A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

FYI, Yesterday Frontier fixed/nerfed an exploit connected to trading one ton at a time. Previously 1t-trade enabled a single player to do massive influence swings to station owners (in one of my tests 23.7% in less than one hour of playing).

The fix is hopefully otherwise harmless, but it
1) may have caused other changes how BGS works related to trading
2) may have caused some weird effects on last tick

Frontier has not published Patch Notes for the server side update.
 
(trade data on impact to inf)

FYI, Yesterday Frontier fixed/nerfed an exploit connected to trading one ton at a time. Previously 1t-trade enabled a single player to do massive influence swings to station owners (in one of my tests 23.7% in less than one hour of playing).

The fix is hopefully otherwise harmless, but it
1) may have caused other changes how BGS works related to trading
2) may have caused some weird effects on last tick

Frontier has not published Patch Notes for the server side update.
Jmanis, any chance you could check your reference systems with bulk trade to get an idea of tonnage impact to inf? I am interested mostly in the difference you see based on pop.
 
Last edited:
I've not read through all of this thread so apologies if these questions have been answered before...

Do 'all' combat missions effect a Civil War, IE Assassination missions to go kill people who have nothing to do with the war, in another system as well as the Kill opposition ships in war zones missions?

Is there a way to increase the number of 'Kill opposition ships in war zones' missions you are offered?
 
Do 'all' combat missions effect a Civil War, IE Assassination missions to go kill people who have nothing to do with the war, in another system as well as the Kill opposition ships in war zones missions?

unknown. and hard to test. i work under the assumption, that all missions related to war (kill deserter, bring battle weapons) do count.

Is there a way to increase the number of 'Kill opposition ships in war zones' missions you are offered?

no.
 
unknown. and hard to test. i work under the assumption, that all missions related to war (kill deserter, bring battle weapons) do count.



no.
Yes
We won the war only with missions (combat like) for our faction. (because we had bug for no CZ)
 
Yes
We won the war only with missions (combat like) for our faction. (because we had bug for no CZ)
The 'Missing CZ' bug allows you to do any missions for your faction to bring down the opposition. In other words, keep doing what you were doing before war was declared to raise your faction to the required threshold for victory.
 
Last edited:
Our Civil War finished today with a win for our group. However I still find the result a bit baffling. During the three day pending state the other faction's influence rose sharply without any clear cause (we were pushish our own faction). This meant we started the Civil-War proper 11% behind. By yesterday morning we had drawn it back level at 44.2% each.

Today the war is over and we took one of the other faction's two stations. However the influence percentages are still at 44.2% (I did 22 War Zone missions alone yesterday). We are now in the pending state of... Civil War.

Whist this is actually good for us (we don't have to have another period of working for the other faction to get them level with us to start a war again), as we can go right into round 2 and try to take there last station, it does not seem to make any sense?

Can you have back to back Civil-Wars? Why would the influences not have moved (unless someone else is working for the opposition and we cancelled each other out... to the tenth of a percent)?
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 38366

D
I got a few Questions about things I've observed on the BGS for a long time now :

1) Civil Wars/Wars/Election win/lose trigger condition

Basically would like a verification (or dismissal) on what I've observed :
- if the trigger condition is met anytime during the cycle even momentarily, the winner is decided
- this occurs regardless of any follow-up Influence movements, if the minimum duration keeps the State alive for another or more days
- can lead to numeric Influence results during following days that would indicate i.e. no Winner/change of assets - but a winner was actually determined by hitting the trigger condition
-> so if win-condition is met, it may occur invisibly during a cycle and cause a surprise, as the Influence Numbers @ end of State may not indicate or reflect that at all

Kinda begs the question if i.e. it's useful to still keep fighting if Influence Delta was clearly achieved (clear Influence numbers the next day), but the State remains active for 1-2 more days due to minimum duration.
Intuitively, I'd be tempted to maintain the Influence Delta for the remainder of the Conflict/Election - but I think this might not be required.

Thoughts ?




2) "Rubber-Banding Influence" - Influence decay without any Player activity

I've long suspected that the BGS has some trigger vaues for Influence and will move back towards these if Factions exceed these thresholds, if not counteracted by Player Support.
Ever since permanently monitoring a number of Systems which I know didn't have any Player traffic alot of times (did spot-checks on Traffic Report to confirm and verify), it seems that my suspicions (gained mid last year) seem correct.

Examples :
COL 285 Sector DM-K C9-10 , Population : 96k ; a remote System added by Horizons Release with only a Colony so no way to really support any Faction there.
Starting Influence observed : 16 Dec 2015 - 32.4%
Typical Influence Decay : ~0.6%/day
Moving Influence Decay slowed down during the following weeks and eventually reached its terminal state (24.3%).
Note : System is bugged with no landable place, thus no actual Economy despite GalMap stating otherwise, due to that not exactly a Reference System

HIP 60541, Population 2.6k ; a remote System with a very remote Outpost that rarely sees any Traffic
Observed Influence Decay (>71% Influence) : ~0.4%/day
Observed Influence Decay (<71% Influence) : ~0.2%/day, sometimes ~0.4%/day

HIP 60942, Population 134k ; System has phases of no Player Traffic
Observed Influence Decay (>71% Influence) : ~0.4%/day
Observed Influence Decay (<71% Influence) : ~0.2%/day

