A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

Well it might just be region/faction specific as my spreadsheet shows you I am not suffering this in my systems now, and haven't since one of the first patches to 2.1
Be interesting to know what the Devs said in acknowledging the issue.

We also know nothing about the exact nature of this "cost". I see substantial effects on most but not all systems, and this makes me think it might be in fact applied not as a "influence tax" but as a reduction of effectiveness to player actions for the factions, say are now worth 50%. So systems with lot of player activity are heavily affected because actions for all other factions now weight more, while systems with little or no player activity might remain perfectly stable.
 
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I think the war "cost" simply comes from the war state being faction-wide, and therefore during armed conflict only bonds and bounties count towards influence. If in normal times influence comes from regular station trade, and other factions have stations, losing that during combat causes losses.

Losses during war in BH systems, therefore, will always be less than those that rely on trade/mining (in fact, there may not be a loss at all).
 
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I think the war "cost" simply comes from the war state being faction-wide, and therefore during armed conflict only bonds and bounties count towards influence. If in normal times influence comes from regular station trade, and other factions have stations, losing that during combat causes losses.

Losses during war in BH systems, therefore, will always be less than those that rely on trade/mining (in fact, there may not be a loss at all).

this sounds pretty straight forward...
 
In fact, expansion now happens at the end of expansion state, so after five days unless interrupted.

Interrupted would be because of war, correct? So if we were dragged into a war in one of our systems (quite possible actually), we would expand instantly and then been in war?
 
Interrupted would be because of war, correct? So if we were dragged into a war in one of our systems (quite possible actually), we would expand instantly and then been in war?
I don't think so. What I expect to happen would be that the war sate overrides the expansion state. I haven't had a faction in that particular configuration of states since 2.1 though, so I can't comment definitively.
 
I don't think so. What I expect to happen would be that the war sate overrides the expansion state. I haven't had a faction in that particular configuration of states since 2.1 though, so I can't comment definitively.
Cam confirm we went expansion pending in one system, war pending the next day in another. Expansion state landed on the first day, then at the subsequent tick we went to war, ending expansion state after 24 hours, but completing successfully.
 
Our faction just expanded into two systems at once. I didn't know that was possible.
Not complaining, mind.

you are 100℅ sure about that? sry for the questions, i know your great statkeeping ... but this would be a first one..? if you don't mind, maybe you could ask support for confirmation if it is "possible" or a nice bug?
 
Cam confirm we went expansion pending in one system, war pending the next day in another. Expansion state landed on the first day, then at the subsequent tick we went to war, ending expansion state after 24 hours, but completing successfully.

It wasn't war that did this. We have just gone pending in one system, having just hit about 62%.

If the war has gone pending, is it locked in for that system, or can it happen in another system where we match influence?
Our situation has suddenly gone from simple to complex. I'm concerned that we will skip wars for assets that we have been setting up for weeks with various factions ready for attacking in turn.
 
I don't think so. What I expect to happen would be that the war sate overrides the expansion state. I haven't had a faction in that particular configuration of states since 2.1 though, so I can't comment definitively.

Exactly this. I have had a 1 day expansion period, and expanded after it. Right at the point that 2.1 hit. It was interupted by War.
So you could in theory plan for this. Push to pending expansion in one system, which lasts 5 days. On day 3 of pending, you need to have you faction level out with another faction in a second system, so a conflict goes pending. Then, in theory, Expansion goes active and then the conflict goes active the day after or the day after that.
 
I think the war "cost" simply comes from the war state being faction-wide, and therefore during armed conflict only bonds and bounties count towards influence. If in normal times influence comes from regular station trade, and other factions have stations, losing that during combat causes losses.

Losses during war in BH systems, therefore, will always be less than those that rely on trade/mining (in fact, there may not be a loss at all).

No that was the first version, silently applied in 2.1.03 or 04. You could actually see WAR state in all systems belonging to the involved factions, and no non-combat actions counted everywhere. It was fun in a sense, push a system into war then sit back and watch all systems drop 30% (!), but it was also absolutely idiotic. 2.1.05 brought a fix, the state is now correctly applied only to the actual system in war, effects still spread but are now somewhat counterable. I tested this of course, hit a system other than the one in war doing a bunch of missions for another faction and brought the relevant faction down 10% in an afternoon, then did the same amount of missions the following day but evidently it was noticed and work was done on the other side, and the faction gained back... a meagre 1%. Wow.

