Mercs of Mikunn results after 3 weeks of effort - Also a request for documentation, in game and out

[Virgil Kyle]

It's all driven by influence, so completing missions for the minor faction and trading with them will increase their influence.

Michael

Yes, but what do we do if we can't find any missions for said faction, and that faction owns no stations, either? Please, help me out here, Michael, I've been trying to figure out the answer to this for a very long time!


...And thanks again

 

[Walt Kerman]

What a fantastic thread. All I do is whine about the game; folks like the OP go out, crack their knuckles and set about seeing what works and what doesn't. Genuinely impressed by the work put in. Well played sir, well played.

Anyway, time to go whine about Supercruise again.

I've found I spend more time organizing the group than actually playing (partially because there are no in game tools to help me do so). I would like to say I do it for everyone else, but its not entirely true - I get a lot of enjoyment out of people telling me that the 'Mercs of Mikunn' group has dramatically changed their Elite experience for the better. At the same time as providing a multiplayer experience, we are trying to add to the general knowledge base. How does the saying go... two thargoids with one laser?

In this case its not really me though, thank Michael Brookes for taking the time.

 

[Rearden]

Influence is tracked for the system. Stations are assets owned by the minor factions which changes hands if there is a civil war.

Michael

I think I got more confused now

The screen we get at the end of the mission, does it apply to:
1) The faction we did the mission for (what I assumed to be the case so far)
2) The station where we picked up the mission, despite the faction we picked it up for
3) The system in general, no matter which faction we picked the mission from

As mentioned yesterday I did change focus from the station owned by my faction to the one owned by the "enemy" and it seems all I got for my efforts was that I got "pending state boom" to disappear for my own faction, despite doing several missions that increase economic boom for my faction (just on the enemy station).

How does it work for factions that do not own any stations in the system?

And are we simply missing missions that directly "downgrade" the main opposition? My faction never game me one mission to kill authority vessels on my system so there are very limited ways to increase civil unrest. I noticed that other factions in neighboring systems actually issue these missions to kill authority in my system however when I turn them in the civil unrest seems to be applied to a different system/faction than the one where I killed authority. Should I submit a separate ticket for this?

It's all driven by influence, so completing missions for the minor faction and trading with them will increase their influence.

Michael

Oops, just saw this now (took me a long time to write my small post ). So I take it that it does not matter which missions are turned in, being all driven by influence however kinda sucks for me since the influence is stuck for two weeks hopefully due to the issues already identified with the "expansion" state (although doubtful from the initial description).

Wonder how much influence trading has and its implications for factions that do not own any station or have stations without commodities markets since you can't trade with them. Not sure how much harder this makes it to influence change in the system.

 

[Ytheleus]

It's all driven by influence..

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[Walt Kerman]

I have some questions of my own that are rather important to our group, especially now that the bug has been confirmed we can spend our time elsewhere.


(1) If its not automated yet (as you described above) how will the developers decide which virgin systems will be expanded into and which faction does it (if you don't want to give details, will it happen at all)? Will they be adding a new faction when a virgin system is colonized or is it possible that an existing faction from another system can expand into a new virgin system while this part of the simulator isn’t automated (like the Duke’s of Mikunn to a neighboring virgin system for example )

(2) While virgin system colonization is not a part of the game yet without developer intervention, can stations be built in already colonized systems? Or is this unimplemented?

(3) Has the ability for stations to upgrade been implemented? Not asking how, but is it supposed to be there? (It will give us something to test/play with while we wait for our bug to be fixed if it exists)


I understand the desire to not give out details, in fact part of the fun for me is figuring it out myself. I have spent a lot of time setting up a group to do just that. There comes a point though when 0 progress is made that I had to bring the issue up. Morale in our group was extremely low - both the game and the mercs were bleeding players.

Sorry to put FD on the spot initially, but I didn't bring up any doubts that weren't already being discussed by several other groups. I feel like the outcome of this thread has been extremely positive and thanks to everyone for keeping it that way.

 

[GlyphGryph]

It's all driven by influence, so completing missions for the minor faction and trading with them will increase their influence.

Michael

We did some pretty heavy tests for this, and I'm not sure this is true. Trading with minor factions seems to increase the influence of the system's controlling faction, not the minor faction.

This might be related to the fact that commodity markets, even at stations controlled by a system faction, are labelled as belonging to the system faction, and laws of the system faction (not the station controlling faction) control it's legalities and stock.

Since you've just mentioned that trading with minor faction is intended to be not only possible by a significant factor in increasing their influence, this seems like it might be a pretty serious bug.

I don't know if this effects every possible minority controlled station, but it seems to be true for the Crimson Boys in Cegreeth with their anarchy station.

