A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

Indianajonesey

I
2.3.10 changes (?) Question

I realize this is a question that I maybe should have asked a week ago... but do we know what changes 2.3.10 brought to influence manipulation? Beginning on 6/27, my faction has been on a downward trend (-1% - -4% per day) while our group has maintained a constant level of missions etc. In the weeks leading up to the patch, we had been making consistent ~1% influence gains.

Coincidence? Advice?

Cheers
 

Schlack

S
Indianajonesey said:
I realize this is a question that I maybe should have asked a week ago... but do we know what changes 2.3.10 brought to influence manipulation? Beginning on 6/27, my faction has been on a downward trend (-1% - -4% per day) while our group has maintained a constant level of missions etc. In the weeks leading up to the patch, we had been making consistent ~1% influence gains.

Coincidence? Advice?

Cheers
Click to expand...

Not that is known. The only BGS relevant patch note was: Mission board generation optimisations. The biggest recent BGS changes were in 2.2 and subsequent tweaks to superpower bounties but that was back in April/May.

A consistent downward trend suggests that someone is working the system. Is another player group located there? Is the system in a Power play exploited zone? Are you close to any engineer? Did a faction recently expand into your system?
 

Ishi-Limina

Ishi-Limina
Just an idea, but might it be caused by an influx of new players on the PS4?

The previous consistent gain of 1% between several people indicates a large population system, probably with high traffic or consistent opposition (assuming you aren't trying to get beyond 80% influence).
 

_trent_

Volunteer Moderator
_trent_
Third 2.3.x expansion, third time in a row now that we've expanded into a system and arrived with the exact same influence level of a faction not already in a conflict. No doubt it's just another coincidence, but I think I need to make a new tin-foil hat because the one I'm currently using doesn't seem big enough any more. :(
 

goemon

goemon
call_me_trent said:
Third 2.3.x expansion, third time in a row now that we've expanded into a system and arrived with the exact same influence level of a faction not already in a conflict. No doubt it's just another coincidence, but I think I need to make a new tin-foil hat because the one I'm currently using doesn't seem big enough any more. :(
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simply prepare the systems? we managed to get added with >20% by reducing all other factions influence previous to being added.
 

_trent_

Volunteer Moderator
_trent_
goemon said:
simply prepare the systems? we managed to get added with >20% by reducing all other factions influence previous to being added.
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We do prep them as best we can. Unfortunately for us, one of the factions was involved in a conflict elsewhere that finished a couple of days ago and all of the other factions were in conflict. That's the one we equalised with today.

In the last expansion before this, we had a faction rise up from 1.2% to equalise with us at 9.3% the day we went in (all the other factions were involved in some sort of conflict somewhere)

I suppose we could push ourselves into conflicts in our own systems during the expansions, but we didn't have to do that prior to 2.3, which makes me wonder if something has been changed to maximise the likelihood of a conflict being triggered when a faction expands into a system.
 

CylonSurfer

CylonSurfer
So I read the OP but still have no idea how I go about removing a non native faction from power in my home system in order to restore one of two native empire factions to control. Any tips?
 
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Schlack

S
CylonSurfer said:
So I read the OP but still have no idea how I go about removing a non native faction from power in my home system in order to restore one of two native empire factions to control. Any tips?
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At its simplest you have to engineer a conflict between your favoured faction and the rulers. raise your factions influence by various actions (these will depend on faction state) and lower the enemies until the equalise and a conflict pending will trigger. continue raising influence, after 3 ticks the conflict will trigger. win the conflict and you will take the ruling station owned by the previous rulers.

If it is a large pop or heavy traffic system you will need a lot of assistance.
 

CylonSurfer

CylonSurfer
Marcus Machiavelli said:
Hey Cylon, what are the faction government types? As this will mean whether you get a war or an election.
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DSN is a imperial Patronage government - This is the faction we want rid of or at least knocked off the top spot, we want to support either Iota Hyrdi Empire Pact (Patronage) or Iota Hydri & Co (Corporate).

Schlack said:
raise your factions influence by various actions (these will depend on faction state) and lower the enemies
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I'm having issues understanding - even after reading the OP and some of the posts in this thread. I take missions for my two favoured actions all the time, as do my friends. Nothing seems to change. I read about handing in bounty vouchers at a station that is under control of the faction you favour but there isn't one that is in this system... Or attacking the ships of the faction you are working against, but that will only get us wanted in our system which seems pointless and expensive!

