AI Faction in expansion at 32%, not 60%+ Cheating to lower influence for another (also) player-supported, trying to get to number 1?

[Vurrath]

It's news to me, if factions can now expand at BELOW 60% influence... correct me if i'm wrong, but most factions DO STILL plan on that basis?

in that case, explain this ;

32% ... and the other main player-backed faction, Azimuth, is not only not-appearing at installation raids (their ships can't be targeted there)
but also, Wandrama Independents, the federation faction their opponent multiple times now,
IS APPEARING at the installation raids, and CAN be targeted.

i.e. whoever is cheating FOR Azimuth, has made the independents target-able, but PROTECTED Azimuth from the same!

When re-entering one for the past hour or so, i got at-least;

(the number of times the following faction was the opponent of Royal Pheonix corp at the installations)

Wandrama Crimson Public Inc 6+
Natural Wandrama JP 4+
Wandrama Indipendents 3+
Wandrama Public Industry 3+
Wandrama Purple Council 2+

Azimuth? ZERO

the total of those is off by a few, that was just from counting in my head and then getting sick of it,
but even at just those numbers, the chance of Azimuth not appearing ONCE, is VERY LOW ;

7-1 (RPhC) 1-6 base chance before any modifications? like states? ( you can see in the vid, they were Happy/preparing for war (BEFORE YOU SAY it's because of preparing for war, their OPPONENT did end up here, so that shouldn't be it, OR, their opponent was being artificially added to the prospect raiding factions to-be-targeted perhaps) ),

but assuming 1-6,

1 1-6

2 1-6 x2 (2-6 that they would or 66% that would they would not, so OK, still fine...)

3 1-6 x3 ...
4 x4 ...

.. x18 ...

18 in 6, at least.

the chances of that is incrementally rediculous 16.66%
EIGHTEEN TIMES, at least.

---

In this video you can see that the influence is TOO LOW,
if the threshold is still 60%.

I could search through my journals to prove my point about the raids at the installations, too.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jdwzJh0qqCOpmdJeQeZ08RKiXCH_bqXF/view?usp=sharing]

If cheating annoys/angers you,
feel free to come over and help out.

 

[Vurrath]

At least don't FEIGN fair-play, Frontier,
if it's your plan to force Azimuth into success out in the backyard of Utopia.

I hope this is PLAYERS cheating, i truly do.

---

There is no point wasting everyone's time and effort, trying to fight-against the impossible,

if you've made up your 'creative' minds,
instead of having put them closer to HIP 22460 in the first place,
if i remember correctly, it was supposed to've been a convenience?

another base/prescence closer to the core?

the ones in the middle of Hudson/Federation territory weren't CLOSE ENOUGH ALREADY?

---

Was the 'reason' to choose a technicalITY 'non'-hostile-location, so close to Utopia, to actually create problems in our backyard, KNOWING that it would attract trigger-happy morons, and that we'd have to deal with it?

Gee, thanks,
it's not like we have enough problems with Kumos all the time.

---

Regardless of the reason, IF it was someone mis-using Frontier's systems/dev. participation,

There will be NO SANCTIONING of Azimuth, by Utopia. Full stop.
Make no mistake about it, we've had the debate.

---

"no-point" that is,
except FURTHER wasting of Utopia's and hostile-to-Azimuth players' time,
while LYING TO THE PLAYERBASE about how free-play / fair-play the game environment is,
when it's REALLY LIKE THIS, that is.

i truly hope not,
and that is cheating BY players, i truly do.

Punishment is in order then?,
how about a plot dev. where Azimuth realizes there's NO POINT in remaining in Wandrama, for convenience, "for proximity" was it?,
AFTER THE ABANDOMENT of the HIP 22460 system / Salvation's plan's failure?

i.e. there's no point FOR Azimuth, to be having that convenience, if the 22460 plan / interest for the company, is now a total loss / failure / hemorrhage?

makes sense. What ARE they supposed to still be doing there?

