Is it better to own all the stations in the system or just the main one?

[Flying Scorpion]

A couple of my friends and I have adopted a minor faction. We're out on the fringes of the bubble, outside of powerplay. Our minor faction has expanded into a neighboring system. We want our faction to control that system. From what I understand, if our faction's influence level reaches the same % as one of the other minor factions influence %, then those two factions will go to war. And if our faction wins the war, then our faction will win one of the losing factions assets (a station). So here's my question, is it better for us to take ownership of every station that we can in the system or for us to let the other factions keep their stations and only take over the main station? And if it's better to only own the main station, how do we ensure that the other minor factions keep their stations as we climb past them in influence %? Do we intentionally lose the wars until we are at war with the dominant faction in that system?

 

[Alshain]

It's really up to you. There is really only one benefit of not taking all stations. When your faction enters lockdown, certain services in your stations will be unavailable. However, lockdown would likely be rare out on the fringes (someone would need to be in your system killing clean ships or system sec for your faction). There is really no general benefit to owning all stations, but there may be specific ones depending on the system (such as being close to the star or closer to a good mining area, stations with different economies will have different mission offerings especially Tourism and Military, something like that).

 

[Flying Scorpion]

It's really up to you. There is really only one benefit of not taking all stations. When your faction enters lockdown, certain services in your stations will be unavailable. However, lockdown would likely be rare out on the fringes (someone would need to be in your system killing clean ships or system sec for your faction). There is really no general benefit to owning all stations, but there may be specific ones depending on the system (such as being close to the star or closer to a good mining area, stations with different economies will have different mission offerings especially Tourism and Military, something like that).

Thank you, this is helpful information.

 

[Adept Geraden]

If you own ALL the stations, it can turn into an expansion monster, which may or may not be what you want.

PS: if there's a number of factions between you and the ruling faction, trick is to get the intervening factions into conflict with each other, then leap-frog them.

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

If you own ALL the stations, it can turn into an expansion monster, which may or may not be what you want.

PS: if there's a number of factions between you and the ruling faction, trick is to get the intervening factions into conflict with each other, then leap-frog them.

Sorry to interrupt your flow my good Commander, but sadly what you're describing here is old news.

Since last year (11th December) and until FD does some major changes, pretty much everything we learned in the old BGS is obsolete or currently broken.

Leap-frogging is impossible under the new System for at least two reasons:

1. Each System is for itself now. In the past you could bring a Minor faction (MF) into a external conflict, then push across them because we had the One State in all Systems rule. Not anymore.

2. Inside a System, when two MF lock % and go pending any type of conflict, both their individual % get taken out of the 100% pool of the System. So for the complete duration of the conflict (pending / live / 1 day after at least) you can only work with the reduced total that is left for the rest of the System. And there's a high probability that more then two MF in a System are going to get at each other, so the total % to work with is even less. If you're in a System of 7 MF and 6 are in any type of conflict, you're officially stuck and nothing you do will make a change until some go out of conflict agian.

The only way you could possibly get into a Expansion monster is if you already control the System and have subdued all other MF under the equalisation threshold of 7.0% (at least that one seems still to be working for now).

Also regarding the original query of CMDR Flying Scorpion:

The Lockdown feature still exists in the new BGS System but is only a threat if the System that is being attacked doesn't have any RES sites at all (or only Low / normal ones). With the new BGS System, mass-slaughtering Security / Civilian ships now doesn't instantly get a pending Lockdown going but move your Security slider to the left. So if you notice the Slider going downwards you have time to enter the RES sites and farm Bounty vouchers.

One thing still stands though, and that is that the BGS works on a transaction basis. The more you turn in the better it is, though the amount / size of what to turn in may have been altered in the new System.

Welcome to the BGS - you'll love or loathe it.

 

[Adept Geraden]

Sorry to interrupt your flow my good Commander, but sadly what you're describing here is old news.

Since last year (11th December) and until FD does some major changes, pretty much everything we learned in the old BGS is obsolete or currently broken.

Leap-frogging is impossible under the new System for at least two reasons:

1. Each System is for itself now. In the past you could bring a Minor faction (MF) into a external conflict, then push across them because we had the One State in all Systems rule. Not anymore.

