A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[dynamicbob]

Has there been any talk by Fdev getting your faction name visible to that "no faction" spot at the HUD?
I know superpower pledge shows there but it would be sweet to get your very own minor factions name there.
Atm its a bit immersion breaking that its not there..
I mean it could be implemented the same way when you choose your side when arriving at CZ, cant be that hard, or can it?

its a small QoL taht should be able to be added fairly easily

 

[Sentenza]

Bust .. Selling none market items (they don't normally appear on the market but do if you have them in your hold), but not illegal for a loss.

I tried that too. Selling no market items has no effect now.

 

[jimbeau1571]

Well fine, for the sake of argue...

1. It was in 2.1 and was patched out with .05. The missions showed you the item effects when delivered. Also many sales have proven - unlike you want to - that selling weapons will make civil unrest pend in the long run. Or long trade. Why do you fight that so hard? If you don't want to believe our statistics feel free.

2. The influence doesn't care as long as it is a profitable new trade route, yes. The state damn well do. Boom gets furthered by any good - unless drugs really cause bust - but it has increased boom effect on resources and machinery and technology. Food prevents famines, medicine prevents outbreaks for the owning faction. Weapons cause civil unrest for the faction etc.

3. That was an example to make it fit a roleplay perspective. Ingame smuggling only hurts the % minor and causes bust. If we feel it realistic or not was the point. The mechanic is fine.

4.The one they didn't have last time. It is that easy. If they just had famine or outbreak, the bucket is more empty, so the next will obviously be the other. This question isn't hard. Hell, I had border systems near us with 5 factions in famine! It was the outermost possible cluster. No visitors. First thing I did was help those poor sods.

5. Selling weaponry (the category includes non-lethal and armour as well) causes unrest. I mentioned it long before this. I also have caused it more than once, mostly to factions I don't care about. I also told other people how their mysterious unrest in their faction came to be. They admitted to having mass traded weaponry.

6. No the production bar (ranging from one - to three - ) will only lower itself again if the produce is bought. It does not return after 3 days. It only does so if you buy the produce and increase the demand again by using up its resources. There are many "dead" economies which produce all on one - even outside of war or election. Those systems are ruined as they only get bought and never delivered. Most of the times this concerns the billion systems people only visit to buy items.
I don't know what the commodity group of "humans" (slaves or imp slaves) does. It could be neutral, it could provoke a pending famine if done enough times. Who knows. I don't condone slave trafficking so I most certainly won't test it.

7. There is a possibility that FD made it half-static. We don't know, FD doesn't tell and no one mass grinded systems to eradicate pirates yet in low pop it seems for reliable data. We will live and learn.

I'll keep it short.

1. I didn't deny or fight it ... i broadened it to all illegals. You have broadened it further to legal weapons and drugs. I take your word on that. I know no different.
2. Boom is caused by making profits. On any legal trade. Boom then increases the value of goods sold, to further your profits. Boom ends, so does the good time and prices return to the median value. Missions have a better value during boom, and change in there content slightly. Bust is the opposite.
3. Please don't answer BGS questions with roleplay answers. It's unhelpful and confusing when talking game mechanics and hard for us to decipher mechanics and 'head fantasy' for the want of a better way of putting it.
4. Fair enough I accept that its what they didn't have last time. The last part is 'head fantasy' again, as doing nothing changes nothing for the MF. The pop doesn't get smaller, the faction doesn't lose control of a station for example as a consequence of not feeding the people. It just increases the profit to be made on food or medicine.
5. I accept that. Never seen it or heard it said before.
6. I assume these are the bars on the market page. Those that used to say low/med/high. Those that sit under the columns of Demand and Supply. Arbitrary figures to give the illusion of a fluid market to a large degree. All those systems that are on the fringes, demanding food but never have any delivered (no one trades in food as there is no profit to be made in comparison) should have crazy food demands with sky rocket prices, and all be in famine. But they aren't. Why? Because those numbers are just arbritary. You can watch the supply drop around CG's as people trade the needed good. But days later and the system is back to its starting level. It doesn't suddenly go into megaproduction because of the demand surge. Depending on the starting figure, and how many it produces in the 'mini' tick, determines how long to get back to the starting figure.

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I tried that too. Selling no market items has no effect now.

Wonder when that changed. Haven't done it in a long time so was unaware of the change.

 

[Sentenza]

5. Selling weaponry (the category includes non-lethal and armour as well) causes unrest. I mentioned it long before this. I also have caused it more than once, mostly to factions I don't care about. I also told other people how their mysterious unrest in their faction came to be. They admitted to having mass traded weaponry.

