Increased volatility in the BGS -runaway leaders many retreats

Bounties, missions and more missions.

Quite a bit of my work is done on low inf factions to reign in the growth of (usually) a controlling faction. Usually the only option is missions, and after the first day realised they were not having the effect they normally would have. There was some effect, perhaps as though 1+inf was applied (as I assume any mission where the cash or rep reward is taken) have.

With trade, I usually go with multi-hauling, small qtys of several commodities. Large qty (single commodity hauling) still appears to work.

For bounties normally I use 1mCr as a guideline, now I am using 1.5mCr. It seems to work as expected, but of course isn't an effective option for (usually) more than one or two factions in a system.

With exploration data, nothing I have tried so far has had any noticeable effect on inf, but again I haven't done much testing.

In all cases I am comparing the effect of my actions post-update with the effect I am used to them having in systems I am familiar with & regularly work.
 
I have to agree, but there is a view from the other side. This is the "emergent gameplay" that has turned everything upside down and we're all rushing round like ants on a disturbed nest trying to restore a status quo that may - for some - have become just a little flat and predictable.

In RL terms it's analogous to a world-wide pestilence that affects every level of society, upsets every marketplace and induces paranoia and anxiety. But what are the chances of that happening within a well-ordered structure?

Guardian cartoonist Stephen Collins has the answer.
I don't want to sound like a broken record... but for me, this all just continues to reinforce the stance I take with the BGS that it's simply that; a background simulator. That we compete for systems, ideologies and what-not is entirely secondary to the fact that the BGS is here to simply provide a shifting-sands backdrop to the universe, and any "competitve" outcomes of that system are, for at least some part, unintentional, at least as far as FD is concerned.

I know not everyone would agree with me, and many of the most competitive groups would think that stance to be incomprehensible... but here we are. Of course, events like this trash the planned, somewhat competitive nature of the game, but a chaotic BGS is nonetheless a malleable, changing backdrop to the rest of the universe. Yes, a consistent universe which reacts reliably to player actions is great, but a BGS which instead ignored all player input and just provided random influence/economy/security adjustments would, arguably, provide a more interesting and diverse background environment than the somewhat homogenous environment players carve out.
 
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Bounties, missions and more missions.
Quite a bit of my work is done on low inf factions to reign in the growth of (usually) a controlling faction. Usually the only option is missions, and after the first day realised they were not having the effect they normally would have. There was some effect, perhaps as though 1+inf was applied (as I assume any mission where the cash or rep reward is taken) have.

With trade, I usually go with multi-hauling, small qtys of several commodities. Large qty (single commodity hauling) still appears to work.

For bounties normally I use 1mCr as a guideline, now I am using 1.5mCr. It seems to work as expected, but of course isn't an effective option for (usually) more than one or two factions in a system.

With exploration data, nothing I have tried so far has had any noticeable effect on inf, but again I haven't done much testing.

In all cases I am comparing the effect of my actions post-update with the effect I am used to them having in systems I am familiar with & regularly work.
we've got a very experienced team on all these various systems and to a person, they're tearing their hair out (what little of it is left!)
 
I don't want to sound like a broken record... but for me, this all just continues to reinforce the stance I take with the BGS that it's simply that; a background simulator. That we compete for systems, ideologies and what-not is entirely secondary to the fact that the BGS is here to simply provide a shifting-sands backdrop to the universe, and any "competitve" outcomes of that system are, for at least some part, unintentional, at least as far as FD is concerned.

I know not everyone would agree with me, and many of the most competitive groups would think that stance to be incomprehensible... but here we are. Of course, events like this trash the planned, somewhat competitive nature of the game, but a chaotic BGS is nonetheless a malleable, changing backdrop to the rest of the universe. Yes, a consistent universe which reacts reliably to player actions is great, but a BGS which instead ignored all player input and just provided random influence/economy/security adjustments would, arguably, provide a more interesting and diverse background environment than the somewhat homogenous environment players carve out.
however, unassailable rises, the entire bubble going into uncontrolled expansion/retreat and the inability to effectively move influence isn't by design, it's a bug.
 
