What is this B[G]S about? ;)

Ah, it's the new thing - the anonymous proxy-war. Well done! Patent pending or has the CIA a copyright for that?

Happens, that we were given the system Kurughnaye for our PMF Screaming Eagles (anarchy) in September last year and after gaining control nothing happened bgs-wise for months. Until in April all of a sudden the other factions increased activities and after three months we are looking at a series of civil wars now - and a completely obscure bgs scenario/behavior.

Not that we would mind to fight for control of a system, it is part of the game after all, but not knowing who we are fighting, for what reason and - last but not least - how many and where(from), tops the game's allowance of ganking or griefing by far, as in these events you have at least a name to throw your salt at. It is by far one of the most stupid things I have ever encountered in a computer game, sorry to write that, but are we
Source: https://youtu.be/J1FfrnOXGHg
?

We can guess, following Jane Turner's description at https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...her-bgs-attacks-best-current-thinking.433709/ that it is an attack, but do we know? No, not if there is no transparency about traffic and actions in a system, at least to that extend that one can see if one's efforts were enough or not compared with the 'enemy's' efforts.

Furthermore, we can speculate, if it is...

  • randoms (maybe, coming to the system for Diamond piracy inspired by DowntoEarthAstronomy's video?)
  • someone prepping something (Fed Corps for Winters or LYR?)
  • someone who doesn't like anarchies and prefers Fed Corps (and flips many neighboring systems over the recent months?)
or where they are...

  • technically: platform pc/ps/xbox?
  • Instancing: open/pg/solo?
  • geographically `South Pacific'?
and what are their intentions

  • money?
  • strategy?
  • annoyance?
But that is a waste of time, since there is nothing but some numbers changing at the daily tick. Not to talk about encountering the 'enemy' in PC open, and - yeah, that is actually happening quite often in E: D - negotiate something.

Add, in the anonymous proxy-war, the few data available (like traffic or squad-stats) theoretically help the alleged hidden attacker more than the defender. A very interesting concept, indeed.
Also, all just being RNG motivated cannot be excluded.

Well, done! (y)(y)

We will keep on fighting these wars, at least they ammount credits. Hopefully, at the end of them all, we will not only be victorious (and too drunk to secondguess this non-sense any longer) but have also figured out, how kills in shared wing-massacre-missions are counted...
 
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Hey dude, as one of your “ south pacific “ options here, I can tell you how we deal with this. Since we play when all you guys and girls are asleep, if someone was trying to be upfront in our face, (playing in open on pc) then we would not even see them as hard as they try, (unless they are playing at 8am in the morning).
So how we deal with it is ALWAYS expect not to know or see why people are attacking our faction.
For my 2 cents worth, I would say it is your fame, as even I have heard of your group, ( way cool by the way! ) and I would be guessing it is someone trying to kick over your sand castle...
Enjoy the wars and smashing the opposition as we do!
 
Hey dude, as one of your “ south pacific “ options here, I can tell you how we deal with this. Since we play when all you guys and girls are asleep, if someone was trying to be upfront in our face, (playing in open on pc) then we would not even see them as hard as they try, (unless they are playing at 8am in the morning).
So how we deal with it is ALWAYS expect not to know or see why people are attacking our faction.
For my 2 cents worth, I would say it is your fame, as even I have heard of your group, ( way cool by the way! ) and I would be guessing it is someone trying to kick over your sand castle...
Enjoy the wars and smashing the opposition as we do!
Yep. Being GMT+10 and potatoes for national Internet, chances of my group actually instancing with anyone that doesn't live down the road from us is buckleys and none.

To exemplify, during The Hunt event, i knew for-fact that there were dozens of players in a target system. I was in Open, and saw just one player.

Fighting sight-unseen is just the status-quo for us.
 
Yep. Being GMT+10 and potatoes for national Internet, chances of my group actually instancing with anyone that doesn't live down the road from us is buckleys and none.

To exemplify, during The Hunt event, i knew for-fact that there were dozens of players in a target system. I was in Open, and saw just one player.

