A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

irongut · Dec 22, 2016

Aris_ said:
Do you imply the lack of presence of the same faction in system B ? or you have the option regardless ?

I should have added that detail, to cash a bounty or bond with a factor the issuing faction must not be present in the factor's system. (this counts for superpowers too)

Schlack said:
Actually good point, where the faction is in numerous systems which one does the bounty influence go to when cashed in the factor? I presume the original home system.

Factors were one of the features of 2.2 I was most interested in from a BGS point of view so I've run a few tests.

Combat Bonds - the influence boost goes to the issuing faction in the war system, this was tested with a faction who are in multiple systems

Superpower Bounties - the influence boost goes to the faction that controls the station with the factor

Faction Bounties - with an issuing faction who are only in one system the influence boost goes to them in that system, my tests on multi-system factions had some outside interference so I need to repeat them but I think the influence boost goes to the issuing faction in their home system

Arka · Dec 23, 2016

Is it possible to cancel pending War/Election in a system?
I kinda undershoot, and this unnecessary conflict that has nothing to fight over could've been avoided if I stayed awake for few more hours.

In a system there is factions ordered by their influence descending

FactionA (Controlling) 40%
FactionB - Pending Election (Has no property) 17%
MyFaction - Pending Election 17%
FactionC X%

Jane Turner · Dec 23, 2016

one listed as pending, the war/election is inevitable

Adhock · Dec 23, 2016

elliv said:
Is it possible to cancel pending War/Election in a system?

Nope. You cannot stop the conflict.

Take it as an opportunity for easy influence building.

lovefool · Dec 23, 2016

Hello!

I have a question reagrding BGS. I haven't been able to find answer myself in a few guides. I also tried googling, but it didn't help either.

I'm trying to make 'my' faction take over a station from a controlling faction in another system.
Both factions are democratic
I managed to earn 45% of influence in the system, while controlling faction has only 30% now

What should I do next?
Am I right to understand that at some point one of the two stations owned by controlling faction will have an elections? In that case how do I ensure a win for my guys?
Or I'm getting it all wrong.

Thanks in advance

Limoncello Lizard · Dec 23, 2016

Either drop your faction's influence to match the controller, or raise it to over 62%.

Adhock · Dec 23, 2016

Limoncello Lizard said:
Either drop your faction's influence to match the controller, or raise it to over 62%.

Alternatively, raise the controlling faction's influence to equalize and avoid the messy bounty of hurting yourself.

Limoncello Lizard · Dec 23, 2016

One more thing. If you are part of a group, agree on what tactic you are going to try first. Otherwise you could be working against each other.

Murrdox · Dec 23, 2016

Hey folks,

I've hunted around for an answer on this, and haven't been able to find it. My faction is currently at war with another faction. Obviously I'm looking to support my faction. The problem is that no massacre missions are getting generated for MY faction. I have seen a few get generated for the OTHER faction.

My Faction - Federation aligned, Political.
Other Faction - Federation aligned, Corporation.

I've tried going to other stations my faction controls, even their home system, but I still see no massacre missions generated. I don't even see any kind of war missions generated for them at all. Nothing like "Donate 24 units of domestic appliances to support the war". Just missions for mining water, and cleaning out Skimmers... of course not Skimmers associated with the faction they're at war with!

Can anyone help? Is there a reason for this, or is this something broken?

SaliVader · Dec 23, 2016

Murrdox said:
Hey folks,

I've hunted around for an answer on this, and haven't been able to find it. My faction is currently at war with another faction. Obviously I'm looking to support my faction. The problem is that no massacre missions are getting generated for MY faction. I have seen a few get generated for the OTHER faction.

My Faction - Federation aligned, Political.
Other Faction - Federation aligned, Corporation.

I've tried going to other stations my faction controls, even their home system, but I still see no massacre missions generated. I don't even see any kind of war missions generated for them at all. Nothing like "Donate 24 units of domestic appliances to support the war". Just missions for mining water, and cleaning out Skimmers... of course not Skimmers associated with the faction they're at war with!

Can anyone help? Is there a reason for this, or is this something broken?

That's bad luck and a bad algorithm for mission generation. I've seen that happen with my faction as well and unfortunately there is no way around it. You can still win the war by turning in combat bonds, it just won't be as profitable.

Adhock · Dec 23, 2016

You can still make money off the Combat Vouchers and by killing the other ships, you hurt the influence level of the other faction which will by proxy, raise your influence above theirs. That's the important part of supporting a faction is the killing of your opponents ships.

Massacre missions should usually show up around day 2 in force.

Sitoutumaton · Dec 23, 2016

SaliVader said:
Hm, I suppose that's one way to figure it out.
I don't know if there was a black market before, but I don't see any right now in the system map (not even under disabled facilities).

Based on my observations (find galaxy map with stations controlled by corporates and see what's forbidden).

Banned in corporates:
battle weapons, combat stabilizers, narcotics, tobacco, slaves, toxic waste and unknown probes.
Imperial corporations permit imperial slaves.

Corporations also seem to close black markets on their own, outside powerplay exploitation influences. Could do with more solid evidence.

Banned in democracies:
battle weapons, personal weapons, land mines, slaves of both kinds, narcotics, bootleg liquor, combat stabilizers, nerve agents, toxic waste and unknown probes.
Politicals or Federal democracies also ban tobacco on top of those.

CMDR Endincite said:
We've had several elections between prison colonies and patronage/feudal factions (we exclusively support the latter two over a wide expanse). Pretty solidly in the authoritarian group.

Also, corporate, like anarchy, seems to be a 'group' of one type, discounting flavour names for the same type.

Yes, corporates only elect between themselves and war with everyone else. I'll log these down. If you come across any other conflict states, screenshot the system view from galaxy map. Date, system and factions get all saved into it in one go.

