Question: Does the BGS sim affect what is seeded in Stations with outfitting?

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Simple question.

does the BGS simulation in any way affect whats available at the shipyard and outfitting?
or in other words,
is there a way to increase the wealth of a system/station so much that they offer better equip?

an official answer would be nice.

 

[Jane Turner]

There used to be a small improvement in outfitting during booms or it might have been a worsening in wars - but I've not really looked for it for over one and possibly two years now. State changes are of course temporary.

 

[Starwolfe]

AFIk - the only QOL improvements are done through cartography data.
Exploration helps the outfitting options and influences shipyard choices.
But I've not seen or done much detailed observations on it, and the workings of the specific mechanic is only speculation for me.
I assume its tied in like the influence, so you have a daily cap per player per system that works. So It has to be a slow-ish trickly over time to do stuff.
Unlocks appear to be random, but only one module or eventually a ship at a time.


Beyond that, I assume its station-specific, not tied to the owner of the station.
So the Minor Faction could change hands and it should largely stay the same.
I assume at most its the shipyard changes the most if you change from a Fed to Imp for example.

 

[Roybe]

Simple question.

does the BGS simulation in any way affect whats available at the shipyard and outfitting?
or in other words,
is there a way to increase the wealth of a system/station so much that they offer better equip?

an official answer would be nice.

Things change when the system changes hands.

Some of the changes of ownership can:

1. close or open black markets.
2. what goods are available as legal within the system...which changes what can be bought on the open market.
3. mean that instead of wars, you get elections.

You cannot change:
1. wealth of systems
2. population

The official line if they ever will is if Frontier becomes willing to take the risk to open these to manipulation....last time it was discussed...the fear factor for the whole of the bubble to go up in flames was to much.

Some of the things that will change with states is:

1. availability of items

2. Pricing of items...and the demand for such items.

 

[Maka Gucci]

AFIk - the only QOL improvements are done through cartography data.
Exploration helps the outfitting options and influences shipyard choices.
But I've not seen or done much detailed observations on it, and the workings of the specific mechanic is only speculation for me.
I assume its tied in like the influence, so you have a daily cap per player per system that works. So It has to be a slow-ish trickly over time to do stuff.
Unlocks appear to be random, but only one module or eventually a ship at a time.


Beyond that, I assume its station-specific, not tied to the owner of the station.
So the Minor Faction could change hands and it should largely stay the same.
I assume at most its the shipyard changes the most if you change from a Fed to Imp for example.

I thought outfitting could only be effected by FDev, pretty sure people have done extensive testing on that.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...Official-AD-Slack-Background-Simulation-Guide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S-Q233d1G43ddkNwztJeY6_I6K9v8bKW83dHPpKSDZo/


"CHANGING YOUR SYSTEM’S OUTFITTING/SHIPYARD: MYTH - Outfitting is a function of population and economy type. Each station’s outfitting is static. It will only ever house the same kinds of ships and modules. What people attribute to their efforts is actually just a station running out of certain modules. If it’s a poor system, low pop, and non-industrial/high tech economy, it’s not going to have 500 huge gimballed beam lasers. It may have one. And that one will come and go depending on if players are buying it. These fluctuations are most clearly displayed in LYR’s systems where the 15% module discount often depletes supplies of expensive modules like shields or armor. These aren’t added back because the players manipulated BGS. They come back because it’s on a timer and the supply refreshes."

 

[Starwolfe]

It does change.

Just... slowly.

I have not tracked it extensively over the year, but I am certain my particular home System has improved as I hand in Cartography Data at the station.

My home system used to be a pretty poor High-Tech thanks to its crazy distance to the station, barely selling half a dozen ships and meager outfitting.
Now its got 10 ships available, up to the Federal Corvette and its outfitting while it remains spotty it is significantly better than it used to be.


While FDev through CGs has improved a station's options directly, its not exactly needed.

 

[Maka Gucci]

It does change.

Just... slowly.

I have not tracked it extensively over the year, but I am certain my particular home System has improved as I hand in Cartography Data at the station.

My home system used to be a pretty poor High-Tech thanks to its crazy distance to the station, barely selling half a dozen ships and meager outfitting.
Now its got 10 ships available, up to the Federal Corvette and its outfitting while it remains spotty it is significantly better than it used to be.


While FDev through CGs has improved a station's options directly, its not exactly needed.

Well I can't say it better than cmdr Quade:

"Do you think this guide is wrong? I don’t just mean a typo or some minor inaccuracy. Do you know that you’ve taken your crappy mining outpost and turned it into a high-tech orbis station just by trading enough superconductors? PROVE IT. That is the best thing anyone can do for the community and for the game. Show your work. Give the community access to spreadsheets and records of transactions to show exactly what happened, how much was done, and what the results were. Can we replicate it? Can we find other examples of it happening? If not, YOU’RE WRONG."

I'd love to hear otherwise I really would. o7

 

[Starwolfe]

Quade sounds unreasonable. The BGS isn't working like that, and that is now what I am saying.

