Alliance factions!

So your saying variety has benefits to the whole playerbase? This is a concept worth getting behind ;)
I mean, I do it for anarchies where I can, 'cause it opens up new business opportunities and trade routes.

Plus for some reason some players seem to get really mad about it even if I deliberately avoid high-traffic systems. If I was taking out really good bounty hunting spots I'd understand, but I tend to avoid those too (not least because a lot of passive bounty hunting traffic makes those systems way too much effort to shift)
 
I mean, I do it for anarchies where I can, 'cause it opens up new business opportunities and trade routes.

Plus for some reason some players seem to get really mad about it even if I deliberately avoid high-traffic systems. If I was taking out really good bounty hunting spots I'd understand, but I tend to avoid those too (not least because a lot of passive bounty hunting traffic makes those systems way too much effort to shift)

I've done a few Anarchies recently, I have a couple more on my to-do list. As you say they can be harder because you are going against the natural flow of ambient traffic behaviour. It's a bucket list box to tick though, a nice challenge to find both a suitable candidate and to flip it :)

But normally I favour variety, and cool (usually NPC) faction names. The challenge is more satisfying when there are multiple criteria to constrain you, rather than just endlessly supporting a single faction. Different strokes for different folks though, I guess some prefer to just take orders & not trouble themselves with the consequences ;) It's probably a lot of fun strategy for the ones in charge :)
 
28HogJP.png
 
The Alliance Elite Diplomatic Corps run interesting BGS projects for Alliance Minor Factions.

That's what we do.

We are the "Diplomatic Corps" not so much because we are polite and 'diplomatic' about your sensitivities.
We are the "Diplomatic Corps" because we change governments.

We do it a lot and we're pretty good at it.
 
If the alliance really wanted to go on an aggressive push against, they could get into LYR space and make the challenger available somewhere. There's only one Alliance faction in that whole powerplay zone and they've only got the chief and crusader, and as for the T10, there's more anarchies supplying that one than Alliance ports!
Its an interesting idea - BUT -
It's worth turning on the PowerPlay overlay in the GalMap.
Mostly the Alliance is in the "North" and Far North. Kumo and LYR in the Far South; Empire in the South, and the Feds between the Empire and the Alliance.
This means that most Alliance interaction happens with the Feds. The only Alliance vs Empire wars I've been involved with were out in the Witch Head.

So expanding an Alliance Faction that Far South into LYR territory would be a multiple years long project. I don't think that would be on anyone's agenda.

We did try a similar project that ran nearly two years.
Project Apollo or 'CAKE' - the ultimate goal was to expand an Alliance faction into Sol!
Pretty ambitious. - It became clear relatively early that expanding inbound to Sol was blocked to Player Groups (Hutton Truckers had a few expansions that would have gone in), but it was still worth a shot as the faction we expanded across 70 light years towards Sol was not a registered PMF. We did get our test - we had an expansion that would have gone in, but it went to Luton 60 or whatever that one next to Sol is. On the way we took a Lore Rich permit locked system Ross 128. It was pretty weird. The week we were expanding in and most vulnerable to opposition was the same week that Ross 128 was discovered (In Real Life) to have an Earth Like World https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1736/
So we were pretty worried that someone would notice. They did once the war broke out, but by then we had a LOT of momentum, we could have faced a LOT of opposition and still won.
Ross 128 became the cornerstone of our Alliance push South into Fed space.


After we took Ross 128 for the Alliance, Earth Defense Fleet took up arms for the Feds and we had a 4 month war with them, eventually fighting to a standstill. It was pretty tough on both groups and took up everyone's resources - game time and manpower. A treaty was negotiated. My understanding was that we wouldn't push any further south, but that the "Green Corridor" of Alliance systems reaching down to Ross 128 would remain.

I don't know how much of that corridor is left or regained.
After Lave we were under attack by botters for several months and it decimated our systems, including many "Green Corridor" systems.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Its an interesting idea - BUT -
It's worth turning on the PowerPlay overlay in the GalMap.
Mostly the Alliance is in the "North" and Far North. Kumo and LYR in the Far South; Empire in the South, and the Feds between the Empire and the Alliance.
This means that most Alliance interaction happens with the Feds. The only Alliance vs Empire wars I've been involved with were out in the Witch Head.

So expanding an Alliance Faction that Far South into LYR territory would be a multiple years long project. I don't think that would be on anyone's agenda.

