A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

black market is a service of a station/outpost, as we have learned from the station-building cg's. either that station/outpost has this feature, or it doesn't (like rearm, repair). there isn't really something you can do about it, i think. (...) ... still i stand corrected.

Sounds complicated to force it "manually", but thanks for the info.
 
What hurts faction inf more, failing a mission or abandoning it?

Which one hurts my rep less?

abandoning a mission doesn't hurt a minor factions influence anymore (this was introduced to hinder taking missions and abandoning them directly), but it still hurts your reputation. I'm not sure about failing missions, i guess they still hurt influence. taking alternate offers is the best way to go! what i do is: taking missions, and waiting for alternate offers. if i don't get an alternate offer i fail them by running out of time. works.
 
abandoning a mission doesn't hurt a minor factions influence anymore (this was introduced to hinder taking missions and abandoning them directly), but it still hurts your reputation. I'm not sure about failing missions, i guess they still hurt influence. taking alternate offers is the best way to go! what i do is: taking missions, and waiting for alternate offers. if i don't get an alternate offer i fail them by running out of time. works.

Thats good to hear, because i always abandon assassination missions if the target is unwanted.

Ships of that faction will hunt you down tho...not often but does happen..kinda wish more would..its fun when you just dropped into a station and you get this assassin on your butt for abandoning a mission..
 
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Abandoning and failing will only reduce your reputation and bank balance...you need to take the alternative complete from the 'follow my wake' NPC's to reduce influence using BB missions, it is very effective if you have the time

@dazzlerbing if you have a source for that.... i was trying to screen the patchnotes of last year :-/
 
Nope sorry....I was just grouping the two together as he seems to want to reduce the influence using either of his 2 suggested methods, neither of which would do it.
 
Thats good to hear, because i always abandon assassination missions if the target is unwanted.

Ships of that faction will hunt you down tho...not often but does happen..kinda wish more would..its fun when you just dropped into a station and you get this assassin on your butt for abandoning a mission..

I am so glad you posted this....I had a FDL stalking me for 2 hours and eventually came onto comms and said his piece about double crossing a faction. Unfortunately he didn't stop firing when I entered a 'no fire zone' and the station made him into tiny bits.

I honestly thought I had dreamt it and have never said how cool that actually was ! Bravo FD
 
Does the % claimed come from only your opposition in the war in this instance or from any faction (mainly the leading faction) as under normal non war circumstances?

Under what is generally considered to be normal circumstances, influence points during conflicts/elections are only exchanged between participants for missions appropriate to the action (for civil war/war only combat missions have effect, for elections only trade).

Currently, when an anticipated election/war/civil war does not appear, any missions for your Favoured Faction seem to work.

Edit: On the other hand, there may be no bug at all. If your FF has expanded into a location unknown to you and is already involved in a conflict of some kind, that action will block your expected conflict and you will be none the wiser.

Under normal circumstances, then yes, just the factions involved swap influence. But under the 'bug 'condition of no CZ's you mentioned earlier then what?

The reason I ask is I am in a War in a system with no CZ. This is not the first time this has happened in this system, but the second since my fellow Cmdrs faction first went in, and then again with mine. So it would appear this is the 'normal' in this system. Now with there being no CZ's, my faction being on 13.4% and the other faction on 1%, where is the % going to come from in order to win the War? or am I locked in a impossible win situation?

FD in all their glory have failed to answer my bug report nevermind acknowledge there may be an issue (Cheers FD by the way)

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quick question which possibly has been answered already.....

Does a BOOM state delay a pending EXPANSION state? Or the Expansion will kick off no matter when the 5 days from the start of the pending state pass?

Your Expansion is in stasis until the Boom is removed, be it by War or something else(time/trade).
If cleared by War, then it will not start till the War is won/lost/ceasefire.
And ONLY then will the 5 day countdown start to take it from pending to active. (My exact situation a few weeks back)
If during that 5 day countdown you manage to get pending BOOM again, your back to square one.

So once you have the pending clear of all states other than Expansion, disappear into the black for a 5 days, or go and work in other systems.
(My advice)
 
2. amount of credits/bounty value is neglectable, if not even irrelevat. you can't claim single bounties like selling 1T at a time, but yeah - sad panda, because bounty hunting for the BGS means "you shall dock a lot, to claim your bounties, no matter the value". atm I'm testing exactly the effect of minor faction bounties, whether claiming those raise the influence of the minor faction or of the controlling faction. i think both is possible, i will report back.

Another piece that adds to my worst fears looks like its being realised, in that in all the deep thinking we have all been doing regarding the BGS, it is simply just a whole bunch of counters counting the clicks relevant to the feature (trade/bounty/explorer data). The 1t issue is looking more and more like the opening of Pandora's box all the time.
 