---

It's not a good look,
in terms of attracting players / retaining players,
if you're truly concerned about how the business's going - FAIR PLAY is critical.

Gotta be EITHER WAY ;

EITHER a decision of yours, in which case take a look a the mirror and UPDATE Azimuth's realistic decision making,

or PUNISH the cheaters trying to get Azimuth in.

expansion at 32%

who regularly gets that?
NO-ONE

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's news to me, if factions can now expand at BELOW 60% influence... correct me if i'm wrong, but most factions DO STILL plan on that basis?

Expansion is a global state, so that factions can't expand from multiple systems at the same time. Once started in any system, it then shows up in all systems the faction is present in. Factions need to be above 75% [1] in only one of their systems to get the expansion state pending; they can fall after that to any amount and it won't stop the state going active and then completing - there is no way to stop it [2]

Royal Phoenix Corporation is present in 38 systems, and on high influence in quite a few of them. I can't tell from here which one is the expansion source, but it will say in the local station news.

[1] Not 60%, never has been. If your documentation says 60% it's completely wrong and is best destroyed.
[2] Very old guides may claim that there is, and there was a possible though tricky one before the major BGS rewrite in 3.3. Hasn't worked for years.

(the number of times the following faction was the opponent of Royal Pheonix corp at the installations)

Wandrama Crimson Public Inc 6+
Natural Wandrama JP 4+
Wandrama Indipendents 3+
Wandrama Public Industry 3+
Wandrama Purple Council 2+

Azimuth? ZERO

That's curious, definitely, but if your immediate assumption is "someone is cheating" or "Frontier placed Azimuth here specifically to mess with us" rather than "there may be some interesting undocumented BGS behaviour here", then you're going to be spending a lot of time complaining and not a lot of time winning the conflicts. I think you might be the first person to actually track which factions are used as opponents in installation scenarios [3], so there's not really any record of what's normal ... still, this might be a clue to figure it out.

Looking at the factions, one possibility is that Azimuth is in Boom, and the others (Royal Phoenix aside, but obviously they won't fight themselves) aren't. As Boom factions generate these scenarios at their own installations as defender, maybe they can't simultaneously be attackers.

Another possibility is that Azimuth is the only non-native faction of the six possibilities, and only native factions can be attackers? I'm not saying that's the answer either - but it'd need testing elsewhere to rule it out.

A third possibility is sheer bad luck: chance of Azimuth not appearing in 20 goes if it's completely random is 2.5% - low, but thousands of times more likely than some other player being able to influence what you're seeing in your scenario instances, and thousands of times more likely than Frontier caring in the slightest which faction controls the Wandrama system.

[3] Part of the reason is that even if Azimuth appeared equally to the others, you'd still only be getting use out of it 1/6 of the time. So the standard CZs are going to be way more efficient for winning the war as Azimuth will show up to those 100% of the time, which means most people aren't going to have a practical use for this data. And unfortunately most BGS players don't investigate stuff which they can't see an immediate use for.

 

[Kira Goto]

A third possibility is sheer bad luck:

I’m intent on believing this because it’s not entirely out of the odds(RNG be willing) to not have them show up. My inner stats nerd from following some basic courses about statistics in high school and following would say a larger sample size is required to make a definitive statement to determine if anything foul is afoot.

Rendered somewhat moot of a point by the fact that I’ve seen someone report seeing Azimuth as a faction attacking the installation because they accidentally joined their raid and promptly abandoned the instance.

 

[Vurrath]

Expansion is a global state, so that factions can't expand from multiple systems at the same time. Once started in any system, it then shows up in all systems the faction is present in. Factions need to be above 75% [1] in only one of their systems to get the expansion state pending; they can fall after that to any amount and it won't stop the state going active and then completing - there is no way to stop it [2]

Royal Phoenix Corporation is present in 38 systems, and on high influence in quite a few of them. I can't tell from here which one is the expansion source, but it will say in the local station news.