I'd love to understand the BGS and start to manipluate it as I have completed most of my other personal goals but this seems extremely over complicated but I'd still like to give it a go.

Thanks for the replies both, any other info you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Sitoutumaton

Sitoutumaton
Patronage will have an election with a patronage. It'll be a war against the corporation. Make note of these, they will negate certain types of activities once they go live. War nulls missions, trading and exploration data leaving you with combat bonds and bounty hunting. Election nulls bounty hunting and murder.

Pick one faction, don't spread your efforts on both of them as it dilutes your work's effect. Shoot DSN's system authority ships for rapid loss of influence coupled with boosting your own chosen faction in your chosen manner. Exploration data dumps are the quickest way, but Iota Hydri Empire Pact or &Co must control a starport in the first place to receive the data. If they have a place, scan a bunch of things and sell the data one system at a time for maximum effect.

Once you equalize your faction with DSN, the corresponding conflict resolution state will go into pending. Continue your influence boosting and harming activities here to get the required minimum difference in influence once the state goes live. This way, be it war or election, will last just the minimum period of time (3 ticks) as you've already covered the required disparity to declare a winner.

If the influences still stay where they are despite your hard work, it means DSN is being supported. It could be intentional effort to counter yours, or inadvertent support from them controlling the key starport and thus benefiting from any trade, exploration and bounty cash-ins.
 

CylonSurfer

CylonSurfer
First off - thanks for the detailed reply, it was just what I needed.

Sitoutumaton said:
Shoot DSN's system authority ships for rapid loss of influence
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Surely this will just get my wing wanted in our home system and we'd even have ships from the faction we're trying to support coming after us? It seems odd that the quickest way to get a faction to loose influence is to commit illegal acts in our home system or acts against our imperial brethren. We really don't want to get wanted in our home system! It's our base of operations afterall.

I must admit, one thing I really can't get my head around is all this blue on blue fire. Why would two empire factions go to war at all - seems very odd. Imp Vs Fed faction wars in systems which have both superpowers in them I can understand but to me this all seems like Tesco and Sainsbury's battling it out in my home town because more people went to Tesco one month :D

Iota Hydri is fairly popular with Bounty Hunters, with IBen Hub being right next door to at least three RES and another 4 on the next planet over. As DSN control IBen and all other stations within the system I assume no matter the actions my team take, they'll always be undermined by bounty hunters handing in bounties at the local stations. This really does seem broken to me!

Maybe I'll find a low pop fed system on the imp / fed boarder which has both fed and imp factions. This way I won't care about shooting down the fed faction system authority ships and getting wanted. Presumably if we managed to place the imp faction in power the system would cease to be federation and switch to imperial wiping any fines / wanted status we had with the feds in that system?
 
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Sitoutumaton

Sitoutumaton
You'd get bounty hunters from Iota Hydri Empire Pact if you did engage in wanton DSN ship destruction, but it is not illegal unless an imperial senator comes hard right down on you...

Anyway, I had a look at EDDB to see what Iota Hydri is like. I see Empire Pact, according to the report from yesterday, controls two starports so you can dump exploration data there. However there is a problem, DSN is a player minor faction that was inserted into the system about year ago. You could be opposing a still active player group keen on protecting their own faction. In addition, you'll probably get a war first with & Co or Gitxsan Limited before you'll rise to challenge DSN.

As for the intra-superpower conflicts...corporations cause them everywhere. The greed for lucre consumes friend and foe alike.
 

Schlack

S
CylonSurfer said:
DSN is a imperial Patronage government - This is the faction we want rid of or at least knocked off the top spot, we want to support either Iota Hyrdi Empire Pact (Patronage) or Iota Hydri & Co (Corporate).



This is exactly what I'm having issues understanding - even after reading the OP and some of the posts in this thread. I take missions for my two favoured actions all the time, as do my friends. Nothing seems to change. I read about handing in bounty vouchers at a station that is under control of the faction you favour but there isn't one that is in this system... Or attacking the ships of the faction you are working against, but that will only get us wanted in our system which seems pointless and expensive!