If you see a huge difference between Crime Report total and Bounty Hunter Total, some of the following cases might be the reason:

a) someboy cashes in bounties from that system in another system (for exampel: he wants to push your minor faction in another system).

b) somebody is not cashing in any bounties (for exampel - those of the other minor factions, because he wants to help your major faction).

c) somebody is gaining a lot of bounties because he shoots non-wanted ships (for exampel ships of other minor factions than your controlling factions, because he wants to help)

d) someboy isn’t a good smuggler and gains heavy fines bringing in illegal tobacco in his anaconda.

e) Someone has been cashing bounties who is pledged to ALD or another power that gives a bonus to bounties when they are cashed in. This also requires the system to be exploited or controlled by the power and can cause a difference of 20 - 50% depending on the power's rank.
 
2. Does turning in bounties increase the inf of the controlling faction, or the faction that issued (paid you for) the boutny?
I think the answer is that it only increases the inf of the controlling faction, and which station you turn them in at and the amount (Credits) is irrelevant, just the number of times you click the button to claim bounties. This last part makes for a sad panda.

UPDATE on this: data looks as same rules for influence apply, if you cash in bounties at at station, you don't own. e.g.: you can raise a factions influence by cashing in their bounties whereever in that system. again it is about the number ouf bounty transactions. but this actually adds a nice tool for influencing the BGS.

data also looks as if you gain reputation for the faction, at which station you handed in the bounties.
 
UPDATE on this: data looks as same rules for influence apply, if you cash in bounties at at station, you don't own. e.g.: you can raise a factions influence by cashing in their bounties whereever. again it is about the number ouf bountie transactions. but this actually adds a nice tool for influencing the BGS.

data also looks as if you gain reputation for the faction, at which station you handed in the bounties.

Question is what about cashing in at a different system?
If I have bounties to claim in system A for faction A, but go to system B, to a station owned by faction B and claim the bounties for faction A (because they are present in this system to), does faction B get influence gain, and where does faction A get its influence in system A or B or both?
 
Question is what about cashing in at a different system?
If I have bounties to claim in system A for faction A, but go to system B, to a station owned by faction B and claim the bounties for faction A (because they are present in this system to), does faction B get influence gain, and where does faction A get its influence in system A or B or both?

you gain influence from bounties in the system where you cash in those bounties. so in your exampel faction A gains influence in system B.

concerning faction B - they might gain a little influence in system B via neglectable total bounty value. but the important factor is number of bounty transactions.
 
you gain influence from bounties in the system where you cash in those bounties. so in your exampel faction A gains influence in system B.

concerning faction B - they might gain a little influence in system B via neglectable total bounty value. but the important factor is number of bounty transactions.


Correct, collect bountys of faction A in a system controlled by faction B, definetively raises faction A influence.
 
basically my assumption concerning the BGS is atm:

A. number of transactions ("actions") is counting in-system for INFLUENCE of a minor faction. transaction/action means: number of bounty-claim-transactions, number of selling-commodity-transactions, number of ship-kills, number of bounties/fines given, number of handed in missions, number of blackmarket transactions for illicit goods, number of blackmarket transactions for stolen goods, number of combat-bonds-transactions, number of exploration data transactions etc.

B: value of transactions is counting in-system towards REPUTATION of your cmdr with the minor faction. value of bountie claims, value of bounties given, value of goods traded....

there might be another additional effect of value on influence. factors like demand/supply, factors like low/medium/high effect of missions come into play.

but to me it looks as if in terms of influence, it is always the number, not the value which is the main factor. which basically means, you can influence the BGS as effectively with a cobra MKIII as with an python. also, this makes it quite easy to track - you are only counting the number of transactions in a system, without tracking sources of goods/bounties/....
 
basically my assumption concerning the BGS is atm:

A. number of transactions ("actions") is counting in-system for INFLUENCE of a minor faction. transaction/action means: number of bounty-claim-transactions, number of selling-commodity-transactions, number of ship-kills, number of bounties/fines given, number of handed in missions, number of blackmarket transactions for illicit goods, number of blackmarket transactions for stolen goods, number of combat-bonds-transactions, number of exploration data transactions etc.

B: value of transactions is counting in-system towards REPUTATION of your cmdr with the minor faction. value of bountie claims, value of bounties given, value of goods traded....

there might be another additional effect of value on influence. factors like demand/supply, factors like low/medium/high effect of missions come into play.

but to me it looks as if in terms of influence, it is always the number, not the value which is the main factor. which basically means, you can influence the BGS as effectively with a cobra MKIII as with an python. also, this makes it quite easy to track - you are only counting the number of transactions in a system, without tracking sources of goods/bounties/....


I can verify after a few tests as promised, that selling/buying in batches is still effective compaired to selling/buying once to fill up the cargo. Can't give you many details, but let me assure you that after the 1T bug fix, buying/selling in batches does make a difference...I'll need some of you commanders to verify that with facts, at least I know it does help. change value of 1T to 10T-20Ts and give us dataaaaa!

:)
 
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UPDATE on this: data looks as same rules for influence apply, if you cash in bounties at at station, you don't own. e.g.: you can raise a factions influence by cashing in their bounties whereever in that system. again it is about the number ouf bounty transactions. but this actually adds a nice tool for influencing the BGS.

data also looks as if you gain reputation for the faction, at which station you handed in the bounties.

