NOTE: Since 2.3 the BGS has been overhauled considerably, the below details are not longer valid and the mechanics of the BGS need to be re-established. This is a GOOD thing
\o/
A week or so ago I asked FD if I should or shouldn’t post the below information, but have not received a reply. On this basis I am posting the below to give an understanding of the methods that can be used to create large influence swings in the background sim. Too many times I’ve seen complaints about attacks on player faction systems that are not counter-able, this should hopefully level the playing field a little bit, until such a time FD change the BGS processes to cover off this sort of thing.
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ED Background Simulation - Large Faction Influence Swing Mechanics
Currently with the Elite Dangerous background simulation (BGS) there are methods which can be used to drive up or down a faction’s influence in a system with relative ease, outside of normal gameplay. In the player group I belong to, and various others I have read details on, these methods have undoubtedly been used to rapidly affect home and enemy systems in the game.
These methods have been in the game in one way or another since the game was released, only being affected to some extent through daily capping logic etc that has been in and out during the lifetime of the game. So far there is very little information to go on with regards to where the BGS is heading, FD are very tight lipped on the future of the BGS, which is understandable, however there has been no evidence that issues such as documented here are going to be resolved any time soon.
In an attempt to have these BGS mechanisms stopped to allow for more reasonable gameplay, the following is enough information to understand how the main methods basically work. The point of presenting this information is for them to hopefully be stopped, whilst in the meantime giving all players a level playing field. These methods generally have a negative effect on BGS based gameplay, creating large one day swings in influence leaving a faction no ability to defend an attack, and this is not good for all concerned.
Note that all these methods could be used to also affect power play mechanics too, so this is wider reaching than just player faction based players interested in the BGS.
Negative Influence Swings
Method 1 - The Black Market
Sell goods to the black market of a station and the controlling faction of this station will lose a lot of influence in a short space of time. A faction can be dropped to 0% in one BGS tick by selling enough goods, but this is dependant on the system’s population and other ongoing activity.
Goods to sell to the black market need to be “stolen” or “illegal”, these can be gained by:
Note that blackmarkets are not present everywhere, they tend to exist in station’s controlled by anarchy or communist factions (maybe more scenarios)
Method 2 - Negative Per Unit Trading
Selling commodities one unit at a time, that sell at a loss to you. The bigger the loss to you, the bigger the loss in influence...some losses can be very high if you want them to be.
It is important to know that goods must be both bought and sold in the same way, and in different systems, creating multiple transactions on either end of the market trade.
A faction can be dropped to 0% in one BGS tick by selling enough goods.
This can be speed up using a keyboard macro script to drive the necessary key pressing until the cargo is fully bought or sold, such tools like auto-hotkey or even voice attack can be used.
Positive Influence Swings
Potential Fixes
As can be seen when using the above methods, large influence swings come from lots of transactions even if the total amounts involved are not all that high. The smaller and more often the transactions are, the more they affect things for the same total amounts etc.
To resolve the above issues some fairly straightforward changes would be needed in the BGS and the way it calculates influence results. The bottom line is no matter how transactions are committed they need to ultimately represent the same effect on influence.
Regardless of the option taken negative trading and black market methods could well be capped as well to reduce their general impact on a system.
Feedback
If anyone has any feedback of BGS mechanics and would like to share information to update this content please feel free, I'll try when I can to update the details above to be as accurate as possible.
\o/
A week or so ago I asked FD if I should or shouldn’t post the below information, but have not received a reply. On this basis I am posting the below to give an understanding of the methods that can be used to create large influence swings in the background sim. Too many times I’ve seen complaints about attacks on player faction systems that are not counter-able, this should hopefully level the playing field a little bit, until such a time FD change the BGS processes to cover off this sort of thing.
================================================================================
ED Background Simulation - Large Faction Influence Swing Mechanics
Currently with the Elite Dangerous background simulation (BGS) there are methods which can be used to drive up or down a faction’s influence in a system with relative ease, outside of normal gameplay. In the player group I belong to, and various others I have read details on, these methods have undoubtedly been used to rapidly affect home and enemy systems in the game.
These methods have been in the game in one way or another since the game was released, only being affected to some extent through daily capping logic etc that has been in and out during the lifetime of the game. So far there is very little information to go on with regards to where the BGS is heading, FD are very tight lipped on the future of the BGS, which is understandable, however there has been no evidence that issues such as documented here are going to be resolved any time soon.
In an attempt to have these BGS mechanisms stopped to allow for more reasonable gameplay, the following is enough information to understand how the main methods basically work. The point of presenting this information is for them to hopefully be stopped, whilst in the meantime giving all players a level playing field. These methods generally have a negative effect on BGS based gameplay, creating large one day swings in influence leaving a faction no ability to defend an attack, and this is not good for all concerned.
Note that all these methods could be used to also affect power play mechanics too, so this is wider reaching than just player faction based players interested in the BGS.
