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

[Michael Brookes]

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?

Booms can change the market, but not the station or the market type. Stations are a physical part of the star system that isn't changed by the background sim. More likely there were resource changes that made them change, I know I've change a few.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

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.

As I posted yesterday all three examples appear to have been hit by one or both of two issues - the queue of system changes stalling and/or minor faction changes in other systems being applied to the wrong systems. We're looking at these now, but I don't have an ETA for the fix yet.

Michael

 

[PsychoFish]

^^Thanks, we (at least I) appreciate the effort.

 

[Rennard]

I think its great that the community is putting in this kind of concerted team effort and that its being rewarded by developer input and response.

Kudos to both parties. Nice to see.

 

[GlyphGryph]

Booms can change the market, but not the station or the market type. Stations are a physical part of the star system that isn't changed by the background sim. More likely there were resource changes that made them change, I know I've change a few.

Michael

I'm sorry, I am still a bit confused. What do you mean by resource changes? Can booms change a station from Extraction to Extraction/Industrial, or was that a coincidental side effect in our case of some other behaviour?

For Stations that have changed from Extraction to Extraction/Industrial, no matter the cause, should their commodity market be reflecting that with new demand of and supply of Industrial goods? (aside from the description and label of the station changing in our case, the commodity market has remained the same)

 

[dr.zli]

A big thank you to Michael and dev team for responding to us!

 

[Rennard]

I'm sorry, I am still a bit confused. What do you mean by resource changes? Can booms change a station from Extraction to Extraction/Industrial, or was that a coincidental side effect in our case of some other behaviour?

For Stations that have changed from Extraction to Extraction/Industrial, no matter the cause, should their commodity market be reflecting that with new demand of and supply of Industrial goods? (aside from the description and label of the station changing in our case, the commodity market has remained the same)

I interpret Michaels comment to mean that the boom was not responsible for the change you have described, i.e. the market type or the goods listed. Booms it would appear just change the supply and demand.
.
Some other mechanic will likely have been responsible for your observed change and he has already stated that they don't want to give all the mechanics away, hence the cryptic response

 

[vicwolf]

It's almost like the whole "background simulation" thing doesn't even exist. Not really any surprise there.

 

[Raticus79]

As I posted yesterday all three examples appear to have been hit by one or both of two issues - the queue of system changes stalling and/or minor faction changes in other systems being applied to the wrong systems. We're looking at these now, but I don't have an ETA for the fix yet.

Michael

The Ho Hsi system is another one which would have been affected by the queue issue. In that case, a civil war started, lasted about a week and then ended with no changes to system influence. Just curious, are there any changes resulting from the civil war still waiting in the event queue for that system? It made sense with that explanation that maybe the results of the war are still out there and they just haven't been applied yet.

Added ticket #00000026073 for tracking.

 

[GlyphGryph]

Some other mechanic will likely have been responsible for your observed change and he has already stated that they don't want to give all the mechanics away, hence the cryptic response

It would still be nice to know whether the textual change should have been mirrored by an actual change in the goods demanded and produced, which doesnt seem to have happened. Now it means that we can't *really* trust the market types of stations we see from the system map, since they are potentially decoupled from the actual commodity market.

 

[Rennard]

It would still be nice to know whether the textual change should have been mirrored by an actualy change in the goods demanded and produced, which doesnt seem to have happened. Now it means that can't trust the market types of stations we see from the system map, since the are potentially decoupled from the actual commodity market.

For sure. It will be interesting to see how this changes once the recently discovered influence bugs are fixed.

 

[Red Cypher]

Sounds like a bug.

Michael

I've seen a lot of systems with only one faction out of four or more showing a state of civil war. I can't remember which ones specifically but if I knew it was a bug I would have filed tickets for them when I noticed. I thought it was just that one faction having a bout of infighting or something.

 

[GlyphGryph]

Thanks again for taking the time to respond to us here, btw. It is much appreciated.

 

[Michael Brookes]

I'm sorry, I am still a bit confused. What do you mean by resource changes? Can booms change a station from Extraction to Extraction/Industrial, or was that a coincidental side effect in our case of some other behaviour?

For Stations that have changed from Extraction to Extraction/Industrial, no matter the cause, should their commodity market be reflecting that with new demand of and supply of Industrial goods? (aside from the description and label of the station changing in our case, the commodity market has remained the same)

Sorry - resource changes are game resource changes. Basically the physical station cannot change, the type of market wouldn't change either.

Michael

 

[Ytheleus]

Booms can change the market, but not the station or the market type. Stations are a physical part of the star system that isn't changed by the background sim. More likely there were resource changes that made them change, I know I've change a few.

Michael

I take this to mean that the planets and physical resources in the system were changed as part of a patch upgrade (a tweak of stellar forge code or some such cleverness), so the station types, grades and quantities that system was populated with also changed as a result. A one off tweak for technical purposes, rather than a consequence of the simulation.

It would certainly be fascinating if station types responded to simulation conditions in a more gradual way in future, but if one station magically transforms into another, it's likely that players were lucky/unlucky enough to meet with firm evidence for the existence of a God in the Elite Dangerous universe. I suggest someone starts a cult. It will give all the nutters something to do.
edit :ninjad by MB

 

[talshiarr]

Michael, does the population of the system play any role in how easy or difficult it is to change the influence of one faction vs. another? I'm testing in one with 2000 people that is balanced 55/45 between two of them with almost no other traffic but us and nothing has changed yet after dozens of mission completions for the minority side only.

(Sorry to ride your thread's coattails, Walt, I'm dying of curiosity at this point).

 

[donpost]

Am I understanding you correctly Michael?

• Influence is per station NOT per system. System map shows summary of total influence over all stations in the system.
• When two factions have similar influence levels at a particular station a civil war is triggered, which can result in change in ownership of station.
• The system authority is the faction who has control over the "controlling station".
• Trading with a station increases the influence of the station's owner (at that station only)
• Missions taken from a station's bulletin board will increase the influence of the issuing faction at that station.

 

[Michael Brookes]

Michael, does the population of the system play any role in how easy or difficult it is to change the influence of one faction vs. another? I'm testing in one with 2000 people that is balanced 55/45 between two of them with almost no other traffic but us and nothing has changed yet after dozens of mission completions for the minority side only.

(Sorry to ride your thread's coattails, Walt, I'm dying of curiosity at this point).

Not directly, but it is factored in some of the numbers that are used directly by the simulation.

Michael

 

[Viajero]

Sorry - resource changes are game resource changes. Basically the physical station cannot change, the type of market wouldn't change either.

Michael

Apologies as I am still confused by this. What exactly are "game resources"? Does the commodity market change its list of commodities to reflect the new nature of the system economy? Do prices, supply or demand change because of the new economy nature of the system?

 

[Michael Brookes]

Am I understanding you correctly Michael?

• Influence is per station NOT per system. System map shows summary of total influence over all stations in the system.
• When two factions have similar influence levels at a particular station a civil war is triggered, which can result in change in ownership of station.
• The system authority is the faction who has control over the "controlling station".
• Trading with a station increases the influence of the station's owner (at that station only)
• Missions taken from a station's bulletin board will increase the influence of the issuing faction at that station.

Influence is per system - not per station. When certain threshholds are crossed then two minor factions can enter civil war and a change in station may occur if the losing faction owned a station.

Whichever faction owns the controlling station is deemed the controlling faction for the system.

Trading does aid the influence of a faction owning the station that trading takes place in.

Successful missions increase the influence of the issuing factioon.

Michael