combat zone and war

[TROG111]

Our PMF is on war with another pmf. Our opposition said that they will not contest. So yesterday i started supporting our war effort.

I did 16 battles and experienced the following:

1) all CZ were stable, nothing running away from me. All 26 were high cz.
2) when you drop into a CZ you are 10km away, in order to get the war to start and ships to spawn you need to approach to within 7.5km (like docking at a station)
3) of the 16 battles, 2 did not spawn ships. Of these 2, 1 remained totally empty, the second spawned two side missions, spec ops and enemy correspondent. I killed the 3 correspondents but took too much damage and therefore died before killing all 4 spec ops. So i count these two battles as lost
4) of the 14 battles that did spawn ships, i lost one - all my allies ran away and i was forced to leave (outnumbered 20 : 1) so i count this as a loss
5) of the 13 where ships spawned and i stayed until all enemy ships ran away (high wake out), all spawned 2 side missions. these were a combination of 2 from: a) kill enemy war correspondents (3 of); b) kill enemy captain (1 of); c) protect ally war correspondent (3 of); d) protect ally captain (1 of); e) kill spec ops (4 of). Most of the time (approx 50%) i got a) and b)
6) of the enemy captains, i had 5, i killed 1, but the other 4 escaped (as soon as their shields are down they high wake so very hard to kill a vette that runs that early). so i count this as 1 side mission win and 4 losses
7) of the enemy war correspondents (i think i had around 7 times), i failed to kill all 3 only once. so i count this as 6 side mission wins and 1 loss.
8) I had 2 ally correspondent side missions (I protected both until the war won message). I had 1 ally captain who i protected too
9) finally, i believe on each of the 13 battles i got the bar to full and received a 'war won' message before the enemy high waked out. so that should be 13 battles won.
10) i never got a second wave, possibly because i won every war, even though i waited 15-20 mins on more than two occasions (to let my shields regen)
11) handed in 2 lots of combat bonds with a total value of around 8m cr.

So, i recon i should have received at least 13 win and 3 losses. Or if counting side missions (13 + 1 + 6 + 3 + 2) 25 wins and (3 + 4 + 1) 8 losses = +12 difference (if the mechanics count points instead of battles) - of if I factor in a total of 32 (2 per war) side missions points (as i may have missed/not seen some) and assume i lost those i didnt see (I saw 15 so guess i may have missed and therefore lost 17 others), this would be 25 wins and 25 losses.

Two of my squadron (in a wing) also did 4 battles. They believe that they only saw the war won message 1 time, but they completed 50% of the side missions, and they did one combat bond hand in each. So im guessing that their scores were something like 2 * (1 + 4 + 1) wins and 2 * (3 + 4) losses.

So total activity was 14 battles won and 6 lost. Or counting points (25 + 6 + 6) 37 win points and (25 + 7 + 7) 39 loss point.

Outcome after the tick - Close Loss.

So my guess is that the CZ mechanics count CZ points and not battles won.

However, due to the number of bugs in the CZ i would suggest that unless you are very lucky and are approaching Elite with a very robust ships, it is nearly impossible to win a war this way, the odds are just too stacked against you. So maybe better not to use CZ to win a faction war?

Also I checked the journals after all this activity. There is nothing in the journals relating to CZ, side missions or war wins - FDEV if you are listening , why not provide this info in the journal so at least we could do a post mortum on our performance and help you bug fix this!!!!! I suggest adding events for a) side selection; b) side missions spawn; c) side missions completion; d) war won; e) entered CZ; f) exit CZ

 

[TROG111]

From my observations and comments in this forum, my working theory on wars is that:

1) each day of a war is calculated on war points, the daily winning faction increases the war result one step in their favour
2) CZ have the following war points available
- high 3 point (war won + 2 side missions)
- low 1 point (war won)
3) if you do not complete a CZ once entered then all points go against your faction
4) combat bond transactions count as 1 war point per transaction
5) war related missions count as 1 war point each.

so i am interested to know if:
a) going into CZ, selecting your opposition side and the exiting CZ is a legitimate way to win the war - by scoring negative points for your opposition
b) taking war related missions for your opposition and then failing them is anoter legitimate way to win a war - again scoring negative point for your opposition

 

[Dommarraa]

Good numbers

1) another vote for join the enemy side and lose
2) tell your mates to stick to assassination missions and bounties
3) shows how impossible it is to see if the system is working as intended without any clue as what 'intended' is

 

[TROG111]

yep, we have taken exactly that approach today, only missions and no CZ activity

 

[TROG111]

One more thought on this and a possible solution if FDEV actually cared to read these posts.

