I submitted this post AFTER I had handed in 1mil of bonds at a system where we owned a station. My reason being we do not own ANY type of station where the war is. Our opponent also has no real estate in this system and the very last thing I want to do is increase the influence of any faction in this new system. I was concerned about increasing the influence of the station.
After the tick, our influence gap has opened up by 2.6% and that was with me handing in bonds in a system where we 'rule'. Since then we have had a 'hoot' and this time I believe we all handed our bonds into the system where we are fighting. (folks suggested this was the correct way of doing things) I intend to record the influence of the station we used before the tick, and then record it after the tick. If that influence goes up.... Then what a daft war we are involved in.
Opponent A slugs it out with opponent B. The booty is handed in at the local station owned by opponent Z. Would it be daft if the influence of Z is increased purely by the actions of this war, especially as Z is our next target!
there are several things to note:
a) it isn't the bond value, which is important, it is the number of bond cash-ins. e.g. you will gain much more influence from cashing in 10*20 k in bonds, than cashing in 200k or 2 mio at once
b) it isn't the value of ship, it is the number of ship kills, which is important, e.g. you will gain more influence from killling 10 eagles than from killing 5 Anacondas.
c) bonds only increase the influence of the issuing faction
d) during war/ civil war you are working against a daily loss of influence. e.g. all your actions are mitigated by that
e) influence losses are given to the other factions realative to their influence. so - your opponent Z will most probably gain from that.
f) other actions might push opponent Z, like major faction bounty cash ins, cashin in their bounties, trade at their station, refueling, rearming, outfitting, missions... i suggest to monitor the traffic report in system. when we flipped a station to unblock a rare, we had for exampel a lot of "noise" from powerplay players, selling high value goods at a station.
___
working the BGS is very frustrating, if you expect "A" on the short run. if you expect "A" "at some point in the near future", it works well. i can't count the times i said "we will be at war thursday", and we got into war monday, or "we have done that and that, we will gain 7% influence", and we lost 2% ;-) ... don't panic
