Day 64 of a broken background sim

[Schlack]

(There's also what appears to be a bug around bulk exploration data. It's not clear what's happening there)

there is a bug about all explo data.

The main issues we are seeing with the BGS are:

1. Effort in conflicts being mis-attributed save for certain actions - you are essentially working against yourself. This is an intermittent and apparently random bug
2. Certain negative effects for actions not being applied galaxy-wide. This is giving the appearance of a working stability which masks the bug
3. the above is leading to a further effect whereby mainly positive effects for factions drives them into conflict with each other far more often - the galaxy has been on fire since 3.3 launched
4. Massive effort apparently gives negative influence results
5. The same effort one day sometimes does not give the same results the next - this is for many actions not just explo
6. influence "rewards" at the end of conflicts can be wildly inconsistent - including the losers gaining and victors losing
7. Conflicts can inexplicably make 2 jumps on the slider for the same level of effort which gained one jump

Many of these bugs are intermittent and strike apparently at random. Thankfully they do not appear to be effecting everyone. It makes testing the BGS useless though as results cannot be trusted to have valid general application - especially where retesting gives different results. My own wild completely unsubstantiated theory is that there is some kind of anti-spam filter, designed to prevent silliness like the old 1 ton selling exploit, which has gone rogue.



Day 68, Lazy FDEV didnt bother pushing a patch out on the weekend!

The latest tin foil hat theory is that FDEV recycled the RNG code removed from engineers into the BGS as a money saving exercise.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Okay, that's what matters most to me, that my actions aren't being ignored / wasted. I'm not a "down to the tick" player, more of a 'big picture' player when it comes to home systems and favorite factions. It's definitely a "background" simulation in my play style, but for the sake of immersion, I do want to know my actions matter, especially if I'm defending a system against a Thargoid incursion or trying to help my home system become a nicer place.

Generally, for anything but dedicated, expecting precise 100% reproducible cause and effect results players you're going to be fine. You may come across a bug now and then but it won't effect the majority of what you're doing.

Of course, on the other hand, for those dedicated precise players the bugs they do come across are very frustrating.

 

[FrogsFriend]

this is the best part, a low-population system we control has gone into expansion-out-of-nowhere twice now despite not being the happiest system, and it's not even kept in check by being in conflicts elsewhere so lowpop systems are very easy to lead into runaway expansions. The previous (non-pmf) controlling faction of that system was already in half a dozen systems under the pre-3.3 BGS and we're rapidly finding out why - the only thing that was slowing them down before was the fact that expanding into so many places would put them in constant conflicts.

Absolutely wonderful. Fantastic. Gotta love having completely uncontrolled rampant growth with no way to keep it in check because negative levers besides murder barely exist.

You don't really need specific negative levers against your faction. Support the other factions in that system, get your faction down to around 50% and keep an eye on it. When your faction starts to rise, presumably through random traffic, go and push the other factions a little to balance it out, otherwise leave it alone.

 

[Old Duck]

Day 68, Lazy FDEV didnt bother pushing a patch out on the weekend!

I was under the impression making minor changes to the BGS doesn't require "pushing a patch", and might not even require taking the server down.

 

[EWanderer]

yep I really would love to have some words from FDev, even though my faction somehow seems to be unaffected and continues to grow and win election after election, while overs burn. I suspect, that our BGS officer is some sort of wizard

 

[insanephoton]

If that's the case ... what's the point of it?

To give the illusion of a living breathing galaxy. Kind of like the changing weather in GTA V

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Can't be bothered, really, out of respect to thread creator. I've derailed it enough. But do start a new thread and I promise I'll drop by.

Total smokescreen, you've never given up an opportunity to try to shout someone down before, and have been more than happy to do far more than simply deraila topic but drag it into the bushes and beat it to death, as long as you're pushing your own agenda.

(yes I've done that too, can't deny it - but "out of respect for the thread creator" ? PUHLEEZE.)

- You do also know multiple threads on the same topic within days of each other are frowned upon by the mods right?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

[*]influence "rewards" at the end of conflicts can be wildly inconsistent - including the losers gaining and victors losing
[*]Conflicts can inexplicably make 2 jumps on the slider for the same level of effort which gained one jump

The first one of these may be a consequence of influence no longer being locked during the Recovery phase of a conflict, so transactions on the "final" day count normally - therefore a group which loses the war but then gets lots of transactions on that final day (perhaps aided by non-combat transactions now counting again?) could end up ahead overall. This behaviour seems to have come in recently - after recovery and pending for conflicts were shortened.

The "two jumps" thing may be intentional - they mentioned the ability for "4 close victories to be matched by 3 wide ones" and possibly this is how it's represented: you make 3 wide victories in a row and the 3rd counts double.

[*]the above is leading to a further effect whereby mainly positive effects for factions drives them into conflict with each other far more often - the galaxy has been on fire since 3.3 launched

I don't think this one is a bug - not as such.

Conflicts now have minimal pending and recovery periods, especially compared with their duration. And conflicts now don't block conflicts for the same faction in another system, so eligibility to conflict is more frequent. And conflicts now lock influence for the competitors, meaning everyone else is moving in a smaller pool.