Fire Dragon · Dec 25, 2016

Hello again, For the first time in our gaming history we have gone into Civil Unrest. We don't know what caused it as all our system % have been rising and we were pending Boom also. We did just lose an Election in a system we are in but do not work, this is also the first election we have lost (like I say we do not work this system as it's owned by another player faction)

Does losing an election automatically put you in Civil Unrest? or have CMDRS been naughty in out systems? there is no drop in % (apart from the usual cooldown drop)

You expertise is always appreciated FD

Sitoutumaton · Dec 25, 2016

Fire Dragon said:
Hello again, For the first time in our gaming history we have gone into Civil Unrest. We don't know what caused it as all our system % have been rising and we were pending Boom also. We did just lose an Election in a system we are in but do not work, this is also the first election we have lost (like I say we do not work this system as it's owned by another player faction)

Does losing an election automatically put you in Civil Unrest? or have CMDRS been naughty in out systems? there is no drop in % (apart from the usual cooldown drop)

Civil Unrest is a state that can be created by either selling legal drugs in your station (beer, wine, liquor, tobacco whatnot), or doing missions that contribute civil unrest to your faction. Frequent transactions in the black market might also contribute if I'm not wrong.

goemon · Dec 25, 2016

Fire Dragon said:
Hello again, For the first time in our gaming history we have gone into Civil Unrest. We don't know what caused it as all our system % have been rising and we were pending Boom also. We did just lose an Election in a system we are in but do not work, this is also the first election we have lost (like I say we do not work this system as it's owned by another player faction)

Does losing an election automatically put you in Civil Unrest? or have CMDRS been naughty in out systems? there is no drop in % (apart from the usual cooldown drop)

You expertise is always appreciated FD

there are several actions that can lead to civil unrest, loosing an election is non of it.

- trading weapons, legally or illegally

- shooting a faction ships, wanted or not, without cashing in bounties often enough.

- other crimes/fines

- a bunch of missions can add to civil unrest - illegal passenger missions for exampel, some skimmer missions etc.

civil unrest isn't much of a problem; only effect is that bounty hunting has double the effect - which is also the counteraction to civil unrest. it is the number of bountie transactions, not the value of bounties cashed in, that counts!

Fire Dragon · Dec 25, 2016

goemon said:
there are several actions that can lead to civil unrest, loosing an election is non of it.

- trading weapons, legally or illegally

- shooting a faction ships, wanted or not, without cashing in bounties often enough.

- other crimes/fines

- a bunch of missions can add to civil unrest - illegal passenger missions for exampel, some skimmer missions etc.

civil unrest isn't much of a problem; only effect is that bounty hunting has double the effect - which is also the counteraction to civil unrest. it is the number of bountie transactions, not the value of bounties cashed in, that counts!

http://i.imgur.com/cwqqik4.png

Thanks, great info

Does anything Trump Civil Unrest, eg war or expansion .....to end it, or will all other states not spawn until we do enough bounty hunting to end it?

goemon · Dec 25, 2016

Fire Dragon said:
Thanks, great info

Does anything Trump Civil Unrest, eg war or expansion .....to end it, or will all other states not spawn until we do enough bounty hunting to end it?

conflict states (war, civil war, election) will trump civil unrest.

LionOfNarnia · Dec 26, 2016

I've recently been promoted in my player-faction, to have greater responsibility for BGS matters. I don't post much on these fora but I do have a question which I think you guys may be able to give the best guidance on.

One of our systems has just gone into 'pending expansion' today. As I understand it, it will be 5 days - i.e. Friday - before expansion goes 'live', which will last from 3 to 5 days.

What I'd like to know is, what is the 'perfect' day to get into conflict in another system in order to shorten the expansion as much as possible?

One of our people thinks we can go into pending conflict after only 3 days of pending expansion - so the conflict goes 'live' on the first day of expansion. What worries me is that going into pending elections too soon will 'negate' the pending expansion. I've read somewhere that pending conflict 'overrules' any other faction state.

Can you give a definitive answer? No rush, as I said the expansion only went pending today, and we have a choice of systems we can get into conflict within a day or two.

Thanks in advance

Jmanis · Dec 26, 2016

So, I had a bit of a penny drop recently... no idea if others can corroborate this sort of thing.

I posted this bug a while back; tl;dr running the "war" themed missions in a conflict didn't actually help a faction at all when in a conflict state (despite the flavour text) - This was somewhat expected behaviour anyway as typically "missions have no effect, only ship kills/combat bonds" on influence exchanges. Around this time influence exchanges were only between the two warring states too. My bug was mostly that the flavour text didn't match the outcomes of missions. But whatever.

I've had a couple passes at trying to explain what I'm going to get at, but failed miserably. So here goes the simple thing:

Because we can now leech influence from other factions whilst in a conflict state, do war-themed missions in a conflict state now function 'correctly' (i.e increase influence of the issuing faction, as per the flavour text?). Missions to try are "Strategic data transfers" or War salvage/delivery contracts i.e noncombat.

EDIT: If you're immediate response is "no, missions don't increase influence during a conflict"; that's the fact i'm questioning now, because of the bleed effect. I don't think anyone's tried to observe this since it's started.

CMDR Endincite · Dec 26, 2016

All our recent experience points to the same situation prevailing:

Only combat actions and combat missions will produce influence changes during war/civil war, regardless of flavour text.

Only non-combat actions and non-combat missions will produce influence changes during election.

This is how things have been since I/we began major BGS work & testing in August, 2015.

If you wish to re-test again...sure I can look into that. I've only experienced "leeching" though due to changes outside the conflicting factions. E.g. all other factions in a system are pushed upward so the two in conflict move downward equally.