2. Inside a System, when two MF lock % and go pending any type of conflict, both their individual % get taken out of the 100% pool of the System. So for the complete duration of the conflict (pending / live / 1 day after at least) you can only work with the reduced total that is left for the rest of the System. And there's a high probability that more then two MF in a System are going to get at each other, so the total % to work with is even less. If you're in a System of 7 MF and 6 are in any type of conflict, you're officially stuck and nothing you do will make a change until some go out of conflict agian.

The only way you could possibly get into a Expansion monster is if you already control the System and have subdued all other MF under the equalisation threshold of 7.0% (at least that one seems still to be working for now).

Also regarding the original query of CMDR Flying Scorpion:

The Lockdown feature still exists in the new BGS System but is only a threat if the System that is being attacked doesn't have any RES sites at all (or only Low / normal ones). With the new BGS System, mass-slaughtering Security / Civilian ships now doesn't instantly get a pending Lockdown going but move your Security slider to the left. So if you notice the Slider going downwards you have time to enter the RES sites and farm Bounty vouchers.

One thing still stands though, and that is that the BGS works on a transaction basis. The more you turn in the better it is, though the amount / size of what to turn in may have been altered in the new System.

Welcome to the BGS - you'll love or loathe it.

Yep. That's the long answer. (re: point 2). I think declaring leap-frogging "impossible" a little drastic. I'll give you a "possibly difficult to manipulate just so" until we have more first hand experience on a newly working bgs, which currently it is not.

I like your "One day after at least". We've got one system currently on day 9 of war recovery . And several pending conflicts rapidly approaching similar levels of absurdity.

 

[_Flin_]

is it better for us to take ownership of every station that we can in the system or for us to let the other factions keep their stations and only take over the main station?

Generally speaking you want to control every asset in "your" systems.

Because it adds stability. Makes it harder to attack you BGS wise (except for Murder). Makes it easier to maintain.

 

[Flying Scorpion]

If you own ALL the stations, it can turn into an expansion monster, which may or may not be what you want.

PS: if there's a number of factions between you and the ruling faction, trick is to get the intervening factions into conflict with each other, then leap-frog them.

So THAT'S how you do it! Thank you!

 

[glojo]

Generally speaking you want to control every asset in "your" systems.

Because it adds stability. Makes it harder to attack you BGS wise (except for Murder). Makes it easier to maintain.

Hi Flin
I do not really understand your logic and if we are for instance in a low populated system with just three factions in that system and we own all the stations, then will we be on a real helter-skelter? If we like expansion, then fine but if we want to avoid expansion, then OUCH! In my World we sadly cannot, cannot control what other players may or may not do. Most replies have us living in a perfect World where we are the only players entering a system but who comes into these systems when we are not online or if we do not play in open and yes I am fully aware that a gazillion number of players do not play in open.

We have low populated systems and have tried all different types of permutations to try to keep our influence steady, at times we have given away most of the stations, other times we have taken everything. For me, it is a case of 'You pays your money and make your choices'

Definitely don't know about stability as it could be that this stability might only be able to be controlled by ourselves when there are no outside influences and if we are playing inside the bubble, is that something we can control by owning stations?

 

[Dommarraa]

Hi Flin
I do not really understand your logic and if we are for instance in a low populated system with just three factions in that system and we own all the stations, then will we be on a real helter-skelter? If we like expansion, then fine but if we want to avoid expansion, then OUCH! In my World we sadly cannot, cannot control what other players may or may not do. Most replies have us living in a perfect World where we are the only players entering a system but who comes into these systems when we are not online or if we do not play in open and yes I am fully aware that a gazillion number of players do not play in open.

We have low populated systems and have tried all different types of permutations to try to keep our influence steady, at times we have given away most of the stations, other times we have taken everything. For me, it is a case of 'You pays your money and make your choices'

Definitely don't know about stability as it could be that this stability might only be able to be controlled by ourselves when there are no outside influences and if we are playing inside the bubble, is that something we can control by owning stations?

a) Expansion is SUPPOSED to be different now (it isnt "yet"). SUPPOSED to be based on Happiness. So in theory, you could allow your runaway systems to runaway, and just focus Happiness tasks (whatever they are) in the system you want to expand, and NOT have to run about playing whack-a-mole all the time keeping systems below 75%. This was the ONE THING about 3.3 I was looking forward to, but it doesnt appear to have been implemented.

b) Being in total control doesn't seem to lead to runaway nearly as much as it did. In our experience, being in total control of a system actually seems to be counter productive. Any actions you perform seem to have little effect. All that traffic handing in bounties and trading seem to do nothing for your influence. The slightest mission run for one of the other factions seems to give them a MASSIVE boost, stealing mainly from the Controlling faction (partly because of absolute conflict influence locks) - I have no idea where the bug is, but random traffic will nerf a controlling faction in many cases.