[1] Not 60%, never has been. If your documentation says 60% it's completely wrong and is best destroyed.
[2] Very old guides may claim that there is, and there was a possible though tricky one before the major BGS rewrite in 3.3. Hasn't worked for years.


That's curious, definitely, but if your immediate assumption is "someone is cheating" or "Frontier placed Azimuth here specifically to mess with us" rather than "there may be some interesting undocumented BGS behaviour here", then you're going to be spending a lot of time complaining and not a lot of time winning the conflicts. I think you might be the first person to actually track which factions are used as opponents in installation scenarios [3], so there's not really any record of what's normal ... still, this might be a clue to figure it out.

Looking at the factions, one possibility is that Azimuth is in Boom, and the others (Royal Phoenix aside, but obviously they won't fight themselves) aren't. As Boom factions generate these scenarios at their own installations as defender, maybe they can't simultaneously be attackers.

Another possibility is that Azimuth is the only non-native faction of the six possibilities, and only native factions can be attackers? I'm not saying that's the answer either - but it'd need testing elsewhere to rule it out.

A third possibility is sheer bad luck: chance of Azimuth not appearing in 20 goes if it's completely random is 2.5% - low, but thousands of times more likely than some other player being able to influence what you're seeing in your scenario instances, and thousands of times more likely than Frontier caring in the slightest which faction controls the Wandrama system.

[3] Part of the reason is that even if Azimuth appeared equally to the others, you'd still only be getting use out of it 1/6 of the time. So the standard CZs are going to be way more efficient for winning the war as Azimuth will show up to those 100% of the time, which means most people aren't going to have a practical use for this data. And unfortunately most BGS players don't investigate stuff which they can't see an immediate use for.

Ugh,.. thank you for the reminder re global factional state change,..
when it's good to be wrong!

OK, so that's one, but i remain unconvinced about the which-faction at the raids on instllations. I'm familiar enough with SEQUENTIAL odds, to know that that's no random result.

 

[Vurrath]

accusation about the 60/75 whatever within Wandramam totally withdrawn!

 

[Vurrath]

I’m intent on believing this because it’s not entirely out of the odds(RNG be willing) to not have them show up. My inner stats nerd from following some basic courses about statistics in high school and following would say a larger sample size is required to make a definitive statement to determine if anything foul is afoot.

Rendered somewhat moot of a point by the fact that I’ve seen someone report seeing Azimuth as a faction attacking the installation because they accidentally joined their raid and promptly abandoned the instance.

Well that's good to hear,

perhaps the impedence was focused on particular players, i.e. those who can do a lot with a lot of spare time on their hands. I believe i've experienced a lot of that before, however i used a VPN to log in through a british IP, presumably getting through to a british server, so at least in this case, there goes my theory that it's another mis-use of the Amazon servers! shrugs if it's a kind of embedded temporary code exploit targeting specific players, there's no telling where it might be. I do jump to the conclusion about WHERE,.. not if, it happens, to me.

 

[Vurrath]

stat.s wise though, i must disagree.
my high school odds isn't terrific either, but i know sequentials are incrementally very unlikely.

---

one 5 in 6, is only that,

but two 5-6es, becomes... pfff...

10in36?
25in36?

that's a 1in3.6 or 1in4 ?

---

THREE 5in6es,

becomes
125/216?

1 in 1.728? almost TWICE as unlikely,.. at only THREE times in a row...

---

moving on to 18 in a row?
beomes

19073486328125 / 609359740010496

which is a 1 in 31.94

31 TIMES AS UNLIKELY, that only-the-other factions, would-only get the result, that many times in a row.



Sorry for the incorrect amount in doing a direct 5x5x5x5x5x5 18 times \ 6x6x6x6x6.... 18 times,
i believe it's a little less than that, because the first chance doesn't have a multipier,

(5-6) + (5x5(^17) \ 6(^17) ) ? i think?

something preeety close to that though



a one in 31?

pffffff. possibly

 

[Vurrath]

Expansion is a global state, so that factions can't expand from multiple systems at the same time. Once started in any system, it then shows up in all systems the faction is present in. Factions need to be above 75% [1] in only one of their systems to get the expansion state pending; they can fall after that to any amount and it won't stop the state going active and then completing - there is no way to stop it [2]

Royal Phoenix Corporation is present in 38 systems, and on high influence in quite a few of them. I can't tell from here which one is the expansion source, but it will say in the local station news.