Fighting sight-unseen is just the status-quo for us.
Hey Jmanis, we are in New Zealand, where are you at?
 
Hey dude, as one of your “ south pacific “ options here, I can tell you how we deal with this. Since we play when all you guys and girls are asleep, if someone was trying to be upfront in our face, (playing in open on pc) then we would not even see them as hard as they try, (unless they are playing at 8am in the morning).
So how we deal with it is ALWAYS expect not to know or see why people are attacking our faction.
For my 2 cents worth, I would say it is your fame, as even I have heard of your group, ( way cool by the way! ) and I would be guessing it is someone trying to kick over your sand castle...
Enjoy the wars and smashing the opposition as we do!

What a bit of fame can provoke ;)

The "South Pacific" option is just one of many that come along with the secrecy about who is in the system in which time-zone or platform doing whatever. I mean, FDev have given us this system and we are ready to "defend" it, but as the "system owners" we should have access to these data to react properly. And be it to have to option to give up based on reason (not on boredom), when we realise that we are competing with a gang of XBoxers from the Phillipines, who we never ever going to encounter in the game or contact in rl for a diplomatic solution.

Everything else has just the charm of banging one's head against the wall. And that is considered stupid, I guess, no matter if South Pacific or Central Europe...
🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️
 
136794


Uh, I’m in Darwin, which is a hub for “remote”. We got it first before the Liberal party decided to roll out “good enough for government work” NBN to “somewhere local probably”
So, I got fibre to my back door. Goes out via Singapore. Pings in the low thousand milliseconds and more bandwidth than you can eat. You should try Nhulunbuy. Six hundred k’s on dirt, but internet so good they wanna build a space port.
But yeah. with the Timezone - If I see anyone, it’s a red letter day.

Hope to See You in the NT, we can do something wholesome like NAIDOC week, or come on Territory Day when you can walk into a shop and say “I’ll have four hundred bucks of fireworks and a slab of beer, thanks mate.”
 
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I don't really have much input besides, "that's how the BGS works." My PMF is about to be in 10 systems and working to knock over a system with around 5B population, so we're always defending from unseen/unknown attacks. Like you said, it's a red letter day when I find another player in one of the systems, and I'm in central US.

Also, having worked with both Aussies and Kiwis while I was overseas, I'm having a pretty good laugh reading through this thread.
 
I don't really have much input besides, "that's how the BGS works." My PMF is about to be in 10 systems and working to knock over a system with around 5B population, so we're always defending from unseen/unknown attacks. Like you said, it's a red letter day when I find another player in one of the systems, and I'm in central US.

Also, having worked with both Aussies and Kiwis while I was overseas, I'm having a pretty good laugh reading through this thread.

"That's how the BGS works" is what this is all about. Downunder, right from the center, leftover or above, no matter how it works, it can certainly not be considerd right. Besides of how to really gain influence, this no-information policy renders being a system-owner obsolete and makes the administration of a litte realm like yours an interpretation of patterns, which always can be random.Never knowing, who is the actual enemy is like shooting into the darkness, hoping to hit something; and call that an enjoyable sport. Mhm.
 
"That's how the BGS works" is what this is all about. Downunder, right from the center, leftover or above, no matter how it works, it can certainly not be considerd right. Besides of how to really gain influence, this no-information policy renders being a system-owner obsolete and makes the administration of a litte realm like yours an interpretation of patterns, which always can be random.Never knowing, who is the actual enemy is like shooting into the darkness, hoping to hit something; and call that an enjoyable sport. Mhm.
Except that is how the BGS is meant to work.

Without invoking my usual essays on the topic... it seems like the fact an ever-vigilant player group should be able to prevent any and all unwanted BGS effects action from occurring in a system, if they chose it. That's not what the BGS is here to facilitate... rather it's supposed to simulate a living, breathing universe which is malleable to all players, regardless of mode, platform or playtime.

