A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[_trent_]

The problem with making players do missions to increase influence is that no missions have any effect during wars, even combat missions. Our faction is bleeding influence in every system every tick we are at war.

We're also not seeing any massacre missions in any of our systems during the current war, which makes this 4 in a row without us generating a single massacre mission. We've also stopped generating skimmer massacre missions when we're not at war as well. it's like the BGS has decided we've become pacifists.

 

[Dr Zarkov]

So, putting together the pieces, what we see is in fact consistent with ALL bounties being treated as superpower bounties and split between superpower factions:

It's even possible that all factions benefit from an indie bounty of the controlling indie faction. That was the case with us. Like "it's safe here, the investors are pouring in" for all. Maybe that's the new distribution.

One thing is certain, though: If you're an indie controlling faction, don't do any bounty hunting - it will hurt you. Instead do missions for your faction and all will be fine. You will recover quickly from the loss of the previous days.

It kinda sucks big time. We can't do what we wanted in the first place - to have a system where we can go Judge Dread in haz res and it will keep us at the top.

 

[goemon]

Even weirder, bounties of our indi controling faction are distributed to all other superpower minor factions in the system - we are dropping down, they all are rising slightly and evenly. We've managed to contain the bleed by doing only missions for us today, with no bounties whatsoever.

same here, so that's anecdotal evidence; as for testing see below :-/

Wow, good catch. Will try to replicate. Suggest others do the same and add to the bug report.

A number of tests may be necessary to confirm this bug and determine how it is working

i did a test, test showed nothing of it ... the problem here is to reverse engineer a bug, as it is unclear under which conditions it happens.

- Independent controlling factions drop because all bounties go to superpower factions

- A system with the controlling faction as the only superpower faction - it should catch all bounties and rise. Anyone with a such system can tell?

my test can't confirm any of that.

directly after janes post and a (thank you, jane!) great chat i set out to replicate the bug.

testing system:

60k population, all station 50k ls from entry, only surface and outposts, no res or comp nav beacon in system, last updated >100 days ago on edb.io

factions:
Controlling Faction FED 1, non-native, BOOM, owns one outpost
IND 1, non-native, in WAR in another system
IND 2-4, native, all state non, one owns the other outpost
IND 5, non-native, in ELECTION in another system
FED 2, native, State: none

traffic: yesterday 1 keelback, 1 anaconda; today 2 pythons (beside mine).

shot ships in another system for IND 1 bounties, and cashed them in 4 times in system (yeah, i travelled 4*50k ls) at the federal controlling outpost.

effect: +8,3% for IND 1 as it should, ALL other factions loosing in relation to influence in system as expected - controlling fed faction lost most, second fed faction was also loosing.

so - cashing in for a Indipendent faction in war in a system they don't control leads to them winning influence, not the feds.

the only unusual (and really weird) thing is, that - while the bountyhunter report adds up precisely to my CR numbers, it already showed 4 bounty claims on my third visit (where it should have shown 2).

today it is showing 8 bounty claims, while still adding up precisely to my CR value cashed in. so - maybe something is doubling claims with 0 value?

how to reverse engineer a bug :-/

___

i'm tonight retesting with bounty cash ins for the IND 5 faction in election.

 

[Starwolfe]

I have to concur goemon, I need to spend some more time gathering info to feel confident on it - but in the systems with Independent factions using their bounties yields the same predictable results, operating normally as far as I can tell.

The only surprising variabel for me is doing about 35 missions and handing in 1.5 million in mixed Fed/faction bounties in a 50k system yielded +14% influence for me. I'm just not that used to pulling stuff off like that I guess.

Accidentally set up a second Election... I wanted an Expansion already. Ah well, at least my core systems are ready when they can.

- - - Updated - - -

Retreat still possible?

I can't seem to keep inf down in a system we want to retreat from. It stayed low (~1.5%) on its own for at least 3 days while we were in war elsewhere, and never went retreat pending. But today, the day after our war state ended, we jumped 8.2% (from 1.2%) in one tick!! Since we didn't do that, it's got to be down to the BGS balancing to 100% and feeding the low inf factions, right?