How about making CZ side missions (and all scenario missions for that matter) as well as the CZ itself into a regular missions. For example, when you enter a CZ and select sides, then it creates a mission for you which can only be completed if the war won is achieved. Similarly, when the side missions spawn, then regular missions are created for each CMDR in the CZ aligned to the specific side and these are completed only when the war won is achieved or the objective is completed (e.g. correspondents are actually killed). This would make the state of wars much easier for individual CMDRs to track since they could count the number of completed missions - which would also appear in the journal file and thus support third party tools.

I guess that this approach could also be applied to other scenario missions (e.g. mega ship side missions, USS side missions etc....). Actually i dont understand why FDEV didnt implement it this way in the first place.

 

[TROG111]

another followup. After losing day 1 of the war (my original post above), we decided not to enter CZ in day 2 but just do war related missions (I did 11 missions and some of my squadron did as well). The mission types we took were the war related ones:

- assassination deserters
- covert base assault
- wartime covert data retrieval
- strategic data courier

we won day 2 this way.

So it would appear that the advice is to avoid entering CZ and only take wartime missions (which doesnt even need you to own a station). Also we took the cr option for missions completion as influence is irrelevant so you might as well get paid for the job.

This kind of backs up my theory about war point i described above.

 

[lollo1572]

Thanks Trog111 for your share

 

[Alshain]

3) if you do not complete a CZ once entered then all points go against your faction

How was it you came to that conclusion. I've seen no evidence of that. Quite the opposite in fact, I won wars in total victory (uncontested in controlled testing systems with no traffic) with 1 kill comabt bond turn in each day for 3 days.

I almost positive this asserion is false.

 

[glojo]

How was it you came to that conclusion. I've seen no evidence of that. Quite the opposite in fact, I won wars in total victory (uncontested in controlled testing systems with no traffic) with 1 kill comabt bond turn in each day for 3 days.

I almost positive this asserion is false.

We have multiple threads all dancing around this topic, quite a while back I was saying how we had a couple of systems where we had very, very, very little through traffic, I fought one conflict the conventional way, the other by just doing missions (sound familiar?) Next time with the same two systems we only fought one day doing similar things. I am intrigued when folks say there is NO through traffic, that is some claim but I do accept it is possible, I would however like to see this specific system, but NO WAY would I say

I almost positive this asserion is false

My own experiences are to a great extent in line with Trog. If we start fighting and the game crashes, a bug interferes with the fight, eg the pesky CZ takes off at a great rate of knots, then I go along with TROG. Oh, and you missed out the black box missions. Prior to this latest update, collecting these pesky things in a python was my achilles heel, I could usually get three out of the four but one of them would go 'poof'. Now however, either these boxes are smaller, my scoop location has moved or I am more confident. ANY other type of ship, a piece of cake but my trusty pesky python, poof was the order of the day

 

[Alshain]

I am intrigued when folks say there is NO through traffic, that is some claim but I do accept it is possible, I would however like to see this specific system, but NO WAY would I say

That's actually not too hard to find, you just head out to the fringes of the bubble, there are plenty of them where nobody goes. I won't mention their names here because they are my control test systems and if anyone were to go there, my tests would be corrupt. That's how we do it though, that's how we test BGS. Most observations are meaningless unless you can do it in a control system where the only one that appears on the traffic report is you. If even one person jumps into the system, your test is ruined (which happens, and it sucks) because you don't know what that person did. They might have just jumped in and back out or them may have gone and fought in some war.

I'm confident you can win a war with just combat bonds, without ever winning a CZ.