 

[glojo]

a) Expansion is SUPPOSED to be different now (it isnt "yet"). SUPPOSED to be based on Happiness. So in theory, you could allow your runaway systems to runaway, and just focus Happiness tasks (whatever they are) in the system you want to expand, and NOT have to run about playing whack-a-mole all the time keeping systems below 75%. This was the ONE THING about 3.3 I was looking forward to, but it doesnt appear to have been implemented.

b) Being in total control doesn't seem to lead to runaway nearly as much as it did. In our experience, being in total control of a system actually seems to be Certainly counter productive. Any actions you perform seem to have little effect. All that traffic handing in bounties and trading seem to do nothing for your influence. The slightest mission run for one of the other factions seems to give them a MASSIVE boost, stealing mainly from the Controlling faction (partly because of absolute conflict influence locks) - I have no idea where the bug is, but random traffic will nerf a controlling faction in many cases.

I certainly do not disagree with you purely because of all the unknown and I must repeat that the biggest unknown is through traffic that we neither see NOR do we know what they are doing and what bounties are handed in and for what faction.

Point of interest
Before this upgrade we saw a lot of traffic coming to one of our stations and trade with a material trader at that location. I am not seeing quite as much through traffic but are they now in 'private or Solo' yes there are visitors BUT the influence is most definitely nowhere near as active as it was prior to the update and this is a fact.

Before the update the through traffic played havoc with the influence, so much so that we regularly had to work to reduce it. After the update the influence is static and yet the station is still seeing passing traffic???

I MOST DEFINITELY do not want to go into expansion but the devs have made a statement they have regularly repeated and that is that we expand from our 'Happiest' station??

What does that mean because I have NO IDEA.

We have one horrible system we never touch and that is 'Happy' and yes we all have systems that are happy but we only have one system that is 'Happiest' and note the Devs sya we expand from the HAPPIEST system. We have system that I believe are termed 'Ecstatic' but they are NOT marked as being. 'Happiest'

What a pot mess and I most certainly would not want to expand from that 'Happiest; system

 

[Dommarraa]

I certainly do not disagree with you purely because of all the unknown and I must repeat that the biggest unknown is through traffic that we neither see NOR do we know what they are doing and what bounties are handed in and for what faction.

We own Khun with many THOUSANDS of visitors each day using the Engineer. So while we dont know what they do individualy, we have an excellent idea nett effect.
With that many visitors, lots of them stop off to refuel, hand in local bounties (all our +INF), sell off any junk they picked up (all our +INF), empty Data before heading off (all our +INF) and maybe take a mission (ours being at the top, and most likely with the highest Rep).

In 3.2 it was the definition of Runaway. It was a total nightmare to take from the Native NPC who of course made Zero effort to repel us, but had all the above on their side. The only way to do it, even with the power of Canonn was to permanently lock them in Conflict, and squeeze ahead of them. It was impossible toe to toe. Likewise the only way to keep it below 75% was to use Conflict Lock to prevent us getting either missions or combat, and pile of Inf for the others.

In 3.3 we (in theory) get all the above, but look at the inf. Currently on 33.8%, yesterday we went up 0.1% and thats with 4 factions Conflict locked. [Our biggest gain since 3.3 was when we gained 6% during an Election when we were supposed to be locked. Our situation should be worse!] Where has all that "free" Inf from being the Controlling faction gone ?
It is similar in our other Controlled systems with Traffic. We are scraping along in the 30's despite people selling goods (and Bounties)

https://inara.cz/galaxy-starsystem/9142/

 

[glojo]

We own Khun with many THOUSANDS of visitors each day using the Engineer. So while we dont know what they do individualy, we have an excellent idea nett effect.
With that many visitors, lots of them stop off to refuel, hand in local bounties (all our +INF), sell off any junk they picked up (all our +INF), empty Data before heading off (all our +INF) and maybe take a mission (ours being at the top, and most likely with the highest Rep).