Should black market trading also increase their influence? Because that doesn't seem to help either.

 

[extorted]

Thanks to all for making this experiment, thread, and follow up. Mr Kerman, you should go up from merely competent, I guess

FD are awesome

 

[Danconia]

We did some pretty heavy tests for this, and I'm not sure this is true. Trading with minor factions seems to increase the influence of the system's controlling faction, not the minor faction.

This might be related to the fact that commodity markets, even at stations controlled by a system faction, are labelled as belonging to the system faction, and laws of the system faction (not the station controlling faction) control it's legalities and stock.

Since you've just mentioned that trading with minor faction is intended to be not only possible by a significant factor in increasing their influence, this seems like it might be a pretty serious bug.

I don't know if this effects every possible minority controlled station, but it seems to be true for the Crimson Boys in Cegreeth with their anarchy station.

Should black market trading also increase their influence? Because that doesn't seem to help either.

This might be why we havent seen any influence raise for our minor faction, even after several weeks of trading and missioning.

That or the fact a third external faction is in expansion state.

In any case, none of 4 factions influence ever changed since we started this action plan.

 

[W1ldChild85]

It's all driven by influence, so completing missions for the minor faction and trading with them will increase their influence.

Michael

Sorry Michael, no it isn't. You can complete as much missions as you want and trading as much as you want. Nothing happens until one guy of Frontier changes an database entry. Nothing works automatically, nothing is simulated. It's all editorially modified.

For the moment, it's absolutely ok, that you don't want to simulate that an keep it under human controll, BUT in a few month it should be able to change something without any Frontier moderation. It should be simulated.

 

[Michael Brookes]

We did some pretty heavy tests for this, and I'm not sure this is true. Trading with minor factions seems to increase the influence of the system's controlling faction, not the minor faction.

This might be related to the fact that commodity markets, even at stations controlled by a system faction, are labelled as belonging to the system faction, and laws of the system faction (not the station controlling faction) control it's legalities and stock.

Since you've just mentioned that trading with minor faction is intended to be not only possible by a significant factor in increasing their influence, this seems like it might be a pretty serious bug.

I don't know if this effects every possible minority controlled station, but it seems to be true for the Crimson Boys in Cegreeth with their anarchy station.

Should black market trading also increase their influence? Because that doesn't seem to help either.

The market is owned by the minor faction that owns the station.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Sorry Michael, no it isn't. You can complete as much missions as you want and trading as much as you want. Nothing happens until one guy of Frontier changes an database entry. Nothing works automatically, nothing is simulated. It's all editorially modified.

For the moment, it's absolutely ok, that you don't want to simulate that an keep it under human controll, BUT in a few month it should be able to change something without any Frontier moderation. It should be simulated.

That isn't true, most of the system changes are handled automatically. Thanks to guys putting all this effort we've found a few issues that prevent this in some cases, but the only manual changes we've done are for a few of the stories.

Michael

 

[GlyphGryph]

The market is owned by the minor faction that owns the station.

Michael

The market at Battani Dock in Cegreeth says it is an Imperial commodity market, despite the Crimson Boys being an Anarchy faction. It also has all the behaviour (legal goods, etc.) of an Imperial-aligned faction ownership. It may be intended that the commodity market be owned by the minor faction, but it does not seem to be represented as such in-game, at least in the situations I've seen.

I could be mistaken about what's going on here, of course.

 

[Michael Brookes]

1. That hasn't been determined yet, but off the top of my head we'd look at the activity on the borders and see where expansion would make sense based on that activity. It would also play into players getting involved to help make the expansion happen.

2. New stations are not added automatically.

3. Stations cannot change themselves automatically.

Michael

I have some questions of my own that are rather important to our group, especially now that the bug has been confirmed we can spend our time elsewhere.


(1) If its not automated yet (as you described above) how will the developers decide which virgin systems will be expanded into and which faction does it (if you don't want to give details, will it happen at all)? Will they be adding a new faction when a virgin system is colonized or is it possible that an existing faction from another system can expand into a new virgin system while this part of the simulator isn’t automated (like the Duke’s of Mikunn to a neighboring virgin system for example )

(2) While virgin system colonization is not a part of the game yet without developer intervention, can stations be built in already colonized systems? Or is this unimplemented?

(3) Has the ability for stations to upgrade been implemented? Not asking how, but is it supposed to be there? (It will give us something to test/play with while we wait for our bug to be fixed if it exists)


I understand the desire to not give out details, in fact part of the fun for me is figuring it out myself. I have spent a lot of time setting up a group to do just that. There comes a point though when 0 progress is made that I had to bring the issue up. Morale in our group was extremely low - both the game and the mercs were bleeding players.

