A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

Not everything seems to update properly when systems flip from one type to another. One example we've seen is that goods prohibited by the deposed faction still show as illicit when you start the jump sequence even though the new controlling faction accepts them (and they don't show as illicit when you arrive in the system.) One of our systems still shows tobacco as illicit on the HUD when you are about to jump there, even though it's been under our control for several months. We've also seen nearby systems taken over by Federal Democracy factions that continue to sell fed-prohibited goods, including Imperial (and regular) Slaves, narcotics, etc.

I too see the "illicit cargo" message all the time when jumping into systems which changed hands.

Fun fact: if you play with the API you see system allegiance in the data. From what I could see, this never changes and reflects the original allegiance set at the beginning. This might be related...
 
hi there i have a question...

my faction took a system with Feds control and we are independents.... but in galmap still appears that the system is federal..... the map is updated with bgs or not ?

Can confirm, display bug. More depressingly one of the first stations we took still doesn't have Alliance livery :(.
 
Elections: What affects the influence? I know combat activities do not, but does that include bounty hunting?

that includes bounty transactions.

the act of killing ships itself (which is part of bountyhunting) has an influence effect by giving influence losses to the other factions.
 
I too see the "illicit cargo" message all the time when jumping into systems which changed hands.

Fun fact: if you play with the API you see system allegiance in the data. From what I could see, this never changes and reflects the original allegiance set at the beginning. This might be related...

It's not just systems that have changed hands. Crom, which is and AFAIK has always been anarchy, shows as Federation controlled on the map. Recently it also showed as Democracy on jumping and also banned narcotics and slaves even though they wern't illegal. I reported this and it's been fixed now, but the system still shows as Federation on the map.
 
My player group have been trying to get a minor faction to control a system, we are way past every other faction on influence there, but still have no station. Everytime we were at parity with the other factions, they were at conflict in another system. So we are now the most influencial faction there, but owning nothing...

So I'd like to ask a few questions, given that the darn bgs is so shrouded in mistery...

1 - Can anybody elucidate on what exactly triggers Outbreak? And no , i'm not asking because of the farmaceutical isolators. It's the second time in roughly 10 days our faction goes into outbreak and we have no idea why or how to avoid it. We know what to do once it starts but no idea how to prevent it. We are trying to push for the 60% to get a shot at controlling the system but it seems everytime we reach roughly the 47% mark, we get hit by Outbreak and inf suddenly drops. Almost as if it is intentionally capping us off at that point.

2 - Does going into outbreak cost influence? how much?

3 - Why are conflicts triggered only when factions stay at parity for a given time, and not by just going past? Twice has our faction overtaken the station owning factions, but conflicts were blocked by similar events on other systems, so we just kept going. But It makes 0 sense for a faction with 17% influence to still be the controlling faction, at the same time, a faction with 47% to not be...

I understand FD wants to keep the Background simulation as Background, but if FD really wants us to play the BGS more, we need to know how it works. Its really frustrating to play a game without knowing the rules...
 
that includes bounty transactions.

the act of killing ships itself (which is part of bountyhunting) has an influence effect by giving influence losses to the other factions.

So it's a passive influence gain rather than a direct effect? I'm presuming that Bounty bonds won't affect it then?
 
My player group have been trying to get a minor faction to control a system, we are way past every other faction on influence there, but still have no station. Everytime we were at parity with the other factions, they were at conflict in another system. So we are now the most influencial faction there, but owning nothing...

It looks very much like another group is actively working against you. Delivering biowaste has been known to trigger outbreak, so they may be doing that. They are probably also making sure that your faction doesn't get any assets by triggering blocking wars in nearby systems.

It could also just be random CMDR activity, but the blocking wars sound a little too convenient.
 
My player group have been trying to get a minor faction to control a system, we are way past every other faction on influence there, but still have no station. Everytime we were at parity with the other factions, they were at conflict in another system. So we are now the most influencial faction there, but owning nothing...

So I'd like to ask a few questions, given that the darn bgs is so shrouded in mistery...

1 - Can anybody elucidate on what exactly triggers Outbreak? And no , i'm not asking because of the farmaceutical isolators. It's the second time in roughly 10 days our faction goes into outbreak and we have no idea why or how to avoid it. We know what to do once it starts but no idea how to prevent it. We are trying to push for the 60% to get a shot at controlling the system but it seems everytime we reach roughly the 47% mark, we get hit by Outbreak and inf suddenly drops. Almost as if it is intentionally capping us off at that point.

2 - Does going into outbreak cost influence? how much?

3 - Why are conflicts triggered only when factions stay at parity for a given time, and not by just going past? Twice has our faction overtaken the station owning factions, but conflicts were blocked by similar events on other systems, so we just kept going. But It makes 0 sense for a faction with 17% influence to still be the controlling faction, at the same time, a faction with 47% to not be...

I understand FD wants to keep the Background simulation as Background, but if FD really wants us to play the BGS more, we need to know how it works. Its really frustrating to play a game without knowing the rules...

Do you control any agricultural station that could be the destination for biowaste delivery missions?
 
It looks very much like another group is actively working against you. Delivering biowaste has been known to trigger outbreak, so they may be doing that. They are probably also making sure that your faction doesn't get any assets by triggering blocking wars in nearby systems.

It could also just be random CMDR activity, but the blocking wars sound a little too convenient.

That should not be the case, wouldnt that just affect the station owner? And since we do not own any station there, and the controling faction is not in Outbreak, that seems odd to me.
 
That should not be the case, wouldnt that just affect the station owner? And since we do not own any station there, and the controling faction is not in Outbreak, that seems odd to me.

There's is a regular "increase" in the amount of work towards a faction going to outbreak, normally outstripped by player activity. However, since you don't own any stations, there's no chance to sell medicines and the like to decrease the chance.

That said, Outbreak, as a negative state, is actually great for increasing influence, just like Bust and Famine, for these reasons.
 
That should not be the case, wouldnt that just affect the station owner? And since we do not own any station there, and the controling faction is not in Outbreak, that seems odd to me.

I have noticed that when I sold tonnes of biowaste to a non agric system the controlling faction moves into outbreak and loses influence due to processing the sales at a loss.

No other minor factions gets the outbreak state BUT the controlling faction, as well as in other systems they exist in from expansion that they do not control.
 
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That should not be the case, wouldnt that just affect the station owner? And since we do not own any station there, and the controling faction is not in Outbreak, that seems odd to me.

Delivering missions to your faction would be enough. Though thinking about it, The target faction is random, and not mentioned in the mission, so it would be difficult to target your faction. Maybe your system is one of the destination systems for one of the profitable long range poo hauling hubs, such as Sothis. I've read posts on Discord from players who say that their systems are getting messed up due to being a Sothis destination system.
 
On a slightly larger scale, there are systems in Empire territory, exploited by an empire power, but still under Federal control. How do we help switch those systems to Empire control?
 
Do you control any agricultural station that could be the destination for biowaste delivery missions?

we still dont own anything on that system, as we were unable to trigger direct conflict with the other factions. so the only way for other players to directly affect our inf is by killing our npc ships, or by increasing other faction's inf... thats exactly why we dont understand the state change because deliveries would not affect us at all...
 
we still dont own anything on that system, as we were unable to trigger direct conflict with the other factions. so the only way for other players to directly affect our inf is by killing our npc ships, or by increasing other faction's inf... thats exactly why we dont understand the state change because deliveries would not affect us at all...

The location they are delivering biowaste to can be any station in any system that your faction controls. It's not limited to this one system you happen to be focused on.
 
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