We did try a similar project that ran nearly two years.
Project Apollo or 'CAKE' - the ultimate goal was to expand an Alliance faction into Sol!
Pretty ambitious. - It became clear relatively early that expanding inbound to Sol was blocked to Player Groups (Hutton Truckers had a few expansions that would have gone in), but it was still worth a shot as the faction we expanded across 70 light years towards Sol was not a registered PMF. We did get our test - we had an expansion that would have gone in, but it went to Luton 60 or whatever that one next to Sol is. On the way we took a Lore Rich permit locked system Ross 128. It was pretty weird. The week we were expanding in and most vulnerable to opposition was the same week that Ross 128 was discovered (In Real Life) to have an Earth Like World https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1736/
So we were pretty worried that someone would notice. They did once the war broke out, but by then we had a LOT of momentum, we could have faced a LOT of opposition and still won.
Ross 128 became the cornerstone of our Alliance push South into Fed space.

After we took Ross 128 for the Alliance, Earth Defense Fleet took up arms for the Feds and we had a 4 month war with them, eventually fighting to a standstill. It was pretty tough on both groups and took up everyone's resources - game time and manpower. A treaty was negotiated. My understanding was that we wouldn't push any further south, but that the "Green Corridor" of Alliance systems reaching down to Ross 128 would remain.

I don't know how much of that corridor is left or regained.
After Lave we were under attack by botters for several months and it decimated our systems, including many "Green Corridor" systems.

The green corridor agreement was not with me DNA ;) I have no affiliation with them & have never met them in-game, although I know some of the ex-GARD as a result of my work (and playing in Open, meeting people).

I haven't worked Helios for months (since I flipped it), although my work has allowed other groups & individuals to blossom in what was a wasteland of dead systems in the San Tu PP bubble. It is funny to watch the other Alliance faction there chase after that final outpost, you're getting there though ;)

I am no longer looking to negotiate a treaty, but I am still willing to consider one. I can be found, in the game. Just send an envoy from the only group I have met where negotiations broke down, in the game where all my other negotiations take place. I am only defending my home, with a little help from others I have helped to defend theirs.

I respect the powerplay players too, one of my motivating factors is that the faction where negotiations broke down has not.
 
In all honestly the propaganda is beautiful, but always ends up with people yelling about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, and that's a bunch of ridiculousness as usual, and only exists to motivate your own base into action. Meh seen it all happen before, we used to do it too as you can see in DNA's videos (they're pretty good productions too).

I'm over doing that sort of thing now, don't really care for the "I'm morally better than you so leave!". It's a game, we flip parts of the galaxy to our factions, that's what the game seems to be about. Saying Indies fight against each-other so it's not the same, I can understand that feeling, to the point where superpowers also have same-same wars, superpowers mean nothing in this game anymore really they do nothing cooperatively, they don't even create real exclusive allegiances. So in that regard every superpower is really like indies. It's up to players to give them meaning.

That does not mean there cannot be pacts and accords between player owned groups, sure that exists. Coalitions form left and right, between indies, between allies, between all kinds of factions. Even between allied factions and factions of other superpowers. In the end it doesn't really matter, because Fdev's stance on superpowers has been a bit too lax to make it matter.

I work for the alliance because it's where I have friends in because I was drawn in by the original story . . . even if that story turned out to be nothing.
 
Is this about Helios?

Helios was an example, I mentioned it because there are two Alliance factions in it & I've been watching how the other one behaves. I don't normally give the other one much attention because as you say, they tend to expand 'up' rather than encroach into the region I muck about in.

There's plenty of common ground, but there is a lack of mutual respect, so my only option initially was to have a position of strength from which to negotiate - I stopped them expanding. As I said before it's a shame negotiations broke down, we could have been allies.

AEDC creates emergent content for others, by being the bad guys in a lot of ways and I quite like that, because I behave in a similar way (goodie/baddie being a POV of course :)), the green bridge is my kind of huge goal too. But you are stretched way too thin & have gained ground using (not in all cases I'm sure) loopholes & exploits like board flipping & uncontested invasion wars that have since been closed, and are less than endearing to me. Perhaps it's a thing other large groups do, but not the ones I've met. I'm not a fan of PMFs, and tactically adding a PMF to troll non-BGS players is beneath contempt, although I only discovered some of these things after my territory was invaded. We all have our own motivation, our own little rules for what's okay & what's not okay, and none of us see the big picture without sharing info as you have about Ross 128.

But it gives me something to do, and just as they create emergent content for others by turning meadows into ploughed fields, I and others like me create emergent content for them ;)

It's a game, it's supposed to be fun :D I enjoy what I do, taking on big challenges & not expecting to succeed, my little empire of dirt could quickly be crushed with a concerted effort, so I try to make sure my opposition has more important things to do and encourage others to do the same. It normally takes me a couple of hours per day, although the last 24 hours or so have created some issues as well as being beneficial in other areas.
 
Last edited:
Wait, is that what happened in San Tu? I was surprised an alliance PMF was permitted at all given that it wasn't an existing alliance system.