In 3.2 it was the definition of Runaway. It was a total nightmare to take from the Native NPC who of course made Zero effort to repel us, but had all the above on their side. The only way to do it, even with the power of Canonn was to permanently lock them in Conflict, and squeeze ahead of them. It was impossible toe to toe. Likewise the only way to keep it below 75% was to use Conflict Lock to prevent us getting either missions or combat, and pile of Inf for the others.

In 3.3 we (in theory) get all the above, but look at the inf. Currently on 33.8%, yesterday we went up 0.1% and thats with 4 factions Conflict locked. [Our biggest gain since 3.3 was when we gained 6% during an Election when we were supposed to be locked. Our situation should be worse!] Where has all that "free" Inf from being the Controlling faction gone ?
It is similar in our other Controlled systems with Traffic. We are scraping along in the 30's despite people selling goods (and Bounties)

https://inara.cz/galaxy-starsystem/9142/

Just like I was suggesting (I think)

Before the update the influence in the specific station I referred to was a devil to keep down mainly because of through traffic, oh and of course the resource sites with a nice juicy hazardous site on its doorstep.

After this update I have got the influence down to the upper 40% and I do not have to touch it, what has changed???

Note I am NOT going to speculate purely because I have no idea. I will however have a quick look at the through traffic after I do our 'Tick Run'

Best wishes
John

Here we go and a picture they say paints a thousand words. We own every station in this system and before this latest update, our influence was always trying to exceed 70% and that was something i was not prepared to let happen

https://imgur.com/a/fLUnMPH

You can see roughly where the update was released and now the influence is usually between 45 - 50% without any input from me. BEFORE the update it was 'interesting' trying to keep the influence under control.

Todays Through Traffic
Asp Explor 8
Anaconda 4
Python 8
Type 6 1
Imperial Clipper 6
Diamond Ex 1
Cutter 3
Cheftain 1
Fur de pants 1

I have only listed these to highlight how we cannot, cannot know what these ships are doing, what they may or may not trade in or out.

Do we have to react to what happens no matter how many stations we may or may not own.

My advice is to enjoy the game and do not expand to a size that we cannot control. If you want to own all the stations, then go for it but if you do not, then no foul.

Funny incident
I had an assasination mission and as I was coming out of 'our' station there was laser fire just in front of me. Sure enough it was my target being pummeled by 'my' security forces. These ships were wrecking my target so without further ado, I deployed weapons and fired.. Fine for shooting my weapons to close to the station and notonly the fine but..... Mission failed as my security forces just managed to get the enemy ship down to 0% before my weapons hit the target.

I guess my point is... WHAT'S THE CHUFFING POINT OF OWNING THE STATION? Security forces with our faction name killing a wanted target that I have to destroy and I get the chuffing fines for being the 'bad guy!' Lght hearted humour but a true story

 

[Starwolfe]

It depends from my observations, and much to the same of most comments above.

If your system is a high-traffic area, owning all the stations does help push you towards being an expansion modifier, but it also applies if you own the only orbiting station and ignore the planetaries - as most people still prefer stations to landing planetside.

It reall does come down to personal preference, I tend to pick up all the laudable ports possible out of habit, but try to shy away from the skimmer mission magnets.
That tends to make it easier to push for expansions as skimmer missions will drag down the other factions while only benefiting yours.

 

[_Flin_]

. Most replies have us living in a perfect World where we are the only players entering a system but who comes into these systems when we are not online or if we do not play in open and yes I am fully aware that a gazillion number of players do not play in open.

In a perfect world where Noone enters the system you need exactly zero effort to manage anything.

I come from a large faction in a populated area, plus we had our fair share of BGS conflicts lately.

If you don't want to expand, then don't. I really don't see any issue with expansion. Especially with multistate enabled from my point of view one wants to be in as many systems as possible.

The question was about a new faction in a system.

The answer to this is: Your priority goal is to grab a station with a landing pad, commodity market and mission board. If you manage to do this, you can apply better pressure to take over the system. As a new faction, my advice is: grab as many as possible.

If you only own controlling station, anyone can enter the system, lock you in a civil war, take away your station, to grab it later from the NPC faction while you can't even hand in explo.

By "stability" I mean defense abilities against a variety of effects, story points, player interference, random players etc.

Having 1 station makes you vulnerable.

 

[glojo]

I come from a large faction in a populated area, plus we had our fair share of BGS conflicts lately.