 

[Speedcuffs]

That's actually not too hard to find, you just head out to the fringes of the bubble, there are plenty of them where nobody goes. I won't mention their names here because they are my control test systems and if anyone were to go there, my tests would be corrupt. That's how we do it though, that's how we test BGS. Most observations are meaningless unless you can do it in a control system where the only one that appears on the traffic report is you. If even one person jumps into the system, your test is ruined (which happens, and it sucks) because you don't know what that person did. They might have just jumped in and back out or them may have gone and fought in some war.

I'm confident you can win a war with just combat bonds, without ever winning a CZ.

Combat Bonds.[up][yesnod]

 

[TROG111]

That's actually not too hard to find, you just head out to the fringes of the bubble, there are plenty of them where nobody goes. I won't mention their names here because they are my control test systems and if anyone were to go there, my tests would be corrupt. That's how we do it though, that's how we test BGS. Most observations are meaningless unless you can do it in a control system where the only one that appears on the traffic report is you. If even one person jumps into the system, your test is ruined (which happens, and it sucks) because you don't know what that person did. They might have just jumped in and back out or them may have gone and fought in some war.

I'm confident you can win a war with just combat bonds, without ever winning a CZ.

Hi @Alshain, a couple of things about your comment surprise me, though i definately would be interested in the details of your observations. But a) its only been 2-3 weeks since the update and wars now take 10 days (3 days pre and 7 days execute) so i am surprised you have 'won wars' (plural) with just combat bonds since the update; b) if indeed it is plural, then i would be intrigued to know how you are monitoring multiple factions on their daily war state since the only way i have managed to find the daily war state is from the 'squadron' panel and since you can only be in one squadron at a time im not sure how you monitor multiple?

Are you sure all of your tests are post update live and dont contain beta or pre update? So as i say, i would really love to see your proof that you can leave a CZ without completing it and do not get the war marked against you.

I agree that you can find low traffic systems.

 

[Alshain]

Hi @Alshain, a couple of things about your comment surprise me, though i definately would be interested in the details of your observations. But a) its only been 2-3 weeks since the update and wars now take 10 days (3 days pre and 7 days execute) so i am surprised you have 'won wars' (plural) with just combat bonds since the update; b) if indeed it is plural, then i would be intrigued to know how you are monitoring multiple factions on their daily war state since the only way i have managed to find the daily war state is from the 'squadron' panel and since you can only be in one squadron at a time im not sure how you monitor multiple?

Are you sure all of your tests are post update live and dont contain beta or pre update? So as i say, i would really love to see your proof that you can leave a CZ without completing it and do not get the war marked against you.

I agree that you can find low traffic systems.

Wars/Elections can be monitored by visiting the system, viewing the right panel, and choosing the faction from the Status screen. Then scroll down.

Since we had (according to EDDN data which was likely incomplete) as many as 30,000 simultaneous conflicts across the galaxy just after the patch landed, it was actually pretty easy to run a few simple tests like that one.

Just be aware if you are doing control testing, you need to count the number of times you jump into the system in each ship within the previous 24 hours. It counts you every time on the traffic log, not just once. That way you can tell it's just you and no possibility of interference.

 

[TROG111]

Many thanks for the info re faction war status, must have been a senior moment for me ;-)

anythoughts then on why we lost day one in the example i provided at the top. We must have handed in 6 or so lots of combat bonds (as well as the war wins and side missions). If leaving a CZ before the war won doesnt count against you, then there should be no reason for the loss? Although there was a significant volume of traffic in that system on that day, the probability of other CMDRs all fighting against my PMF (since the other war faction was also a PMF but an ally who i trust when they say they did not compete) is extremely low.

For example, are your tests using only low CZs? In my theory that would have a significantly lower penalty for leaving before war won.

 

[glojo]

Hi @Alshain, a couple of things about your comment surprise me, though i definately would be interested in the details of your observations. But a) its only been 2-3 weeks since the update and wars now take 10 days (3 days pre and 7 days execute) so i am surprised you have 'won wars' (plural) with just combat bonds since the update; b) if indeed it is plural, then i would be intrigued to know how you are monitoring multiple factions on their daily war state since the only way i have managed to find the daily war state is from the 'squadron' panel and since you can only be in one squadron at a time im not sure how you monitor multiple?

