A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[Don Alvarez]

I've seen Civil Wars with capships. I'll keep my eye out next time and get screenshots.

I recall (but don't take my word on it) that there were other "factors" that influenced whether Captial ships would appear (in High CZs) relating to underlying factors (e.g wealth, overall influence etc) but definitely take that with a grain of salt.

I'd be curious to know. I'm basing that theory from what Dav said during the BGS livestream some time ago. I thought i recalled them popping up in civil war CZ's as well, but I could be remembering incorrectly. Since he made the comment, whenever I've come across them it's all been in a War scenario.

Does anyone know if Walt updates the OP anymore? Is he even still around? I haven't seen him in a while.

 

[Mangal Oemie]

Just a small note that 2.2.03 didn't do anything with skimmer missions. They still stack, skimmers kills still count for all missions, and unless there is a hidden inf balance that wasn't in the patch notes, the BGS destruction by skimmer missions continues...

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

As I understand it:

You need 70% influence, no other requirements.

Everything else you wrote is correct, except the 70% bit. It is definitely 75%. Here is proof from an expansion that just happened:

 

[Jmanis]

Does anyone know if Walt updates the OP anymore? Is he even still around? I haven't seen him in a while.

I've on-and-off been trying to come up with a very basic updated guide which cuts out a lot of the "might be correct, but no hard evidence" stuff, but stuff is still getting complex fast. I'll work it out eventually I hope

 

[Roybe]

I'd be curious to know. I'm basing that theory from what Dav said during the BGS livestream some time ago. I thought i recalled them popping up in civil war CZ's as well, but I could be remembering incorrectly. Since he made the comment, whenever I've come across them it's all been in a War scenario.

Does anyone know if Walt updates the OP anymore? Is he even still around? I haven't seen him in a while.

I have not talked with Walt in a while...RL obligations probably have intervened...

 

[Starwolfe]

As I understand it:

You need 70% influence, no other requirements.

Expansions are pending for 5 days, last 3-5 days and have a cooldown of 2 days.

If there are no valid systems (populated, has a spare faction slot) in range to expand to, the faction will go into the Investment state, then looks for a valid system again at increased range. There is no way to control what system a faction expands to.

I presume each system can only expand once, otherwise a faction at 70% would constantly be expanding or in cooldown, but I'm not 100% sure.

As mentioned above, its 75% or higher.

AFIK from what I have seen a single system can continually expand provided the influence is at that rate to push the expansion.

The reason it isn't constant is that there is a built in 3% loss in influence for the expanding faction per day - potentially loosing 15%-21% during the exercise.

 

[irongut]

As I understand it:

You need 70% influence, no other requirements.

Expansions are pending for 5 days, last 3-5 days and have a cooldown of 2 days.

If there are no valid systems (populated, has a spare faction slot) in range to expand to, the faction will go into the Investment state, then looks for a valid system again at increased range. There is no way to control what system a faction expands to.

I presume each system can only expand once, otherwise a faction at 70% would constantly be expanding or in cooldown, but I'm not 100% sure.

In order..

Wrong, it's 75%.

Wrong, active period is 5 -7 days.

Fine but you can sort of pick the destination by picking the correct source system for your expansion.

A system can expand as many times as you like and there are destination systems available. During expansion active the faction loses 3.2% per day. Get them back over 75% or keep them there throughout and they will enter another expansion cycle after recovery ends.

- - - Updated - - -

You might find this useful

http://i.imgur.com/ubiInGk.jpg

Or you might find it very out of date.

 

[irongut]

Just a small note that 2.2.03 didn't do anything with skimmer missions. They still stack, skimmers kills still count for all missions, and unless there is a hidden inf balance that wasn't in the patch notes, the BGS destruction by skimmer missions continues...

Did you actually read the patch notes? I'll make it easy for you:
- Massacre Conflict missions will only accept conflict zone targets

Also I have evidence from earlier this week that massacre missions don't actually provide influence. I will need to retest after today's patch though which is annoying when I have other things I'd rather be testing.

 

[Julio Montega]

Let me add my experiences to the bgs from the pirate point of view:
- boom and expansion state in a system spawn more traders
- bust spawns less traders

To a pirate this is a vital information.

 

[toto66]

Also I have evidence from earlier this week that massacre missions don't actually provide influence. I will need to retest after today's patch though which is annoying when I have other things I'd rather be testing.

It was introduced in 2.1. Probably not a bug (see https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/258600-BGS-No-influence-gain-from-combat-zone-mission).

 

[goemon]

Let me add my experiences to the bgs from the pirate point of view:
- boom and expansion state in a system spawn more traders
- bust spawns less traders

To a pirate this is a vital information.

also, from my experience, boom spawns smugglers with illegal rares.

 

[goemon]

It was introduced in 2.1. Probably not a bug (see https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/258600-BGS-No-influence-gain-from-combat-zone-mission).

very interesting.

 

[Ben Ryder]

In order..

Wrong, it's 75%.

Wrong, active period is 5 -7 days.