I did a lot of "source non-lethal and armor" missions during unrest and they clearly show a reduce unrest effect. This also makes sense - tasers and vests are used by the police.

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Wonder when that changed. Haven't done it in a long time so was unaware of the change.

Likely with 2.1, anything sold at a loss has no effect.

 

[Gemai]

I assume these are the bars on the market page. Those that used to say low/med/high. Those that sit under the columns of Demand and Supply. Arbitrary figures to give the illusion of a fluid market to a large degree. All those systems that are on the fringes, demanding food but never have any delivered (no one trades in food as there is no profit to be made in comparison) should have crazy food demands with sky rocket prices, and all be in famine. But they aren't. Why? Because those numbers are just arbritary. You can watch the supply drop around CG's as people trade the needed good. But days later and the system is back to its starting level. It doesn't suddenly go into megaproduction because of the demand surge. Depending on the starting figure, and how many it produces in the 'mini' tick, determines how long to get back to the starting figure.

Let's focus on the economy from here on:

You talk about states and their special effects. That is correct. Once the state ends, the artificial shift in demand and the lowered production (in case of negative effects) only lasts as long as the state. BUT, what I was talking about was the standardized demand and production outside of crisis states. That one can be overfed, high-productive and influenced by players. In such a way that demands don't recover for months unless they are a daily necessity (food, drugs, appliances). All other only increase in demand if the storage of their produce is not full. And all production only recover their storage if the necessary items are delivered. Otherwise they fall down to one bar permanently.

Again, you are free to make your own observations, but that behavior is seen all out our sphere of action and whereever we went to trade. The production needs supplies. This isn't important in a billion system as the one bar production even contributes enough for most buyers, but for smaller systems with long player life, continuous trade supply is necessary to keep it healthy. Just buying kills production.

Sadly, yes, the state effects are as of yet nasty - production down to near 0 during famine for example - with huge prices for food. It is however with no further consequence. I would like for FD to finally implement refugee mechanics where population gets drained from war/crisis systems and migrates to peace/boom systems, but for now it is how it is.

I did a lot of "source non-lethal and armor" missions during unrest and they clearly show a reduce unrest effect. This also makes sense - tasers and vests are used by the police.

That is correct. But I don't talk about delivery missions here, I talk about you selling 3000t of weapons on the PUBLIC market. If it is not prohibited - just use the black market then - the PEOPLE not the police get the weapons.

Apparently the current problem in this discussion is to discern sales to the market and mission deliveries. In 2.1 (before .05) this increased unrest in the other party during a delivery, but if 2.2 added it to help, it is fine. It doesn't change that adding weapons to the public market by selling it to normal people causes unrest, most likely by them using it against the police.

 

[goemon]

Well, I wanted to check the match with this:

http://i.imgur.com/Ivuum68.jpg

Smuggling should have pushed lockdown. At this point we can safely assume this table is no longer valid. In fact it also states that smuggling increases influence, but the same test showed a decrease instead, as if it was piracy.

i really recommend using the table from the BGS livestream:

reposting a screenshot of the table shown during the BGS livestream last week:

http://i.imgur.com/cwqqik4.png

@walt: there is one major difference to Michael Brookes third table in the OP: illegal trade has a negative influence effect (which meets my current testing).

... as we can also learn from that table, a single action can have more than one effect; for exampel smuggling food will empty the boom bucket, fill the bust bucket and empty the famine bucket, while it will reduce the blackmarket controlling minor factions influence. that table looks very consitent to me.

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a friendly reminder for everyone, and as others have said: please don't derail this thread with minor factions politics. it is off-topic in this thread, and we have forum rules for offtopic-replies
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Just a followup here:
A second conflict can certainly go pending while another is active (not pending), if for instance you pass a third faction in the course of the war. The pending will only show for that third faction, but the conflict can start with as little as one day of peace in between (thus two days of pending occured during the first active conflict).

I had this occur twice in a row in one system; three civil wars with only one day separating each. In each case the pending for the next only showed for the faction not in conflict yet. It was a busy time ;-)

very interesting.

basically that means, we have "global states", "local states" (with global effects), and "hidden local/global states"...

Did another test, this time in 2.1: sold narcotics, personal weapons and combat stabilizers. Effect was civil unrest.

see table above

Factions operate with faction triggers not population triggers.

i think, this all comes down to the question discussed some month above:

- is a state bucket local, e.g. seperate for each system?