Re: the effect of bounties, take a look at Zavijah. It was growing uncontrollably just as many other systems controlled by the same faction are, but another member of the team I'm in has been bounty hunting in Denebola (without a KWS) and selling those bounties in Zavijah. In that system not much other focused activity happens. Bounties (lots of them) still work.
 
After todays Tick we simply have given up on trying to push non-natives in Systems with an overwhelming amount of FCs and people selling Tritium or mined Materials. Its simply too exhausting.

Instead we're focusing on the few Systems left where a somewhat normal behaviour can be seen and try to get our final conflicts going there. And once they're complete I fear we won't have much to do then going up and once at around 60%-80% everywhere put a checkmark behind the BGS and go fishing.

At least if things stay the way they are.
 
From the looks of it the murder of clean faction ships still seems to be quite effective in curbing the growth of a faction. I managed to reverse a few of our runaway influence systems by killing a couple of dozen ships. Obviously, that is not a sustainable long-term way of controlling factions but is an option for people currently struggling to reign in systems that have gone off the rails.
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
From the looks of it the murder of clean faction ships still seems to be quite effective in curbing the growth of a faction. I managed to reverse a few of our runaway influence systems by killing a couple of dozen ships. Obviously, that is not a sustainable long-term way of controlling factions but is an option for people currently struggling to reign in systems that have gone off the rails.
Maybe we can develop a bartering system since getting hostile with your own faction(s) isn't a viable option.
 
Not a bad idea, Jane. We had 3 systems over 75 interfering with our intended expansion, through murder I corrected one and came just shy of fixing the other two (larger) systems but was right on the border of hostile and had to stop.

I have an "explorer" account collecting dust, and although I really don't want to do the engineer grind again I might have to turn it into a murder account just to get things stable.

If FDev doesn't get something fixed soon then we might have to set up some Strangers On A Train system.
 
It looks like expansion itself may be unable to complete. Or at least expansions triggered prior to the patch. We've been in the active state since June 7th.
 
Additional information, in addition to our own unending expansion from before the patch our friends in the 9th Legion have confirmed that they have a new expansion after the patch has begun in a system that has never been 75% but is their happiest according to their Squadron page.

That is concerning since,
1. The happiest system seems to have no rhyme or reasons to it, I've never found a way to directly control happiness personally.
2. The only way to see happiest is from the squadron screen, killing all powerplay BGS and any other mulit-faction supporter.
 
It looks like expansion itself may be unable to complete. Or at least expansions triggered prior to the patch. We've been in the active state since June 7th.
given what I've seen, expansion states did not progress on update date - so you're still 'in normal range' (5-7 days active)
unless things have changed, ofc
 
Hmmm. I wonder...

IIRC, normally it's easier to boost a low-influence faction, and it becomes progressively harder at higher percentages. But what if an arithmetic goof in the new algorithm has reversed that? So the more influence a faction has, the easier it is to increase it? And low-influence factions can't make headway?

I suspect something like that, it would also explain why mid inf level factions don't need much work to sustain their inf.

Quite a bit of my work is done on low inf factions to reign in the growth of (usually) a controlling faction. Usually the only option is missions, and after the first day realised they were not having the effect they normally would have. There was some effect, perhaps as though 1+inf was applied (as I assume any mission where the cash or rep reward is taken) have.

With trade, I usually go with multi-hauling, small qtys of several commodities. Large qty (single commodity hauling) still appears to work.

For bounties normally I use 1mCr as a guideline, now I am using 1.5mCr. It seems to work as expected, but of course isn't an effective option for (usually) more than one or two factions in a system.

With exploration data, nothing I have tried so far has had any noticeable effect on inf, but again I haven't done much testing.

In all cases I am comparing the effect of my actions post-update with the effect I am used to them having in systems I am familiar with & regularly work.

We can only use missions (pax&scan) for our faction in systems with no assets. We run daily a few missions in the systems there our inf is 10% or above and our inf is slowly rising. In the one system there we got pushed into retreat nothing helps, making things worst our npcs are mainly the ones getting slaughtered in the res sites. It seems daily pos actions, however small, are important to keep the trend going, but once you cross a threshold (5%?) downward it needs exponentially more work to gain pos momentum again.
 
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