Fine but you can sort of pick the destination by picking the correct source system for your expansion.

A system can expand as many times as you like and there are destination systems available. During expansion active the faction loses 3.2% per day. Get them back over 75% or keep them there throughout and they will enter another expansion cycle after recovery ends.

- - - Updated - - -



Or you might find it very out of date.

Any chance on an up to date version? This seems to be working well enough for my purposes but something more accurate would be great.

Have FD publsihed an update or is it from good ol player investigation and science?

- - - Updated - - -

Did you actually read the patch notes? I'll make it easy for you:
- Massacre Conflict missions will only accept conflict zone targets

Also I have evidence from earlier this week that massacre missions don't actually provide influence. I will need to retest after today's patch though which is annoying when I have other things I'd rather be testing.

Id honestly lveo tp see the evidence re massacre mission not giving influence. My experience sya otherwise. Maybe the did at one point and somehing changed. It's be odd having comabt type mission not giving combat influence. Thanks Sir o7

 

[CMDR Endincite]

Hello again all.

So with a new patch we, like other groups I expect, begin a new round of testing to see what works and what doesn't this time around.

Before I go and spend a few days testing one particularly troubling report though, I thought I'd ask here for recent experience.

Suffice it to say, someone I trust to know what he's about is convinced the 'coup' trigger for conflict - a non-controlling faction reaching 60% or thereabouts - isn't working at all.
Does anyone have recent experience with this? The mechanic would seem to serve a very good purpose and if it isn't working...well that's an issue.

 

[Mangal Oemie]

Did you actually read the patch notes? I'll make it easy for you:
- Massacre Conflict missions will only accept conflict zone targets

Also I have evidence from earlier this week that massacre missions don't actually provide influence. I will need to retest after today's patch though which is annoying when I have other things I'd rather be testing.

That has nothing to do with skimmer missions. That's about combat massacre missions, and that now you can't kill skimmers for them.
Maybe you should read the comment you're replying to?

Massacre missions don't actually provide inf because no missions provide inf during war state.

 

[Jane Turner]

That has nothing to do with skimmer missions. That's about combat massacre missions, and that now you can't kill skimmers for them.
Maybe you should read the comment you're replying to?

Massacre missions don't actually provide inf because no missions provide inf during war state.

That's patently not true. (or wasn't as of last week)

We have (re)confirmed that its possible to expand without controlling the system

- - - Updated - - -

Hello again all.

So with a new patch we, like other groups I expect, begin a new round of testing to see what works and what doesn't this time around.

Before I go and spend a few days testing one particularly troubling report though, I thought I'd ask here for recent experience.

Suffice it to say, someone I trust to know what he's about is convinced the 'coup' trigger for conflict - a non-controlling faction reaching 60% or thereabouts - isn't working at all.
Does anyone have recent experience with this? The mechanic would seem to serve a very good purpose and if it isn't working...well that's an issue.

We had a situation where we had been holding 2 systems well over 60% and neither triggered - instead a 3rd consecutive war triggered back to back in a different system

 

[Mangal Oemie]

We've not seen combat missions effects, but then, we rarely see combat missions offered in our area. We can confirm, though, that skimmer missions (with the combat symbol) don't count during war.

 

[Schlack]

Hello again all.

So with a new patch we, like other groups I expect, begin a new round of testing to see what works and what doesn't this time around.

Before I go and spend a few days testing one particularly troubling report though, I thought I'd ask here for recent experience.

Suffice it to say, someone I trust to know what he's about is convinced the 'coup' trigger for conflict - a non-controlling faction reaching 60% or thereabouts - isn't working at all.
Does anyone have recent experience with this? The mechanic would seem to serve a very good purpose and if it isn't working...well that's an issue.

Coup mechanic definitely working recently.

 

[toto66]

Yes. You will go into the nearest system (to the system that you are expanding from) with 6 factions or less.

True in 99% of cases.
I witnessed at least two nondetermenistic expansions:
1. Expansion went to system 24,39ly from expansion source, skipping system 24,03ly with free slots. It was in April, prior to 2.1 however.
2. System 21,01ly away from source was picked instead of system 20,65ly away. Both systems had 6 factions before expansion. It was in December.

The simplest explanation is that BGS used rounded to integer distance to pick expansion target. Or another funny consequence of CAP theorem.

Worth to mention that:
You can't expand to populated systems with zero factions. The purpose of existence of such systems is unknown.
You can expand to the same system several times (expand, retreat, expand again), there is no "memory".
You don't need to be a system ruler to expand. You need only 75% of influence.

 

[Schlack]

We had a situation where we had been holding 2 systems well over 60% and neither triggered - instead a 3rd consecutive war triggered back to back in a different system

Ugh, yeah we got stuck in a cycle of endless recurring conflicts for a while. It only broke when we entered pending war with another faction while during an active election (day 3 I think). System extremely busy with insane daily influence changes. My suspicion is that something in the state change mechanism has changed or is malfunctioning since 2.2 dropped.

edit: also saw coup blocked for a month due to other states. Skimmer grinding is poison.