- or is a state bucket global, e.g. cross all systems?

a) we do know, that states can be triggered in a single system, with global effects.
b) we also do know, that it needs less actions to trigger a state in a small population system. for exampel: to trigger boom in a small population system, dumping 4-7 mio in exploration data is enough. 4-7 mio in exploration data isn't enough to trigger boom in a large population system. boom is a global state.

i tend to believe, that state buckets are system specific, with global effects.

the question is, whether a state needs to be countered in the same system, or whether (pending) states of the same minor faction are somehow nullifying each other - did somebody ever see BOOM and BUST both pending?

Illegal trading in that picture refers to stolen goods so you may have to try that, selling in the black market is a bust for the real economy cheaper goods with out taxes also illegal emigrants and “unregulated “ slaves cheap labour force black economy.

my test of illegal trade showed no difference between stolen goods and illegal goods.

the influence effect of blackmarket trade is not depending on profit, but on tons sold - differently to legal trade. so there is even no difference via acquisition. influence effect does depend on number of tons sold solely.

I say anything illegal, not just drugs weapons. Why? ... different illegals in different systems. One tag captures the illegals in each system for the programmer.
Waste ... Some factions go into Outbreak despite having no market on which to put waste. So Outbreak is not dependent on Waste. That is not to say Waste doesn't induce Outbreak, just there is something else at work.
Food ... Similar to Waste and Outbreak, in that Factions are going into Famine without a market in which to put food, yet those factions with markets yet revieve no food to the market don't go into Famine. Something else at work.
Medicine ... The absolute same as Food, but for Outbreak instead.

1. as above - the same action can have more then one effect. for exampel selling illegal medicine ... give it a try with terra mater blood bores

2. i look at famine and outbreak like this (and some is backed from michael brookes update quoted in the OP) :
a) a state going active sets famine and outbreak buckets to 50% of its previous value. e.g. outbreak bucket is 92%, war goes active = outbreak bucket is 46%. outbreak bucket gets filled to 54%, boom goes active, outbreak bucket is 27%...
b) the outbreak/famine bucket gets filled over time, depending on values like population, and hidden values like quality of living/wealth - have in mind that states may effect those hidden states. for exampel investment state is known to raise the hidden "tech level" of a system.

a+b): a faction which has no interaction will get into famine/outbreak. after that, the bucket will be emptied and starts all over.

c) the outbreak/famine bucket gets filled by actions. once, abandoning missions was the trigger. now, things like missions or biowaste trade might add to it. i am not sure, which kind of actions might lead to a famine, though.

any faction that does not enter a state of Boom will enter Famine or Outbreak at some point. Any faction that does not own a market, has no missions performed for it, will enter Famine or outbreak. So if i were to monitor a system on the edge, where nobody used the market or very infrequently, all the factions should enter Famine or Outbreak. So if nothing happens in this system, how does it determine Famine or Outbreak?

from the amazon-server-conference stream, i assumed, that if no commander enters a system, nothing is calculated. see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvJPyjmfdz0

but this can't be fully true. the galaxy map tells us states even from systems nobody enters. which means, state buckets and states are calculated without player activity. to some extend this even makes calculating influence levels necessary (a faction expands into a system nobody is visiting - it gets an influence level there, and through that influence levels of all other factions are calculated accordingly).

anyway - if outbreak and famine buckets are filled over time, factions would get into outbreak and famine - and the state bucket would be emptied after the state went active/recovering.

do other state have such an automatic filling of state buckets, too?

tempoary impact is the way it is, theres no permanent way to affect localised development indexes both positive and negative

exactly.

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Has there been any talk by Fdev getting your faction name visible to that "no faction" spot at the HUD?
I know superpower pledge shows there but it would be sweet to get your very own minor factions name there.
Atm its a bit immersion breaking that its not there..
I mean it could be implemented the same way when you choose your side when arriving at CZ, cant be that hard, or can it?

if you can find a way not easily exploited ... if you could pledge to a minor faction in an easy way, i would foresee people "pledging", taking sidewinders, and get destroyed all over - destroying a minor factions influence through that.

 

[SaliVader]

b) the outbreak/famine bucket gets filled over time, depending on values like population, and hidden values like quality of living/wealth - have in mind that states may effect those hidden states. for exampel investment state is known to raise the hidden "tech level" of a system.

I didn't know tech level was a hidden value. Any idea what it does? The guide in the first page doesn't go into much detail about hidden values.

 

[_Flin_]

I didn't know tech level was a hidden value. Any idea what it does? The guide in the first page doesn't go into much detail about hidden values.

Tech level affects things like module and ship availability. Dont know about commodities.