Has anyone been able to get their faction below 2.5% and keep it there to cause a retreat lately?

I was going to run missions for the other low inf factions in that system, but is there another way to keep it down? We hold no assets in that system.

I would like to assume so. I will get back in a few days - on Day 2 of a current Retreat with a faction I am working on, so I will see soon I hope.

 

[Jane Turner]

Retreat still possible?

I can't seem to keep inf down in a system we want to retreat from. It stayed low (~1.5%) on its own for at least 3 days while we were in war elsewhere, and never went retreat pending. But today, the day after our war state ended, we jumped 8.2% (from 1.2%) in one tick!! Since we didn't do that, it's got to be down to the BGS balancing to 100% and feeding the low inf factions, right?

Has anyone been able to get their faction below 2.5% and keep it there to cause a retreat lately?

I was going to run missions for the other low inf factions in that system, but is there another way to keep it down? We hold no assets in that system.

Yes - we have forcibly ejected 3

 

[raeat]

For the record:

We had an opposing faction leap over our faction, from -0.8%PtDifference to a +8.9%PtDifference. Neither faction were in a state at the time and neither are in a state now.
So, the anticipated and advertised freezing effect of "passing" a faction DID NOT HAPPEN.

Meanwhile we have a faction that has been sitting over 75% for well over 6 days and then again for 7 days with no EXPANSION. Are the rules different just for us?

I cashed in a ton of Imperial bounties (for various factions in various systems) at an Interstellar Contact. It had zero effect on the numbers for any faction for that system. Make of that what you will. The system is controlled by an independent anarchy faction.

 

[Jane Turner]

The traffic in my system, was one Asp in addition to me - Bounties = exactly what I cashed. Will repeat today - this time with 3 bounties

 

[Matzov]

The traffic in my system, was one Asp in addition to me - Bounties = exactly what I cashed. Will repeat today - this time with 3 bounties

Is it possible it was patched in the background?

 

[Abil Midena]

Hey folks.

I use an excel spreadsheet to track my faction data. It works, but it's tedious. I'm sure people in this thread have their own way to keep track.

I have been using Eventure's third party program TCE MKII (Trade Computer Extension Mark II) for trade/missions/navigation for almost 2 yrs now, and I know some people use it for exploring. He recently added a faction tracking panel, which means, for me, I don't have to use excel anymore, or go 'out of game'.

The faction panel tracks factions automatically as you fly around, and also lets you enter any updates on inf/state by hand, for those days when you don't have time to fly everywhere, but still want to track your factions. It will also display a chart for inf history on any faction/star system you choose to look at. Note that TCE does not pull info from an external database...as you fly around, it will add info to your own TCE database. So when you first start, you won't have much to look at.

I made a video about just the faction panel (experienced bgs'ers can skip to the 2:30 mark):

Spoiler

[video=youtube_share;4uZjv7Wuun0]https://youtu.be/4uZjv7Wuun0[/video]

The thread on TCE MKII is here: FD Forums link. Please go there to talk about TCE, so we don't derail the BGS thread. I just wanted to mention it here, since people here might be interested.

You can ask questions there, and Eventure is usually pretty quick to answer. If you have ideas on how to improve anything, you can suggest them as well.

 

[mia389]

Hey folks.

I use an excel spreadsheet to track my faction data. It works, but it's tedious. I'm sure people in this thread have their own way to keep track.

I have been using Eventure's third party program TCE MKII (Trade Computer Extension Mark II) for trade/missions/navigation for almost 2 yrs now, and I know some people use it for exploring. He recently added a faction tracking panel, which means, for me, I don't have to use excel anymore, or go 'out of game'.

The faction panel tracks factions automatically as you fly around, and also lets you enter any updates on inf/state by hand, for those days when you don't have time to fly everywhere, but still want to track your factions. It will also display a chart for inf history on any faction/star system you choose to look at. Note that TCE does not pull info from an external database...as you fly around, it will add info to your own TCE database. So when you first start, you won't have much to look at.