To be fair I don't know their side of the story ;)


ETA the war to flip San Tu back to lawless put 3 factions into retreat & two left, Wolf 393 Noblement was one of mine I used to fill the gap, fortunately before anyone else got in.
 
Last edited:
Helios was an example, I mentioned it because there are two Alliance factions in it & I've been watching how the other one behaves. I don't normally give the other one much attention because as you say, they tend to expand 'up' rather than encroach into the region I muck about in.

There's plenty of common ground, but there is a lack of mutual respect, so my only option initially was to have a position of strength from which to negotiate - I stopped them expanding. As I said before it's a shame negotiations broke down, we could have been allies.

Could you please clarify your relationship with Helios? Are you saying that you (or your group) had an adopted minor faction in there? I was away during the fighting in Helios so I can't personally speak to any negotiations that may or may not have happened, but if it was the case that there was just an NPC faction there, with no (indication of) players supporting it, then I don't see the significance of giving respect to a computer program.

AEDC creates emergent content for others, by being the bad guys in a lot of ways and I quite like that, because I behave in a similar way (goodie/baddie being a POV of course :)), the green bridge is my kind of huge goal too. But you are stretched way too thin & have gained ground using (not in all cases I'm sure) loopholes & exploits like board flipping & uncontested invasion wars that have since been closed, and are less than endearing to me. Perhaps it's a thing other large groups do, but not the ones I've met.

I'm happy at your enthusiasm for playing the BGS in good spirit, and seeing it as the game that it is, but your following comments confuse me a little. I'd be appreciative if you could quantify what you mean when you say that we're 'stretched too thin', and wrt us using 'exploits', I think you'd have to consider the following points: every other group at the time had the exact same opportunity to look for and discover what worked and what didn't within the BGS, and none of these tactics were obviously against the intention of FDev when they were still in the game, which I think would be the only reasonable criteria for them being exploits, as otherwise they'd just be the mechanics of the game. We use the best strategies that we are aware of, and so do other competent groups (including against us), so I don't really see what the issue is.

I'm not a fan of PMFs, and tactically adding a PMF to troll non-BGS players is beneath contempt, although I only discovered some of these things after my territory was invaded. We all have our own motivation, our own little rules for what's okay & what's not okay, and none of us see the big picture without sharing info as you have about Ross 128.

I've heard accusations of us inserting PMFs for the purposes of griefing before, but I've never seen any evidence to back it up. We're not interested in trolling other groups (in fact as far as my experience goes we have specifically avoided them, provided that they actually communicate with us), and to my knowledge we've only ever had two factions registered to us; the second one being an unsolicited and accidental duplication of the first by FDev, which thereby also means that it was placed exactly where the first already was. Our intentions are to spread the Alliance, and mucking about playing practical jokes isn't compatible with that.

As an aside, I'm also not sure what you're talking about when you say 'to troll non-BGS players'. I take it, in order for your comment to be relevant here, that the players in question have an adopted minor faction(s), in which case, that in and of itself is an act of playing the BGS. If what you meant was that they had no interest in fighting other player groups or expanding, then I'm afraid, if we're talking about anywhere that isn't on the outer fringes of the bubble, player conflict is far from something to be ruled out. Wrt this and the rest of your post, if you're ever concerned that we may be treading on your group's territory, please contact us via our discord. In there, I'm sure we can work something out like we have with many groups before.

(Sorry for my poor grammar :p)
 
Could you please clarify your relationship with Helios?

Not really sure what needs to be clarified beyond what I already stated in this thread, which was purposely kept vague. I don't know who you are, but you are welcome to PM me here if you want to discuss terms. Since my last post in this thread the faction I oppose has been retreated from 10 systems (one will happen on the next tick).


ETA I don't use discord btw, I don't have an inara account, or EDDB, or use any other 3rd party tools. Just this forum account & the game. All my negotiations are done in-game, I'll accept any friend request, PM me for my in-game name if you don't know it.
 
Last edited:
Not really sure what needs to be clarified beyond what I already stated in this thread, which was purposely kept vague. I don't know who you are, but you are welcome to PM me here if you want to discuss terms. Since my last post in this thread the faction I oppose has been retreated from 10 systems (one will happen on the next tick).


ETA I don't use discord btw, I don't have an inara account, or EDDB, or use any other 3rd party tools. Just this forum account & the game. All my negotiations are done in-game, I'll accept any friend request, PM me for my in-game name if you don't know it.

I'm just a random AEDC member, to answer your question, which also means that I'm not in a position to open any negotiation myself. I don't really want to argue over this next part too much, but imo communicating outside of game is much better due to not having to rely on instancing, and also it just being more 'professional' and convenient in general. As I'm sure you're aware, it's very easy to make a discord account, but if you're really committed to not doing that then I think it's possible you can talk it over with the relevant people via the forum. Leaving a message to let them know on our recruitment thread might be your best bet for that if they don't pick up on it via this one.
 
