A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[goemon]

Yes i do.
If you were to work on 3 systems your Fac is present in, and then on the next tick you find yourself in boom, how would you know who is in boom and who isn't if it weren't a faction bucket as opposed to a system bucket.
If it was system, your faction could be in boom in A but its says your in boom in B also. But you think it is B that's in boom. So you trade like crazy to fill the bucket in B, but what your actually doing is pushing B into boom, but you can't see it. So now A and B are in boom, and you don't know it.
It makes no sense to advertise boom faction wide, but it actually be system specific. Wars etc aren't this way, so why would boom and expansion be.

Another reason I believe this is news of war. I have noticed when my fac enters War, I get news reports in other systems my faction is present in of the war, but erroneously telling me that it is that system in war. News feeds appear in this case to be faction specific and not system specific, although the state is.

I could be wrong, and in being wrong it may account for the reports of 'endless boom' periods if it is system specific and people are feeding the wrong pot.

good reasoning, let me try the opposite

- civil-wars have effects faction-wide, but can only be won in the system where they origin. even if you have the same factions in two systems, both showing civil-war, you can't win the civil war in another system

- let us assume there is a state-bucket for each faction per system. if a state goes active, this bucket is emptied (or need to be emptied). e.g. when the state finishes or runs out, it starts again with zero. if you for exampel finishes boom, state can go recovering directly. you'll still have the cooldown.

- how can the system, where the state origins, be found? via POI - like CZ.

 

[jimbeau1571]

good reasoning, let me try the opposite

- civil-wars have effects faction-wide, but can only be won in the system where they origin. even if you have the same factions in two systems, both showing civil-war, you can't win the civil war in another system

The only effect civil war/war/election have faction wide is to prevent another war state from occuring elsewhere your faction is present, remove boom faction wide. You cannot be at war in more than one system at any one time, and not during a cooldown period from war also.

- let us assume there is a state-bucket for each faction per system. if a state goes active, this bucket is emptied (or need to be emptied). e.g. when the state finishes or runs out, it starts again with zero. if you for exampel finishes boom, state can go recovering directly. you'll still have the cooldown.

Well that works just as well for a faction wide bucket in the case of boom as it does for a system bucket. Fill/empty to end and enter cooldown.

- how can the system, where the state origins, be found? via POI - like CZ.

The best way to find the current state is via the System map, and not by looking for POI's (like CZ's) as you can get conditions where you are in War but there is no CZ. And if you don't look at the System map or in the right panel, you'd never know and be waiting for 28 days for the timer to run out.
The right panel tells you pending states which the System map doesn't, pending boom is seen across all you factions systems present in, Conflict pending states are only seen in the system where the conflict will take place.
Expansion will be seen across all systems.

To conclude, some states have system buckets, others have faction buckets.

 

[Saool]

Apart from trade, are there any other good ways to get out of Boom quickly, without instigating another state? Certain mission types for example?

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Apart from trade, are there any other good ways to get out of Boom quickly, without instigating another state? Certain mission types for example?

Note that currently, all LongRange Courier Missions seem to have a negative Effect on Economic Boom (see Mission Results Page, likely a Bug).

Our Group was able to end an otherwise very long Boom today by specifically running a bunch of these LR Courier Missions - which is easy if you have any Ship with long range (any Exploration vessel will do just fine).
Apart from triggering a Conflict, that's currently the only way I know of to effectively work against a Boom.
At least until that condition is fixed, which could happen in V2.1.

PS.
I've traded many thousands of tons of Palladium out of our Main System to see of that depleted that "Boom bucket", but to no visible effect.
Trading similar amounts (of lower-value goods) back in seemed to slowly deplete the Boom state. Very slowly, though.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I don't understand why you would want to get a favoured faction out of Boom. doesn't Boom increase the wealth and mission payout?

 

[Deleted member 38366]

I don't understand why you would want to get a favoured faction out of Boom. doesn't Boom increase the wealth and mission payout?

Boom boosts Export profits by 10%, but apparently also cuts all import profits by 10% as well (looks like it to me).
Also Bounty Hunting seems to have no Influence effect anymore during a Boom state (or a very muted one) it seems to me.
Unsure about Mission payout; that seems unchanged to me during a Boom state.

Main issue I usually have with Boom state is when it starts blocking a Pending Expansion for a prolonged time... Then it starts to hurt the progress the Faction could otherwise make.
But when a Faction is at low Influence and needs to grow fast (especially in high Population Systems), it's indeed a very useful state...