It is that existing facilities can be improved from exploration - not creating something the station doesn't have.

I see no obligation to prove something that I even stated was untested and not tracked before.

If you want the proof, do it yourself and prove me wrong. I got better things to do.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

... and this is the reason for the last sentence in my opening post.

player made statistics are hardly representing, if you don't have a dedicated group tracking all their activities in an totally isolated system.
for my part - i always wondered if anyone out there is actually providing stations with low value stuff from mining. would that affect the BGS positiviely?

as far as i can tell, with the existance of those trading tools, and well paying missions, noone cares about non-max-profit trades enough to eventually uncover the connection between the
outfitting/shipyard stock, and the commodity market.

if there is really no connection... it would feel a bit underdeveloped.

 

[Maka Gucci]

Quade sounds unreasonable. The BGS isn't working like that, and that is now what I am saying.

It is that existing facilities can be improved from exploration - not creating something the station doesn't have.

I see no obligation to prove something that I even stated was untested and not tracked before.

If you want the proof, do it yourself and prove me wrong. I got better things to do.

Well that's one way to take it and I imagine why there isn't much evidence to the contrary. They have however already proved you wrong, which is why he asks for proof of a rebuttable.

I used to think it behaved similarly as you say, but then surely every home to a player faction with any sort of tenure would be maxed out.

... and this is the reason for the last sentence in my opening post.

player made statistics are hardly representing, if you don't have a dedicated group tracking all their activities in an totally isolated system.
for my part - i always wondered if anyone out there is actually providing stations with low value stuff from mining. would that affect the BGS positiviely?

as far as i can tell, with the existance of those trading tools, and well paying missions, noone cares about non-max-profit trades enough to eventually uncover the connection between the
outfitting/shipyard stock, and the commodity market.

if there is really no connection... it would feel a bit underdeveloped.

Yeah, sure. Would be great to hear something definitive from the devs, though you may well be waiting a while. Since pretty dedicated groups have had little progress on that front.
Perhaps appreciate the extensive lengths players/groups have gone to, to provide what statistics are available. As it is surely more extensive than what little FDev has been willing to provide.

Most of your questions have been asked and answered previously. Though FDev are liable to change/update anything at any time, so there is value in ongoing speculation.

 

[CMDR Endincite]

player made statistics are hardly representing, if you don't have a dedicated group tracking all their activities in an totally isolated system.

We do actually do this, for reference. Many of the groups represented heavily in this BGS subforum do, and I hardly take a test seriously if they haven't found a no-traffic spot for the test (a huge number of edge-of-bubble places with high-LS ports see no traffic for days or weeks at a time; it isn't a complicated thing to ensure).
That said, outfitting isn't something my group's found worthwhile to test.
There is a very brief mention in one of the livestreams that player actions do influence outfitting, but they did not go further to explain how. That's all I've ever heard on the subject.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

We can try some empirical observations, though, in the absence of a properly controlled long-term experiment.

Centralis, Lycanthrope and Rodentia Petram are all 50,000 population extraction economies. Centralis is run by a very active BGS group which regularly encourages explorers to sell data there ... the other two are looked after but by much smaller groups. The first two have been populated for 6 months, with RPet having been inhabited a bit longer. Lux Caeli is a 4th 50,000 population Extraction which has been set up so recently it doesn't have the system name in game yet, does not show any signs of active attention by a player group, and has extremely low general traffic levels.

So, we would theorise, given this, that Centralis would have the best outfitting, with Lycanthrope and RPet being somewhere between that and Lux Caeli.

(The outfitting monitor for these stations is on a "never remove" policy, so fluctuations in stock levels should not affect the observations)
Centralis: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/90/outfitting
Lycanthrope: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/86/outfitting
Rodentia Petram: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/28/outfitting
Lux Caeli: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/106/outfitting

What we actually see:
- RPet and LCaeli have basically identical outfitting to each other. There's a very small difference in what ship armour is available - RPet has Hauler, LCaeli has Viper IV.
- Centralis and Lycanthrope have almost identical outfitting (which is pretty consistently worse than the first two) ... however, Centralis has two D-rated modules available (hatchbreaker 1D, 3D and shield generator 2D, 3D) whereas Lycanthrope does not.

To add more information, there are 4 other 50,000 population Extraction economies which were settled earlier ... all have had some BGS attention but I don't know how much:
Signalis and Far Tauri: Centralis/Lycanthrope template, but with slightly different ship armour
Kopernik and Aurora Astrum: Centralis/Lycanthrope template, but with the same D-rated modules as Centralis

...

Conclusions so far? Not a lot. It looks like economy+population isn't the sole decider - RPet and LCaeli have better outfitting despite otherwise being identical in those respects. There is a difference in that RPet and LCaeli have democratic governments, whereas the others are a mix of 3 Cooperatives, a Prison Colony, a Dictatorship, and a Theocracy. Kopernik and Aurora Astrum, which also have the D-rated modules, are the Cooperatives...

