A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[Schlack]

How many missions would it take to make lave Federation?

Well its a huge population system, with very high CMDR traffic and activity. That in itself is a huge challenge. You would be talking in the range of many thousands of missions.

Add into that the fact that the old worlds in general hold a special place in Alliance CMDRs hearts means that there will be significant organized opposition. This would make it one of the biggest challenges ever in BGS work.

(Full disclosure: the AEDC is one of the groups who would fiercely oppose any such attempt. I don't want to smack-talk here as this thread has throughout been helpful, friendly and focused squarely on BGS mechanics rather than any related politics!)

 

[Ouberos]

BGS experts.
I have a question with two parts.

I'm interested in the daily news reports we see, famine, outbreak,wars etc.
1. Are these states all products of our involvement in the game? If all players vanished tonight would the BGS settle down like a still pond?

2. We only see a handful of these reports on Galnet. Is there a way to get a sense of what the entire Bubble is doing? Could we tell if there are more Booms than famines for instance? More Lockdowns than Elections?

My interest is two fold. Partly to do with this new story Drew Wagar is writing. I wanted to see how close to the game his background might be and partly personal. I want to know which play style is more popular.
Legal / positive play or illegal / negative play.

I suspect this question can only be answered by FD but wondered if you might already be working in this direction.

Thanks.

 

[Marra Morgan]

BGS experts.
I have a question with two parts.

I'm interested in the daily news reports we see, famine, outbreak,wars etc.
1. Are these states all products of our involvement in the game? If all players vanished tonight would the BGS settle down like a still pond?

2. We only see a handful of these reports on Galnet. Is there a way to get a sense of what the entire Bubble is doing? Could we tell if there are more Booms than famines for instance? More Lockdowns than Elections?

My interest is two fold. Partly to do with this new story Drew Wagar is writing. I wanted to see how close to the game his background might be and partly personal. I want to know which play style is more popular.
Legal / positive play or illegal / negative play.

I suspect this question can only be answered by FD but wondered if you might already be working in this direction.

Thanks.

Hiya!

1. Yes and I think so.

2. At the moment, no. Personally, I'd love to see Frontier release some quarterly stats and graphs to tell us about the big picture!

(Once upon a time, I used to be exciting. Now it's all about stats and graphs. What happened?!)

 

[Ouberos]

Hiya!

1. Yes and I think so.

2. At the moment, no. Personally, I'd love to see Frontier release some quarterly stats and graphs to tell us about the big picture!

(Once upon a time, I used to be exciting. Now it's all about stats and graphs. What happened?!)

Cheers Marra, stupid of me. Should have come straight to you! Can't rep you again but I'll abandon some trinkets next time I'm in port!

Don't worry about the spreadsheets. Knowledge is power and power makes everything exciting. Or so I tell myself!

I might contact FD directly and ask. I feel there is an exciting revelation in the knowledge I seek. I'll keep you posted.

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[Moritz Norman]

This is a fantastic thread -- thanks to Walt for writing up the original post, it served as a great primer as I have gotten involved with my group's BGS.

 

[Walt Kerman]

This is a fantastic thread -- thanks to Walt for writing up the original post, it served as a great primer as I have gotten involved with my group's BGS.

Your welcome!

It needs a bit of updating. I finished my grad degree, and planned on reworking this, but my group needs a bit of attention. I'm trundling around this forum once again though!

 

[Vingtetun]

hutton truckers needed 5 month to conquer geirge pantazis: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ton-Truckers-a-5-month-battle-against-the-BGS

- they are one of the largest player groups, and george pantazis is a rare goods system of similar size, but probably with less player traffic then lave.

We had a combination of bad luck and the change when engineers dropped but yes, it was a significant challenge.

If anyone wants a rough guide as to how we achieved it, pm me with questions.

The hardest part was that as a result of the rare, the owning faction had expanded many times and kept getting into blocking states in other systems. We were forced to map ALL of their systems and keep them out of war and election as well as our own.

Conversely, having now won it, we are in a near permanent cycle of boom expansion election boom expansion election.

 

[goemon]

BGS experts.
I have a question with two parts.

I'm interested in the daily news reports we see, famine, outbreak,wars etc.
1. Are these states all products of our involvement in the game? If all players vanished tonight would the BGS settle down like a still pond?