I'd love to understand the BGS and start to manipluate it as I have completed most of my other personal goals but this seems extremely over complicated but I'd still like to give it a go.

Thanks for the replies both, any other info you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
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Your best bet is to join a BGS focused group to learn the ropes. Its simple in some ways, complex in others. There is also a lot of misinformation/poor understanding out there. less so now but be careful that you confirm info before wasting your energy.


If you want to go it alone start small!

Low pop/low traffic systems are the easiest to move - assuming that no player faction (or powerplay group) has an interest. High pop systems (billions) take a fair amount of time and energy.

As indicated on the first page, not all activities are influence effective in every faction state. e.g. during war only combat actions are effective, during election combat actions are ineffective. You will get more detail in the OP. Certain activities get an influence boost in certain states (Boom/Trade)

Best to both harm your enemy and boost your faction at the same time.

Most things in the BGS are, unfortunately, transaction based: more transactions = better results.

If your faction or your enemy faction is in conflict or pending you will not equalize, so make sure - check local galnet news as those states don't appear in the right hand tab in the non conflict system.

We tend to avoid unseating existing alliance factions where possible (it isn't always) so blue on blue action is an unfortunate necessity sometimes.
 

CylonSurfer

CylonSurfer
Thats again guys - I really appreciate the replies.

To me it looks like the BGS side of Elite needs some serious work in terms of player accessibilty and ease of understanding. Some of your tips have been extremely helpful but make it clear that there are just too many road blocks to really make dipping your toes in the water fun. I'll perhaps look a low pop fed system and see what the boys and I can achieve there.
 

Sitoutumaton

Sitoutumaton
The supergroups are a prime cause for internal conflict between superpower minor factions. Anarchies wage always war, but they are nearly always independents. There are some 35 NPC Alliance Freemen and just two NPC Federal Rebels listed in EDDB databases, and only player imperial anarchies. Corporations go to war with anyone else than other corporations, so they are quite often staging a hostile takeover of spaceports, or being evicted from them.

The Democrats and Autocrats superpools can deal with elections between their members. Federation has most types of Democrats(confederacies, democracies and theocrats) swearing allegiance to them, whereas Empire boasts all the four types of autocrats in their midst (them being feudals, patronages, dictatorships and prison colonies). Alliance and their membership charter permit both supergroups to have allegiance to the Alliance, but this still means Alliance democracy and Alliance patronage, for example, are not going to settle differences peacefully.

EDIT: Yes, this was for a long time a black box to figure out, and some aspects are still being figured out, plus any changes and glitches new patches bring.
 
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Marcus Machiavelli

Marcus Machiavelli
CylonSurfer said:
I must admit, one thing I really can't get my head around is all this blue on blue fire. Why would two empire factions go to war at all - seems very odd. Imp Vs Fed faction wars in systems which have both superpowers in them I can understand but to me this all seems like Tesco and Sainsbury's battling it out in my home town because more people went to Tesco one month :D
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hey cylon, the others have given you some great advice. As to the blue on blue, think of the Empire being romans and they used to beat the cr@p out of each other when who was going to be in power became involved.
Thats how we RP it and it works for my group of blood thirsty privateers.
We have systems with populations of : billions, millions and hundreds of thousands. So my advice is to look for a system with a population in the thousands as others have said as a small group can work that easy.
My other bit of advice is start you own faction as we love it! https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...inor-Factions-Submission-Form-and-Information

this group is also there, is this you or another group? https://inara.cz/wing/564/
 
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Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
CylonSurfer said:
DSN is a imperial Patronage government - This is the faction we want rid of or at least knocked off the top spot
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You know that DSN. is a player faction?

They are based in Iota Hydri, so can't be removed. However, they follow the same rules as any other faction. Assuming that there are still active players supporting this group, they will oppose your efforts to displace them. This could take months of effort to achieve.
 

Schlack

S
Limoncello Lizard said:
You know that DSN. is a player faction?

They are based in Iota Hydri, so can't be removed. However, they follow the same rules as any other faction. Assuming that there are still active players supporting this group, they will oppose your efforts to displace them. This could take months of effort to achieve.
Click to expand...



there's your problem right there madam :)

As to the impenetrable nature of the BGS, that's one of its main attractions! If you want to be a galactic illumaniti you have to learn how the galaxy works!
 
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