A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

Just to chime in, after a couple of months getting all the Engineers I found the independent faction that had been in charge of my home system since launch was in single figures influence, outbreak and lost stations to a recent fed arrival. The independents now have highest influence and I'm waiting for station retake to kick off as over 60% for almost a week. But I cannot now submit and fight an interdiction in that system or claim bounties, as soon as I do, up shoots Fed standing at the expense of the independent faction I'm grinding for.

In my opinion it's stupid that killing 1 pirate seems to gain more influence change than hours of missions, and as on many days I've been the only player in that system while only running missions for 1 faction there is no other explanation for this than the fed/system owner combined influence gain for a kill.

It seems stacked to kill off independent systems and is disheartening to try and play against.
 
Just to chime in, after a couple of months getting all the Engineers I found the independent faction that had been in charge of my home system since launch was in single figures influence, outbreak and lost stations to a recent fed arrival. The independents now have highest influence and I'm waiting for station retake to kick off as over 60% for almost a week. But I cannot now submit and fight an interdiction in that system or claim bounties, as soon as I do, up shoots Fed standing at the expense of the independent faction I'm grinding for.

In my opinion it's stupid that killing 1 pirate seems to gain more influence change than hours of missions, and as on many days I've been the only player in that system while only running missions for 1 faction there is no other explanation for this than the fed/system owner combined influence gain for a kill.

It seems stacked to kill off independent systems and is disheartening to try and play against.

check whether station has a black market ... feds make a lot of stuff illegal, for exampel tobacco in most (all?) cases. combine your mission running with smuggling ... anything to get your actions/transactions in system up.
 
check whether station has a black market ... feds make a lot of stuff illegal, for exampel tobacco in most (all?) cases. combine your mission running with smuggling ... anything to get your actions/transactions in system up.

Diasabled unfortunatley. Up to 71% but think I'm stuck until boom over.
 
That won't work.

Once a grinder hits the influence cap - and it fear its much easier than one would think - they can't increase the primary any more. As a result the others get pushed up, that is the issue here.

Even if it is in theory only 1/3 the pace, the end result is still hit - meaning all related factions could potentially hit their cap and it still remains to be a detrimental effect.
I was under the impression that if there are other actions in the system (let's call them "n"), then the influence cap would be n+(cap). In other words, it's possible to defend in a totally independent system by just performing the cap-reaching number of actions more than your opponent. The issue here is with systems with multiple superpower-affiliated minor factions. One action - cashing a superpower bounty - is replicated multiple times, with the influence gains (and therefore influence losses for the leading faction) disproportionately rewarding low-influence factions.

So if the grinder dropped 10 bounties in an independent-controlled system with three Fed minors, it would essentially equate to dropping thirty bounties. That's a lot more BGS actions to counter, and then you have the influence kick for low-influence factions to contend with.
 
I have been under the impression that the influence cap is an absolute per player.

Once you hit it, doing more doesn't count.

How much each player can do per system per faction is dictated by the population - the traffic just highlights the risk of how much is not for what you want it to be.

The result is a high-traffic system might end up with other players doing counter to what you want.

Not that you can make it up yourself.

That is the issue. Since if it is an absolute like that, you can't counter 10 bounties by doing 30 yourself. You can only do 10. You need 3 other friends to do 10 each to counter the 30 some other strangers did.
 
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I hear you, but in the mean time, Indi minor factions are losing their assets and systems. That wipes out X months of time and work in a few days, with no way to counter.

Whether you agree with FD's methods or not, the situation does not encourage one to 'play the BGS', or want to come back after it's sorted and try to regain everything lost during the 'live bgs beta testing'.

...and then, have them offer some new train wrecking tweeks 2-3 patches after you have leaned in once again.

Will they ever 1) recognize what is working and work with it 2) give 2 feces about the focus and time invested by their current players in aspects of their game that players have found workable?
 
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...and then, have them offer some new train wrecking tweeks 2-3 patches after you have leaned in once again.

Will they ever 1) recognize what is working and work with it 2) give 2 feces about the focus and time invested by their current players in aspects of their game that players have found workable?

Time will tell. We have alot of CMDRs that disapeared after the BGS changes. I don't blame them. We had put lots of work in and now watching it slowly be for nothing. I left the bubble hoping for a change soon.
 
I have been under the impression that the influence cap is an absolute per player.

i have asked that question in the first bgs livestream - whether there is a cap per player.

the answer was no, there is no cap on a per player base.

i assume there are all kind of softcaps in place. and there is a soft- or hardcap in positive influence gains down to population sizes.
 

_trent_

Volunteer Moderator
i have asked that question in the first bgs livestream - whether there is a cap per player.

the answer was no, there is no cap on a per player base.

i assume there are all kind of softcaps in place. and there is a soft- or hardcap in positive influence gains down to population sizes.

Agreed, I also think there are probably diminishing returns programmed in as well. I.e. handing in 500 exploration reports has more effect than handing in 5, but not 100x more effect (if you see what I mean)
 
minor faction expands to megaship

as brought to my attention by @matzov (ty!),

after the controlling faction of the megaship in aldebaran expanded some days ago following the usual rules, there is also an minor faction which has expanded to the megaship yesterday.

so, system with megaships work like any other inhabited system in terms of expansion, and a megaship is treated as an asset which can be won or lost in a conflict.
 
increased amount of influency von bounty redeems will be reverted back to pre 2.3. levels

from the thread specifically on that subject:

Good Morning,

Just wanted to step in and say thanks for this thread it has been very helpful. We are planning to roll out a change soon that reverts the increase to influence that was introduced in 2.3. This change does two things, one it hopefully slows down any negative effects to the balance of the BGS. Secondly it also allows us to more easily compare how the redistribution of superpower bounties is impacting the galaxy.