Negative Influence Swings
Method 1 - The Black Market
Sell goods to the black market of a station and the controlling faction of this station will lose a lot of influence in a short space of time. A faction can be dropped to 0% in one BGS tick by selling enough goods, but this is dependant on the system’s population and other ongoing activity.
Goods to sell to the black market need to be “stolen” or “illegal”, these can be gained by:
- Purchased normally then transferred (not abandoned) between player ships to become “stolen”
- Taken onboard through accepting smuggling missions then abandoning the mission (in a different system)
- Could be bought from another system’s commodity market where they are legal
Note that blackmarkets are not present everywhere, they tend to exist in station’s controlled by anarchy or communist factions (maybe more scenarios)
Method 2 - Negative Per Unit Trading
Selling commodities one unit at a time, that sell at a loss to you. The bigger the loss to you, the bigger the loss in influence...some losses can be very high if you want them to be.
It is important to know that goods must be both bought and sold in the same way, and in different systems, creating multiple transactions on either end of the market trade.
A faction can be dropped to 0% in one BGS tick by selling enough goods.
This can be speed up using a keyboard macro script to drive the necessary key pressing until the cargo is fully bought or sold, such tools like auto-hotkey or even voice attack can be used.
Positive Influence Swings
Method 3 - Positive Per Unit Trading
Selling commodities one unit at a time, that sell at a gain to you. The bigger the profit to you, the bigger the gain in influence...profits won’t be as high a gain as some losses can be in the case of negative trading, this is due to the nature of the game trading mechanics.
It is important to know that goods must be both bought and sold in the same way, and in different systems, creating multiple transactions on either end of the market trade.
A faction can be risen to very high percentages quite quickly, gains of approx’ 15% can be seen in one BGS tick by selling enough goods, but this is dependent on the system’s population and other ongoing activity.
This can be speed up using a keyboard macro script to drive the necessary key pressing until the cargo is fully bought or sold, such tools like auto-hotkey or even voice attack can be used.
Method 4 - Exploration Data, Bounties & Combat Zones
Selling exploration data, bounties or combat bonds more often, and as granular as is possible, has a much better effect on influence swing that collecting them all up for a session and handing them in once. This is a less effective mechanism but it can have a very good effect nonetheless and provides the transactional nature of the BGS calculations currently..
Selling commodities one unit at a time, that sell at a gain to you. The bigger the profit to you, the bigger the gain in influence...profits won’t be as high a gain as some losses can be in the case of negative trading, this is due to the nature of the game trading mechanics.
It is important to know that goods must be both bought and sold in the same way, and in different systems, creating multiple transactions on either end of the market trade.
A faction can be risen to very high percentages quite quickly, gains of approx’ 15% can be seen in one BGS tick by selling enough goods, but this is dependent on the system’s population and other ongoing activity.
This can be speed up using a keyboard macro script to drive the necessary key pressing until the cargo is fully bought or sold, such tools like auto-hotkey or even voice attack can be used.
Method 4 - Exploration Data, Bounties & Combat Zones
Selling exploration data, bounties or combat bonds more often, and as granular as is possible, has a much better effect on influence swing that collecting them all up for a session and handing them in once. This is a less effective mechanism but it can have a very good effect nonetheless and provides the transactional nature of the BGS calculations currently..
Potential Fixes
As can be seen when using the above methods, large influence swings come from lots of transactions even if the total amounts involved are not all that high. The smaller and more often the transactions are, the more they affect things for the same total amounts etc.
To resolve the above issues some fairly straightforward changes would be needed in the BGS and the way it calculates influence results. The bottom line is no matter how transactions are committed they need to ultimately represent the same effect on influence.
Option 1 - Aggregate Daily Transactions Per Player/Transaction Type
A player’s activities would need to be aggregated for that day, so that any commodity trading, black market trading, exploration data, bounties or bonds for the 24 hour period are tallied up before being used to determine an influence adjustment, thus removing the transactional nature of the methods described above.
Option 2 - Breakdown All Transactions To Units
A player’s activities would all need be broken down to individual unit transactions regardless of how they are submitted, effectively making all influence changes happen as they do using the mechanisms described above. Once all methods of committing transactions are working the same way the effect of these could be balanced to work as intended with influence swing.
A player’s activities would need to be aggregated for that day, so that any commodity trading, black market trading, exploration data, bounties or bonds for the 24 hour period are tallied up before being used to determine an influence adjustment, thus removing the transactional nature of the methods described above.
Option 2 - Breakdown All Transactions To Units
A player’s activities would all need be broken down to individual unit transactions regardless of how they are submitted, effectively making all influence changes happen as they do using the mechanisms described above. Once all methods of committing transactions are working the same way the effect of these could be balanced to work as intended with influence swing.
Regardless of the option taken negative trading and black market methods could well be capped as well to reduce their general impact on a system.
Feedback
If anyone has any feedback of BGS mechanics and would like to share information to update this content please feel free, I'll try when I can to update the details above to be as accurate as possible.
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