A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[Roybe]

new in the beta:


Galactic Simulation:

- Fix an issue when you had exactly -35 rep, it couldn't work out your relationship
- Added investment faction state
- Rebalance how player actions and missions count towards the star system's influence caps for the day
- Rebalance how player actions and missions contribute towards faction state and influence buckets
- Additional factors now contribute towards outbreak and famine's buckets
- Added a new "Retreat" state for factions with low influence levels not in their home system
- Significantly changed the "Expanded" state. The Faction's search for another system is now triggered at the end of the expansion's active phase. If the surrounding systems are full, then an expansion might trigger an invasion war if an appropriate defender can be found.
- Added new "Investment" state for factions that have failed to expand, which significantly increases development level for a short time and lets the Faction search a bit further away when they next expand
- The "Lockdown" state now locks down many station services for affected Factions, allowing Commanders to concentrate on helping those Factions' crime control efforts
- Conflicts should now be easier to win, with rebalanced effects of combat actions during conflicts.
- War now only needs a 5% influence difference to win. Civil War and Elections remain at 3%
- When assigning the spoils of war, Ports & Stations that ships can dock at, are now considered more valuable than Planetary Settlements
- Send out Inbox messages when Commander reputation changes past each threshold
- Superpower reputation now affects the rate of change of affiliated Faction reputation
- Fix background sim consequences for crimes other than piracy or murder and to consider both the victim faction and the faction that controls the jurisdiction of any crime
- Local news articles have been improved for many states, including which system a Faction has just expanded into!
- Fixed localisation for Commodity and Ship descriptions in local news reports

 

[irongut]

new in the beta:

Wow lots of new stuff and changes. The new states sound interesting, especially Investment. I suspect we will need a lot of testing to figure out how the effects of player actions have been rebalanced.

 

[jimbeau1571]

Wow lots of new stuff and changes. The new states sound interesting, especially Investment. I suspect we will need a lot of testing to figure out how the effects of player actions have been rebalanced.

Great stuff, only war is now down to 5 from 15! To easy.

 

[Szyslak22]

Hey, remember everything you thought you knew about expansion? Forget it. We changed everything.

I think that's what I just read. :|

I'm sure we won't get a long enough beta to iron out all the issues with expansion and retreat, so that should be very interesting. If they make expansion happen at the end of the active state, I sure as hell hope they changed it so that nothing can override the expansion state.

I do like the idea of "Investment" and having to fight an invasion conflict to displace a faction. I just don't have a lot of faith that these will work correctly.

 

[jimbeau1571]

I think that's what I just read. :|

I'm sure we won't get a long enough beta to iron out all the issues with expansion and retreat, so that should be very interesting. If they make expansion happen at the end of the active state, I sure as hell hope they changed it so that nothing can override the expansion state.

I do like the idea of "Investment" and having to fight an invasion conflict to displace a faction. I just don't have a lot of faith that these will work correctly.

You just know that Boom is going to        it up no end!

 

[Szyslak22]

I've started a thread asking FD for some information about the new expansion and retreat changes in the beta forum. I think there are a lot of people in this thread that are willing to test the new functionality if we have some basic information about how it's supposed to work. If you agree, please post in the following thread and let FD know:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=246436

Thanks.

 

[MONTItheRed]

Sorry of this was covered earlier, I didn't see a mention of it on the front page and 176 pages are weary to read through on a cell phone.

Had anyone encountered surface missions that report a loss of influence for the minor faction that have the mission?

http://imgur.com/7xILpaW
http://imgur.com/Ql0WVIH
http://imgur.com/TUKkxwj

The only missions my wing find that fit this are the terminal interface missions (data retrieval, installation, free data for all). Initial research indicates they DO DECREASE influence, but the consensus I get from BGS gurus is that all missions increase influence.

Thoughts?

 

[goemon]

, but the consensus I get from BGS gurus is that all missions increase influence.

Thoughts?

i don't think, this is correct. but it is hard to test.

 

[jimbeau1571]

So I got my station and system control yesterday, and now need to push it through to be able to expand. Not wanting to go into Boom, I figured BHing was the solution and pulled up the Nav panel to lock on to the Nav beacon. No Nav beacon?    !
It's only gone and changed into a CNB!!!!!
Winner winner. Didn't know that could happen.

 

[goemon]

So I got my station and system control yesterday, and now need to push it through to be able to expand. Not wanting to go into Boom, I figured BHing was the solution and pulled up the Nav panel to lock on to the Nav beacon. No Nav beacon?    !
It's only gone and changed into a CNB!!!!!
Winner winner. Didn't know that could happen.

cnb is fun, but you'll be probably be faster with going to uss close to the station or interdict, and cash in after every claim... docking computer and (mining) missions boost it.

 

[CoatOSilver]

- Added new "Investment" state for factions that have failed to expand, which significantly increases development level for a short time and lets the Faction search a bit further away when they next expand

Does this mean development level has an influence on expansion range even now?