My take on this is that it adds a lot of depth to expansion and conflicts. Now war is a serious business, if you expand too much and spread too thin you can end up in a lot of trouble if someone hit back and you can't cover all your bases. Which is exactly as a real war of conquest should be.

I also would like not to have to discover these things by smashing my nose on them, but hey, you can't have everything in this game!
 
you are 100℅ sure about that? sry for the questions, i know your great statkeeping ... but this would be a first one..? if you don't mind, maybe you could ask support for confirmation if it is "possible" or a nice bug?

99.5% certain. The news is all about the surprise system being expanded into. The other system I have been mostly based in for a few weeks now. I checked the mission board there last night and I'm sure I wold have spotted our faction there. Our faction leader has been working this system for weeks now setting up the expansion and arranging that each asset has one owner.
 
It wasn't war that did this. We have just gone pending in one system, having just hit about 62%.

If the war has gone pending, is it locked in for that system, or can it happen in another system where we match influence?
Our situation has suddenly gone from simple to complex. I'm concerned that we will skip wars for assets that we have been setting up for weeks with various factions ready for attacking in turn.

War can go pending in only one system at a time.

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99.5% certain. The news is all about the surprise system being expanded into. The other system I have been mostly based in for a few weeks now. I checked the mission board there last night and I'm sure I wold have spotted our faction there. Our faction leader has been working this system for weeks now setting up the expansion and arranging that each asset has one owner.

I know one case of this, but it happened months ago when 2.1 changed the rules in the middle of an expansion state. It should not happen now. Have you checked local newspapers to see if they report expansion in two systems?
 
I know one case of this, but it happened months ago when 2.1 changed the rules in the middle of an expansion state. It should not happen now. Have you checked local newspapers to see if they report expansion in two systems?
Nothing about one of the systems at all. This one is where we have been most active, so would have spotted it if we had expanded here before the last tick. There are some civil wars, pending wars and retreats going on, so I'm not too surprised that something has gotten confused.
 
Now let's talk about strange things. I am seeing small factions that are in lockdown or pending lockdown state but really should not be - they do not control anything in their system and as far as I can tell (when do we get a faction search function?) they are not anywhere else, so no authorities to kill and no black markets to sell illegal goods. Therefore, there should be nothing able to trigger lockdown, but of course it is happening so there must be some other trigger. Anyone knows?
 
Now let's talk about strange things. I am seeing small factions that are in lockdown or pending lockdown state but really should not be - they do not control anything in their system and as far as I can tell (when do we get a faction search function?) they are not anywhere else, so no authorities to kill and no black markets to sell illegal goods. Therefore, there should be nothing able to trigger lockdown, but of course it is happening so there must be some other trigger. Anyone knows?

Along similar lines to what I asked the other day about Famine and Outbreak.

Fac A - Outbreak, pending Famine, No station
Fac B - Famine, No station
Fac C - Famine, pending Outbreak, No station

All in the same system. Makes no sense, how do you feed a faction without a station?
Actually, whoever trades in food goods apart from Tea possibly? There is no money in it.

So to answer your question, no. It's another mystery.
 
Now let's talk about strange things. I am seeing small factions that are in lockdown or pending lockdown state but really should not be - they do not control anything in their system and as far as I can tell (when do we get a faction search function?) they are not anywhere else, so no authorities to kill and no black markets to sell illegal goods. Therefore, there should be nothing able to trigger lockdown, but of course it is happening so there must be some other trigger. Anyone knows?

Killing skimmers. If they own any of the non-landable outposts. I sent one into lockdown after shooting about 40-odd skimmers in one day.
 
Now let's talk about strange things. I am seeing small factions that are in lockdown or pending lockdown state but really should not be - they do not control anything in their system and as far as I can tell (when do we get a faction search function?) they are not anywhere else, so no authorities to kill and no black markets to sell illegal goods. Therefore, there should be nothing able to trigger lockdown, but of course it is happening so there must be some other trigger. Anyone knows?

the table shown during the BGs livestream shows: Murder and Other Crimes. Murder is like always: Any Shipkill of that Minor Faction. For exampel wanted pirates Add to that Skimmer. And other crimes. And trespassing.
 
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