault) and check %
kill one NPC ship (for murder) and check %
shoot one player (for assault) and check %
redeem one bounty and check %
(possibly) kill one ship and redeem bounty and check %
Yeah so what I'm really curious about is if there's influence- like diminishing... so claiming a bounty during a Lockdown is more effective at raising security than claiming the same bounty during civil None or Civil Liberty, and likewise for crimes.
I know there are some hard state modifiers, like "x is twice as effective in state y". Is harder to tell without an actual representation.
The problem is its a rabbithole with invisible rabbits
Cross posting this:
source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...tive-exploration.633408/page-19#post-10548364
source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...tive-exploration.633408/page-19#post-10548364
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