A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

My home system has 76 inhabited systems within 30ly and I'm near the edge of the bubble. If expansions are going out to 50ly we really need an indication of where it went.

I proposed showing where you had expanded to in the home systems local news, as others have....here is the reply


'Hey dazzlerbing,

Thanks for the suggestion, I've passed the idea on to be reviewed. It would be handy if all system news feeds displayed what systems the controlling faction of that station were found in. Hope that becomes a thing as you're not the only one that's frustrated about this.'
 
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Whoa there....maths!!! I put into eddb where I was and to search for systems with stations and it came back with 413...despite what I originally said I have continued the search, now out to 43ly still no sign after 4 hours of 'gameplay'.

Believe me typing names into the galaxy maps using a Xbox controller is no fun at all...it also gives me a wonderful 'buzz crash' to Xbox dashboard after 10 (maximum) system displays.

An update to this (in case anyone is remotely interested), after only a small amount of pestering...

I had an amusing message back from QA stating 'the expansion colonists ran into technical difficulties en route to the new system. They are now repaired and in the new system'.
So I never would have found the expansion site, bonus is it's only 20ly away.
 
till i stand corrected ... :) :

In an anarchy system, does murder and piracy have the same effect?

- the word "murder" only came into this by MB's dev update at the beginning of year. till then it was called "destroying a minor factions ships". this is still the basic "influence hit", and works, no matter whether it is an anarchy or not.

- for me, it isn't clear whether "piracy" is really an own "activity" for the bgs, and how it is identified. killing civilian ships? selling stolen goods? Interdicting? a combination of fines, blackmarket-trade, bounties?

Second, are bounties relevant in an anarchy?

- yes, you can push influence and influence economic states by cashing in bounties. you can't by gaining fines/bounties, because an anarchy doesn't give out one.

Do we have any reason to treat anarchy any differently than the rest when working on tactics?

- you have less sideeffects ... for exampel: shooting system sec won't push controlling faction into lockdown that easily, because you don't have the additional effect of gaining fines/ bounties. so basically it's more straight-forward. in an anarchy, you simple do war against a minor faction (e.g.: shoot all their ships), till you have their influence where you want it. which actually makes sense :)

Bounty bonds and combat bonds!
Are they effectively the same when cashing in but just collected differently?
How does it work when bounties are collected from another system?
Combat bonds I assume are system specific.

- no, they are not the same and treated differently

- it looks to me like both have a very basic common effect, to push influence by "profit" for the station controlling faction

- cashing in bonds from another system still helps the factions influence in the system you are cashing them in (on a low level), but doesn't help to win the a war in another system

- bonds don't have side-effects like reducing a lock-down

- bounties will influence the outcome of a war only in so far, as they make the influence difference higher. if you want to win a war, go to CZ

- cashing in bounties from another system has the same effect as cashing in bounties from the same system. the difference is: if you bountiehunt in the same system, you get the additional effect of "reducing a factions influence by destroying their ships". e.g.: the influence of the pirates faction will drop faster.

Another question!
How can you utilize it, if the faction you are supporting is present in another system?

some exampels: a) you wan't to end a lockdown, but you don't wan't to reduce a factions influence in system to much. you go to another system for bounty hunting, but you cash in bounties in the first system b) you wan't to end an economic state. you trigger a civil war in one system, which interrupts economic states in all systems. c) you have a faction in two different economies, now you can trade between stations of your faction with great profit and steady raising influence in both systems ...
 
till i stand corrected ... :) :



- the word "murder" only came into this by MB's dev update at the beginning of year. till then it was called "destroying a minor factions ships". this is still the basic "influence hit", and works, no matter whether it is an anarchy or not.

- for me, it isn't clear whether "piracy" is really an own "activity" for the bgs, and how it is identified. killing civilian ships? selling stolen goods? Interdicting? a combination of fines, blackmarket-trade, bounties?



- yes, you can push influence and influence economic states by cashing in bounties. you can't by gaining fines/bounties, because an anarchy doesn't give out one.



- you have less sideeffects ... for exampel: shooting system sec won't push controlling faction into lockdown that easily, because you don't have the additional effect of gaining fines/ bounties. so basically it's more straight-forward. in an anarchy, you simple do war against a minor faction (e.g.: shoot all their ships), till you have their influence where you want it. which actually makes sense :)



- no, they are not the same and treated differently

- it looks to me like both have a very basic common effect, to push influence by "profit" for the station controlling faction

- cashing in bonds from another system still helps the factions influence in the system you are cashing them in (on a low level), but doesn't help to win the a war in another system

- bonds don't have side-effects like reducing a lock-down

- bounties will influence the outcome of a war only in so far, as they make the influence difference higher. if you want to win a war, go to CZ

- cashing in bounties from another system has the same effect as cashing in bounties from the same system. the difference is: if you bountiehunt in the same system, you get the additional effect of "reducing a factions influence by destroying their ships". e.g.: the influence of the pirates faction will drop faster.



some exampels: a) you wan't to end a lockdown, but you don't wan't to reduce a factions influence in system to much. you go to another system for bounty hunting, but you cash in bounties in the first system b) you wan't to end an economic state. you trigger a civil war in one system, which interrupts economic states in all systems. c) you have a faction in two different economies, now you can trade between stations of your faction with great profit and steady raising influence in both systems ...
It says i can only give you 1 rep, Many thanks, I have never had to deal with anarchy systems and that reply popped a few more pieces of this BGS puzzle into the old grey matter.
 
so killing wanted npc ship of the own faction is really bad for our influence ?