 

[Saool]

I don't understand why you would want to get a favoured faction out of Boom. doesn't Boom increase the wealth and mission payout?

It's going to block a very long and hard fought for expansion.

 

[goemon]

Apart from trade, are there any other good ways to get out of Boom quickly...

mining. generating best profit per T --- if you prefer that above trading

mining was the fastest way to end a boom i have seen.

another way is a lot of illegal trade... i have traded out a 6 mio-exploration-data-boom with around 1000 T in illegal goods in a very low population system. but that's trade.

I'm leaning to falconsfly experience, that it is about trading in. from a very short remark of the bgs livestream which referred to bgs-trade=profit, i'd try selling goods with a lot of profit.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

That's the best thing about mining, it's pure profit. It's one of the easiest ways to get reputation for permits too, for the same reason.

 

[_Flin_]

Apart from trade, are there any other good ways to get out of Boom quickly, without instigating another state? Certain mission types for example?

Piracy and selling stolen goods into a blackmarket. Need to own one first, though.

 

[Walter2]

We tried to invoke a civil war with the controlling faction of our system who only hold the main station.... That is the only station they possess in this system.

We equalled their influence and then .... Nothing No civil war

Thanks to the excellent advice of100th Monkey who suggested it was HIGHLY likely that this faction was committed elsewhere, we tracked them down and found them in a 'Cool down' state from an election. For the next 48hrs we kept our faction within 2% of that group with the intention of having our civil war.

On the third day we sadly got a 5% separation and Murphy's law showed the other faction now at..

Pending Election??? (Is this the norm?)

We located them in a different system and sure enough they are pending a worthless election with another faction but neither of them have a station in that system. (Both parties being at 15% influence) They are having an election simply because they can.

I've got no evidence, but is there the possibility that factional change in the galaxy can grind to a halt, at least in some systems?

We've all seen examples of the perpetual Civil war/War/Election where a pending state is apparently generated as soon as the cooldown from the previous conflict completes.

With increased player activity in the BGS there is an increased chance that any faction has a presence in several systems and the concomitant increase in the likelihood of conflict. I believe the current design precludes the possibility of one faction being involved in more than one conflict at a time (and is this being addressed in 2.1?).

So, with the possibility that conditions for conflict for a faction exist in more than one system, each potential conflict has to wait for the tiny window of opportunity to open up when the active conflict stops.

Are the potential conflicts queued and selected in turn, or is it down to a RNG? Is it possible that the takeover bid that you've been preparing for your widely distributed faction can never be resolved?

 

[Walter2]

Best to tie up the lower factions in their own conflicts before attempting.

But make sure the lower factions don't have too much of the influence pool. I've been stuck in a system where two of the factions were in conflict on 20% each, locking up 40%. There were simply not enough free points available for me to push my faction up to a tipping point.

 

[Schlack]

I've got no evidence, but is there the possibility that factional change in the galaxy can grind to a halt, at least in some systems?

We've all seen examples of the perpetual Civil war/War/Election where a pending state is apparently generated as soon as the cooldown from the previous conflict completes.

With increased player activity in the BGS there is an increased chance that any faction has a presence in several systems and the concomitant increase in the likelihood of conflict. I believe the current design precludes the possibility of one faction being involved in more than one conflict at a time (and is this being addressed in 2.1?).

So, with the possibility that conditions for conflict for a faction exist in more than one system, each potential conflict has to wait for the tiny window of opportunity to open up when the active conflict stops.

Are the potential conflicts queued and selected in turn, or is it down to a RNG? Is it possible that the takeover bid that you've been preparing for your widely distributed faction can never be resolved?

This is the challenge of multisystem factions, it is manageable but it takes a hell of a lot of work.

 

[Walter2]

This is the challenge of multisystem factions, it is manageable but it takes a hell of a lot of work.

The real difficulty arises not through lack of knowledge of your own faction's activities, but lack of knowledge of your opponent factions' work.

For example, in our region we have a system that had just one faction since launch. With recent expansions there are now an additional five non-native factions, each with its own network of interactions.

You have to be very careful who you pick a fight with.

 

[Jmanis]

This is the challenge of multisystem factions, it is manageable but it takes a hell of a lot of work.

So funnily enough, I had a backwater system all ready for the 60% civil war to kick off... five days later and still no pending civil war, but repeatedly got Boom going.

Went on a one-month holiday, came back, none of the other guys in my group touched the system while I was away. It's now owned by my faction

Something something break the wrist, walk away

 

[Elementical]

The real difficulty arises not through lack of knowledge of your own faction's activities, but lack of knowledge of your opponent factions' work.