Government + population may be a more relevant factor. Compare:
https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/107/outfitting (Industrial, Confederacy)
https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/83/outfitting (Industrial, Confederacy but was Dictatorship with Social ethos)
https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/19/outfitting (Industrial, Dictatorship)

Now, remembering that the monitor is on "never remove", I looked up a recent EDDN record for Marigold City - https://ross.eddb.io/eddn/log/12018654 - and that is just the typical Confederacy template to match its current government.
(I should really make the monitor reset if the station changes hands, then...)

...

So, based on this, I think:
- what sort of modules are available in outfitting is primarily based on government, all else equal. (Corporate governments seem to be generally better, or to a lesser extent Democracies ... though if you want weapons, go Feudal)
- exploration data, or indeed general BGS activity, appears to have very little effect on causing improvements to outfitting ... [1]
- economy and population may push a station up or down the scale, but perhaps not directly - as far as I can tell, every single station ICU Colonial Corps control has almost identical outfitting, despite having a mix of economies and a factor of 10 in population. More likely the effect of these is indirect - outside of Colonia in the procedurally-generated systems of the bubble, these may result in a range of "system tech level" values based on the economy and population, which then go on to affect the outfitting ... whereas Colonia's might be more consistently set.

[1] There is one exception - Taras Shevchenko Hub has considerably better outfitting than every other CEI-class settlement. https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/61/outfitting
No idea why and I don't think it fits with a general BGS activity idea.

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

To my humble knowledge the only way changes happen is when armed conflicts occur and certain Modules who are sold in peace times aren't available for the duration of the conflicts.

Aside of that the availability of modules have not been noticed to change all that much when governments are flipped in our region of the bubble. Since the only real change is what consumer goods are now prohibited under the new leadership (as can be seen in the System map for each asset) I can't really fathom that certain modules would be receiving the same treatment.

And the only permanent change comes from the result of CGs for certain Stations (we're running a Industrial economy Orbis Station as HQ that sports a Service economy internal layout with additional modules being available. Once had a double-ringed exterior as well but that was snatched from us when Horizon went live. At least we still have the Palm Trees )

 

[CMDR Endincite]

I can't really fathom that certain modules would be receiving the same treatment.

Nonetheless the correlation is extremely strong IME. Flipping one of the starports in Facece to Patronage from Dictatorship (same type-group, so it's not that) changed its outfitting selection drastically, and moreover throughout our time in ALD space we've seen an incredibly widespread correlation between certain gov't type/economy combinations and what most people would call excellent outfitting, most notably the combination of dictatorship gov't and industrial economy, which commonly rival the very best High Techs at least across certain categories.
If certain combinations are better than others it presents some interesting ideas as to why some people or groups watching might see significant change from a flip, and others not. It also might partially explain why certain e.g. high tech economies are utterly terrible for outfitting - including a couple of the highest-pop. Simply the wrong gov't type for the economy to produce its best "result" so to speak. "Best" though is likely still tied to a hidden stat like development level, which we know are only changed temporarily by states, so there'd be a limit.

 

[Starwolfe]

So what types of outfitting is determined by the government types and allegiances?
So its not just the change from Fed to Imp, but wither Corporate or Anarchy holds what. Interesting.

But I still hold by the only known way to me to improve what is available from the selection there is by exploration data.

Wish I had bothered to keep a list, but its never seemed that important to track.
I always just wander over to space-wallmart or wander the yard sales in LYR space.

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

most notably the combination of dictatorship gov't and industrial economy, which commonly rival the very best High Techs at least across certain categories.

If that holds true then we're sitting on a proverbial Goldmine over here without knowing it.

 

[Jane Turner]

if there is really no connection... it would feel a bit underdeveloped.

As stated - there is a small change caused by non-permanent state changes. This would adequately meet the statement from frontier, that player actions do affect outfitting. We've operated out of the same systems for 3+ years and can categorically state that there has been no change in outfitting and shipyard, other than at major patch drops, beyond some items coming and going dependent on state. The same applies to commodity markets. Secutriy state and population are also static, more is the pity.

Edit... and I agree that large population industrials can match High Tech economies in terms of items they hold.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Flipping one of the starports in Facece to Patronage from Dictatorship (same type-group, so it's not that).

Yes. Further indication that it's government rather than ethos - some of the factions in Colonia have non-standard ethos, so Kopernik is an Authoritarian Cooperative, while Centralis and Aurora Astrum are the standard Social Cooperative. They have identical outfitting.

 

[the100thmonkey]

I asked this question to Dav in the first BGS livestream. His answer was "yes - as the BGS waxes and wanes, module availability will change."

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

I asked this question to Dav in the first BGS livestream. His answer was "yes - as the BGS waxes and wanes, module availability will change."

thats the first solid answer here

But I still hold by the only known way to me to improve what is available from the selection there is by exploration data.

somehow i doubt equipment can be built from exploration data.
sounds more like your exploration data affects the bgs just in a way that makes more npc traders haul the stuff that actually makes the impact on outfitting.