A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[goemon]

updated test on influence effects of selling illegal goods via the black market: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=193064&page=161&p=3783851&viewfull=1#post3783851

- I got a scaling effect with selling more tonnage (100 T, 150 T). more tonnage, more influence loss.

- Boom doesn't double the negative influence effect of selling illegal goods

 

[Szyslak22]

updated test on influence effects of selling illegal goods via the black market: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...=1#post3783851

Hate to do this to a mod, but your link is borked. [weird]

 

[goemon]

Hate to do this to a mod, but your link is borked. [weird]

corrected https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=193064&page=161&p=3783851&viewfull=1#post3783851 and edited! ty for the heads up.

question: anybody has an idea, when mission-effects apply? exampel: you take an assassination mission. after killing your target, it gets updated (for payment), without a timer. does the effect of doing this mission succesfully apply the moment you killed your target, or after handing in the mission? e.g.: would it be possible to "tank" successfull missions?

 

[Szyslak22]

The influence effect from missions happens when you turn them in. So, yes, you can store up completed missions and turn them in at a later time if you want to delay or compound the influence movement. Standard caveats apply that you should try to stay alive while holding the missions.

 

[Jmanis]

I believe it's at the time of 'completing' ie when the mission officially leaves your log for good.

With the influence caps (or even without, imo) there's no real point to stacking them.

 

[goemon]

The influence effect from missions happens when you turn them in. So, yes, you can store up completed missions and turn them in at a later time if you want to delay or compound the influence movement. Standard caveats apply that you should try to stay alive while holding the missions.

I believe it's at the time of 'completing' ie when the mission officially leaves your log for good.

With the influence caps (or even without, imo) there's no real point to stacking them.

thank you. well, civil war is more than won over here, and there are high influence missions on the bulletin board - so in that case, it makes sense to do them and store their outcome.

 

[Abil Midena]

thank you. well, civil war is more than won over here, and there are high influence missions on the bulletin board - so in that case, it makes sense to do them and store their outcome.

Just remember the inf cap.

I really wish there were a way to know while I'm playing if I'm wasting my time or not, but I don't see them showing a bar or something for the star system for me to know. Hopefully, they would find a more subtle way, though I'm not even sure they could do that real time.

I guess you just roll the dice.

 

[goemon]

Just remember the inf cap.

I really wish there were a way to know while I'm playing if I'm wasting my time or not, but I don't see them showing a bar or something for the star system for me to know. Hopefully, they would find a more subtle way, though I'm not even sure they could do that real time.

I guess you just roll the dice.

"It's easiest to think of the influence caps as a reflection of how much effort all our players have put into that entire starsystem for that day, regardless of which faction they happened to be interacting with. "

- quoting the summary of the BGS-livestream... but can't find it...

anyway, from what was said in the BGS-livestream, i actually don't think there is a hard cap, more like dimnishing returns, and there is nothing saying that it is a single-cmdr influence cap. more like: "number of actions -> increases influence bucket" - am i wrong/mistaken?

 

[Abil Midena]

"It's easiest to think of the influence caps as a reflection of how much effort all our players have put into that entire starsystem for that day, regardless of which faction they happened to be interacting with. "

- quoting the summary of the BGS-livestream... but can't find it...

anyway, from what was said in the BGS-livestream, i actually don't think there is a hard cap, more like dimnishing returns, and there is nothing saying that it is a single-cmdr influence cap. more like: "number of actions -> increases influence bucket" - am i wrong/mistaken?

You were mentioning impacts to a cw, so maybe you meant you had no inf left to take from the other factions. I dunno.

Otherwise, you could already be at the cap today, so saving makes sense. Or you could be under it, so saving them makes no sense. Since I don't think the cap is calc until the end of the tick (they have to take into account how many commanders did stuff), there's no way to know, or for them to show us. That's what I was getting at.

It just bothers me a little that I could be wasting time because I'm already at the inf cap for that system's numbers (# of commanders, pop, starting inf, etc) for the day. Just have to live with it.

A simple example for me and several commanders all trying to raise inf for Faction A: It's not that the system says, ok, Abil already contributed X%, so his actions no longer count. It says, ok, based on the info from yesterday, the inf cap is X%. Commanders did stuff to change inf by X+Y%. Therefore, X% is how much inf will change.

 

[M. Grey]

I've got a question regarding election:

Here it says:
Election - Combat action and missions do not contribute

The first part about combat actions is quite clear I think. What about the second part with the missions?

So when in election, does that mean:

That combat missions do NOT contribute...?
OR
That missions in general do NOT contribute...?

It can be read in both ways.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Turlorn]

I've got a question regarding election:

Here it says:
Election - Combat action and missions do not contribute

The first part about combat actions is quite clear I think. What about the second part with the missions?

So when in election, does that mean:

That combat missions do NOT contribute...?
OR
That missions in general do NOT contribute...?

It can be read in both ways.
Thanks in advance!

In my opinion combat missions like "kill X number of pirates", "assassinate B", and so on do not contribute.