[1] Not 60%, never has been. If your documentation says 60% it's completely wrong and is best destroyed.
[2] Very old guides may claim that there is, and there was a possible though tricky one before the major BGS rewrite in 3.3. Hasn't worked for years.


That's curious, definitely, but if your immediate assumption is "someone is cheating" or "Frontier placed Azimuth here specifically to mess with us" rather than "there may be some interesting undocumented BGS behaviour here", then you're going to be spending a lot of time complaining and not a lot of time winning the conflicts. I think you might be the first person to actually track which factions are used as opponents in installation scenarios [3], so there's not really any record of what's normal ... still, this might be a clue to figure it out.

Looking at the factions, one possibility is that Azimuth is in Boom, and the others (Royal Phoenix aside, but obviously they won't fight themselves) aren't. As Boom factions generate these scenarios at their own installations as defender, maybe they can't simultaneously be attackers.

Another possibility is that Azimuth is the only non-native faction of the six possibilities, and only native factions can be attackers? I'm not saying that's the answer either - but it'd need testing elsewhere to rule it out.

A third possibility is sheer bad luck: chance of Azimuth not appearing in 20 goes if it's completely random is 2.5% - low, but thousands of times more likely than some other player being able to influence what you're seeing in your scenario instances, and thousands of times more likely than Frontier caring in the slightest which faction controls the Wandrama system.

[3] Part of the reason is that even if Azimuth appeared equally to the others, you'd still only be getting use out of it 1/6 of the time. So the standard CZs are going to be way more efficient for winning the war as Azimuth will show up to those 100% of the time, which means most people aren't going to have a practical use for this data. And unfortunately most BGS players don't investigate stuff which they can't see an immediate use for.

re "maybe they can't simultaneously be attackers", i don't think your previous point about being in boom is correct, for that to then apply,.. i'm pretty sure raids happen almost all the time, but in slower frequency... literally you need to sit there waiting for 10 minutes, rather than only 1,..

except in lockdown/war/civil war?
(any of the relatively normal states - i did not care about the delay, i only cared about a reasonable number of random results, from what seems to be random, most of the time. a CERTAIN rule application / reference, is all i would need, but as Frontier refuses to maintain an online rulebook... pfff... it's always anyone's guess.)

but thanks for the suggestion,

same with being non-native,

but again i don't think that's a criteria - i vaguely remember even reading that like with pirate raids from-outside, outside are MORE likely to, not less?
but sure, if it was,..

but i have to disagree with the luck/chances theory ... see my estimation in my response to Kita above. approximately a 1 in 31. very unlikely.

 

[Vurrath]

It's also worth noting that there is no reason to assume that something being available for one player, should necessarily = to something being available for another.

While what we're told should and 'will' happen for everyone,
SHOULD,

that does not preclude outside interference, or duplicitous policy. i.e. telling the public (lying essentially) that your game WILL treat everyone the same and facilitate fair-play, while actually making something that will not,

or

simple outside DDoS, or server-function interruptions.

Neither do i have any reason to necessarily have total-confidence in Frontier's OWN servers,
but most of the time i have to connect through Amazon,
and well,.. enough said there.
Pro federation bias all the way through. considering how much i've gone through, it surprises me that i still play the game at all.

After years of things like this, while other people tell me that the same does not happen to them,
you start to get used to the difference, without ever gettign a satisfactory explanation. pro federation bias, is the only thing that's remained constant, i've even had to shave back my accusation of Amazon themselves, to a 'reasonable' equal level of commercial spending on protecting their severs, UNLIKE Frontier having more of an obligation.