Lie Zhonpon, Population 3.5k ; System has isolated phases of no Player Traffic
Observed Influence Decay (>71% Influence) : ~0.4%/day
Observed Influence Decay (<71% Influence) : ~0.2%/day

COL 285 Sector EN-W B17-1, Population 180k; System is bugged and holds nothing in it but a single other Faction that used to have 100% Influence before we expanded into it (no Stations/Outpost/Planetary Installations)
Observed Influence gain (9-10% Influence) : ~0.2%/day
Other single Faction's losses (90% Influence) : ~0.2%/day accordingly ; IMHO this is what's the driving factor of Influence movement

Since I've never read any official statement on automatic Decay, pulled by an invisible rubber-band towards something I'd call "Default parameters", just an Observation I'm tossing into the room for discussion/consideration.
The big question also remains as to what these "Default Parameters" are, that cause the decay to eventually cease.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I got a few Questions about things I've observed on the BGS for a long time now :

1) Civil Wars/Wars/Election win/lose trigger condition

Basically would like to confirm my thoughts on what I've observed :
- if the trigger condition is met anytime during the cycle even momentarily, the winner is decided
- this occurs regardless of any follow-up Influence movements, if the minimum duration keeps the State alive for another or more days
- can lead to numeric Influence results during following days that would indicate i.e. no Winner/change of assets - but a winner was actually determined by hitting the trigger condition
-> so if win-condition is met, it may occur invisibly during a cycle and cause a surprise, as the Influence Numbers @ end of State may not indicate or reflect that at all

Kinda begs the question if i.e. it's useful to still keep fighting if Influence Delta was clearly achieved (clear Influence numbers the next day), but the State remains active for 1-2 more days due to minimum duration.
Intuitively, I'd be tempted to maintain the Influence Delta for the remainder of the Conflict/Election - but I think this might not be requried.

Thoughts?

I wonder if this is what I am observing in my post above. The war started on Friday after a few days of one faction making unexplained gains. Over the next two days we caused an 11% swing in our favour (-5.5% and +5.5%). The system decided we had gained 5% and so declared us the winner. However that was after only 2 of the mandatory 3 days of war. Yesterday we carried on grinding missions but nothing has changed other than the war ending and we gained a station. But it almost looks like it froze the percentages until the war completed it's three days minimum, once we hit the hidden win conditions.

But in this case:

What happened to the influence we earned yesterday?

As it stopped with us both on 44.2% it has triggered an second Civil-War immediately. Is that right?

If we win again will the percentages change?
 
I cant remember the exact wording or even find the post at this stage, however we were told that the BGS has an inbuilt mechanism to move factions away from the extremes even where there is no player activity.
 
Influence decay without any Player activity . . .
This has been happening for some time (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=221826&page=23&p=3398171&viewfull=1#post3398171) - we call it the 'top-slice' effect just to give it an identity. In most static systems between .1 and .4 is taken off the top and distributed to the lowest two or three factions in the ranking; those in an average position tend to lose out and the distribution does depend on how many factions are in the system.

Not all systems are affected and I can't guarantee observational accuracy, but systems where the lead faction has a hefty lead - ranking at about 80% - are frequently immune to this mechanism. But static systems with less of a spread of points can also be found, so there may be no generalised rule in operation or other factors may be in play.

Or it's just an indefinable bug.
 
Last edited:
Hi, a quick question please, do you know if killing system authority ships still reduces influence of the controlling faction when that faction is in civil war ?
 
Jmanis, any chance you could check your reference systems with bulk trade to get an idea of tonnage impact to inf? I am interested mostly in the difference you see based on pop.

So, I didn't get to do as much as I wanted to tonight. I did one simple 100t cargo run at 200cr/t profit in a system which is generally very low traffic (300k ls to the station, and it's just a single tiny outpost), and a run of 100t cargo at 515cr/t to a 4mil pop system.

Results are inconclusive. I gained 2% influence in the small system with 200cr/t profit, lost 1% in the 4m pop system. The 4m system is more frequented, though not much. It's all quite inconclusive. It's hard for me to test at the moment, I'm on a very strict timeline trying to kick a war off right now, as my time is about to become quite limited.

If i can sneak in some better tests with higher volumes, I'll let you know what I can find.
 
Good to know, thanks :)

have in mind, that during a war influence changes should be only shared between the minor factions in war, but it doesn't work like this atm. the influence loss of your controlling faction will most probably given to all of the other factions in relation to their influence.
 
have in mind, that during a war influence changes should be only shared between the minor factions in war, but it doesn't work like this atm. the influence loss of your controlling faction will most probably given to all of the other factions in relation to their influence.

My understanding is as follows:

Factions outside a conflict can only steal or lose influence from/to other factions not in conflict. Factions in conflict can only steal or lose influence from/to other factions in conflict

If 2 factions are at war influence changes are only between the 2. Where 2 sets of factions are at war all 4 can win or lose influence from each other but not any factions not involved in conflict in the system.
 
My understanding is as follows:

Factions outside a conflict can only steal or lose influence from/to other factions not in conflict. Factions in conflict can only steal or lose influence from/to other factions in conflict

If 2 factions are at war influence changes are only between the 2. Where 2 sets of factions are at war all 4 can win or lose influence from each other but not any factions not involved in conflict in the system.

yes, that is my understanding, too. but from what i have experienced it looks to me more like: several influence loses/gains are only shared between minor factions in conflict, while others (like influence love because of ship kills) work independent from state ... no serious testing, though.
 
Back
Top Bottom