Are you sure all of your tests are post update live and dont contain beta or pre update? So as i say, i would really love to see your proof that you can leave a CZ without completing it and do not get the war marked against you.

I agree that you can find low traffic systems.

Speaking as someone who operates well outside the bubble I can honestly say we have a few systems that might have no through traffic for a few days but I still query folks that claim they have absolutely zero traffic passing through in a seven or ten day period. If folks are inside the bubble and they do not get any through traffic, then may I suggest they change their toiletry habits.

INARA is now my favourite reference software and it shows very interesting patterns..

TROG... I can confirm I had two systems that I conducted in depth experiments. BOTH systems were well away from the bubble and neither were of any interest to passing traffic which was all but neglible. Both these systems have been in two rounds of wars. System one was a coup where we were the challenging faction.

Each day I monitored what was going on and each day the result was a DRAW. Last day we just got a result.

Without any input and it would be highly likely that one lot of combat bonds would probably have been enough to win that war but instead the message I received was WAR ENDED

I can only guess that because the war was a draw and we were the challenger, the status quo remained unaltered but our influence dropped by 2%

System Two was won in a conventional manner BUT... The first day we LOST. We never lost a battle in a CZ as a result of fighting to a conclusion. I can only assume we lost because a) The conflict Zone flew away from me, I got a bounty plus notoriety all for fighting the enemy. Take two was fighting the enemy captain and yup, I got wanted again. And yes, I also agree that these bugs have now appeared to be cured. After that first day, I was more street-wise and won the CZ's we were fighting in.

What I did not appreciate was the small rise in influence that was received after winning a war and even though we had about an 8% separation, this system was dragged back into a war. The coup location I deliberately made sure we went back to war so that we could experiment and this time we did missions only with one system and fighting on the last day in the other location. The missions only system, the GREAT majority of missions had either four or five stars of reputation with just two stars of influence

 

[TROG111]

A further refinement of my theory re CZ.


1) each day of a war is calculated on war points, the daily winning faction increases the war result one step in their favour
2) CZ have the following war points available
- high 3 point (war won + 2 side missions)
- low 1 point (war won)
3) if you do not complete a CZ once entered then all points go against your faction
4) combat bond transactions count as 1 war point per transaction
5) war related missions count as 1 war point each.


However to account for those CMDRs that report that they can still win a war with single kill combat bonds, my thoughts are:
a) they are tending to use low intensity CZs
b) therefore, by not completing the CZ (war won msg), they get a -1 score
c) they are also doing a kill and therefore getting +1 for the combat bond, which would imply a draw
d) however, they are returning to the same CZ before the battle has completed and getting another kill/combat bond.... and repeating this multiple times
e) by repeating, say 10 times, before the battle completes (since there is no other traffic, npc rarely kill each other in a cz, and it requires 10 kills in a low CZ to finish the war, this is a reasonable assumption), the actual war score becomes 10:1, it might be 11:0 if the final kill results in a war won state.


I would be grateful if any of those that are using the one kill combat bond approach could confirm the above. Even if you are using high CZ, this approach could still result in a score of 10:3, so would probably still work.


The worse case scenario, which may account for all the problems people have been having with wars and CZ, would be if you enter a high CZ, kill 20 ships but do not get the war won message, and do not successfully complete the side missions. Then repeat this 4 times in different CZ (the increased number of CZ would encourage this problem too) before handing in the combat bonds in one load. In this case your war score would be 1 : 12 (and a daily loss). You can see how easy it is to lose a war without any other external CMDRs pushing against you. Unlike missions where FDEV removed the option for negative influence on mission failure, they seem to have reintroduced that 'feature' within CZ and specifically i think the side missions.


I am also coming to the opinion that strategic data transfer (wartime data courier) and wartime surface scan missions do not contribute to the war score. would appreciate any thoughts on this.