2. We only see a handful of these reports on Galnet. Is there a way to get a sense of what the entire Bubble is doing? Could we tell if there are more Booms than famines for instance? More Lockdowns than Elections?

My interest is two fold. Partly to do with this new story Drew Wagar is writing. I wanted to see how close to the game his background might be and partly personal. I want to know which play style is more popular.
Legal / positive play or illegal / negative play.

I suspect this question can only be answered by FD but wondered if you might already be working in this direction.

Thanks.

i disagree with marra on answer 1. but there is good reasoning in this thread that in 2.1. the BGS doesn't move without player interaction, and every move we see is kicked off by a player somewhere, connected to a remote system by expanded factions etc.

after giving up on influence levels moving without player actions (what was seen before 2.1. looks as if it was an effect of rounding - the so called influence decay), i still believe that states can happen without players, and states having minor influence effects.

i believe so, because a) it meets the original description of what the BGS should act like and b) it would explain changes, for exampel expansions, in remote areas.

b) could be as well explained by a random player ...

maybe i'll move my second account to some system with stations 400 k ls from entry point and track the BGS there...

 

[jimbeau1571]

BGS experts.
I have a question with two parts.

I'm interested in the daily news reports we see, famine, outbreak,wars etc.
1. Are these states all products of our involvement in the game? If all players vanished tonight would the BGS settle down like a still pond?

2. We only see a handful of these reports on Galnet. Is there a way to get a sense of what the entire Bubble is doing? Could we tell if there are more Booms than famines for instance? More Lockdowns than Elections?

My interest is two fold. Partly to do with this new story Drew Wagar is writing. I wanted to see how close to the game his background might be and partly personal. I want to know which play style is more popular.
Legal / positive play or illegal / negative play.

I suspect this question can only be answered by FD but wondered if you might already be working in this direction.

Thanks.

i disagree with marra on answer 1. but there is good reasoning in this thread that in 2.1. the BGS doesn't move without player interaction, and every move we see is kicked off by a player somewhere, connected to a remote system by expanded factions etc.

after giving up on influence levels moving without player actions (what was seen before 2.1. looks as if it was an effect of rounding - the so called influence decay), i still believe that states can happen without players, and states having minor influence effects.

i believe so, because a) it meets the original description of what the BGS should act like and b) it would explain changes, for exampel expansions, in remote areas.

b) could be as well explained by a random player ...

maybe i'll move my second account to some system with stations 400 k ls from entry point and track the BGS there...

I'll sit somewhere between Marra and goemon.

1. There would be no influence % change, as this does not change under NPC activity. State changes - Famine and Outbreak can change without human activity, seen in my own systems, but these changes don't coincide with any influence change.
2.No. Would be nice though.

 

[Walter2]

maybe i'll move my second account to some system with stations 400 k ls from entry point and track the BGS there...

I have a presence in just such a system - 471052.28LS to the only habitation (long journey times are therapy and a chance to catch up on other things). Records for the last 28 days show that I was the only cause of all changes.

This system also confirms that Famine, at least, is a spontaneous event that's unrelated to player activity. One of the other three factions - one that I've had no dealing with - went into a Famine state on the 9th of August after 6 days of no activity at all.

 

[goemon]

I have a presence in just such a system - 471052.28LS to the only habitation (long journey times are therapy and a chance to catch up on other things). Records for the last 28 days show that I was the only cause of all changes.

besides economic states, yes?

don't some economic states change influence values?

war/civil war ... how about outbreak/famine? expansion ...

i also see minor changes which look like being an effect of boom/bust (but not sure about that).

 

[Walter2]

besides economic states, yes?

don't some economic states change influence values?

war/civil war ... how about outbreak/famine? expansion ...

i also see minor changes which look like being an effect of boom/bust (but not sure about that).

I only record Influence changes - State changes are only shown while they are active. I only run missions for my faction as we're attempting a takeover (except for once when I might have accidentally on purpose worked for the opposition to try and instigate a conflict and that was a failure). There have been no wars, but one should start today, after which we will become the new owners. During this War, and assuming that no other player will take part, there will be no Influence changes - we've got a 39% lead and will be observing from a distance for the three days of conflict.

