A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

Abil Midena

Abil Midena
Jane Turner said:
we've not had an example of an expansion into other than the closest system with 6 or fewer factions within 30 LY since 2.1 dropped. The only surprise comes we've missed a horizons only system in our original survey
Click to expand...
It is such a pain to hunt around systems that are within 30 LY with the gal map. If they can draw bubbles on the gal map with power play, why can't they give us a tool in the gal map that shows a bubble encompassing X LY from your current system?

It's probably been asked for before, and put on 'the list'. sigh
 

irongut

irongut
firemane said:
I have a few questions for the BGS experts...

Disclaimer: Please note that I am asking because after extensive searches and re-watching dev livestreams the information I am still unable to find a clear answer or the answers are unclear or incomplete.

Is there any specific information regarding how the influence percentages are calculated at the end of the BGS cycle? I am particularly interested in how lost or gained influence is distributed among the factions in a system.

For example, in regards to influence gain, I've heard theories that state that gained influence is taken from one specific faction (either the controlling faction or the nearest one in influence) and that faction alone. On the other hand, I've also heard that the other factions in a system will also donate a proportional amount.

Regarding influence loss, How is it distributed? Proportionally to each other faction? Split in equal shares and then distributed?

To me, it would stand to reason and logic that the whole cumulative effect of the cycle's actions would be translated into numbers, and then those numbers would be turned into percentages in order to be displayed at the end of the day. Given that, any loss or gain would be distributed or taken proportionally to each faction's share. However, "game logic" and "FD logic" may be operating according to the rules of "alternate dimensions", thus I feel the need to ask those of you who are wiser. :p

I'd like to know if there is any information from FD discussing this issue. If not, What are the prevalent theories? It would be helpful if you could differentiate between the "Official FD line", "what you have heard others say", and "your own experience".

In regards to your own experiments... How did you control the variables? I am aware that during empirical observations in ED it is extremely hard to control the environment. The results are often jumbled up by the random actions of random players, some semi-random background-cycling of BGS states, and the effect of multiple factions gaining and loosing influence during the same tick. Did you take those into account during your analysis? Were you tempted to use statistical analysis in order to find trends?
Click to expand...

Influence gained or lost comes from the other factions proportional to their current influence, so if say the 2nd place faction gains 10% most of it will come from the 1st place faction. Some active states can cause influence to come from a subset of the factions in a system; I'm not listing them because 2.2 has changed the rules on this. Over 12 months of data backs this up.

I track several systems on the edge of the bubble that see little to no traffic, what little they do see is mostly just passing through. I can tell from the local news reports if anyone has been active in a system and I repeat all tests at least once. There is no semi-random background-cycling of BGS states. Usually I will perform a test on one faction and do nothing for the others in a system that day, unless the test requires multiple factions. There have been instances where outside interference has polluted a test but I scrap those results and repeat the test in another system. The BGS is simple compared to the systems I write for work so I can see what is happening by looking at the raw data or a pretty graph, no need for statistical analysis so far.
 

Arka

Arka
So the expansion state can go 8 ticks now?
lvoSkFC.gif

Several minutes ago the BGS updated and it's still saying "Expansion". I think ill wait for 2 more days before submitting ticket
 

_trent_

Volunteer Moderator
_trent_
call_me_trent said:
Was going to clarify from my own experience then realized I wasn't 100% sure myself.

Fortunately assets changed hands at yesterday's tick in one of our systems (i.e. t7). I'll let you know what the states are there after today's tick.
Click to expand...

Just as an update to my earlier post of today. Today is our t8. Our current state is none, pending state is boom, recovering state is War.
 

firemane

firemane
Thanks to Goemon and Irongut for their answers. Unfortunately, the forum won't let me +rep you again, Goemon. :D


A follow-up question for Irongut...

There is no semi-random background-cycling of BGS states.
Click to expand...

This is a little bit of a Zen paradox. I often transit through systems at the edge with little or no PC traffic, yet I note their states cycling from time to time. Have you noticed any state changes in systems where there isn't much player traffic? Is the totality of the BGS changes due to player action or is there a degree of "automation" in the simulation to mimic the actions of a background population.
 

Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
firemane said:
This is a little bit of a Zen paradox. I often transit through systems at the edge with little or no PC traffic, yet I note their states cycling from time to time. Have you noticed any state changes in systems where there isn't much player traffic? Is the totality of the BGS changes due to player action or is there a degree of "automation" in the simulation to mimic the actions of a background population.
Click to expand...

Zero CMDR traffic can cause some unique problems. If two factions are at the same influence, they will constantly cycle in and out of conflict (war, civil war, election).
 

goemon

goemon
call_me_trent said:
Just as an update to my earlier post of today. Today is our t8. Our current state is none, pending state is boom, recovering state is War.
Click to expand...

ha, yes. recovering war does block expansion, but not boom going pending! i think i got it now :)

firemane said:
Thanks to Goemon and Irongut for their answers. Unfortunately, the forum won't let me +rep you again, Goemon. :D


A follow-up question for Irongut...



This is a little bit of a Zen paradox. I often transit through systems at the edge with little or no PC traffic, yet I note their states cycling from time to time. Have you noticed any state changes in systems where there isn't much player traffic? Is the totality of the BGS changes due to player action or is there a degree of "automation" in the simulation to mimic the actions of a background population.
Click to expand...

- as other have said - it looks as if outbreak/famine is caused without action
- any state has a maximum duration. it will end after reaching that.
- any state going active, halves the state bucket for famine/outbreak, and clears all other state buckets (at least that's a dev statement).
- states can effect security-, wealth- and tech- level of a system - those hidden values mentioned in the opening post.

so, you get a bit dynamic through that. but not much.
 

Adhock

A
Schlack said:
Since 2.2 some mission and passenger destination effects may increase the famine/outbreak buckets but I'm not familiar enough with those to be definite.
Click to expand...

Famine/Outbreak states generally require that the hidden value of "Standards of Living" be decreased in addition to the other actions that have since been removed. Multiple negative states can affect this ranging from conflict states, to lockdown, to Bust, to Civil Unrest. Anything that hurts the system if done multiple times can reduce the standards of living. A lack of player activity and flow of goods can cause the standards of living to decrease and I theorize that a lack of player trading in food and medicine can cause these.

Outbreak can also automatically infect nearby systems as another theory as one system reported an outbreak. Then because there's little player activity in my sector barring what I'm doing, the outbreak spreads rapidly to multiple systems.

A lack of player action is the most common factor of Bust as that state requires a lack of trade to trigger.

In regards the question of how influence is distributed from the limited pool of finite influence, the Leech Strat was most enlightening during the Glitch War.

When a player does an action that gives positive influence, it takes away mostly from the closest contender in the system and takes a little from everybody else.

By hurting another faction directly and helping another. The lost influence is traded to the faction that gained influence with no influence taken or gained from anybody else.

If one helps multiple factions through say, missions or Vouchers, hurting another faction through say, killing their ships. The hurting faction would lose out on much more influence while all the factions that are being helped in a positive manner would gain the lost influence. This was the key to Leech Strat to break the glitch of perpetual civil war and end the Glitch War in my favor. Any other factions in the system would be otherwise unaffected if no player action was taken in support or harming them.
 

Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
Adhock said:
By hurting another faction directly and helping another. The lost influence is traded to the faction that gained influence with no influence taken or gained from anybody else.
Click to expand...

I'm not convinced about this. I always thought that the help to one faction and the harm to another is taken completely seperately. So if you knock 5 points of one faction and add five points onto another, the other factions in the system will also be affected going both up and down. These differences mostly cancel out, but occasionally result in small changes to the other factions.
 

goemon

goemon
Limoncello Lizard said:
I'm not convinced about this. I always thought that the help to one faction and the harm to another is taken completely seperately. So if you knock 5 points of one faction and add five points onto another, the other factions in the system will also be affected going both up and down. These differences mostly cancel out, but occasionally result in small changes to the other factions.
Click to expand...

exactly.

of course we need to speculate how this is actually done by the BGS algorythm.

does it calculate first all actions for and against a faction, goes on to the next faction, and so on? i actually don't think so - you can see changing influence values during the tick...
 

Nyra Amarin

Nyra Amarin
Limoncello Lizard said:
Zero CMDR traffic can cause some unique problems. If two factions are at the same influence, they will constantly cycle in and out of conflict (war, civil war, election).
Click to expand...
Hi, Limoncello Lizard :)

I was investigating from several weeks the famine and how the market work and I discovered that if there are no players in a system, that system is freezed. And when we enter again in it, this system "restart" some stadistics.