That the BGS has a secondary function where players "compete" to get their chosen faction in control of as many systems and assets. There's an aggregate set of comments from various FD staff that basically means they were somewhat surprised about the affinity players took to the factions (expecting it to instead be an affinity towards the superpowers... bit hard when there's no actual way to interact with the superpowers, but I digress). FD even went as far as saying in the first BGS livestream something along the lines of "If players have the BGS at the forefront of their mind when they're playing, then they've done the BGS wrong. Reality is, if you're after that group-vs-group strategic gameplay element, that's what Powerplay is for, and why FD were considering the OO-Powerplay route. Is PP going to fill your needs here? Probably not.

Now, there's plenty of philosophical bellybutton-gazing that can be done about changing the way the BGS works to lean more towards it being the provider of that strategic gameplay element, but it would need literally a total ground-up rework because it's totally imbalanced in it's current state. But again, that's not what it exists for.

I guess to answer your OP; BGS is just there to respond to player-actions in an automatic, dynamic way, not be the grounds for player group-vs-group conflict.
 
As a kiwi player on Xbox I never see anyone that I'm fighting against. I even took part in the 'repair a station in 24 hours' event and didn't see a single player in open (apparently there was one, but I didn't see him - quite literally - and flew into him leaving one of the stations we were repairing).

Maybe it's just because I'm used to it, but I kinda like the cloak & dagger/second guessing that goes on when you're fighting the Unseen.
 
Except that is how the BGS is meant to work.
...
I guess to answer your OP; BGS is just there to respond to player-actions in an automatic, dynamic way, not be the grounds for player group-vs-group conflict.

I get your points and do understand the basic intention of BGS and PP. But how can one seperate PP and system BGS, if the CC value in PP depends on the systems' goverments in the respective spheres? Add, that BGS actions are based on the number of transaction and not on revenue to give inexperienced or time-limited cmdrs a balanced possibility to work on the INF of a certain faction.
I also think you are completely right about the meant intention of PP as some kind of game in the game. There is plenty of useful data provided that gives one power an idea about the actions of other powers, and allows to work on counter-strategies. Information down to a note at the station's news section.

However, my point is aiming to all the info that's existing regarding bgs work, but not made available. If this info would be published like pp info (and even more, like the platform and open/pg/solo), it should be possible to see if any change is coming from random passer-bys, an organised strike or is someone's own fault. Add, that if it would be revealed that e. g. 10 XBoxers are working the bgs of our system (which means they have a plan whatsoever), we had more info to base our decissions and could not bother any longer to fight a useless war, for example or contact friendly factions for help.

Or in real life terms speaking: Not to be wasting our well earned private leisure time, which cannot be the intention of any game in the original sociological meaning of playing. ;)
 
I get your points and do understand the basic intention of BGS and PP. But how can one seperate PP and system BGS, if the CC value in PP depends on the systems' goverments in the respective spheres? Add, that BGS actions are based on the number of transaction and not on revenue to give inexperienced or time-limited cmdrs a balanced possibility to work on the INF of a certain faction.
I also think you are completely right about the meant intention of PP as some kind of game in the game. There is plenty of useful data provided that gives one power an idea about the actions of other powers, and allows to work on counter-strategies. Information down to a note at the station's news section.

Definitely agreed there, though I'm happy to stick with the separation of concepts. Rather, I think it's a total failing of the design of Powerplay, which for all intents seemed to be pitched as the natural extension of "playing the BGS... with factions rising and falling out of the status of a power merely as a matter of gameplay, rather than the contrived system that brought Yuri Grom into the game... and we've yet to see any power collapse, and probably never will.

And I'll always go back to this:
136899

That was the classic look and feel of missions... and I'd be totally into Powerplay if the base activities weren't grinding a single activity over and over for a week. I was getting all excited about Patreus who seemed the most militant of the Imperial powers... when I realised defending Patreus' systems was a case of "Get the supplies, drop the supplies", I went "well, back to the BGS"

But equally, and probably why this never came to rise; the BGS is fundamentally imbalanced. As it stands, my faction sits at the centerpoint of four colliding powers... we've had to negotiate with two and take action against the other two... as it stands I've got a mutual agreement with one power for whom our governance is actually harmful, so it can't be that big of an impact.

