A question for BGS Squadrons with > 20 systems

[Happy Daze]

Tell me if your Squadron constantly checks their Influence in systems with another Player Faction Controlling? One Input, which I disagree with:
As long as Players frequent a System and support the Minor Factions there in any shape or form, the % are bound to change. If your squadron would rise in any System that is controlled by another active PMF, it's your duty as Squadron to lower yourself again. Or lose any possible Conflicts you might end up in. That is how respectable Squadrons conduct themselves in foreign territory.

We control 61 systems. We don't have the time to check systems owned by other Player Factions!

Thoughts?

 

[SteveWW57]

Not constantly checking, but every now and again. After all, no expansion, static and not looking to get into conflicts and rarely visiting systems. Most movement of INF is usually only small generated by the odd random action. Most problems come in systems where not being in control often puts a faction in a pack with others with near INF, and random status changes or CMDRs passing through can generate a conflict. If it looked like a conflict was likely with the system controller, communications would ensue and a bit of remedial action taken if necessary. Big changes would likly indicate 3rd party action, inadvertent or not.

In any event, the system owning faction should take remedial action and not expect others to do so if INF changes are random. Just because a faction has a presence in but does not control a system does not make it foreign territory to them. Respectable squadrons take a live and let live attitude.

Steve

 

[Happy Daze]

So if we expanded into one of your systems and ended up right below your faction (say you're 56% and we're 45%) which would you expect.

1. Our squadron work to lower our INF?
2. You would contact us to discuss the issue?
3. Don't care.

This person expects us to Monitor our INF in their system AND reduce our own INF. They don't say at what level INF, just ANY rise.
The only way I know how to lower our INF is to raise other Factions's INF, which would be divided between all the other Factions.

 

[Mrjupp]

Not constantly checking, but every now and again. After all, no expansion, static and not looking to get into conflicts and rarely visiting systems. Most movement of INF is usually only small generated by the odd random action. Most problems come in systems where not being in control often puts a faction in a pack with others with near INF, and random status changes or CMDRs passing through can generate a conflict. If it looked like a conflict was likely with the system controller, communications would ensue and a bit of remedial action taken if necessary. Big changes would likly indicate 3rd party action, inadvertent or not.

In any event, the system owning faction should take remedial action and not expect others to do so if INF changes are random. Just because a faction has a presence in but does not control a system does not make it foreign territory to them. Respectable squadrons take a live and let live attitude.

Steve

We check every system daily. Those we share, we do little unless in charge.

 

[SteveWW57]

So if we expanded into one of your systems and ended up right below your faction (say you're 56% and we're 45%) which would you expect.

I would hope that the new party in the system would contact the other to avoid inadvertent conflicts. Unless of course their intention was to wrest control. Pushing the 2nd player faction into second place with 45% would seem to indicate hostile intentions. Just saying.

Steve

 

[Happy Daze]

We check every system daily. Those we share, we do little unless in charge.

Just to verify, if you are a "guest" in a system, and your INF increases (for whatever reason) you don't do anything?

 

[Darth Ender]

playing nice together doesn't really fit the ethos of the elite universe. take the systems over if you can. if it really belonged to another group, then you won't be able to take it from them. at least that for long.

 

[SteveWW57]

Who wants to fight endless turf wars when there are plenty of non player factions to take over of better things to do.

Steve

 

[the100thmonkey]

So if we expanded into one of your systems and ended up right below your faction (say you're 56% and we're 45%) which would you expect.

I'd expect you to check your arithmetic.

This person expects us to Monitor our INF in their system AND reduce our own INF. They don't say at what level INF, just ANY rise.
The only way I know how to lower our INF is to raise other Factions's INF, which would be divided between all the other Factions.

Whether or not I agreed to this would be influenced by other factors, such as whether I wanted good relations with the faction, whether they were prepared to offer complementary terms, and whether they actually had the resources to enforce the agreement (even one player can cause problems if they know which levers to pull, when to pull them, and the disposition of the faction they wish to annoy).

Asking you to check influence daily seems rather more like an initial negotiating position than an inflexible outcome. They're basically asking you to steward the system because they don't seem to want to. You could offer the counterposition that you'd do that if your faction were in control, but it isn't. Cast like that, it doesn't seem a reasonable demand. It's their system. Ultimately, it should be their responsibility. Personally, I'd offer to look in once or twice a week (when I play), provided they do the same. I'd ask that both parties work together should influence come within a defined margin. I'd do this after getting to allied status with their faction to open a gap.

In the past, I've generally worked myself to allied rep with PMFs whose systems I share, as both a gesture of good will and as a way to generate the missions with the greatest rewards should it become necessary to boost them. When working for one faction, the influence is redistributed based on the relative influence levels of the other factions. This means that, in the example you provide above, a second placed faction with high influence will lose proportionally more influence than the others. If you work all the other factions, it will lose the bulk of the influence.

 

[Mrjupp]

Just to verify, if you are a "guest" in a system, and your INF increases (for whatever reason) you don't do anything?

Basically, unless requested to do so to keep them full.

 

[Mrjupp]

Whether it's increase or decrease influence.

 

[ubermick]

So if we expanded into one of your systems and ended up right below your faction (say you're 56% and we're 45%) which would you expect.