Forgive my stupidty but do you mean that the system owner is irrelevant for bounty hunting? Only the issuing faction gets the influence?
I currently do BGS with the idea that only the system controlling faction bebefits from BH unless there is a station that is owned by a desirable faction.
I do BGS with a PowerPlay angle and most systems I'm flipping start out unfavourable both in terms of faction or system infrastructure. I hold my bounty bonds until such time as I get my desired party in place. maybe I don't have to?
 
Forgive my stupidty but do you mean that the system owner is irrelevant for bounty hunting?

yes. basically the system owner only defines, which ships are wanted (in its space). if you shoot only wanted ships of the controlling faction, and don't hand in bounties, the controlling faction will loose influence.

Only the issuing faction gets the influence?

correct, if you only look to the influence-gain from bounty-claims. number of transactions is the most important factor.

other factors, like ship kills apply (ship kills reduce a factions influence, no matter whether those ships are wanted or not). have in mind, that influence losses via ship kills are shared between all other factions in relation to their influence - in that way, if the controlling faction is the one with most influence, it will always get most of the influence loss of other ships by ship kills. but a single bounty transaction will weigh much more than a single ship kill.

there might be a (neglectable) influence gain via total bounty value.

I currently do BGS with the idea that only the system controlling faction bebefits from BH unless there is a station that is owned by a desirable faction.
I do BGS with a PowerPlay angle and most systems I'm flipping start out unfavourable both in terms of faction or system infrastructure. I hold my bounty bonds until such time as I get my desired party in place. maybe I don't have to?

yeah, we all did for a long time :) --- it is wrong. you can cash in your bounties for the factions you want to back at which station in system you want.

i think, nobody tested bounty-transaction-numbers before, which is why we all came to the conclusion, bounty hunting helps always the controlling faction (which it did via ship kills - see above).

i took the idea totally from the 1T-trading bug plus the number of bounties claimed in the BH report.

i assume, the previous tests went like that: go bountyhunting. cash in 3 mio in bounties at this or that station. so, you will have killed around 60 ships, most of them not of the controlling faction, which will have gotten the main share of influence loss of all other factions. it will have been a single transaction cashing in those bounties. so it looked like "bounty hunting always helps the controlling faction".

i have to say, going 20 times to a RES shooting 1 or 3 small ships, and back to station to maximise bounty-hunter-transaction-number isn't what most of us understand by "bounty hunting". but it looks as if the BGS recognizes this as bounty hunting. obviously this design also favors groups (not a bad thing, i think). it also makes "system policing", e.g. interdicting wanted ships close to a station more usefull, if you don#t have a RES close by.
 
OM_G, I think I am going to stick a pencil in my eye. For BH, let me keep it simple. Two Factions A and B...there are other factions in the system, but I don't care about them. Faction A and B both have dockable bases in the system. Faction A is the controlling faction.

To help faction A:
Kill non faction A ships. This is probably not very effective...it's a little like spraying silly stream, as you can't control where the lost inf from non Faction A deaths goes.
Only turn in bounties paid by faction A. It doesn't matter where in the system you turn them in.

To hurt faction A:
Kill only faction A ships. This will guarantee Faction A inf going down, but not where that inf goes.
Only turn in bounties paid by factions other than A. It doesn't matter where in the system you turn them in.

I suppose if you really want to concentrate on lowering Faction A and raising Faction B, you would kill only Faction A ships and only cash in bounties paid by Faction B.

Also, what about turning in Major faction (Fed/Emp/All) bounties? I had guessed that if I turn them in at a station that has the same affiliation, that minor faction would gain inf. In this way, Ind factions are screwed.
 
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I suppose if you really want to concentrate on lowering Faction A and raising Faction B, you would kill only Faction A ships and only cash in bounties paid by Faction B.

Also, what about turning in Major faction (Fed/Emp/All) bounties? I had guessed that if I turn them in at a station that has the same affiliation, that minor faction would gain inf. In this way, Ind factions are screwed.

i didn't run any tests on major faction bounties, beside testing that the crime report take those into account correctly. simply for the reason my testing system (low pop, only 2 factions, only one station) has no faction with major faction allegiance. so, feel free to test!

as you can see from my chart, the effect of killing ships influence drop is tiny compared to the effect of a single bounty claim.

in the test system the relation was around 30:1, e.g. for killing 30 ships of a faction, you'd need to do 1 bountie-claim transaction to even the influence loss. i'm sure this number is that high, because influence of the controlling faction is high (normally above 80%), and as others have found out it is hard to influence minor factions with high influence (diminishing return).

but however this is on your system, i think it is safe to say that influence gain from single bounty-transaction is always higher than influence loss/gain from a single ship kill. so shooting wanted ships of all other faction and cashing in only "your" bounties, as often as possible, should raise your influence massively.

really bad news for anarchistic minor factions, though. those don't give out bountie claims.
 
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