If you don't want to expand, then don't. I really don't see any issue with expansion. Especially with multistate enabled from my point of view one wants to be in as many systems as possible.

The question was about a new faction in a system.

The answer to this is: Your priority goal is to grab a station with a landing pad, commodity market and mission board. If you manage to do this, you can apply better pressure to take over the system. As a new faction, my advice is: grab as many as possible.

If you only own controlling station, anyone can enter the system, lock you in a civil war, take away your station, to grab it later from the NPC faction while you can't even hand in explo.

By "stability" I mean defense abilities against a variety of effects, story points, player interference, random players etc.

Having 1 station makes you vulnerable.

I hate to say this but if any group want to spoil your day. they will, no matter if you own one station or all of them. We need to try to keep our advice constructive and not say things that might not be factually correct!

If I own all the stations in a system, a large group might simply want to cause havoc, all they have to do is select a faction in my system and push it. It matters not one jot if I own one station or all of them.

I am intrigued to see you are in a large faction as these are sometimes more difficult to control and note I say sometimes. With this latest upgrade teamwork for me is the only way to go but what do we call a large faction, is it one that owns fifty or one hundred systems? is it one with one hundred active members? Apologies for drifting off topic but I am interested to hear your views.

My advice to the player is to think about what you want, perhaps do not select a system where the main station is agricultural, I say this as they usually do not offer the ships or the add-on goodies that we all aspire to. If you do not want to get involved in Powerplay then consider getting away from the bubble, how far away is dependent on systems on offer. Expanding at first is both fun and challenging to make sure you expand in the right direction. I tended to try to get the juiciest of systems and if it meant booting out a faction to acquire that system then so be it, out they went.

Just been thinking, do you know what we mean by the 'bubble'? We players that have been playing for a year or four tend to forget how new players might not know what the heck we mean, especially when folks start using acronyms If you do not know then never be afraid to ask. My belief is along the lines of, 'The only stupid question, is the one we do not ask'

If you decide to acquire every station in a system then my very personal advice is to consider getting the one with the lowest percent and this is said if you get your system of choice and you are only given 8%. Why go for one that is 30% and then have to play games getting that small base that might only be at 10%?. use each station as a stepping stone. I confess my own thoughts are, why go after a small station that might be 200k from the sun or perish the thought 400k or even further. Think about that and think about the length of time it takes to take a useless platform that is no good to man or beast BUT... it is your choice and there is no wrong decision.

 

[_Flin_]

I hate to say this but if any group want to spoil your day. they will, no matter if you own one station or all of them.

Well, opposition leads to increased necessary BGS play for maintaining the status quo. When you own all stations, however, they need to win a conflict against you to be able to generate influence by trade or exploration.

We need to try to keep our advice constructive and not say things that might not be factually correct!

Indeed. So please, name the negative consequences of owning multiple stations in patch 3.3.
The only one that i am aware of is that a conflict would be about the ruling station immediately.
So this argument is rather arcane and academic.

The OP has just started playing the BGS and wants help with what to do after his first expansion.
And from my experience it is totally fine for them to raise their influence and get in conflicts, win them and take stations on their way to ruling the system.
First important step in a system is to get a station with a landing pad and a market. Any station.

The intricacies of managing a multisystem faction, with targeted expansions, optimized managing effort, state juggling, optimized population and economies, etc., that comes later from my point of view.

 

[glojo]

Well, opposition leads to increased necessary BGS play for maintaining the status quo. When you own all stations, however, they need to win a conflict against you to be able to generate influence by trade or exploration.



Indeed. So please, name the negative consequences of owning multiple stations in patch 3.3.
The only one that i am aware of is that a conflict would be about the ruling station immediately.
So this argument is rather arcane and academic.

The OP has just started playing the BGS and wants help with what to do after his first expansion.
And from my experience it is totally fine for them to raise their influence and get in conflicts, win them and take stations on their way to ruling the system.
First important step in a system is to get a station with a landing pad and a market. Any station.

The intricacies of managing a multisystem faction, with targeted expansions, optimized managing effort, state juggling, optimized population and economies, etc., that comes later from my point of view.

Hi _Flin_ We all have our own ideas, theories etc. You think yours are correct and that's good enough for you.
I am still interested to see the state of your faction and perhaps we can carry on this discussion via pm

I might learn something from your theories

Best wishes
John