Missions like "haul this cargo" or "deliver this data" do contribute.
I believe it has been mentioned in the live stream that only peacefull missions contribute because in an election every faction wants its good side to be seen.

 

[Jmanis]

thank you. well, civil war is more than won over here, and there are high influence missions on the bulletin board - so in that case, it makes sense to do them and store their outcome.

Be very careful that they aren't the bugged missions like hostage rescue or other things needing you to steal mission specific cargo.

I cringe everytime i see these missions and can't take them because apparently they couldn't be fixed in a minor update.....

Once I'm on beta for 2.1 that's the first thing I'm checking, and if they aren't fixed there'll be some stern words.

 

[M. Grey]

In my opinion combat missions like "kill X number of pirates", "assassinate B", and so on do not contribute.

Missions like "haul this cargo" or "deliver this data" do contribute.
I believe it has been mentioned in the live stream that only peacefull missions contribute because in an election every faction wants its good side to be seen.

Thanks!
This is how I understood it too. Assassinations and combat missions to NOT contribute.
But still it can mean that missions in general do NOT contribute while in election.

 

[Szyslak22]

Thanks!
This is how I understood it too. Assassinations and combat missions to NOT contribute.
But still it can mean that missions in general do NOT contribute while in election.

I agree with you and Turlorn, and think it's just written in a slightly ambiguous way. The results are clear though. Non-combat missions definitely contribute to influence movement during an Election. A less ambiguous version would be "Combat actions and combat missions do not contribute. All other missions contribute."

Same with the War and Civil War descriptions. "Only combat missions and combat actions contribute."

The way it's written is technically correct. It's perfectly acceptable to have one adjective modifying multiple nouns in a list (e.g. The purple shirt and tie...) An adjective is only needed on the second noun if it highlights a difference ( e.g. The purple shirt and black tie...) It's one of those stuffy rules of English grammar, but when trying to be concise in a table, every word counts. So if the intention was not to have "combat" modify both nouns, the order would be switched ("Missions and combat actions...)

 

[M. Grey]

Guess we all understood it right then.
Thanks for the quick response!

 

[goemon]

Combat action and missions do not contribute

anybody tested, whether shooting ships of the other faction has a positive influence effect for your faction? it shouldn't - but when in lockdown, you can raise your influence by making other factions loosing influence via shipkills. might be blocked in case of election, because factions in conflict can only win from each other.

 

[Matzov]

anybody tested, whether shooting ships of the other faction has a positive influence effect for your faction? it shouldn't - but when in lockdown, you can raise your influence by making other factions loosing influence via shipkills. might be blocked in case of election, because factions in conflict can only win from each other.

In my experience it redistributes to all other factions. Of course, if other factions are in conflict, they don't get the pass-back and the redistribution is narrowed. Or if you kill ships of a faction in war/CW, then the redistribution should only be to the faction they are in conflict with.

 

[goemon]

In my experience it redistributes to all other factions. Of course, if other factions are in conflict, they don't get the pass-back and the redistribution is narrowed. Or if you kill ships of a faction in war/CW, then the redistribution should only be to the faction they are in conflict with.

yes, meets my experience. but how about election?

___

next question: if you have a minor faction in several systems, and it is in a state like boom or civil unrest, do you have to end/counter that state in the very system where the state has its roots, or can you conter a state in any system that minor faction is in?

 

[Matzov]

next question: if you have a minor faction in several systems, and it is in a state like boom or civil unrest, do you have to end/counter that state in the very system where the state has its roots, or can you conter a state in any system that minor faction is in?

If CoatOSilver & Jmanis's analysis of 'buckets' for States is correct (and it looks pretty solid) you should be able to counter those states anywhere. Likewise, if you drop bounties/Combat bonds in any control...

 

[glojo]

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.

Because this is a 'Pending Election' we went hell for leather in an attempt to separate the influence of these two factions whilst at the same time we tried to readjust the influences in the system where we want a station.

At the tick today one faction has 19% whilst the other has 21%. There is a state of Lockdown in that system and the election is still pending.

In our system where we tried to adjust the influence to level out both sides.... That failed in an absolutely CRAZY manner..

The faction we want to attack had 41.7%... We had 36.7% a gap of 5%

We did a few missions on both ourselves to improve our percentage and a few missions on our adversary to bring down their numbers.

Today we had a huge shock when the click arrived.

We had bought down our adversary from 41.7 to 29.7% and at the same time we went up from 36.7 to 45.4%

In the system where there was the election pending and both sides were on 15%

We tried to seperate them but even this did not go how we expected.

One side somehow went up to 19% (It should have gone down)

The opposing side went up to 21% which is what we expected but there is still a 2% gap..and one faction at least is now in lockdown.

My questions if you are still following this epic saga is perhaps twofold

Can we inflict a Civil War if we go for 60% influence? (is it 60, 65 or 70%)

Can we invoke a Civil War if we hammer the controlling faction and knock them down to 5% or less, no matter what our influence is?

Apologies for this epic but I did not want to keep pestering one member who has already been extremely helpful.

Best wishes
glojo