1. Our squadron work to lower our INF?
2. You would contact us to discuss the issue?
3. Don't care.

This person expects us to Monitor our INF in their system AND reduce our own INF. They don't say at what level INF, just ANY rise.
The only way I know how to lower our INF is to raise other Factions's INF, which would be divided between all the other Factions.

If you expand into a system where a PMF is present, it's usual for you to reach out to that PMF and state your intentions, be that "hey, we expanded into your system and wanted to let you know we don't plan on taking over" or "we are here and we shall destroy you." As Steve says, turf wars with other PMFs often turn into tedious slogs if diplomacy is never engaged.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The order of who they want in their systems is "friendly PMF" > "unsupported faction or neutral PMF" >> "hostile PMF"

So as far as negotiations go, the easiest outcome is that you're entirely neutral: you won't deliberately push your faction, if they happen to get retreated that's no big deal either (though it doesn't sound like they intend to deliberately try), managing the system remains entirely their responsibility. Most of the relationships in my area - even between player groups who get on pretty well - work on this basis. If passing traffic is sufficient to cause a system controller influence problems, that's their problem.

If you need the presence in this system at least temporarily e.g. to make another expansion easier to target to somewhere you want, then you might want to go more than that and say that you don't want to retreat, but they can call you if your influence ever gets above 20% (maybe a bit lower, depending on the system) and you'll help bring it back down. In exchange, if there's an invasion war against you or you do drop to Retreat levels, they'll help you fight it off on a "better the devil you know" basis.

Friendly might involve you taking a couple of minor Odyssey assets and them helping you maintain a 15-20% position so that if someone hostile comes in you form a bit of a buffer (and you'd both fight in that war). If they want you to hold non-trivial assets in the system then it does require a lot more co-operation (there's a system near me where the Coriolis and the Outpost are generally held by two separate allied groups, and they do work quite closely on that to hold position against both substantial passing traffic and the occasional deliberate attempt to destabilise by the supporters of a third faction). This sort of thing might be part of a deeper and wider alliance arrangement.

Hostile involves them annoying you enough in the negotiations that you decide that if you're going to have to monitor the system anyway you may as well own it.

 

[rootsrat]

Tell me if your Squadron constantly checks their Influence in systems with another Player Faction Controlling? One Input, which I disagree with:
As long as Players frequent a System and support the Minor Factions there in any shape or form, the % are bound to change. If your squadron would rise in any System that is controlled by another active PMF, it's your duty as Squadron to lower yourself again. Or lose any possible Conflicts you might end up in. That is how respectable Squadrons conduct themselves in foreign territory.

We control 61 systems. We don't have the time to check systems owned by other Player Factions!

Thoughts?

Over 140 systems under our jurisdiction and also some others where we do not control. We check each and every one daily via an self-developed web app and journal plugin

We have a built-in "Task" system, an one of the tasks is a "Patrol Task" - visit every system in the given Marchy (Marches?) to gather BGS data. People do the tasks for internal reputation points, they get community bonuses for them, we get the data every day.

It's a symbiosis. Works like a charm

 

[Rebel Yell]

Over 140 systems under our jurisdiction and also some others where we do not control. We check each and every one daily via an self-developed web app and journal plugin

View attachment 367227

We have a built-in "Task" system, an one of the tasks is a "Patrol Task" - visit every system in the given Marchy (Marches?) to gather BGS data. People do the tasks for internal reputation points, they get community bonuses for them, we get the data every day.

It's a symbiosis. Works like a charm

LOVELY!

 

[Happy Daze]

Removed

 

[Happy Daze]

As long as Players frequent a System and support the Minor Factions there in any shape or form, the % are bound to change. If your squadron would rise in any System that is controlled by another active PMF, it's your duty as Squadron to lower yourself again. Or lose any possible Conflicts you might end up in. That is how respectable Squadrons conduct themselves in foreign territory.


This sentence: If your squadron would rise in any System that is controlled by another active PMF, it's your duty as Squadron to lower yourself again.

We have systems where INF goes up considerably, but none of our pilots have been in the system. This means other pilots are running missions raising our INF. However the Squadron making the above statement states we are intentionally raising INF and uses this information to tell their Coalitions "See, they're trying to run your Faction out of the system". They are doing this to remove our faction from as many systems as they can. This includes "The Order of Mobius", who ironically has this statemenet in their Faction Page: The order of Mobius founding principle is opposing aggression between members of the pilot’s federation; the order of Mobius is non-aligned in galactic politics and is focused on commerce exploration and defence, it is an organisation that specialises in promoting synergy between disparate groups in order to incubate social and commercial growth.
The Order of Mobius has taken control of one of our systems and did enough work to remove us completely from the system. It looks like this is occurring in other systems we own.

I'm curious. If you control many systems and this occurred to your Faction, what would your response be?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'm curious. If you control many systems and this occurred to your Faction, what would your response be?

Well, you've basically got two choices here:
1) Their coalition is too big to be worth fighting, however you define that, so check the map and make sure any further expansions that you want to keep go another way. Possibly quite some distance another way.
2) This means war, crush them and their entire coalition for their impertinence. If you believe that there's a pattern of that coalition launching "unjustified" attacks on other factions near its borders, you might well be able to find allies of your own for this.

There's lots of things which could be said about morality and reasonableness and so on but they do basically just boil down to justifications for you doing one of those anyway, so you should probably just cut straight to "which will be more fun?"