Is there any data to relate the current 30+ LY expansion with high development levels?
What indications do we have of development level at all?

(Stations gaining new modules/ships might be an indication of change, so correlation with the shiplists in eddb might be a way to go)

 

[Elementical]

Does this mean development level has an influence on expansion range even now?

Is there any data to relate the current 30+ LY expansion with high development levels?
What indications do we have of development level at all?

(Stations gaining new modules/ships might be an indication of change, so correlation with the shiplists in eddb might be a way to go)

Development level is one of the many hidden stats relating to the BGS. There's no visible means of tracking this data. We can make assumptions about it but we'll never have the figures to prove or disprove anything.

 

[goemon]

something which bothers me concerning the beta. if you are hostile, station open fire at you. without access to stations, how do you get reputation with a minor faction? this could make BGS-work impossible, once you hit hostile (maybe "by accident"/without paying attention?), in systems only having stations of 1 faction.

till now, the only way i see to gain reputation without station-access is clearing a distress call, which gives you a +15% reputation boost. do i miss something fundamental? does hostile reputation decay with minor factions now, too?

 

[_Flin_]

Does this mean development level has an influence on expansion range even now?

)

Good question. This has crossed my mind as well. To bad there is no place where you can find out which development level you faction / station / system is.
I dont even know whether this is a station, system or faction stat. And i regard myself as one of the pretty knowledgeable players when it comes to the BGS

 

[jimbeau1571]

something which bothers me concerning the beta. if you are hostile, station opens fire at you. without access to stations, how do you get reputation with a minor faction? this could make BGS-work impossible, once you hit hostile (maybe "by accident"/without paying attention?), in systems only having stations of 1 faction.

till now, the only way i see to gain reputation without station-access is clearing a distress call, which gives you a +15% reputation boost. do i miss something fundamental? does hostile reputation decay with minor factions now, too?

That needs testing in Beta, but I'm not on it.
Great question though.

 

[Szyslak22]

The only missions my wing find that fit this are the terminal interface missions (data retrieval, installation, free data for all). Initial research indicates they DO DECREASE influence, but the consensus I get from BGS gurus is that all missions increase influence.

Thoughts?

There are a few types that decrease influence. The types you are showing and the "Killing Grounds" missions where it's an assassination plus killing system security. I think these were reported as bugs, but they were either working as intended, or FD wasn't going to bother changing them while working on 2.1 mission revamp. Not much point now trying to figure out whether they "should" decrease influence or not. Best to just avoid them if you're trying to boost the influence of the issuing faction.

 

[Abil Midena]

something which bothers me concerning the beta. if you are hostile, station open fire at you. without access to stations, how do you get reputation with a minor faction? this could make BGS-work impossible, once you hit hostile (maybe "by accident"/without paying attention?), in systems only having stations of 1 faction.

till now, the only way i see to gain reputation without station-access is clearing a distress call, which gives you a +15% reputation boost. do i miss something fundamental? does hostile reputation decay with minor factions now, too?

I think rep decay is another thing that will help with that. I think your rep 'decays' towards neutral. The problem here is how long does it take to decay from 'hostile' to a state that allows you to dock. That could make it a pain if its days.

 

[goemon]

I think rep decay is another thing that will help with that. I think your rep 'decays' towards neutral. The problem here is how long does it take to decay from 'hostile' to a state that allows you to dock. That could make it a pain if its days.

this is right, i totally forgot that negative reputation with a minor faction decays... while postive doesn't. i tend to be allied with everybody. if it is like it is with major factions, you'll loose 3-7 days. i (personally) think that is acceptable for a mistake, and it will make BGS manipulation more interesting. you'll have to do stuff to stay at unfriendly, or operate from outside a system, and can't run missions for any other faction if there is only one faction controlling all stations. also, it makes attacks on player groups much, much harder.

 

[Walt Kerman]

I see you guys are already talking about what I wanted to post..... Carry on!

This thread was such a good idea, haha.

 

[Walter2]

something which bothers me concerning the beta. if you are hostile, station open fire at you. without access to stations, how do you get reputation with a minor faction? this could make BGS-work impossible, once you hit hostile (maybe "by accident"/without paying attention?), in systems only having stations of 1 faction.

till now, the only way i see to gain reputation without station-access is clearing a distress call, which gives you a +15% reputation boost. do i miss something fundamental? does hostile reputation decay with minor factions now, too?

I think you would have to be very, very careless not to know you were approaching a Hostile label. You have to do a lot of destruction to work your way down from Neutral through Unfriendly . . .

I think rep decay is another thing that will help with that. I think your rep 'decays' towards neutral. The problem here is how long does it take to decay from 'hostile' to a state that allows you to dock. That could make it a pain if its days.

. . . and, as I recall, rep decay is quite slow - you're better off doing Good Deeds to redeem yourself, if possible. I does rather depend on how long the road is from the Unfriendly/Hostile threshold to maxed-out Hostile and how far along that road you've travelled before seeing the light.

Probably too many metaphors in there.