Recently my squadron has been trying to implement our own PMF. We find a lot of good systems only to be disqualified by an inactive native pmf.
I suggest a new state for pmfs called "disbursement" or "disbandment" This would be a state that is triggered once that pmf has retreated from all systems and is sitting idle at 1% for a certain time period in the native system.
This would not free up any significant number of systems.
There are a lot of PMFs which never took system control, but most of the time those systems have since been captured by another PMF.
Currently:
- approximately 15500 systems have at least one PMF present (controlling or not)
- approximately 11300 systems are under PMF control
So you might think implementing this sort of filter would clean up about 4000 systems. Unfortunately, no. Most of the systems with a PMF present but not in control the PMF is non-native and has expanded from a system where it is in control.
The harshest possible "inactivity" filter (incredibly strong compared with your suggestion, massively unfair) would be to remove all PMFs which do not control any systems, even if:
- they are present in more than one system
- they control stations but not the system
- they only just lost control yesterday
- they were only founded yesterday
...doesn't matter: no system control = gone
This filter - which would be so ridiculously harsh that it would for quite some time have eliminated Lave Radio, though they're safe now - would only make another 800 systems or so eligible for PMF addition, because most of the factions it got rid of have already been overrun by another PMF in those systems.
800 systems is nothing, in this context - the normal rate of PMF expansion and addition gets through 800 systems every few months.
A fairer filter - and the one you suggest is not unreasonable in that sense - would free up space in so few systems that it would almost certainly take Frontier longer to implement the filter than it would buy them in time against the pace of system capture.
If you want one of those 800 systems which does only contain an "inactive" PMF, then get yourself added to a rubbish system nearby, expand in, and take it. If the PMF is genuinely inactive ... and there isn't a strongly player-backed NPC faction or Powerplay control group managing the system, of course! ... you should be able to take control quite quickly.
I do sympathise because there is a genuine major problem here - PMFs are taking new systems either by addition or capture (mostly capture) at a rate of 200-250 per month or so. At this rate, basically
all systems will have a PMF (an active one, usually) controlling or present in about two years time. The rate of new system population is by comparison non-existent (and there are good reasons not to allow too much sprawl because for the non-PMF parts of the game the bubble is generally already too big) so there will soon be no space left at all.
This has been an obvious problem for some time, but there's no sign of a good solution, and removing inactive factions is so small an effect it barely matters. In the meantime I'd recommend getting your PMF in to wherever is left, and if you want more systems, capture and fight for them.