I made a video about just the faction panel (experienced bgs'ers can skip to the 2:30 mark):

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/4uZjv7Wuun0

The thread on TCE MKII is here: FD Forums link. Please go there to talk about TCE, so we don't derail the BGS thread. I just wanted to mention it here, since people here might be interested.

You can ask questions there, and Eventure is usually pretty quick to answer. If you have ideas on how to improve anything, you can suggest them as well.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I use MKII but never knew about this.

 

[Starwolfe]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qeC7JtO9rG0wqHckktGD169rJjPMSb3qD9nXdFTlOhk/edit?usp=sharing

Cartoq day 4;

Well, the CG is nearing tier 7, so we have at least another day of this.

The controlling faction Cartoq Purple Major Organisation continued to loose, dropping another 3% today. Surprisingly enough, their loss is being slowed somewhat but still is suffering from a noticeable drop.

Most of the other federal Factions continued to rise as expected. Gaohikel for Equality gained back 0.2%, Estumindii for Equality gaining 2.1% and not quite surprisingly the Independents of Yuqui pulled ahead by 2.6%.

Surprisingly enough, the Values Party of Cartoq lost 2.9%, making me realize the Outbreak state is limiting influence gains for them of which I overlooked earlier.

The Independents lost as to be expected, with the Freedom Party of Cartoq loosing 0.1% and the anarchy Cartoq Gold Drug Empire remaining stuck at 1%.


Realizing the limitation of the Outbreak, the supwerpower bounties will remain split by a 3 against 1 ratio. Not extremely horrible, yet still not good for the controlling faction.

The Caroq Purple Major Organisation may be able to remain ahead at the end of the CG, but it certainly will not be such a dominating factor as it started out.

 

[Jmanis]

Haven't had a chance to report this as a bug as of yet, but seems there's more issues with state-related missions.

Have come out of a Boom state two days ago, straight into civil unrest. One login I went to my station and got "civil unrest" missions offered, but for the last two or three logins I've had boom-state missions. Refer picture below. Anyone else encountering this? I know in the past state-based missions seem to spawn sporadically, but never the completely wrong state.

Spoiler

 

[_trent_]

Haven't had a chance to report this as a bug as of yet, but seems there's more issues with state-related missions.

Have come out of a Boom state two days ago, straight into civil unrest. One login I went to my station and got "civil unrest" missions offered, but for the last two or three logins I've had boom-state missions. Refer picture below. Anyone else encountering this? I know in the past state-based missions seem to spawn sporadically, but never the completely wrong state.

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/ulBeKQp.png

We've reported the same thing several times and got nowhere. I'd still encourage you to put in a bug report, the more often it gets reported the more likely they are to do something about it* (*Disclaimer: last statement was triumph of hope over experience.)

 

[Schlack]

We are waiting on test results about who the indy bounties go to.

Please note that our records of other systems do not display any changes that cant be explained by the noted changes in mechanics. This could just be a function of the activity in the systems or perhaps the ownership and influence conditions of those systems. Assuming that Jane's bug is reproducible it may also point to the possibility that the bug is not universal and requires certain conditions.

 

[goemon]

i'm tonight retesting with bounty cash ins for the IND 5 faction in election.

done so.

influence in system didn't move at all.

so...

hunting the bug ... anybody with unexpected results in a testing system?

 

[Schlack]

done so.

influence in system didn't move at all.

so...

hunting the bug ... anybody with unexpected results in a testing system?

So, if I'm reading your test right. Result for IND5 as expected as bounties ineffective during election. However inf did not go to Fed faction.

This doesn't necessarily negate the indy bounty to SP theory as there may be an interaction between the indy faction state and BGS calcs. 0 bounty effect may have been counted due to Ind5 election state so there may have been 0 to distribute.

