A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

[_trent_]

how do you monitor those systems? if ross/eddb.io that most likely the effect of people visiting the systems before restarting the client.

Got the first set of 'new' figures from looking on the system map at about 1am UK time. I do this most nights at the moment due to the tick time. Last night I realised I had forgotten to do a couple so I went back in and found (on the system map again) that the figures for several of the ones I had noted down at 1am had changed at 3am.

 

[Schlack]

Got the first set of 'new' figures from looking on the system map at about 1am UK time. I do this most nights at the moment due to the tick time. Last night I realised I had forgotten to do a couple so I went back in and found (on the system map again) that the figures for several of the ones I had noted down at 1am had changed at 3am.

Had you relogged inbetween? (shut down client entirely). Sometimes the cache doesn't update without doing so, and you will be seeing old values.

A minor quirk we've noted sporadically is that the tick sometimes takes a little while to work though (or update properly). The initial values may not be correct. Not sure I would ascribe to a "mini-tick" theory without significant evidence. The fact that this is intermittent makes if difficult to track. Personally I have been chalking this up to caching issues, but could be wrong.

On another note has FD confirmed the positive vs negative influence change cap theory?

 

[CMDR MRMAURICE]

Not sure if this is the right place to post but do debris fields spawn due to BGS changes?? As in when a war has ended?? If so how can I find them in game??

 

[_trent_]

Had you relogged inbetween? (shut down client entirely). Sometimes the cache doesn't update without doing so, and you will be seeing old values.

A minor quirk we've noted sporadically is that the tick sometimes takes a little while to work though (or update properly). The initial values may not be correct. Not sure I would ascribe to a "mini-tick" theory without significant evidence. The fact that this is intermittent makes if difficult to track. Personally I have been chalking this up to caching issues, but could be wrong.

On another note has FD confirmed the positive vs negative influence change cap theory?

Definitely were not old values. I was discussing some of the results of the tick with a faction member about how we'd moved from 4.3% behind to 0.2% in front of another faction. At 3am the difference was 1.4% ahead. It's one of the things that first drew my attention to it and made me compare my 1am figures to the 3am figures.

I had logged out completely and shut down my PC half an hour or so before I came back online again specifically to 'do the rounds of our systems' at 1am. I checked the figures had changed before starting. I then logged out again completely and shut down my PC before I remembered that I hadn't done a couple and logged back in again at 3am.

 

[Schlack]

Definitely were not old values. I was discussing some of the results of the tick with a faction member about how we'd moved from 4.3% behind to 0.2% in front of another faction. At 3am the difference was 1.4% ahead. It's one of the things that first drew my attention to it and made me compare my 1am figures to the 3am figures.

I had logged out completely and shut down my PC half an hour or so before I came back online again specifically to 'do the rounds of our systems' at 1am. I checked the figures had changed before starting. I then logged out again completely and shut down my PC before I remembered that I hadn't done a couple and logged back in again at 3am.

That's interesting. Just a couple of systems or a widespread issue? Systems with high activity?

 

[_trent_]

That's interesting. Just a couple of systems or a widespread issue? Systems with high activity?

Our traffic counts are usually 50-150 ships depending on how hard we are pushing each of our systems. Checking the current EDDB values vs my noted down figures, it was all of them that changed, although some moved 0.1-0.2% and others shifted 10-12%. Interestingly, all of the changes gave us more influence, we didn't drop in any system.

One unusal thing about yesterday's tick was that we expanded into a new system. We actually appeared in the new system about 22:45UTC, which is a bit before we normally expect the tick. The influence change in that system was one of the largest movers, at around 11% difference between 1am and 3am. I'm starting to wonder if the expansion might have had a ripple effect out to our other systems for some reason.

 

[JawboneBuddha]

Hello all and Greetings.

I return once again with BGS questions pertaining to one particular state. That of CIVIL UNREST. I recognize that murder and fines/bounties can and will push you toward this state.