For example, in our region we have a system that had just one faction since launch. With recent expansions there are now an additional five non-native factions, each with its own network of interactions.

You have to be very careful who you pick a fight with.

That's what makes the BGS game so fun to play, the constant dynamism!

You set goals for your faction, maybe you want to control an outpost because it has a nice view, or a station with a good trade route. Or maybe you want to have access to every economy type, or control every asset in a system with 15 assets!

When things go according to plan you can see your faction slowly moving towards the goals you set out, then suddenly something unexpected happens! You think to yourself "Nooooooooooo, how could this happen?! My plans are ruined!" (we've all been there)

Time to make a plan B! Long term plans are adjusted, new goals are set, timetables are created, new action plans are set in motion and you continue the fight!
Some BGS campaigns can take months to finish but when you finally reach that goal, the feeling of victory and success is worth it! [yesnod]

 

[jimbeau1571]

That's what makes the BGS game so fun to play, the constant dynamism!

You set goals for your faction, maybe you want to control an outpost because it has a nice view, or a station with a good trade route. Or maybe you want to have access to every economy type, or control every asset in a system with 15 assets!

When things go according to plan you can see your faction slowly moving towards the goals you set out, then suddenly something unexpected happens! You think to yourself "Nooooooooooo, how could this happen?! My plans are ruined!" (we've all been there)

Time to make a plan B! Long term plans are adjusted, new goals are set, timetables are created, new action plans are set in motion and you continue the fight!
Some BGS campaigns can take months to finish but when you finally reach that goal, the feeling of victory and success is worth it! [yesnod]

Absolutely this. Just gained control of my recent expansion system today, now to expand from here and hopefully get into the system I want. I think it will a further 2 expansions before it happens. So that's about another 5 weeks away.

 

[Walter2]

That's what makes the BGS game so fun to play, the constant dynamism!

You set goals for your faction, maybe you want to control an outpost because it has a nice view, or a station with a good trade route. Or maybe you want to have access to every economy type, or control every asset in a system with 15 assets!

When things go according to plan you can see your faction slowly moving towards the goals you set out, then suddenly something unexpected happens! You think to yourself "Nooooooooooo, how could this happen?! My plans are ruined!" (we've all been there)

Time to make a plan B! Long term plans are adjusted, new goals are set, timetables are created, new action plans are set in motion and you continue the fight!
Some BGS campaigns can take months to finish but when you finally reach that goal, the feeling of victory and success is worth it! [yesnod]

Couldn't agree more - been there more than once.

But my original concern was with the proliferation of ever expanding faction clones which could be blocking further development.

 

[Szyslak22]

Are the potential conflicts queued and selected in turn, or is it down to a RNG? Is it possible that the takeover bid that you've been preparing for your widely distributed faction can never be resolved?

Valid concern. All I can tell you is that the conflicts are not queued up. Once one conflict is pending, active, or recovering, the BGS ignores all conflict triggers for that faction until the first is cleared. So you have to use that time to position the faction in other systems.

When there are no blocking states, and the trigger for conflict is reached in two different systems on the same tick, it does appear to be random which conflict gets triggered. It might have logic to it, but it doesn't happen enough for us to discern a pattern. Mostly because we work hard to avoid it. I'm guessing it depends on the order the systems are processed by the influence update.

I completely agree with your point though. Controlling a multi-system faction is difficult enough. But then to try to control conflicts between your multi-system faction and any number of opponent multi-system factions when you might not know how many systems they're in - it's crazy hard. You need a huge amount of data entry and advanced tools to analyze it.

We're extremely lucky that we have a talented programmer that writes our influence tracker and database tools. And lucky that we have people willing to do the daily data entry to make it work. That helps us to see some of the multi-system interactions. But even so, we have conflicts or expansions that we expect to trigger, and they don't. Then we have to figure out why and what we missed. Then alter the plan. Then communicate the plan to the group. Seriously, it's more work than my real job.

But then things happen like expanding on purpose into a 2.5 billion population system with 5 factions that you've had your eye on for over a year. And you know how hard that was and how much work it took. And damn it feels good. That's why I play the BGS and try to help others play the BGS.

And of course it's all going to change again, starting today. [big grin]

 

[Schlack]

Couldn't agree more - been there more than once.

But my original concern was with the proliferation of ever expanding faction clones which could be blocking further development.

I think the retreat mechanic is intended to address just that. Will be interesting to see how/if that works.