 

[jimbeau1571]

Let's focus on the economy from here on:

And all production only recover their storage if the necessary items are delivered.

We obviously are coming from the opposite ends of the games economic spectrum.
I'm seeing a figures and counters mechanic, you are more the fluid and evolving mechanic. And never the twain shall meet.

All I can say to the above is that we have no idea what those necessary items are in a lot of cases.
Domestic Appliances an example. It doesn't tell you base commodities the system needs to make these things. You would be making assumptions, which could be completely wrong.
Gold, used in lots of things. Jewellery, luxury goods and contact pads in electronics. What luxury goods are these? Are they on the market or 'consumed' by the system.

I have a system nearby, one planetary base with a market. Population 1300. Market demand for personal weapons, 257.
So I deliver those 260. I gave them 3 spares (head fantasy, I just filled my hold really). The demand went to 0. As it should. I then went back to my system. Did something else. then went back to the base. Personal Weapons on demand 257. Really! ... You mean to tell me they broke all 257? Oh its for the rest of the population I see. Why not just demand 1300 then to start with.

 

[Gemai]

I have a system nearby, one planetary base with a market. Population 1300. Market demand for personal weapons, 257.
So I deliver those 260. I gave them 3 spares (head fantasy, I just filled my hold really). The demand went to 0. As it should. I then went back to my system. Did something else. then went back to the base. Personal Weapons on demand 257. Really! ... You mean to tell me they broke all 257? Oh its for the rest of the population I see. Why not just demand 1300 then to start with.

The number you see for demand is a portion (I don't know the exact number for the divisor) of the real demand. Depending how often it can be divided by the hidden value, it has one bar, two bar or three bar demand. The demand is then shown as the faction of said multiplier with the bar attached.
Selling over demand does not hurt your portfolio and actually helps the station as it reduces the real demand in the background. You will see if you continue to bring it weapons for several days, the station demand will break down as it gets met, ultimately reaching 0.

Since weapons are a common good - they get used anyway - the demand will slowly recover without buying anything. However if you buy them at the same source over and over and don't deliver the source materials, no new will be produced, the production will wither away and reach 0, only recovering after ages by itself. If you deliver market demands for production, it will resume production on higher levels.

You main qualm is that we do not know WHICH goods are needed for the production of WHICH goods. I concur. In some cases like refineries, the resource tells you it got Lithium to extract etc. In those cases it is obvious if it is dynamic.
But even if it just follows your KISS, it would mean you need to supply a station with all groups (machinery, resource) in sufficient supply to keep production up during mass buying.
So if it is simple or dynamic doesn't matter, YOU influence the market and you better keep it healthy if you want to stay in the region.

 

[Sentenza]

At this point I bring again this data you can get from the API:

{
"baseConsumptionQty": 39,
"baseCreationQty": 0,
"buyPrice": 0,
"capacity": 2139,
"categoryname": "Weapons",
"consumebuy": "1",
"consumptionQty": 713,
"cost_max": 5106,
"cost_mean": "4632.00",
"cost_min": 4168,
"creationQty": 0,
"demand": 2139,
"demandBracket": 3,
"homebuy": "89",
"homesell": "88",
"id": "128049233",
"market_id": null,
"meanPrice": 4632,
"name": "Personal Weapons",
"parent_id": null,
"rare_max_stock": "0",
"rare_min_stock": "0",
"sec_illegal_max": "1.39",
"sec_illegal_min": "1.05",
"sellPrice": 5106,
"statusFlags": [],
"stock": 0,
"stockBracket": 0,
"stolenmod": "0.7500",
"targetStock": 177,
"volumescale": "1.2400"
},

 

[Gemai]

At this point I bring again this data you can get from the API:

{
"baseConsumptionQty": 39,
"capacity": 2139,
"consumptionQty": 713,
"demandBracket": 3,
},

These should be the important parts.

Either way the data proves that the "real" demand is bigger than the shown demand.

 

[Sentenza]

These should be the important parts.

Either way the data proves that the "real" demand is bigger than the shown demand.

No, the demand shown in the market is this:

"demand": 2139

Note that is the same as capacity, but far greater than targetStock.

demandBracket is the bar, and is either 1,2 or 3.

 

[Gemai]

demandBracket is the bar, and is either 1,2 or 3.

I know what the bracket is Sentenza. I said the important parts, and I meant for those looking at the data to asses selling. It could help a trade mod after all. The consumption tells us that the station can not eat all our sales at once so the reason it still has demand later is it has a higher max demand.