However, once you are IN CIVIL UNREST, our station is now offering the following mission types:

DONATION - give $$$ and it says that Civil Unrest has lessened. Does this mean that it is HELPING to knock us OUT of CIVIL UNREST .. to me logically that would be the case, but I want to be sure that doing these missions is in our best interest.

PERSONAL WEAPON DELIVERY - my faction is asking for me to deliver them PERSONAL WEAPONS. Is this also something I SHOULD be doing to remove CIVIL UNREST? It seems that if my faction asks for something it should be in the interest of the faction to do only positive moving missions.

But is this true? Should I be doing ALL these missions to remove CIVIL UNREST?

The one thing we HAVE been doing is lots of BOUNTY HUNTING as it says the influence impact is doubled according to many tables I have used, but INFLUENCE and impact on the STATE are separate things?

Please assist in clarifying if I am correct or way off base...and if so, what SHOULD we do to eliminate CIVIL UNREST the quickest and also avoid it if it goes PENDING.

Thank you.

 

[Schlack]

Our traffic counts are usually 50-150 ships depending on how hard we are pushing each of our systems. Checking the current EDDB values vs my noted down figures, it was all of them that changed, although some moved 0.1-0.2% and others shifted 10-12%. Interestingly, all of the changes gave us more influence, we didn't drop in any system.

One unusal thing about yesterday's tick was that we expanded into a new system. We actually appeared in the new system about 22:45UTC, which is a bit before we normally expect the tick. The influence change in that system was one of the largest movers, at around 11% difference between 1am and 3am. I'm starting to wonder if the expansion might have had a ripple effect out to our other systems for some reason.

Just on the expansion, that is normal in our experience. States change first, including expansion to new system. Only after that the influence tick occurs across all systems. In the new system the expanded faction is caught up in the influence moves of the pre-existing factions. I would suggest that its unrelated to the subsequent influence changes but it does give a data point to watch at the next expansion to see if there is a similar delay in other systems.

 

[goemon]

Hello all and Greetings.

I return once again with BGS questions pertaining to one particular state. That of CIVIL UNREST. I recognize that murder and fines/bounties can and will push you toward this state.

However, once you are IN CIVIL UNREST, our station is now offering the following mission types:

DONATION - give $$$ and it says that Civil Unrest has lessened. Does this mean that it is HELPING to knock us OUT of CIVIL UNREST .. to me logically that would be the case, but I want to be sure that doing these missions is in our best interest.

PERSONAL WEAPON DELIVERY - my faction is asking for me to deliver them PERSONAL WEAPONS. Is this also something I SHOULD be doing to remove CIVIL UNREST? It seems that if my faction asks for something it should be in the interest of the faction to do only positive moving missions.

But is this true? Should I be doing ALL these missions to remove CIVIL UNREST?

The one thing we HAVE been doing is lots of BOUNTY HUNTING as it says the influence impact is doubled according to many tables I have used, but INFLUENCE and impact on the STATE are separate things?

Please assist in clarifying if I am correct or way off base...and if so, what SHOULD we do to eliminate CIVIL UNREST the quickest and also avoid it if it goes PENDING.

Thank you.

redeeming bounties will help ending civil unrest.

as for the missions - they might help ending the state, if their effect reduces civil unrest, but there is no way to check before handing them in.

if civil unrest gets pending, there is nothing to stop it from happening beside triggering another state.

 

[Schlack]

Hello all and Greetings.

I return once again with BGS questions pertaining to one particular state. That of CIVIL UNREST. I recognize that murder and fines/bounties can and will push you toward this state.

However, once you are IN CIVIL UNREST, our station is now offering the following mission types:

DONATION - give $$$ and it says that Civil Unrest has lessened. Does this mean that it is HELPING to knock us OUT of CIVIL UNREST .. to me logically that would be the case, but I want to be sure that doing these missions is in our best interest.

PERSONAL WEAPON DELIVERY - my faction is asking for me to deliver them PERSONAL WEAPONS. Is this also something I SHOULD be doing to remove CIVIL UNREST? It seems that if my faction asks for something it should be in the interest of the faction to do only positive moving missions.

