Any tips for hurting an assetless faction?

[Jmanis]

So short version... give a faction some assets, and I have no problems hurting them. Give them multiple systems, and I can hurt them too.

But if a faction is present in a system, with a high level of influence, and owns no assets in that system, what's a good way to cause negative effects to that faction?

I'm looking at a high population system (1/2 billion) and my goal is to get some more distance between two factions. That's normally best achieved by pairing positive actions with the upper faction and negative actions with the lower faction (ensures that the negative effect doesn't leech influence to other factions).

Any tips?

 

[Sapyx]

This probably won't apply after next week, but if you bring them to War with another faction you don't care about, and keep them stalemated at War for several weeks, the influence of both warring factions will bleed away due to random traffic supporting all the other factions. You running missions etc for the other factions during their War would help, too.

Aside from that, all you can do to bring down a faction is "support everyone else except the target faction":
- Run missions for everybody else.
- Bounty-hunt and hand in everybody else's vouchers, while dumping the target's vouchers at a nearby IF (so the voucher influence doesn't count).

 

[Jmanis]

This probably won't apply after next week, but if you bring them to War with another faction you don't care about, and keep them stalemated at War for several weeks, the influence of both warring factions will bleed away due to random traffic supporting all the other factions. You running missions etc for the other factions during their War would help, too.

Unfortunately, pulling them into war hasn't been viable. They're only present in two or three systems, and each case they're a solid 60%.

Aside from that, all you can do to bring down a faction is "support everyone else except the target faction":
- Run missions for everybody else.
- Bounty-hunt and hand in everybody else's vouchers, while dumping the target's vouchers at a nearby IF (so the voucher influence doesn't count).

The main problem with that one is I'm more than likely going to knock factions together and send my group's faction into war with one of the randos.

 

[Mrjupp]

The only negative I can think of is:

Kill their civilian trade ships putting them in either Lockdown or Civil Unrest or do missions and passenger missions for them, allowing them to time out until your reputation with them is super lousy and you get no more missions, in which case kill their civilian ships again. Personally I just fire a hatchbreaker limpet and then kill them, stealing their cargo to sell at a black market.

 

[Deareim]

Running missions is the best. Or running missions towards that system for other factions.

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

Unfortunately, pulling them into war hasn't been viable. They're only present in two or three systems, and each case they're a solid 60%.

Boost that MF even higher than 60% and trigger a coup, which turns into War, and then do as Sapyx says and let the War stalemate (but would probably be a mountain to climb in missions, trade, exploration data and then CZ over the six days (pending and war) to erode back a coup-level starting INF.

 

[Jmanis]

Boost that MF even higher than 60% and trigger a coup, which turns into War, and then do as Sapyx says and let the War stalemate (but would probably be a mountain to climb in missions, trade, exploration data and then CZ over the six days (pending and war) to erode back a coup-level starting INF.

Triggering a coup at 60% in a half billion pop system is surely incredibly risky right? I'm lucky to see 3-4% change a day in that sort of system... triggering a coup war is going to be =~ 40% difference between the two factions? I mean, I guess they'd have control then and I could hurt them better as an asset owner, but still. Feels high risk.

 

[A Sleeping Bear]

Do missions for every faction in system except the one you want to harm. If every faction but them gets a +1 influence bump that could translate to a -6 for them depending on how many factions are there. That doesn't factor in random traffic, of course but it's a fairly effective method.

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

Triggering a coup at 60% in a half billion pop system is surely incredibly risky right? I'm lucky to see 3-4% change a day in that sort of system... triggering a coup war is going to be =~ 40% difference between the two factions? I mean, I guess they'd have control then and I could hurt them better as an asset owner, but still. Feels high risk.

I agree, hence me saying it's a mountain to climb. Theoretically possible, but very hard. I favour other suggestions like A Sleeping Bear to push missions for all other MFs. How many MFs in total in the system? More is better for it, but you risk tangling your favoured MF unexpected conflict states, esp. once 3.3 goes live (I've not Beta'd it, just read on this BGS board it's possible to have concurrent conflict states, thus not able to 'protect' an MF by trigger a less risky conflict in another system).