It gives some really silly effects at the edges, but this I think is basically working as you'd expect from the original description plus the (player-requested) drop in pending/recovery times.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

If by "rulebook" you mean "tattered pile of coffee mug-stained parchments uploaded to a badly formatted wiki like it was an amateur's paranoid interpretation of the Voynich conspiracy", then, yes.

Points for Voynich reference - bravo


(I wonder how many people had to google it?)

 

[Ian Phillips]

Fair warning.

Stick to the subject of the BGS or face infractions for off topic posts.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Points for Voynich reference - bravo


(I wonder how many people had to google it?)

I had to. Yowie!

The BGS is pretty much inscrutable to me. But, it is played very seriously by lots of players.

I think the "shared background" is some thing Frontier created that turned into a monster, not easy to remedy.

 

[Schlack]

The first one of these may be a consequence of influence no longer being locked during the Recovery phase of a conflict, so transactions on the "final" day count normally - therefore a group which loses the war but then gets lots of transactions on that final day (perhaps aided by non-combat transactions now counting again?) could end up ahead overall. This behaviour seems to have come in recently - after recovery and pending for conflicts were shortened.

This is a possibility, however we dont yet have enough data to be sure yet. I'm still counting it as a bug introduced when the gain influence during conflict bug was fixed. This is a situation where some clarity from FD would be very welcome. Edit: after rechecking data this is worth a test! Another possibility is that the +/- post war effect is now rolled into other influence tick changes in the system rather than applied after.

The "two jumps" thing may be intentional - they mentioned the ability for "4 close victories to be matched by 3 wide ones" and possibly this is how it's represented: you make 3 wide victories in a row and the 3rd counts double.

That wouldn't concur with our experience to date. In the last example the sequence was Draw, Close Defeat, Draw, Victory This conflict was also suffering the CZ actions working against you bug - hence moving to . If i recall correctly FDEV said a defeat could be avoided with huge effort (without explaining fully the mechanic). In this instance the same level of effort lead to the double jump.

I don't think this one is a bug - not as such.

Nor did i say it was. It is a consequential effect of a bug interacting with the new system. The absence of (some/many?) negative effects creates more influence convergence than there would be otherwise. Conflicts are of course more common in 3.3. anyway, this unintended effect fuels more conflicts.

 

[Beondred]

All of this could be solved simply by sharing how bgs works.

We would know if things are bugs or features. We could enjoy the game much more.

 

[Stigbob]

All of this could be solved simply by sharing how bgs works.

We would know if things are bugs or features. We could enjoy the game much more.

You'd get an immediate min-maxers guide to it which sort of sucks all the fun out of it YMMV.

 

[Rubbernuke]

You'd get an immediate min-maxers guide to it which sort of sucks all the fun out of it YMMV.

You'll get it min maxed eventually anyway, at least if FD told us we might be able to know whats not working and waste hours of effort each day. FD never told us how the PP leaderboard works, and that was a dismal faliure as we get wildly crazy results for no reason, making players wonder what caused them.

Plus, if the system is designed well enough it should not matter if you know how it works.

 

[Hacker#451563]

You'll get it min maxed eventually anyway, at least if FD told us we might be able to know whats not working and waste hours of effort each day. FD never told us how the PP leaderboard works, and that was a dismal faliure as we get wildly crazy results for no reason, making players wonder what caused them.

Plus, if the system is designed well enough it should not matter if you know how it works.

To be fair Nukie 'ol chap, no matter how well something is designed, when it comes to computer games, there will be the chance to Min/Max it.
People can gradually work out the best ways to get their desired result, but thiss is not the same as knowing if you do X then you get 2xY. I'm more than happy to have the BGS be somewhat dark as long as whatever one does can be shown to be repeatable under the same circumstances.

Right now...This is the main problem.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Hmmm... Let's try a different question - have the changes in 3.3 ruined the fun of serious BGS players?

Does spending several days hard effort, only to find that you've seriously hurt your own faction, sound like fun?

 

[Stigbob]

You'll get it min maxed eventually anyway, at least if FD told us we might be able to know whats not working and waste hours of effort each day. FD never told us how the PP leaderboard works, and that was a dismal faliure as we get wildly crazy results for no reason, making players wonder what caused them.

Plus, if the system is designed well enough it should not matter if you know how it works.

People seem to know a lot more about how it works now than they did. Some of the "gah its broken" has already turned out to simply be changes. I suspect that's causing most of this.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

This is a possibility, however we dont yet have enough data to be sure yet. I'm still counting it as a bug introduced when the gain influence during conflict bug was fixed. This is a situation where some clarity from FD would be very welcome. Edit: after rechecking data this is worth a test! Another possibility is that the +/- post war effect is now rolled into other influence tick changes in the system rather than applied after.

Yes - I would agree that likely the +/- post war effect is rolled in. Looking at some low-engagement conflicts (assetless factions on low influence) the influence changes to them look very much like an +4/-4 split with the effects of the unlocked factions' movement then applied to that.

Similar to how in 3.2 once asset transfer had occurred, the influences could re-cross on the final day without affecting the result.

 

[Deareim]

You'd get an immediate min-maxers guide to it which sort of sucks all the fun out of it YMMV.

That you are not obliged to follow.

Anyway, another good example where you don t know if bugs of not. All horizons systems without orbital of any kind have their economy sliders decays due to no action/traffic. So they are going in bust/famine. Normal ? Not normal ? Who knows...