About the markets, for example, if you buy 120t of a commodity it is deducted from the absoult number of the offer in the market (if the market offer 200 units, it remain 80).
If you go out of the station and enter again, the number still.

But if you go out of the system, and you enter in the station again, it will be 200 units again.

I'm writing this because it is related with what you are telling here: it seem that the system has a "base state" about the market (and maybe pending states?), and it is "reseted" if there are no players in it.

I did some othere interesting tests about the market but it is off-topic, I guess xDDDD

So, that's why those states enter in a "cycle". The influence and states, freezes when there are no players in it. Later the system itself is "reactivated" once a player enter in it... and so on.

There are some interesting thoughts about famine states related with systems that are "turned-off" too. But I think it's matter for future posts :)
 
Last edited:

CMDR Endincite

CMDR Endincite
But if you go out of the system, and you enter in the station again, it will be 200 units again.
Click to expand...
It's not actually necessary to leave the system, just to wait. The commodity board has its own tick (iirc 12-15 minutes) at which time restocking, price adjustments according to current stock, etc are done. This is familiar to rares traders more than commodity traders, because it's common to wait for this tick/restock if you get a bad initial allocation.

Also (re: previous topic) we've speculated that the commonality of famine/outbreak in rare-traffic systems is directly related to conflicts lasting weeks here with no player input, and often repeating themselves. The drop to health, standard of living, etc during these states may make famine/outbreak more prone to happen without action of any sort.

I should also note that there *are* player (non-mission) actions which can push famine, outbreak, or bust easily, they're just not commonly thought of, and not always applicable to any given system.
 
Last edited:

Nyra Amarin

Nyra Amarin
CMDR Endincite said:
It's not actually necessary to leave the system, just to wait. The commodity board has its own tick (iirc 12-15 minutes) at which time restocking, price adjustments according to current stock, etc are done. This is familiar to rares traders more than commodity traders, because it's common to wait for this tick/restock if you get a bad initial allocation.
Click to expand...
Commodities don't work in the same way than rares. Actually I was in a station for more than an hour and the offer didn't change because I had the same idea than you: "if rares restock every 10 min exactly, then commodities too" :) So... I decided to prove it.

However, there's another thing: to update the changes in the numbers, you must leave the station and enter in again (that not happen with rares).
I was with another player in the station, he was buying a commodity but for me, the number was the same. Then I re-enter in the stations and my number was the same than his.
Later, I went out of the system, re-enter in the station and the number was the same than his.
He went out of the system, re-enter in the station and the number was the same.
Finally, we both went out of the system, re-enter in the station, and the offer was restarted.

It's like if the market needed people inside the system to "save" the data.

So we figured out the same about the system itself: no players in, no data saved but maybe data about all the minor factions concern (influence, economy, activities, buckets delivered, etc). I detected some weird behaviours about the pending states. but I don't really studied it in deep. I was bussy with other matters XD

I think that's why people is mad about how the market works: it restart its data everytime the system have no players in it.

This is really easy to see during a CG where a commodity trade is involved: prizes and offers then change really quickly (not the demand. While the CG is active it is always 999 :p). But markets don't work in the same way when we are with our faction in a lonely system far away from the main bubble, isn't it? :)
 
Last edited:

CMDR Endincite

CMDR Endincite
Well the rigour of your testing outmatches mine. I was sure I'd seen stock and prices update during the same "session" in the commodity board, but well I'm not prepared to contest your findings.

Good work.
 
Last edited:

Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
Nyra Amarin said:
Commodities don't work in the same way than rares. Actually I was in a station for more than an hour and the offer didn't change because I had the same idea than you: "if rares restock every 10 min exactly, then commodities too" :) So... I decided to prove it.
Click to expand...
They do often replenish after 10 minutes, to a small degree at least. Stations near CGs often run out of goods, but will restock a small amount after 10 minutes. The restock will keep going, unlike rares. And also unlike rares, other players buying goods affects the available amount.
 

Schlack

S
Skimmers can cause famine. Thanks for the confirmation. This was introduced in 2.2 so at least prior to that famine appears to have been caused by some bgs mechanism independent of player action. We can't confirm yet whether that is still the case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom