Mercenaries of Mikunn - The Background Simulation and Colonization Test

[Walt Kerman]

Its definitely a possibility.

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Hi Guys,

even though i am not participating in your Mikunn activities i am following your progress closely, because i am very interested in the outcome.
I am doing the same in a different system, but with the same result. My allied faction spreaded into a nearby system with about 9% and... nothing...
THe expansion status changed to boom status (in both system so i guess it's faction based not system based). In the homesystem they have nearly 90% influence, 2 other have only 1% and state: civil war but i never got attacked by anyone in here.

During trade i noticed that the commodities market ist nearly 100% stable. Only 3 or 4 wares have different numbers each day. Also i can sell hundreds of tons and the "needed amount" never changes. Also if it states needed 0, i can sell and nothing changes. Only the amount i can buy is reduced and will fill up slowly (every X minutes).

The missions created by my allies doesn't seem to have anything to do with the amount of stuff needed in the station.. there are some high demand commodities but i usually get missions for commodities which are in medium or even low demand.

Overall my experience with the "background simulation" is, that it's not active or it's bugged at the moment. I can imagine that it is indeed complex and that they maybe underestimated the player activities or impact. But i wasn't able to find any statement about the situation. And that's very disappointing. A lot of players want to be part of this "dynamic faction system" , so at least a statement would be very appreciated.
if the system is bugged or not active, then we could focus temporarily on other activities instead of trying and trying and trying :/


p.s.: sorry, english is not my native language

And thanks for the info. I think i will make a list of other people having similar problems tomorrow.

[donpost]

adding another strange effect - anaconda hunting mission issued by dukes of mikunn hunts a criminal in mikunn and on completion I lost rep with dukes. Facepalm

Seems to me that the Anaconda hunting missions work like this: The original mission always declares three systems where the criminal can be found. You will always find a USS in those systems where a NPC directs you to a fourth system where the criminal is. The criminal will be a member of a random(?) faction in this fourth system. So theoretically you could take a mission from the Dukes, where the three original systems do not include Mikunn. If the USS NPC reveals the fourth system where the criminal can be found is Mikunn, then the criminal is allocated the the Dukes faction (as they are the only faction in Mikunn). As you always lose rep with the faction the criminal belonged to when you destroy him, this results in losing rep with the Dukes even though they provided the mission in the first place.... Probably not intended behaviour - maybe it's worth a ticket?

I think we should concetrate on missions in HR with a negative effect on the local factions:

See here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=162046424

We still require more data!

i think we should only try those missions that have a negative effect on the other faction (red) and should be done from within HR.

Please discuss. i dont think that these few missions have had an influence since the patch. though the 1.04 patch has not changed the backround sim.
A word from the DEVs would be good.

I've just added a few more missions It seems the missions that cause negative effects are pretty rare, and even then the target faction sometimes appears to be random. For example, I had a mission to supply Mikunn with Superconductors, which I fetched from HIP 93685. On turning in the mission, in addition to the positive status effects with the Dukes, I got some positive status effects with the Dominion of Kwatee who were not involved in the transaction in any way.

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Considering nearly all the missions give Boom+ to the Dukes it's strange that we haven't got the Boom status yet. Looking at the design documents referenced in the OP, it says that a Boom was to be activated when population is below a certain amount and wealth is above a certain amount. Well the population of Mikunn is tiny so that can't be an issue. I just went to Spassky's Inheritance to see what the wealth level is at....and it's not there? I'm sure normally when you enter a station commodity market it would tell you the wealth, EG "Large population, poor extraction economy" etc. However at SI it just says "Tiny population extraction economy". Odd.

[Walt Kerman]

You don't have to go that far for superconductors. They are in Sukua.

[donpost]

You don't have to go that far for superconductors. They are in Sukua.

You're right, in fact you can't even buy superconductors from HIP 93685 because it's a High Tech system. I ought to facepalm myself for that! I actually bought them from Kwatee (Smith Dock). But still I got rep with a faction who WERE NOT the owners of the station.

[dr.zli]

Seems to me that the Anaconda hunting missions work like this: The original mission always declares three systems where the criminal can be found. You will always find a USS in those systems where a NPC directs you to a fourth system where the criminal is. The criminal will be a member of a random(?) faction in this fourth system. So theoretically you could take a mission from the Dukes, where the three original systems do not include Mikunn. If the USS NPC reveals the fourth system where the criminal can be found is Mikunn, then the criminal is allocated the the Dukes faction (as they are the only faction in Mikunn). As you always lose rep with the faction the criminal belonged to when you destroy him, this results in losing rep with the Dukes even though they provided the mission in the first place.... Probably not intended behaviour - maybe it's worth a ticket?

completely true, this time mikunn was among the 3 systems, i took off from spasky, 1st USS was contract update and guy told me a criminal is in mikunn, 3 more USS later, conda appears, i kill it, lose rep with Dukes -_-

[Steuben]

MAybe expansion for a small fraction like the Dukes is only possible through the slow aquisition and build up of systems that have no or very small populations. Taking on the well developed faction in HR 7327 might be a bit to much. Even if people pound away at the target system it doesnt make much difference in the bigger picture for the background simulation! Because its 2000 vs Millions. Its perhabs more about economic power and numbers than indiviual missions.

[dr.zli]

MAybe expansion for a small fraction like the Dukes is only possible through the slow aquisition and build up of systems that have no or very small populations. Taking on the well developed faction in HR 7327 might be a bit to much. Even if people pound away at the target system it doesnt make much difference in the bigger picture for the background simulation! Because its 2000 vs Millions. Its perhabs more about economic power and numbers than indiviual missions.

yes, it's logical when you put it that way, but then we'd see some movement in system, some gains or losses as the obviously dominant hr throws puny faction out. But all we have is 9.1 percent stuck at all times and that's it.

[Steuben]

9.1 Its probably the default number were every faction that is not strong enough to get a real foothold in a system gets stopped and stays there until it has enough power to advance?

[dr.zli]

9.1 Its probably the default number were every faction that is not strong enough to get a real foothold in a system gets stopped and stays there until it has enough power to advance?

consider our action then - we destroyed so many ships in system HR dynamics would be broke by now, we destroyed so many traders, so many civilian ships. Where's the civil unrest? Where's some kind of change? All they do is throw even more ships at us.

[Steuben]

Thats how we think it is. I have the suspicion the background simulator weighs the importance of individual missions (when it comes to NPC vs NPC Faction war) by players way lower then the things the npc are doing.

[dr.zli]

Thats how we think it is. I have the suspicion the background simulator weighs the importance of individual missions (when it comes to NPC vs NPC Faction war) by players way lower then the things the npc are doing.

I'm ok with that but we're not playing an accurate simulator of intergalactic politics and intrigue. If actions of over 70 people that happen each and every day can't produce any impact whatsoever in a game then I guess we have a problem. And I really don't think it's a bug anymore. I think they just didn't finish the background simulator because they didn't expect someone to try and do that.
I don't have a problem if they didn't finish it, but I think it would be ok from them to tell us - guys take it easy, it will be done soon and then you can try and flip it. Or I could be wrong and they could explain how we should do the thing we're trying to do properly.
Anything is better than silence.

[Steuben]

What we are attacking is probably only the visible part of the trading simulation. Maybe for each destroyed NPC there are 5 trade (example) transaction that are only "electronic" and have no appereance in the "real" universe and that number is tied to the current economic and millitary status of a faction. The you can destroy NPC and trade until you are dead. Not much will change.

[LiU-KanG]

I added those who requested ... till 0900 GMT

[dr.zli]

What we are attacking is probably only the visible part of the trading simulation. Maybe for each destroyed NPC there are 5 trade (example) transaction that are only "electronic" and have no appearance in the "real" universe and that number is tied to the current economic and millitary status of a faction. The you can destroy NPC and trade until you are dead. Not much will change.

then the claims that the players can affect economies and universe were false? I think it's high time someone from the dev team steps up and explains the situation for us because we can trade our thoughts for the next year or so but the real mechanism will still be a black box to us.

[Steuben]

True but sometimes it helps to speculate. Keeps the brain at work, so we dont plaster the forum with ad hominem attacs against the DEVS and get banned and evicted from the game