 

[goemon]

This doesn't necessarily negate the indy bounty to SP theory as there may be an interaction between the indy faction state and BGS calcs. 0 bounty effect may have been counted due to Ind5 election state so there may have been 0 to distribute.

well, first test in system was cashing in for IND 1, in war in another system, and they gained influence as expected, and the 2 fed factions (one of them controlling the system) didn't gain influence, but lost it.

now, cashing in for IND 5 i was testing whether if bounties aren't effective, they might be attributed wrongly.

I'm now waiting for IND1 war to end, to retest with a none-state, and i'm searching for a system with just 1 superpower faction present...

but beside that strange glitch of doubling the claims-number, i have not found any irregularities till now.

as i said before: reverse engineering a bug is complicated, and as you have said - " it may also point to the possibility that the bug is not universal and requires certain conditions."

 

[Starwolfe]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qeC7JtO9rG0wqHckktGD169rJjPMSb3qD9nXdFTlOhk/edit?usp=sharing

Cartoq day 5;

I kinda wish the other Fed faction wasn't in outbreak and we'd see the effect more, but its still quite obvious here.

The controlling faction Cartoq Purple Major Organisation dropped 1.9% today, continuing to prove that the supwerpower split is detremental to whatever controlling faction is present.

Gaohikel for Equality remained stable for the day, while the Values party of Cartoq being stuck in Outbreak left them out of the bounty share and dropped 1.9% today.

The Independents of Yuquii rose 2.5% while the Esumindii for Equality rose 1.4% continuing to benefit from the invisible work from the superpower bounties.

The Independents continued to loose for the day, with the Freedom party of Cartoq dropping an additional 0.1% while the anarchy Cartoq Gold Drug Empire remained locked at 1%.


The CG currently is halfway to tier 8, letting us have another day of this to continue to prove the point.

However, considering how it is working, I almost wonder if this was the point of FDev's? The controlling faction remains in control, although it prevents it from easily pushing towards infinite Expansions. A stopgap maybe? However the negative effects on Independents cannot be ignored, and the sutuation would be significantly more dire if the controlling faction was Independent.

I would still like to see FDev take a closer look at it, and either revert the changes or just remove superpower bounty influence effects to mitigate it - as even that would have a similar result but be more equal regardless of superpower affiliation.

 

[Schlack]

A data point from our testing.

Indy ruling faction bounties went to indy ruling faction. All other factions dropped. 2 X alliance and 2X Fed factions in system. Bounties cashed at other Indy faction station. None state for all save bottom faction (outbreak).

edit: Bounties earned in system.

Jane's result came from imported bounties so that may be a key variable.

 

[goemon]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qeC7JtO9rG0wqHckktGD169rJjPMSb3qD9nXdFTlOhk/edit?usp=sharing

Cartoq day 5;

I kinda wish the other Fed faction wasn't in outbreak and we'd see the effect more, but its still quite obvious here.

The controlling faction Cartoq Purple Major Organisation dropped 1.9% today, continuing to prove that the supwerpower split is detremental to whatever controlling faction is present.

Gaohikel for Equality remained stable for the day, while the Values party of Cartoq being stuck in Outbreak left them out of the bounty share and dropped 1.9% today.

The Independents of Yuquii rose 2.5% while the Esumindii for Equality rose 1.4% continuing to benefit from the invisible work from the superpower bounties.

The Independents continued to loose for the day, with the Freedom party of Cartoq dropping an additional 0.1% while the anarchy Cartoq Gold Drug Empire remained locked at 1%.


The CG currently is halfway to tier 8, letting us have another day of this to continue to prove the point.

However, considering how it is working, I almost wonder if this was the point of FDev's? The controlling faction remains in control, although it prevents it from easily pushing towards infinite Expansions. A stopgap maybe? However the negative effects on Independents cannot be ignored, and the sutuation would be significantly more dire if the controlling faction was Independent.

I would still like to see FDev take a closer look at it, and either revert the changes or just remove superpower bounty influence effects to mitigate it - as even that would have a similar result but be more equal regardless of superpower affiliation.

it's very interesting for sure.

also the potential binding of the other fed factions in elections or civil war/war, which will arise from it.