However, my point is aiming to all the info that's existing regarding bgs work, but not made available. If this info would be published like pp info (and even more, like the platform and open/pg/solo), it should be possible to see if any change is coming from random passer-bys, an organised strike or is someone's own fault. Add, that if it would be revealed that e. g. 10 XBoxers are working the bgs of our system (which means they have a plan whatsoever), we had more info to base our decissions and could not bother any longer to fight a useless war, for example or contact friendly factions for help.

Or in real life terms speaking: Not to be wasting our well earned private leisure time, which cannot be the intention of any game in the original sociological meaning of playing. ;)
I can't agree with your last sentiment, though it doesn't mean it's incorrect. Fighting and losing a war is just as much fun as winning it, if not more. Again, one of those powers put a serious hamper on our efforts, but that just resulted in some careful maneuvering on our part to stem their assault, while the other power put them out of action. But we had to lose some territory and make the right calls on when to step back and focus efforts elsewhere. Personally, I've never considered a night of fighting in a conflict zone, then waking up the next day to find we've still lost that day to be considered wasted.

But does it really matter what system/mode players are operating in/does it give more information that the traffic report doesn't? A spike of traffic is a spike of traffic, regardless of the platform/mode that spike's occurring in... our group's basic TTP remains the same; test the power of the response, then decide to either push back fight, or concede and plan the recover the system... especially if it's a larger faction, we'll start to sow problems elsewhere.
 
For me, I enjoy the 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' nature of it; trying to work out what hidden forces are at work from the results we can see... or sometimes realising we're chasing paranoid shadows :)
Perfect visibility of exactly who did what and when would make it seem more like accountancy than playing 'the great game'.
 


In this game each player can see their own pieces, but not those of their opponent. For this reason, it is necessary to have a third person (or computer) act as an umpire, with full information about the progress of the game. When it is a player's turn he or she will attempt a move, which the umpire will declare to be 'legal' or 'illegal'. If the move is illegal, the player tries again; if it is legal, that move stands. Each player is given information about checks and captures. They may also ask the umpire if there are any legal captures with a pawn. Since the position of the opponent's pieces is unknown, Kriegspiel is not a game with perfect information. As each player cannot see his opponent's pieces, the game is sometimes referred to as blind chess.
 
Yep. Being GMT+10 and potatoes for national Internet, chances of my group actually instancing with anyone that doesn't live down the road from us is buckleys and none.
Fighting sight-unseen is just the status-quo for us.
Hey Jmanis you will like this. In one of your posts you said that you are on the east coast of Australia, well OUR internet is so potatoes that my group have had to rent our Arma 3 server in Sydney not in New Zealand (we have one) as YOUR potatoes are better than OUR potatoes!
 
@DNA-Decay @Jmanis @FrogsFriend

I understand what you mean, but be it blind chess or battleships, you might not see your opponent but you know the game board or "battlefield", how many units they have, what the units' abilities are, how to attack them and how to defend yourself.

A scenario in which an enemy is completely hidden and you have no information except the % jump at the daily tick, can - imho - not be considered a game (or in this case a game in game), as it lacks an essential that makes a game: A reproduceable or repeating pattern which produces compareble results. Sorry, I almost consider this an intellecual insult 🤓 as FDev built a working simulation of our galaxy (with all the chaos the real thing probably has), and then something like this? No.

Throwing stones into a lake and every day around 16utc they put a sign with how many fish have been killed, is not a game. Sure, someone can consider it funny or a good way to spend some time, I don't as it is closer to madness (Einstein: repeating the same thing and hope for different result) than reason.

And even if the traffic report shows some info, it is rather a help for the unknown opponent of a registered squad, as comparing traffic with the registered cmdrs of that squad could at least give an indication. Or, even better, track the squad's efforts by monitoring the squadron score-board...

No, no, no... There is someting rotten in Denmark... :)
 
@DNA-Decay @Jmanis @FrogsFriend
A scenario in which an enemy is completely hidden and you have no information except the % jump at the daily tick, can - imho - not be considered a game (or in this case a game in game), as it lacks an essential that makes a game: A reproduceable or repeating pattern which produces compareble results. Sorry, I almost consider this an intellecual insult 🤓 as FDev built a working simulation of our galaxy (with all the chaos the real thing probably has), and then something like this? No.

I disagree the enemy is completely hidden and that there's no info except the % jump at tick... one such source of intelligence is the system traffic reports. And, as many posts here in the BGS forums will support, there's no shortage of reproducible, comparable results.

I'd admit some things are a bit grey such as Outbreak and Pirate Attack, and as usual there are sometimes anomalies, especially immediately following an update, but nowadays these are few and far between compared to the "old days", but even then we were able to produce reliable, reproducible results.

I guess at this point I'm running out of things to say, short of putting out my group's entire playbook with every source of (in game) information we use. It's, for the most part, based entirely on the reasearch and findings of these forums and my group, and held us in good stead for 5 years as a group who, for most measures, is punching well above it's weight with over 20 systems of presence and half of that we control, andconsidering we're bearing the influence and wargames of four powers in our region, none of whom are supported by our government type.

I suppose the last thing I could suggest is that your strategies seem focused around the activities of other players... you can already see activity of other players in the traffic report... your wont seems to be for further information based on mode/platform etc so you can make a decision about whether to fight back or not. That to me sounds like your idea of "fight back" is to actually engage the players... which is by all accounts a poor strategy when it comes to the BGS.
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Traffic, crime stats, bounty reports and best sellers all can give you hints, on an hourly basis, and if you know your opposition, squadron leaderboards are a rich source of intelligence.


Punching stratospherically above our weight :)
 
I disagree the enemy is completely hidden and that there's no info except the % jump at tick... one such source of intelligence is the system traffic reports. And, as many posts here in the BGS forums will support, there's no shortage of reproducible, comparable results.

Well, first of all, I do understand your point and I appriciate the efforts by all here looking deeper into bgs, trying to understand it and give advise to those who are not so deeply involved like I am. My post is not aimed at those helping but the ones who set this whole thing up. Obviously we cannot correct anything, so this is an academic discussion anyway :)

Secondly, you are absolutely right about our approach of "..."fight back" is to actually engage...". That is what a conflict of any kind looks like in RL, based on the physical parameters we exist in. The set-up of bgs conflicts with several "dimensions" possible is - imho - a bit too far away from that, close to being non-sense. Besides, this anonymity denies the most successful tool humanity has developed for conflicts - diplomacy.

However, there is - imho, in a scientific, experimental way speaking - only ONE parameter that gets close to reproducable, compareable results and that is the change at the tick, presenting 2 possibilities: One has done enough or hasn't. ;) One day you throw 10 stones into the lake and win by killing the most fish, the next day 10 are not enough. This is not a reproducable, compareable result, as too many parameters and variables are missing/not available. If ppl accept it that way, 'cause it is that way, fine. I have to accept it as well anyway, but I hope that the developers will act accordingly.

The rest, like traffic, crimes, bounties etc. can indicate certain things, but would they really provide usefull data unless monitored over a long time? If one wishes, they can fill Excel charts with these data and compare them, but that should not be, what a game demands from its players - especially if there is plenty of other enjoyable things to do in that game and the data obviously exist but are not made available.

And what does it tell you in the end? If we were 20 and the traffic report showed 100, there were 80 potential enemies. So we are statistically outnumbered, but if we win the day despite of that, what does it mean? That not all 80 are fighting us? That they [80] did not do as much as us 20? The 20 did "better" transactions than the 80? Aso asf. That's educated guessing and not producing comparable results.

EDIT: Let me add, that we are an anarchy, so things are different in some aspects anyway.
 
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