I'm just a random AEDC member, to answer your question, which also means that I'm not in a position to open any negotiation myself. I don't really want to argue over this next part too much, but imo communicating outside of game is much better due to not having to rely on instancing, and also it just being more 'professional' and convenient in general. As I'm sure you're aware, it's very easy to make a discord account, but if you're really committed to not doing that then I think it's possible you can talk it over with the relevant people via the forum. Leaving a message to let them know on our recruitment thread might be your best bet for that if they don't pick up on it via this one.

This forum is outside the game, and there are no instancing issues with text chatting to another player on your friend list.

I am no longer actively looking to negotiate, I have a plan for each system that faction is in, some require more work for a suitable candidate faction, but the long term goal is to retreat it back to 1% in it's home system, then I'll stop. Obviously there will probably be a point at which I will no longer be able to push against whatever resists me (mostly ambient traffic) but that's the plan ;) Unless a treaty is negotiated.

And I'm not a bot ;) I met an AEDC squadron player a while back (couple of months ago now, they were docked but in Open), s/he didn't know who I was (no reason to expect them to but I do leave a trail & can be found), I struck up a conversation & they were complaining about how bots were ruining the game. I asked which systems & they named a couple I had flipped. I rattled off a few more & told them it wasn't bots, it was me :)

I then broke 'protocol' and told them what my next target would be - Wolf 393. Then I flipped it, and (coincidentally) expanded the faction I put in control into San Tu to fill the 7th slot after the Dragons/SSU war retreated 2 factions (it had 8). And have since retreated that Alliance faction from Wolf 393, along with several other systems.

So I don't really need to negotiate a treaty :). You play your way, I'll play mine & we can enjoy a bit of to & fro maybe. But if you want to negotiate, well now you know who your opposition is, and where to find me :)
 
Last edited:
Re-reading this I realise the description of my long term goal for this faction comes across as a bit obsessive to an outside observer. I am in no hurry, I do plenty of other things, usually with other players I randomly meet simply because I play in Open. I no longer explore since the old exploration modules were removed so this is just something else to do in my spare time. I set huge goals, break them down into manageable chunks & methodically work towards them. I usually succeed eventually.
 
This forum is outside the game, and there are no instancing issues with text chatting to another player on your friend list.

I am no longer actively looking to negotiate, I have a plan for each system that faction is in, some require more work for a suitable candidate faction, but the long term goal is to retreat it back to 1% in it's home system, then I'll stop. Obviously there will probably be a point at which I will no longer be able to push against whatever resists me (mostly ambient traffic) but that's the plan ;) Unless a treaty is negotiated.

And I'm not a bot ;) I met an AEDC squadron player a while back (couple of months ago now, they were docked but in Open), s/he didn't know who I was (no reason to expect them to but I do leave a trail & can be found), I struck up a conversation & they were complaining about how bots were ruining the game. I asked which systems & they named a couple I had flipped. I rattled off a few more & told them it wasn't bots, it was me :)

I then broke 'protocol' and told them what my next target would be - Wolf 393. Then I flipped it, and (coincidentally) expanded the faction I put in control into San Tu to fill the 7th slot after the Dragons/SSU war retreated 2 factions (it had 8). And have since retreated that Alliance faction from Wolf 393, along with several other systems.

So I don't really need to negotiate a treaty :). You play your way, I'll play mine & we can enjoy a bit of to & fro maybe. But if you want to negotiate, well now you know who your opposition is, and where to find me :)

Sorry if I took it the wrong way but it seemed like you wanted to negotiate, you used both in-game chat plus the forum, and that when you talked about communicating in-game you meant actually meeting up. My bad.

I never mentioned the bot issue, not sure why you're bringing it up here. For the record though, we as well as some other groups have looked into the issue before and have come out of it with compelling evidence that botting was a significant problem. I'm not sure which commander you're meant to be referring to, but the consensus our group has is that the botting ended quite some time ago. If your activities were ongoing at this time, I think it would've been a reasonable mistake to make, given the fact that we knew that we were definitely getting botted, as well as it just being generally difficult to know straight away who exactly you're fighting where.
 
After Lave we were under attack by botters for several months and it decimated our systems, including many "Green Corridor" systems.

The green corridor stuff wasn't bots, that was me. Sometimes I get help from other players I meet while playing in Open.

I am no longer looking to negotiate a treaty, but I am still willing to consider one.

Which part of this was not clear?
 
Last edited:
The green corridor stuff wasn't bots, that was me. Sometimes I get help from other players I meet while playing in Open.



Which part of this was not clear?

Not having a go but you've got the first quote falsely attributed to me. It doesn't go against what I've been saying but I just wanted to clarify that :p
 
Top Bottom