I only run missions - no trade except for missions inward which don't count - while our faction is in Boom (I'll take the time hit for the travel, but there are limits to the wait for missions) and there are missions to be stacked. There was an unexplained Influence change last month and I'm putting that down to an passing player who picked up a mission to the system without knowing the distance involved and then picked up another for the outward trip.

Apart from than one anomaly, all Influence changes can be directly ascribed to the missions I've taken and to no other factor.

As far as I can see, since 2.1 only direct player intervention alters Influence levels.

 

[jimbeau1571]

besides economic states, yes?

don't some economic states change influence values?

war/civil war ... how about outbreak/famine? expansion ...

i also see minor changes which look like being an effect of boom/bust (but not sure about that).

I don't see state changes changing influence values, but things like boom change the size of influence change for a given value of trade, for example 500K profit non boom = 2%, 500k profit boom = 3% (not true values but example of my meaning)

War/CivWar/Election - Human activity puts the factions to a point, when the game then equalises the % before the 'conflict' starts as we know. After that, then human only (I think this has changed in the patches since 2.1 dropped as it did change without activity immediately after 2.1 dropped)

Famine/Outbreak ... definitely not. I have a system with 5 factions, nearest station is a planetary landing 300,000ls from the nav point. A complete pain, but as steady as a rock influence wise as it has nothing to offer but a long journey. Famine and Outbreak come and go, but the influence % of all the factions stays the same as always. Curiously, my faction which owns the system is never in famine or outbreak.

 

[Matzov]

Guys - I have experienced, overnight, a situation where it seems that my faction and an NPC faction, at war - have both lost influence %. There are no other conflicts in the system. Has anyone else experienced this since the last patch? I was under the impression that warring factions should still be in an influence bubble and could only take from each other.

 

[Walter2]

Guys - I have experienced, overnight, a situation where it seems that my faction and an NPC faction, at war - have both lost influence %. There are no other conflicts in the system. Has anyone else experienced this since the last patch? I was under the impression that warring factions should still be in an influence bubble and could only take from each other.

Yup: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/256589-Influence-points-extracted-from-conflicts

 

[jimbeau1571]

Guys - I have experienced, overnight, a situation where it seems that my faction and an NPC faction, at war - have both lost influence %. There are no other conflicts in the system. Has anyone else experienced this since the last patch? I was under the impression that warring factions should still be in an influence bubble and could only take from each other.

Before 2.1 dropped, factions in conflict could only take % from other factions in conflict in that system.
Since 2.1, factions not in conflict can take % from factions in conflict. Thats my experience. But again, it has to be human actions in order to affect this.

 

[Matzov]

ah, tremendous. Thanks guys.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

OK, let's talk strategy, folks...

System X
Spaceport Y (Sole landable port)

Faction A, 33%, System Control
Faction B, 20%
Faction C, 13%, Spaceport Y Control
Faction D, 11%, Civil War
Faction E, 11%, Civil War
Faction F, 8%, My Faction

I want that spaceport. So if I push up past D&E, can I start a simultaneous war with C and vie for the port?

Does any of this matter if my faction has a pending expansion? Or does the pending expansion prevent any other states from occurring?

 

[goemon]

OK, let's talk strategy, folks...

System X
Spaceport Y (Sole landable port)

Faction A, 33%, System Control
Faction B, 20%
Faction C, 13%, Spaceport Y Control
Faction D, 11%, Civil War
Faction E, 11%, Civil War
Faction F, 8%, My Faction

I want that spaceport. So if I push up past D&E, can I start a simultaneous war with C and vie for the port?

Does any of this matter if my faction has a pending expansion? Or does the pending expansion prevent any other states from occurring?

- most states are blocked by expansion, but not war (which will end your expansion)

- you are in a good position to trigger that war, because the factions at 11℅ are locked into that conflict

don't overshoot, match...

 

[Deleted member 115407]

- most states are blocked by expansion, but not war (which will end your expansion)

- you are in a good position to trigger that war, because the factions at 11℅ are locked into that conflict

don't overshoot, match...

Or, if I want the expansion, I can just hold onto my cards? I wouldn't want to block a pending expansion for this spaceport. Strategically, this asset is a secondary objective, at best.

Or would it be better to get it out of the way now and put the expansion on standby for a while?