But if whoever it is, has good enough skills to be causing server or even client side manipulations,.. for instance my installation has to go through steam's backdoors, perhaps it's a simple alternative download / periodic code-corruption using 'made space' inside similar SIZED files, per the same-filesize check exploit that has been far-too-little for far too long, in many CHEAP integrity checking systems. I suggested Frontier allow for a TRIANGULATION file-content checking system, an OPTIONAL system you can turn off, a long time ago.

like random door-knocking / house 'inspections'. They went out of fashion in policing / public order a long time ago,.. but the random,.. you might get UNlucky, aspect, actually works.

It would only need the occasional discovery of some corrupt code, to proove the POINT.

Not having one, could be a reasonable trust x cost balance,
and it could be that we DO face a duplicitous Frontier. Dunno.

Either way, when other players try to tell me it's not real 'just because' they do not,
convincing me what i experience does not exist, is utterly futile. No-one can deny me what i've experienced for years.

 

[Vurrath]

I don't necessarily blame Frontier though. They've been honest about CAPS before, per more influential players / players with more time on their hands,
so as far as i'm concerned the capacity to dev. mechanisms that do modify fair-play IS present in the company,
not that that proves that it is being MIS-used, i admit,

but it does mean that they do not as someone incorrectly put it once,
"just make a sandbox" and inferring 'let the kids do what they will' in it.

personally i don't think that's a good idea, despite feeling targeted,
but i guess it's a minor additional chance-indicator that they've got the capacity. taking a step back though, why wouldn't they?
programming servers to discriminate between players whose influence-upon a particular faction has gone over some threshhold, would probably be quite EASY to program.

so yeah,.. not anywhere near a proof, but it does disproove the fan-boys arguments that we're in a 'free' play-space, to at least an absolute degree.

ironic, considering i'm AGAINST a free play-space, and PRO-caps.

Pro Aziumth interference, is no KIND of cap though, it's one faction BUT NOT another, bias / favortisim / cheating.
if a FAIR cap application, was happening to me in relation to this, my impact on BOTH,.. would be being blunted.

not getting a chance to lower Azimuth's security BEFORE the war,
seems quite obviously coincidental, which in a police-investigator type way, as i was saying before about my history with pro-federation bias,
FITS... with the ways in which i've experienced bias like this before.

This time it's a supposedly independent faction, rather than a federation one, but SUPERPOWER interests is then my argument.

---

Perhaps a new class of loyalty for factions?

Federation, Empire, Alliance, Independent, Thargoid,..

... Superpower-lackey? INRA-stooge?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

approximately a 1 in 31. very unlikely.

That's more likely than picking up two fair dice and rolling two sixes, which is an event which happens very often when people roll dice. Most people on rolling double-six (or the equally unlikely double-two) do not instantly leap to "the dice must be loaded" as an explanation. Not even if it happens to them more than once a year.

How many times in a typical day of gameplay do you observe events which have a probability? Even if it's only once a day on average, you'll see 1-in-31 longshots come up once a month. More likely you see multiple things which are matters of chance each day and will be able to find a 1-in-31 chance coming up every week. If a mere 1-in-31 chance is enough to be evidence of cheating and bias for you, then of course you'll see signs of it everywhere.



There's a big difference between "probability when you've defined the experiment first" and "probability when you haven't". Say someone has a deck of 10,000 cards, identical except for the number on the front, which is unique on each card and goes from 1 to 10,000. They shuffle the deck, lay out the cards face-down in front of you on a big table, and invite you to pick one. You pick the 6312 card.

What are the odds that you picked the 6312 card? Is it at all suspicious that you did?

If - before you started moving towards the card - the person laying them out had said "I think you'll pick 6312": does this change the odds that you picked 6312? does this change whether you think there's something unusual going on?