 

[Jmanis]

Do missions for every faction in system except the one you want to harm. If every faction but them gets a +1 influence bump that could translate to a -6 for them depending on how many factions are there. That doesn't factor in random traffic, of course but it's a fairly effective method.

I agree, hence me saying it's a mountain to climb. Theoretically possible, but very hard. I favour other suggestions like A Sleeping Bear to push missions for all other MFs. How many MFs in total in the system? More is better for it, but you risk tangling your favoured MF unexpected conflict states, esp. once 3.3 goes live (I've not Beta'd it, just read on this BGS board it's possible to have concurrent conflict states, thus not able to 'protect' an MF by trigger a less risky conflict in another system).

Yeah, as I mentioned before, there's too much risk of knocking my faction with random factions (7 factions in system) if I support all factions with missions except the one who I want to hurt.

I specifically want to hurt this faction, because I can then help my faction out and create a direct-transfer of influence (because if your faction gains 5%, normalisation draws that 5% from all factions. If your faction gains 5% and another loses 5%, there's no normalisation needed; it's already normalised, and that's proven)

I probably should've been more specific in saying is there a good way to specifically cause -ve influence events for an assetless faction (instead of "hurting" an assetless faction), as opposed to just doing +ve actions for everyone else (which is quite a different outcome to what I'm trying to achieve, given the above)

e.g a faction with assets is vulnerable to:
- Crime
- Murdering System Authority Vessels (in their jurisdiction)
- Loss-based trading
- Black Market Trading
- Missions targeting it's assets (e.g skimmer missions)

... all of which have -ve influence impacts.

Either way, what I'm hearing is "yes, it's hard"

 

[FrogsFriend]

Murder of their civilians looks like the best way to achieve what you're after.

 

[Jmanis]

Murder of their civilians looks like the best way to achieve what you're after.

Won't that cause problems for the controlling faction? Given fines will be in the major jurisdiction? (which in this case, is my favoured faction)

 

[FrogsFriend]

It's something I've rarely done myself so not 100% sure, but as I understand it you'll just get bad-state problems for the Jurisdictional Faction, which you should be able to counter.

 

[Jmanis]

It's something I've rarely done myself so not 100% sure, but as I understand it you'll just get bad-state problems for the Jurisdictional Faction, which you should be able to counter.

States I can deal with... but yeah, I was under the impression each fine/bounty counted as a -ve inf transaction. But maybe someone else can confirm that.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Even if you take an Influence hit you should be able to balance it with missions or Bounties I think.

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

e.g a faction with assets is vulnerable to:
- Crime
- Murdering System Authority Vessels (in their jurisdiction)
- Loss-based trading
- Black Market Trading
- Missions targeting it's assets (e.g skimmer missions)

... all of which have -ve influence impacts.

Either way, what I'm hearing is "yes, it's hard"

Well, as you'll know not all of those work with an asset, e.g. BM trading needs your target MF to hold an asset with a BM.

Another option is to boost the target MF into coup, let them win/own the system, which gives them assets to allow undermining. Very long shot, and in large pop systems it's really hard. I've not studied 3.3. BGS changes in the Beta, but I understand there are substantive BGS changes, so perhaps wait and see what that brings, as I expect there's could be a 'new normal' come Tuesday.

 

[rekurzion]

if only you had more time...dynamics change soon

i would trigger the coup to gain them control of the system. then push them into expansion. after the expansion triggers i would pound them with negative influence missions and a heavy does of murder.

i'd keep whatever faction I want to gain / regain control of the system at second place influence wise. on your targets downward spiral they should catch with MF 2 and trigger a conflict to which you pound them even further.

that's a tall hill to climb. if you are up against more commanders and they catch wind of what you are doing you will be countered quickly and aggressively. with the upcoming changes you may think about copying the tactic to all of their systems (unless they are each half billion pop systems) to spread their forces.

do you know how many commanders you are working against?