if you are controlling the system, and cash in the bounties, the effect of cashing in the bounties will make up for both - reputation- and influence hit. so, if you are the controlling faction, bountyhunting your own ships has a "positive" effect in total - and you will get the other effects of bhing, like reduced chance of lockdown or civil unrest. but if you want to max influence effect, you should only bountyhunt ships of other minor factions.
 
if you are controlling the system, and cash in the bounties, the effect of cashing in the bounties will make up for both - reputation- and influence hit. so, if you are the controlling faction, bountyhunting your own ships has a "positive" effect in total - and you will get the other effects of bhing, like reduced chance of lockdown or civil unrest. but if you want to max influence effect, you should only bountyhunt ships of other minor factions.
I'm still finding that hunting ships other than the lead still has a negative effect on the leading faction, even though they pay out the most. This was a casual observation earlier this week, but I haven't done anything systematic to confirm this. I was going to wait until 2.1 landed, but that's probably some time off. It's one of the most profitable tests that a single player can do. I have a poorly-visited system in mind so I might have a go tonight and hope there's a tick tomorrow to check the results.
 
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I'm still finding that hunting ships other than the lead still has a negative effect on the leading faction, even though they pay out the most. This was a casual observation earlier this week, but I haven't done anything systematic to confirm this. I was going to wait until 2.1 landed, but that's probably some time off. It's one of the most profitable tests that a single player can do. I have a poorly-visited system in mind so I might have a go tonight and hope there's a tick tomorrow to check the results.

you mean, the controlling faction getting an influence hit by bounty hunting wanted ships of the other minor factions, while you sell bounties at a station of the controlling faction?
 
hmmmm

we own a station in baal but are not the main ruling faction in Baal , just of this one station

now im confused :(

so we dont kill the wanted npcs of our faction until we are the main ruling faction of the whole system Baal ?

thx for you time gentlemen
 
so we dont kill the wanted npcs of our faction until we are the main ruling faction of the whole system Baal ?

exactly. actually you should only kill wanted ships of the controlling faction, till you are at least the second influencial faction, because influence hits are shared proportional to influence to the others factions, if i remember right (there was something with first and second influenctial faction.... does anybody remember?)

and you only cash in bounties given by your faction (you need a kws for that) at your station. and you don't cash in bounties of any other faction in that system.
 
'Fraid so. It's not the first time I've mentioned it on this thread (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=193064&page=48&p=3327882&viewfull=1#post3327882), but it needs testing periodically.

i think, it especially would need testing for more than one day. we have seen mysterious downs in influence for a tick or two.

also, it would be great, to tackle the question of single commander influence cap and whether it is a cap on percentage of influence, or it is a different cap for each activity. for exampel: i kill 50 ships, and are capped after that. after that, killing ships has no influence. i cash in 500 k CR bounties and am capped after that. selling more bounties has no influence. or - i'm capped when i hit an influence change of 3% in that system. this could make a difference - for exampel in your case.

another set up would be, whether killing ships of non-controlling factions changes the influence of the controlling faction in an anarchy. if not, it needs to be tracked back to bounties/fines - and in that case targeting wanted ships of the non-controlling minor factions shouldn't have a negative effect on the major faction.

@roybes answer on your quoted post was referring to powerplay-merit-farmers killing non-wanted ships, and therefor doing crminal acts - which hits the controlling faction of course (and was changed in one of the latest patches in case of powerplay).
 
In reference to the solo player cap... I am a player group of 1 on the Xbox and have worked the BGS to gain control of 3 systems and just expanded into a 4th.

The last system had 1 outpost and a small population of 2734.
My method of gaining control in this system was entirely BB focused, I didn't fire a single shot (there was a no CZ bug for taking control of the system) unless interdicted, which happened a lot from the systems pirate faction.

The largest % increase I managed in a tick was 22%, I only had a few missions for my minor faction but took a large amount of other factions missions and took the alternative complete missions. There were a bunch of bring x commodity to the station missions which have a medium influence which helped. The 22% was gained from all the minor factions.The following day I soley completed missions for my minor faction and alternative completed missions only for the system controlling faction which led to a 18% swing.

Unlike many of you BGS experts I don't keep notes on my activities(wish I did now just for this post) i just remember the influence percentage when I log off (as I only play once the wife and child have gone to bed) and see what it is the following evening.

Don't know if this info helps.
 
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In reference to the solo player cap... I am a player group of 1 on the Xbox and have worked the BGS to gain control of 3 systems and just expanded into a 4th.

The last system had 1 outpost and a small population.
My method of gaining control in this system was entirely BB focused, I didn't fire a single shot (there was a no CZ bug for taking control of the system) unless interdicted, which happened a lot from the systems pirate faction.

The largest % increase I managed in a tick was 22%, I only had a few missions for my minor faction but took a large amount of other factions missions and took the alternative complete missions. There were a bunch of bring x commodity to the station missions which have a medium influence which helped. The 22% was gained from all the minor factions.The following day I soley completed missions for my minor faction and alternative completed missions only for the system controlling faction which led to a 18% swing.

Unlike many of you BGS experts I don't keep notes on my activities(wish I did now just for this post) i just remember the influence percentage when I log off (as I only play once the wife and child have gone to bed) and see what it is the following evening.

Don't know if this info helps.

impressive swing! can you add the size of population of that system?
 
Can't check in game without kicking my boy off Just Cause....according to eddb it is only 2734, the previous system I took control of was similar with only 2169.

Just had an expansion into a 5 mil population system, will let you know how that progresses.
 
Can't check in game without kicking my boy off Just Cause....according to eddb it is only 2734, the previous system I took control of was similar with only 2169.

Just had an expansion into a 5 mil population system, will let you know how that progresses.

thank you! yes, you'll feel the difference. interesting to know one can push a system alone by 22%.
 
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