Either way, I just tested it again. A demand over 150 non-lethals, sold in 240. New demand was down to two brackets/bars and 32. Even with base tick consumption in half an hour it shouldn't be back in business if it would rise around 39 at best. If I sell now again, I expect it to come back at 0 or at best 5-12 next round and one bar/bracket.

The true demand is a multiplier added to the current demand, it should be static, at least for each good. If we wanted to we could make a table to evaluate the static modifier by putting bracket, demand and sold units in context.

I will consider it.

Also if you put base consumption and target stock in relation, you see it will keep supplies for 4.5 days. So you can overfed a station.

 

[jimbeau1571]

At this point I bring again this data you can get from the API:

{
"baseConsumptionQty": 39,
"baseCreationQty": 0,
"buyPrice": 0,
"capacity": 2139,
"categoryname": "Weapons",
"consumebuy": "1",
"consumptionQty": 713,
"cost_max": 5106,
"cost_mean": "4632.00",
"cost_min": 4168,
"creationQty": 0,
"demand": 2139,
"demandBracket": 3,
"homebuy": "89",
"homesell": "88",
"id": "128049233",
"market_id": null,
"meanPrice": 4632,
"name": "Personal Weapons",
"parent_id": null,
"rare_max_stock": "0",
"rare_min_stock": "0",
"sec_illegal_max": "1.39",
"sec_illegal_min": "1.05",
"sellPrice": 5106,
"statusFlags": [],
"stock": 0,
"stockBracket": 0,
"stolenmod": "0.7500",
"targetStock": 177,
"volumescale": "1.2400"
},

Is this API detail about Personel Weapons station specific or galaxy wide?
If it were station specific, how would it compare with another stations?

If it is station specific, I would find interesting to see the comparisons between a system producing the item and a system demanding the item.

 

[Sentenza]

Is this API detail about Personel Weapons station specific or galaxy wide?
If it were station specific, how would it compare with another stations?

If it is station specific, I would find interesting to see the comparisons between a system producing the item and a system demanding the item.

It is station specific. The API gives you the details of all the commodities in the station you are docked, in this case there is local demand. When I get home will fetch the data for a station that sells it.

 

[jimbeau1571]

Call me crazy here of you want, but surely if your looking to understand the modifiers that are at play as you say, then take a static of the API like above. Run a trade drop, the take another static. Run a further drop and another static.
Doing this with 2 systems next door should enable you to see the changes either side of the 'mini' tick of the market and missions board.
Do this for a system that is selling and not just for a demanding system and I would guess it will start to reveal itself.

Not being an API guru, I don't know how you do this.

As I said, call me crazy!

 

[Niewitch]

nevermind, got my answer

 

[_Flin_]

The number you see for demand is a portion (I don't know the exact number for the divisor) of the real demand. Depending how often it can be divided by the hidden value, it has one bar, two bar or three bar demand. The demand is then shown as the faction of said multiplier with the bar attached.
.

I never know with you whether you really know the things you state and have tested them or you just make them up because you want them to be this way.

Before 2.0 there was the tic-toc system where the tic was consumption (increase demand) and the toc was production (increase supply).

There was no way to reliably measure this production value and whenever we tried to do so it appeared that supplies always reached max cap within a day.

I cannot by any means read your interpretation from the api data. Please present a meaningful case for your theories with data that supports them.

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Call me crazy here of you want, ....

Don't want to. Thats exactly how one should work to get a meaningful theory of the workings of the economy.

Whenever we did this, the results were... onedimensional.

 

[jimbeau1571]

Does the API info detail what commodities are consumed to manufacture another as we were discussing earlier?

If the above was the full detail, then I guess not or it is something else that is hidden or not listed as this was a station demanding the finished product. So a snapshot of Clothing at a supplying station would be interesting because I would expect to see the textiles used in production listed in some fashion (no pun intended there) or other.

@goemon 'my test of illegal trade showed no difference between stolen goods and illegal goods.

the influence effect of blackmarket trade is not depending on profit, but on tons sold - differently to legal trade. so there is even no difference via acquisition. influence effect does depend on number of tons sold solely.'

Sorry for some reason computer wouldn't quote your comment.

I'm pretty sure that it still works on the 't' and not profit value, but uses 'profit' or 'loss' as a modifer to affect the influence. I don't know of any change to this since it was proven about the '1t at a time' method was modded by FD. They changed something eg 10t at a time value instead of 1. We just don't know. But I'll bet they ddn't change the whole mechanic overnight.
This is why I still believe the whole market is 'counters', each commodity autonomous to the next, each market autonomous to the next, each system autonomous to the next.

And when you look at the API above, it is afterall just counters and thresholds.