As people have already mentioned in the thread testing the BGS in house or even during beta isn't realistic and it can take time for the effects of changes to become properly apparent so I'd ask for a bit of patience while we investigate. Rest assured we are on the case.

Thanks,
Adam

In 2.3 we increased the amount of influence from bounty vouchers, this change will revert that back to pre 2.3 levels. All other changes are remaining as they are now, for the time being at least.
 
I read this thread and get more and more confused. It is getting to be that we need some type of degree to unravel what to me is now absolutely baffling.

It might be a coincidence that since the 2.3 upgrade, our influence has been in a downward spiral.

We are an independent group that has no real allegiance to any faction or power. Our influence was at 76%, but we were also just starting a war in another of our systems so we were not in Boom....

We have not witnessed any type of significant influence growth in ANY of the minor factions in our system, just a shared small increase as we plummet?? We are coping and once in boom, we are hoping to turn the tables but what also confuses us is in this system a small minor faction has a platform that has a black market; but the confusing issue is that in another system we own, a small minor faction that also occupies a platform and has a black market is just the opposite..... The black market is 'Unavailable'!! Why???

Has ANYONE got any ideas of how to stop this downward spiral?

We are going to refrain from any type of bounty hunting in our home location but any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. :)
 
Newbie question (forgive me if answer is under my nose) - are all the factions generated by Frontier, or are some factions actually created by players, kinda like a guild? I've seen some pretty weird faction names which makes me wonder.
 
Newbie question (forgive me if answer is under my nose) - are all the factions generated by Frontier, or are some factions actually created by players, kinda like a guild? I've seen some pretty weird faction names which makes me wonder.

You can create a group and submit a faction name to FD + where you hope to be placed. But there are no promises. Also, once in the game, you have no more control over the faction you submitted, other than what you do on the BGS. Essentially it becomes a faction like any other, just with the name you submitted.

However, there are some weird faction names in there that are FD created, many are to do with lore, or yet to come to light stories.
 
You can create a group and submit a faction name to FD + where you hope to be placed. But there are no promises. Also, once in the game, you have no more control over the faction you submitted, other than what you do on the BGS. Essentially it becomes a faction like any other, just with the name you submitted.

However, there are some weird faction names in there that are FD created, many are to do with lore, or yet to come to light stories.

Yup, some real weird non-player ones like Tony's Survival Supplies :)

On an aside,, RE: the bounty rollback... gotta say after some more persistent observation, my Imperial faction went through some weird turbulence... one of our neighbouring systems with a pop of 50m went through a shift down of almost 15% in a single day, then back up the same the next day... not the only case but certainly the most extreme. The change rollback will be a good idea methinks.
 
I read this thread and get more and more confused. It is getting to be that we need some type of degree to unravel what to me is now absolutely baffling.

It might be a coincidence that since the 2.3 upgrade, our influence has been in a downward spiral.

We are an independent group that has no real allegiance to any faction or power. Our influence was at 76%, but we were also just starting a war in another of our systems so we were not in Boom....

We have not witnessed any type of significant influence growth in ANY of the minor factions in our system, just a shared small increase as we plummet?? We are coping and once in boom, we are hoping to turn the tables but what also confuses us is in this system a small minor faction has a platform that has a black market; but the confusing issue is that in another system we own, a small minor faction that also occupies a platform and has a black market is just the opposite..... The black market is 'Unavailable'!! Why???

Has ANYONE got any ideas of how to stop this downward spiral?

We are going to refrain from any type of bounty hunting in our home location but any and all advice will be greatly appreciated. :)

Hi glojo.

We are in the middle of one of FD's periodic BGS tweaks. it is an ever evolving beast. And yes the BGS has a number of complexities, but half the fun, for my group at least, is figuring these things out. Like with most things in life, the more you know, the better you are. I don't mean this to sound just as a BGS version of "git gud" but working the BGS rewards time invested in understanding it.

In relation to your specific queries, you should continue bounty hunting and cashing bounties for your faction (unless your faction state is election or some other that negates the effectiveness). Do not cash superpower bounties in system if it contains superpower factions. Under changes brought in in 2.3 those superpower bounties are now distributed among the superpower factions. Cash them in a different system where the effects wont bother you.

The drop in your influence is likely due to that change. As station owners you were getting the benefit but no longer. FD are going to tweak the influence effects of bounty hunting to try to stabilize the BGS - the drops should be less extreme - or manageable - we will have to wait and see how it pans out.

Another possibility is that war has negated influence activities other than combat - leading to a drop. The influence modifiers are effective across the faction and are not limited to a single system. So activities that were maintaining your influence levels e.g. missions) are no longer effective for the duration of the conflict.

regarding Blackmarkets, some faction government types close BMs others can open them. We have noted a certain inconsistency in this where BMs that should be open remain closed. This has been bug reported.

- - - Updated - - -

Newbie question (forgive me if answer is under my nose) - are all the factions generated by Frontier, or are some factions actually created by players, kinda like a guild? I've seen some pretty weird faction names which makes me wonder.

Just to also add when player factions became a thing, some of us who were working NPC factions since the beginning were allowed adopt our pet factions. We are a player faction with an NPC name!
 
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