Investigating the new states

[Factabulous]

Based on Ian Doncaster's fine work on Pirate Attack I'm assuming the new states may be using a similar bucket system, and was thinking about trying to induce them in some quiet backwater. I have a few questions, and just on the off-chance that anyone has any clues:

• If states activate by filling buckets - can you fill the bucket on 1 day and just wait to see what happens, or do the buckets have 'holes' (so you have to keep them topped up for X days)?
• Any idea of the size of the bucket? Would I need to transport 50k of ... whatever, or 50,000k?
• Is this crazy? Should I just sit back and wait for Ian to find it out

 

[Jmanis]

Based on Ian Doncaster's fine work on Pirate Attack I'm assuming the new states may be using a similar bucket system, and was thinking about trying to induce them in some quiet backwater. I have a few questions, and just on the off-chance that anyone has any clues:

• If states activate by filling buckets - can you fill the bucket on 1 day and just wait to see what happens, or do the buckets have 'holes' (so you have to keep them topped up for X days)?
• Any idea of the size of the bucket? Would I need to transport 50k of ... whatever, or 50,000k?
• Is this crazy? Should I just sit back and wait for Ian to find it out

Since Pirate Attack is caused by Increased Economy and Decreased Security, I want to believe other states are caused by something.
Additionally, since there are now differing effects on Economy and Security based on the type of cargo traded (e.g Weapons cause +Eco and +Sec, everything else is +Eco only), I want to think that other states may also be affected in a similar way (dare I say, maybe biowaste trading actually does cause outbreak now, still not that it's been proven...)

While I can believe we can cause some of the states, others such as Public Holiday and Natural Disaster I can't even begin to comprehend any sane mechanic to cause those states.

There was somewhat of a "bucket with holes" mechanic... it was the mechanic which made pre-3.3 BGS famine and outbreak actually happen; if there wasn't counter-action, the outbreak/famine buckets would "drip" up each tick, until they'd trigger.

Personally, I felt that drip mechanic was pretty good, and it's a shame Famine was moved away from that and into the economy slider. I've not seen any evidence that mechanics like that continue to exist, but it's potential Blight/Infrastructure Failure could occur as a result of lack of delivery of potential goods (e.g lack of industrial goods such as Power Generators, which are normally profitable anywhere, being sold to a faction)... unfortunately for Blight, the only stations which turn a profit on goods which might prevent blight are Agricultural, so that spanners it a bit.

As for Terrorist Attack... well... I have somewhat of a (mechanical) issue with it, in that we already have Civil Unrest, Lockdown and Pirate Attack. Lockdown was always a by-product of blatting system security before the sliders came in... so since Lockdown/Civil Unrest are now security sliders, maybe Terrorist Attack is a replacement of that system, separated from the security sliders?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

• If states activate by filling buckets - can you fill the bucket on 1 day and just wait to see what happens, or do the buckets have 'holes' (so you have to keep them topped up for X days)?
• Any idea of the size of the bucket? Would I need to transport 50k of ... whatever, or 50,000k?
• Is this crazy? Should I just sit back and wait for Ian to find it out

1) If it's a standard bucket-like state, then once it's full (and the state goes pending) you don't need to put any more in. It may or may not empty gradually otherwise, and it may or may not be completely emptied by the initiation of any pending state in the same set of buckets (for example, I don't think you can fill the Pirate Attack bucket while Outbreak is pending, active or recovering)

2) Size I suspect varies based on log(population) of the system just as influence effects are now that states are per-system. This would also explain why there's far more Investment and Pirate Attack in Colonia than the bubble (as a percentage of systems) - the players per NPC is much higher out here, whereas the players per system isn't.

3) Whether or not you're crazy depends on what the trigger mechanisms for these states are. You're going for an experimental study where you do stuff and see what happens, ideally in a clean system - those are great for states with short feedback cycles like Boom or War. The Communists are also very good at these sorts of studies.

I tend to do observational studies, where I collect lots of data over time in relatively high-traffic systems and look for patterns in the aggregate outcomes. This is good for states like Pirate Attack where the cause and the effect are separated by a long way ... but doesn't reveal the exact cause because the experiments aren't controlled. Trying to determine Pirate Attack causes purely through experimental studies would have been extremely painful.

At the moment we don't know which approach would be better for any of the new states - and likely it will require a combination of the two: if Dav hadn't revealed the details, an experimental study would have been required to work out exactly what causes Pirate Attack beyond "activity".

My intuition says that the easiest things to test with experimental studies would be the ways in which states 'spread' - how do infrastructure failures cascade to other factions, how do natural disasters trigger infrastructure failures or droughts, at what rate does terrorism degrade security towards lockdown, etc. in the absence or presence of further player action.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

While I can believe we can cause some of the states, others such as Public Holiday and Natural Disaster I can't even begin to comprehend any sane mechanic to cause those states.

Public Holiday could be based on consistent positive activity, perhaps?

I would guess that Natural Disaster was in fact just random for simplicity ... but if they wanted to keep it technically deterministic then something like "bounty hand-in count is prime while faction has lost influence but gained economy, and has no other 'event' states queued" would be virtually impossible to either figure out or deliberately induce.

 

[Jmanis]

Public Holiday could be based on consistent positive activity, perhaps?

Perhaps... maybe a use for happiness finally?

It's pretty foolhardy to speculate on things not in the game, but the unreleased "Historic Event" state picked up by Inara's API calls is equally anomalous to me like this. I guess I'm predisposed to the concept that public holidays are fixed and never change, but I guess realistically there's nothing to stop a (fictional) government calling a public holiday for whatever reason.

Or perhaps, it's consistent unhappiness? And the public holiday is meant to improve happiness?

EDIT: Oh, and colour me surprised Consumer Items and Legal Drugs don't get a price boost during public holiday :/

 

[FrogsFriend]

Oh, and colour me surprised Consumer Items and Legal Drugs don't get a price boost during public holiday :/

Maybe they're nice people and they take the family for a trip to the zoo and a picnic... rather than getting wasted at home in front of a new 65" TV

 

[Jmanis]

Maybe they're nice people and they take the family for a trip to the zoo and a picnic... rather than getting wasted at home in front of a new 65" TV

Por que no los dos?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

EDIT: Oh, and colour me surprised Consumer Items and Legal Drugs don't get a price boost during public holiday :/

Looks like quite a few of them do - and spectacularly so.
Beer: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/64
Coffee: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/13
Fruit+Veg: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/16
Liquor: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/65
Wine: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/66


Infrastructure Failure so far less interesting - seems to be a flat ~15% reduction in demand and supply (price unchanged) on all goods I've checked.

 

[Jmanis]

Looks like quite a few of them do - and spectacularly so.
Beer: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/64
Coffee: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/13
Fruit+Veg: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/16
Liquor: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/65
Wine: https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/stations/88/trade/66


Infrastructure Failure so far less interesting - seems to be a flat ~15% reduction in demand and supply (price unchanged) on all goods I've checked.

Looks like pricing must've changed since the beta. Goodo

 

[Jmanis]

So I just went to an Infrastructure Failure station...

• No observable market effects (no hit to supply or demand values/cost)
• No missions/USS/Scenarios (obviously)
• No observable impacts on Security/Economic sliders

Broken maybe?

 

[Jmanis]

Natural Disaster seems to function well though.

Despite recent resistance in this system (esp not the economic slider drop), I don't think this is a by-product of murderhoboing, and the low economy/security sliders are a byproduct of the state being active.

- Power Generators and Basic Medicines are the order of the day

- Food also sells pretty well

Unfortunately, market for this one is 400kLs away, so bleh.

(Oh, and production volumes are completely tanked. Most things are supply of 1

 

[Rubbernuke]

Natural Disaster seems to function well though.

View attachment 159309

Despite recent resistance in this system (esp not the economic slider drop), I don't think this is a by-product of murderhoboing, and the low economy/security sliders are a byproduct of the state being active.

- Power Generators and Basic Medicines are the order of the day
View attachment 159312

- Food also sells pretty well
View attachment 159313

Unfortunately, market for this one is 400kLs away, so bleh.

(Oh, and production volumes are completely tanked. Most things are supply of 1

What was the influence like before the natural disaster? (i.e. how much of a drop has there been?) Is it continuous drop each tick until the state clears, or does it act as a multiplier for any negative actions during it?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So I just went to an Infrastructure Failure station...

• No observable market effects (no hit to supply or demand values/cost)

They exist, but they're subtle enough to mostly be missed without knowing exactly what they were before

History of Basic Medicines at Bolden's Enterprise

cdb.sotl.org.uk

History of Ceramic Composites at Bolden's Enterprise

cdb.sotl.org.uk

Slight drop in both demand/supply levels, very few price effects that I've spotted so far and fairly subtle ones.

 

[Jmanis]

What was the influence like before the natural disaster? (i.e. how much of a drop has there been?) Is it continuous drop each tick until the state clears, or does it act as a multiplier for any negative actions during it?

The influence drop happened before the update, so it wasn't related to the Natural Disaster occurring (At least, not intuitively). What I mean is, I'm unsure if the security drop was part of the Natural Disaster, or related to the influence drop. I'm fairly sure it is a result of Natural Disaster, but can't be 100% certain.

 

[Jmanis]

Just dropped in on a Terrorist Attack state... expected there to be market demand for weapons, but nothing :/ Security seemed to be tanked in the system.

EDIT: Scratch that, Battle and Personal weapons seem to have higher prices (i'm reporting =~2k, as opposed to my usual 1k), but being illegal in the target system, yeah, lol.

 

[CrazyDiamond]

Terrorist Attack seems to bleed influence from the affected faction (about 0.3% a day from what I've observed) and is a state that prevents that faction from entering an Election (no data on if it prevents entering war state but would assume so)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Inf Failure and Natural Disaster both seem to have noticeable negative effects on the economy slider - but not enough to overcome the positive actions needed to maintain Investment anyway. (Broadly, the factions in Investment hit by those states are still in Investment, while the factions just in Boom lost that after one day of the state)

So far all the Inf Failures I've seen (bar one which might be a contagion) have been on controlling factions, and all the Natural Disasters have been on non-controlling factions. The sample size is tiny so it's way too early to tell if there's something about what causes them which means they're more likely on control/non-control factions.

 

[Jmanis]

So far all the Inf Failures I've seen (bar one which might be a contagion) have been on controlling factions, and all the Natural Disasters have been on non-controlling factions. The sample size is tiny so it's way too early to tell if there's something about what causes them which means they're more likely on control/non-control factions.

Plenty of Inf Failures on non-controlling factions in Inara, and our own faction suffered a Natural Disaster as the controlling faction (that's where this came from)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Blight seems to drain approx 0.9% of influence a day from a faction.

Kinesi (Eol Prou PX-T d3-1134) - History

cdb.sotl.org.uk

This (see the Colonia Council column) seems to apply even if the faction is in an election and would otherwise have locked influence...

 

[Retropolitan]

I'm not sure if this has been noticed yet, but today EDDB pointed me at two systems in Famine and when I checked them out I found that each one has a double-whammy of Famine+Blight. Sadly no distribution centres, though.