Sorry to put FD on the spot initially, but I didn't bring up any doubts that weren't already being discussed by several other groups. I feel like the outcome of this thread has been extremely positive and thanks to everyone for keeping it that way.

 

[W1ldChild85]

That isn't true, most of the system changes are handled automatically. Thanks to guys putting all this effort we've found a few issues that prevent this in some cases, but the only manual changes we've done are for a few of the stories.

Michael

Hm, then it's not visible enough. We tested it in several systems with many people and the influence bars keeped as there were. Nothing changed.

Is it possible to increase the influence by players more than 1 % in a system for one faction?

 

[Rennard]

That isn't true, most of the system changes are handled automatically. Thanks to guys putting all this effort we've found a few issues that prevent this in some cases, but the only manual changes we've done are for a few of the stories.

Michael

Would this kind of automated civil war/system change/faction uprising ever result in Capital Ships being deployed automatically or is that a Dev triggered story event only?

 

[GlyphGryph]

Hm, then it's not visible enough. We tested it in several systems with many people and the influence bars keeped as there were. Nothing changed.

Is it possible to increase the influence by players more than 1 % in a system for one faction?

One of the bugs they found was certain systems essentially locking down and not responding to change.

We've gotten one of our factions up to 92% and expanded into a neighbouring system, which then halted out because of the *other* bug they found.

We've also upgraded our station from one economy type to a dual-economy type.

Speaking of which:

Michael Brookes,
We've upgraded a station, through economic booms, from a single economy type to a multi-type. However, it's commodity market has not updated in any way to reflect this change. Is this intended behaviour? Can we influence the station's commodity market? Is the multi-type "upgrade" just descriptive or is it supposed to have an actual in-game effect?

Also, you said that it isn't possible for stations to upgrade themselves automatically so I'm confused - does that mean the behaviour of booms improving stations, upgrading them to multiple types (say, from Extraction to Industrial/Extraction) and some reports from outposts to full stations (I've not seen that one personally), are being handled manually?

 

[Soda Popinski]

Sorry Michael, no it isn't. You can complete as much missions as you want and trading as much as you want. Nothing happens until one guy of Frontier changes an database entry. Nothing works automatically, nothing is simulated. It's all editorially modified.

For the moment, it's absolutely ok, that you don't want to simulate that an keep it under human controll, BUT in a few month it should be able to change something without any Frontier moderation. It should be simulated.

You're really going to tell the guy how HIS game works? They already mentioned there's a bug in influence assignment. If it wasn't automated in any way, Walt Kerman wouldn't have been able to to get the Dukes to 100% in Mikunn, nor trigger expansion into HR 7327.

It's all driven by influence, so completing missions for the minor faction and trading with them will increase their influence.

That's great news (and makes perfect sense) that trading also has an effect on influence. I'm hoping specific goods have a specific impact - like narcotics or weapons having detrimental impacts to the "civil unrest" and such. Thanks Mr. Brookes for popping in on the thread. It's very much appreciated.

 

[Mikalus]

This is the most enlightening thread in a long while. + Rep and thanks to the OP and Michael.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Hm, then it's not visible enough. We tested it in several systems with many people and the influence bars keeped as there were. Nothing changed.

Is it possible to increase the influence by players more than 1 % in a system for one faction?

This is already answered in the first post and in the links that I have provided in the first post. My whole experiment initially revolved around me and one other person.

Personally I believe it is also dependent on proximity to the starter system, with systems farther out being easier to influence, but I am only basing this off experience.

 

[PsychoFish]

That isn't true, most of the system changes are handled automatically. Thanks to guys putting all this effort we've found a few issues that prevent this in some cases, but the only manual changes we've done are for a few of the stories.

Michael

I hope in the upcoming "roadmap" we get some information on how far the actual simulation really is. I believe you that most aspects work automatically and there are threads on this forums that seem to prove that. However sometimes it feels like nothing is working as intended.


To my knowledge there are three major operations happening right now:

a) Mikunn - Rapid increase of influence. Seems to work as intended until it hit the "expansion-barrier".

b) Lugh - Rapid increase, then sudden stagnation. People are actively trying to go for civil war and it was stated it did break out, but the Lugh activists haven't even realised it. Sounds fishy to me.

c) Kerrash Landing (LFT 133) - Afaik, the community efford is pretty high there aswell, but there is 0 change in influence for weeks! Only trading had the effect of an economical boom. What was strange here, the boom was pending for days, if not longer and the moment the christmas break at Frontier was over, the boom status was initiated. For many people this reeks of developer input.


I am glad we are getting some input from you, Michael, for the past days and I hope this will continue.