Will factions evolve without us?

DragonEye501

D
I've been doing a lot of reading on how the background simulation works in this game (because I just find that kinda stuff fascinating) and it seems that everything is controlled by a Factions percentage of influence. Now, from what I've read, influence is only affected through players interacting with factions (missions/trade/exploration/killingNPC.)

So my question, can minor factions gain/lose influence without any player input? :|
 

Adhock

A
Yes.

NPC's can affect the influence. The markets change and fluctuate. Even without player input, NPC's will still be there, trading, killing, and exploring behind the scene.

Generally influence will be trying to equalize among all the factions. Hence why War Chasers can always find a system in War. (Or at least until they arrive and fire the first shot.)

However NPC's can only affect influence very minimally. It would take weeks, months, hell who's to say what would happen in a system that hasn't been visited in YEARS by a player.

Right now I'm dealing with an invasive minor faction that wasn't there a year ago when I took a break and I'm investigating it's activities. Currently it fits the profile of a specific group but I'm not ready to commit to saying players had something to do with it just yet. It's quite possible something happened in the year I've been gone.

You'll hear about people whining about the game not being dynamic. They're just not looking close enough.
 

DragonEye501

D
Thanks for the replies. That's very interesting. Its good the know that there is NPC activity that has some effect on influence. So I realize this game a lot on instances (I think). I was always curious if all those contacts I got in subspace were actually doing anything meaningful?
 

Goose4291

Banned
Goose4291
Adhock said:
Yes.

NPC's can affect the influence. The markets change and fluctuate. Even without player input, NPC's will still be there, trading, killing, and exploring behind the scene.

Generally influence will be trying to equalize among all the factions. Hence why War Chasers can always find a system in War. (Or at least until they arrive and fire the first shot.)

However NPC's can only affect influence very minimally. It would take weeks, months, hell who's to say what would happen in a system that hasn't been visited in YEARS by a player.

Right now I'm dealing with an invasive minor faction that wasn't there a year ago when I took a break and I'm investigating it's activities. Currently it fits the profile of a specific group but I'm not ready to commit to saying players had something to do with it just yet. It's quite possible something happened in the year I've been gone.

You'll hear about people whining about the game not being dynamic. They're just not looking close enough.
Click to expand...

Citations required.

At no point have Frontier said that NPC interactions affect the BGS.
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
There is a slight tendency for factions to head towards famine and outbreak states if they do not enjoy any player interaction for an extended period. This is dwarfed by even one layer transaction, however.

If a system gets no traffic, influence will not change.

Remember, however, that passenger missions affect both state and influence in target systems, while vanilla missions affect state. Additionally, if a player is interdicted, for example, and kills the NPC assailant, there are two, maybe three, inputs. First, there is the interdiction - a crime; then there is the death of the NPC - a transaction the undermines the influence of the faction they belong to; and finally there is the bounty transaction. If it's cashed in that system, it positively affects the influence of the faction running the station where it is cashed. These little transactions keep the BGS ticking over. The state changes they eventually lead to show on the Galaxy map, which provides information to the war profiteers and humanitarian haulers, which keeps the cycle moving. It's really quite ingenious.
 
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Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
Technically, then they are reducing your effect.

I'd like to see more NPC interactiosn having an effect on the BGS, such as rescuing stranded NPCs, or giving loot to pirates.
 

Vasious

Vasious
I thought (and could be wrong) that economic the system states - Boom- Bust - Civil Unrest - Famine - Outbreak - All get a small increase even without Player input so that there will be various factions in Boom, Bust, Civil Unrest, Famine and outbreak, in order to add some dynamism to the galaxy and attract players to come and trade, deliver medicines and food at a premium etc.

I do not know, or think there is any passive effect on Influence and so the systems would be static in that regard, no wars, civil wars or elections.

I would, too, be interested in the actual answer
 

DNA-Decay

DNA-Decay
No.






I'd like to be able to say "Dav Stott said so in this YouTube at time mm:ss".
But I don't have that info.
It's probably in the AWS developer's conference video.

However - it's a core principle:
Every action by a CMDR contributes to the BGS.
Only actions by CMDRs affect the BGS.

So as you zip around doing stuff in inhabited space, you should ask yourself: "How does THIS action affect the BGS?"
 
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Sapyx

Sapyx
The changes in influence levels and the resultant state-changes which result in asset ownership changes - which is what people usually mean when they talk about "the BGS" - does not happen if there are no players active in that system making things happen.

The only thing that happens naturally, without BGS input from CMDRs, is the trade supply and demand buckets eventually level out to maximum: goods produced are at Maximum supply (they urgently need the stuff shipped out) and goods required are at maximum demand (they urgently need that stuff shipped to them). Some BGS states that are advanced when maximum demand levels remain in place for extended periods (i.e. Famine for foods and Outbreak for medicines) may spontaneously flip as a result.

So it would seem that, if all the players went on strike and left the game and did not play for an entire year, there'd be outbreaks and famines all over the galaxy. Which would seem to be a natural result of a pilot's strike in a universe where most planets are not self-sufficient and pilots are necessary to balancing the economy.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
The *only* thing that happens independent of any player interaction is a small uptick towards the Famine/Outbreak states, introduced to make these states more common (at one point, they never, ever occurred), and some of the stuff mentioned before (replenishment of market supply/demand)

Influence levels don't change at all through only-NPC interactions.
 

DragonEye501

D
Wow thanks for all the feedback!

I guess I will conclude that faction Influence will never change without player input. Its a shame because this does confirm empty sectors will remain in a static state of influence. This does mean that states like civilwar will never truly resolve in those sectors and always end in a draw.

However, I don't think this will break my immersion of the game. As of now it has a pretty large active player base. Since there is so much going on its easy for me to get lost staring at the GalMap and news feeds. ^_^
 

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
DragonEye501 said:
...This does mean that states like civilwar will never truly resolve in those sectors and always end in a draw. ...
Click to expand...

Not quite.
Without player interaction, systems and factions will revert to a steady state. Things like boom, retreat, war, elections etc all have a finite timeout window. Triggering of a state that possibly changes the balance between two factions is done within a certain percentage (about 3% if memory serves correctly) of each other. If no action is undertaken after the state is triggered, both factions will stay at the mis-match percentage that they entered into. The higher of the two factions at the point at which the timeout completes will be deemed the victor.
 
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