 

[TROG111]

It would be great if one of you guys with a 'very quiet' test system could try the following:

1) on a fresh day
2) repeat n times (where n is the number of high intensity CZs)
3) enter CZ and select the opposing side (e.g. your enemy)
4) avoid killing anything and wait until the 2 side missions have spawned
5) exit the CZ and go to the next high CZ
6) do not return to any CZ you have already entered (until the next day)

Does your (nt the enemy) side win that day

My thoughts are that if there are 4 high intensity CZ, you should get a daily win of around 12:0 - im not entirely sure if this is 12:0 or 8:0 as i guess in the absense of a player the CZ may result in a draw and so count as 0:0, but the failed side missions should count against your enemy.

 

[TROG111]

And to complete my thinking (relating to wartime missions):

1) strategic data transfer - I have a strong feeling that this does not contribute to the war point (I did 10 of these yesterday and we lost the day)
2) wartime surface target scan operation - not sure if these contribute, but they are bugged (I have reported this). If the target planet is in a system that you have already scanned the planets for, then the only way to find the planet with the base you are looking for is to do a fly-by of all the landable planets (which is a huge pain in large systems) - you can help refine your search by considering a) the cr value of the missions (<900k tend to be the inner planets, 2-3m cr tend to be the 100k+ ls planets) b) if the system is a war the planet tends to be one with a CZ near it.
3) wartime surface recovery of x landmines/hostages - has same bug as 2)
4) covert assaults - fairly straioghtforward and quick to do
5) strategic data hacking - similar to 4 but instead of blowing up the power plant you use your data scanner to scan the terminal (n.b. I have had two occasions where the base did not have a targetable data terminal and so could not complete this mission)
6) assassinate deserter and assassinate veneral general seem to be the wartime assassination missions and as far as I can tell do contribute to the war points.

im not sure if 2, 3, 4 and 5 do contribute war points

 

[glojo]

Hi Trog
Usually,
I would help out but I would insist that we both knew the system the experiment was conducted in just so we both see what is going on. That is how I did all the experimenting with Goemon.

I am rethinking what I said yesterday and when we achieved a draw, one of our members did one or two missions for our faction. These missions were NOT enough to alter the daily state and I do wish that those making comments would give more detail. Winning the overall war is no way enough detail, nowhere near enough. With our player handing in a couple of missions, this was NOT, repeat NOT enough to alter the daily result. The next tick still showed us as 'DRAW'

My experience isin line with what you are saying regarding the cycle. My experience is we start in a state of draw, the next day if one, or both sides are active, the results go up in single daily steps ie Draw, Close Victory, Victory.

I think the developers are doing rolling corrections regarding removing bugs but here we are talking about events prior to any removal of bugs and is it a bug if you retreat out of a zone without winning and being penalised?

If you jump out of a cz and both replenish and repair then some will suggest that is fine, others will suggest it is wrong??

In a wing a while back, one member jumped out to do just that, they got repaired, replenished and came back into the fight. During this time, I remained fighting... The very instant this wing person jumped in, the green sliding bar disappeared and it was impossible to win that battle.

We have one member claiming that in a previous battle a while back, they went into a Conflict Zone, chose a side, got a few combat bonds and then fled!! When I tried doing this, the game did NOT say I had either won or lost that battle, BUT.... The daily result would reflect this loss and if that daily item was not being monitored, then who would know what happened? If ANY player either in a faction, or not kept handing in missions, then this would win the overall wae.

Is this still the case?

my thoughts are with you and a strictly controlled experiment or experiments need to be conducted and monitored and sadly I cannot help with that as much as I would dearly love to.

I will pm to explain

 

[Alone Wulff]

Why can't FDev just confirm how it works??

I fought for my pmf in a system on the edge of the bubble where there is very little traffic (one or two player ships per day - mostly DBX or ASP X, most likely just passing through on their way out, or back in). I started fighting on day 5, the status for my pmf was Defeat. I won three battles and lost one, two battles in High and two in Medium (only one of each in this system, no Low). The next day the status was Close Defeat. I fought 4 battles again, lost one again, same as before. The next day the war ended and I gained 2% influence (but no info anywhere as to whether I won or drew etc). I didn't gain the controlling station so I guess it was a draw. Both days I handed in CZ vouchers but I didn't take on side quests in High CZ (because they're too tough unless in a wing) nor did I complete any missions.

I can't remember whether I lost in High or Medium.

I wish I knew exactly what I did to turn the fight back from full defeat to a draw/close victory.