But is this true? Should I be doing ALL these missions to remove CIVIL UNREST?

The one thing we HAVE been doing is lots of BOUNTY HUNTING as it says the influence impact is doubled according to many tables I have used, but INFLUENCE and impact on the STATE are separate things?

Please assist in clarifying if I am correct or way off base...and if so, what SHOULD we do to eliminate CIVIL UNREST the quickest and also avoid it if it goes PENDING.

Thank you.

Once it goes pending I don't think we have seen it avoided - others can confirm.

Influence and States are different. States have buckets that are filled, once the bucket is full the state goes pending. In order to end CU the bucket has to be emptied. This is independent of the influence effects.

CU related missions should reduce CU if the mission description says it does! Haven't tested this recently, not all mission types may be effective (missions can be weird and not correspond exactly to the descriptive text). Worth a retest.

Not 100% sure on whether BH itself empties the CU bucket. Cant check my notes in work, and Michael Brookes's table has disappeared from the OP of this thread.

 

[_trent_]

Just on the expansion, that is normal in our experience. States change first, including expansion to new system. Only after that the influence tick occurs across all systems. In the new system the expanded faction is caught up in the influence moves of the pre-existing factions. I would suggest that its unrelated to the subsequent influence changes but it does give a data point to watch at the next expansion to see if there is a similar delay in other systems.

Yeah, we'll keep an eye on it for future expansions. I'll also keep an eye on any changes that might happen after the initial tick and a few hours later, just to see if last nights changes were a one-of.

 

[JawboneBuddha]

Once it goes pending I don't think we have seen it avoided - others can confirm.

Influence and States are different. States have buckets that are filled, once the bucket is full the state goes pending. In order to end CU the bucket has to be emptied. This is independent of the influence effects.

CU related missions should reduce CU if the mission description says it does! Haven't tested this recently, not all mission types may be effective (missions can be weird and not correspond exactly to the descriptive text). Worth a retest.

Not 100% sure on whether BH itself empties the CU bucket. Cant check my notes in work, and Michael Brookes's table has disappeared from the OP of this thread.

Excellent and thank you.

My suspicion is that BH counts double toward INFLUENCE, however the missions (related to CIVIL UNREST) will essentially assist in emptying the bucket, so two mechanics do seem to be at work as you astutely have described.

Reading the text AFTER handing in both a DELIVER PERSONAL WEAPONS missions and DONATION missions gives the indication that:

"[Faction name] is happy to report improved civil contentment, making a period of civil unrest unlikely" this followed by a blue UP arrow.

This to me, seems a function of emptying the aforementioned bucket of our active CIVIL UNREST state...and logically so.

So the faction INFLUENCE bar was increased in BLUE with an up arrow and the effect was as described with an UP arrow.

Both mechanisms at work.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Not sure how up-to-date this is, but here's a handy list of mission types and their effects..
https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/missions

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

that's not correct (if it ever was). and the relative numbers have been adjusted in 2.2., making bounties more powerfull, and system security killings less.

the general imbalance is imho down to no cap on negative influence actions.

Bounties are more powerful then before, but they still don't hold a candle to fight the killing of the Security ships.

As said (and experienced, otherwise I wouldn't claim to know), unless you muster a complete counter via BHing, Missions, Passenger Missions and Exploration data, the sheer amount of killing Security ships alone will wreck your every System.

Except maybe those in the billions, but even there the deficit will be quite noticeable in comparison to the regular microscopic movements.

Bounty vouchers to counter Lockdowns = yes. Counter % loss on a massive scale = no.

And I wonder how high one can get with %. Our biggest push was (as noted in an earlier post) 17.9% and probably would've gone even higher if no equalisation would've happened.

Edit:

Please check this link. It starts off regarding a functional BM where none should be, but in the later areas you'll find the above mentioned problems along with the % evidence as it was recorded. As I recall you too were a reader of this goemon, so the evidence should be known to you.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...till-operational-though-it-should-be-disabled

 

[goemon]

Bounties are more powerful then before, but they still don't hold a candle to fight the killing of the Security ships.

As said (and experienced, otherwise I wouldn't claim to know), unless you muster a complete counter via BHing, Missions, Passenger Missions and Exploration data, the sheer amount of killing Security ships alone will wreck your every System.

Except maybe those in the billions, but even there the deficit will be quite noticeable in comparison to the regular microscopic movements.

Bounty vouchers to counter Lockdowns = yes. Counter % loss on a massive scale = no.

And I wonder how high one can get with %. Our biggest push was (as noted in an earlier post) 17.9% and probably would've gone even higher if no equalisation would've happened.

yes, but again: this isn't down to the perceived weakness of bounties as far as i can see, but down to the caps applied on positive influence gains, while no cap is applied on negative influence losses.

you can't counter system security kills by bounties (only), because you hit a cap on gains by bounties. you can't counter system security kills by trade (only), because you hit a cap on gains by trade. and you can't counter system security kills by exploration data (only), because you hit a cap on that, too.

unfortunately caps are applied, before losses are deducted, the situation would look very different otherwise.

after you hit the cap on bounty transaction gains, there is no use of redeeming more bounties in terms of influence (it might help emptying or filling state buckets).

the effect of fdev raising the power of bounties was minor, as they didn't raise the cap on influence gains of bounties afaik.

 

[smiths121]

Bounties are more powerful then before, but they still don't hold a candle to fight the killing of the Security ships.

As said (and experienced, otherwise I wouldn't claim to know), unless you muster a complete counter via BHing, Missions, Passenger Missions and Exploration data, the sheer amount of killing Security ships alone will wreck your every System.

Except maybe those in the billions, but even there the deficit will be quite noticeable in comparison to the regular microscopic movements.

Bounty vouchers to counter Lockdowns = yes. Counter % loss on a massive scale = no.

And I wonder how high one can get with %. Our biggest push was (as noted in an earlier post) 17.9% and probably would've gone even higher if no equalisation would've happened.

Edit:

Please check this link. It starts off regarding a functional BM where none should be, but in the later areas you'll find the above mentioned problems along with the % evidence as it was recorded. As I recall you too were a reader of this goemon, so the evidence should be known to you.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...till-operational-though-it-should-be-disabled

On a related not, last time I tried killing system authority did not appear to have a negative effect if the system authority was from a Anarchy minor faction.

Simon

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

On a related not, last time I tried killing system authority did not appear to have a negative effect if the system authority was from a Anarchy minor faction.

Simon

We were attacked by a Wing of 4 people where at least one of them (their Wing Commander) accumulated between 300-500k worth of bounties on his head per day, resulting in a final number of 10.8mil before he was wiped off the Top 5 Bounty board. His followers were at a total of 500k-2mil.

Unwittingly they provided the perfect data to be transmitted to FD to work out to counter this imbalance.

So killing just a few Security ships by one person doesn't leave much of a dent in the % of a System, Anarchy or otherwise. The systematic slaughter however does.

 

[Schlack]

On a related not, last time I tried killing system authority did not appear to have a negative effect if the system authority was from a Anarchy minor faction.

Simon

Anarchy system? So no bounty on your head then? It is the gaining of the bounty for murder rather than killing the SYS authority.

Killing of ships has a very very minor effect on its own.

 

[Jane Turner]

Just has a slightly anomolous result wrt to triggering a war. Yesterday 54% no pending states, today 59.9% war for system pending. I just dropped into the system after cursing my luck ofr falling just short.

 

[Schlack]

Just has a slightly anomolous result wrt to triggering a war. Yesterday 54% no pending states, today 59.9% war for system pending. I just dropped into the system after cursing my luck ofr falling just short.

Sorry Jane,

are you saying the coup triggered at 59.9% or are you saying that you saw a different result in the same tick period after jumping into system? Some cmdrs were noting a second "mini tick" as they were calling it.