Livestream Discovery Scanner 6 - Reshaping the Simulation

Will Flanagan

Product Manager
Frontier
Greetings Commanders,

This week, we'll be bringing to you the next episode of our Discovery Scanner series!

Dav Stott, Lead Server Developer, will be reprising his Lavecon Discovery Scanner episode, detailing some of the work made when we introduced new Background Simulation faction changes in Beyond - Chapter Four. If you're a Squadron's BGS expert, be sure to mark this one in your calendars!

If you have any questions that you'd like to see answered, please reply to this thread with your question! As always, we'll try our best to answer as many questions as possible.

Livestream details
  • Topic – Discovery Scanner - Reshaping the Simulation
  • Date – 15 August 2019
  • Time – 18:00 (UTC)
  • Where – YouTube, Twitch and Mixer
See you there!
 
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Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
It's a big question but... Could Dav explain the changes, in brief, made to BGS since C4 and how they are different to previously, please?
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
Factabulous said:
And a question - why have you made negative states so difficult to achieve?
Click to expand...
MDHansen said:
+10
Click to expand...
+ Eleventy Billion

This livestream is at 4am my local, on a work day, and seeing this get addressed in the stream (or at least acknowledged as needing a serious rebalance) is literally the biggest reason I'm going to wake up for this stream.

@Dav Stott , @Will Flanagan , graph, er, "adult entertainment" below for demonstration of how dire this has been. Courtesy of @Mangal Oemie , ordered most recent to oldest, for the last six months.

As a bit of narrative, Lockdown and Famine are virtually non-existant, and the comparatively meager occurrences of Civil Unrest and Bust are almost always Anarchy factions, as lawful factions almost always target Anarchies with -ve effect missions such as pirate lord assassinations and pirate massacres.
July
Source: https://i.imgur.com/pooxmEN.png

June
Source: https://i.imgur.com/bHNMm7P.png

May
Source: https://i.imgur.com/kCyVnGW.png

April
Source: https://i.imgur.com/Sj6hGXr.png

March
Source: https://i.imgur.com/TqaN88N.png

February
Source: https://i.imgur.com/WFxvTbe.png

To average it out over those 6 months (Using my MK 1 eyeball) have active at any one time, comparing oranges to oranges:
~ 6,500 Boom States vs ~ 600 Bust states
~ 600 Investment States vs Almost 0 Famine states
~ 1,700 Civil Liberty States vs 100 Civil Unrest states, and Almost 0 Lockdown.
 
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Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Why does only the bounty count towards a negative BGS outcome from murder? Surely the act is what counts? I ask because Archon Delaine, The Pirate King of Kings™ rank 5 Powerplay bonus makes BGS murder impossible as he negates all bounties from criminal actions. Is this intentional, or is it a bug?

Retreat states: a lot of people say that its impossible because sometimes there is a massive uptick in influence. Is this because the retreating faction has become an end point of receiving missions?

Related: why is it missions with retreat themes increase influence of the retreating faction even though the mission specifically narrates that faction escaping that system? Surely it should be the other way round? (i.e. doing missions for retreat makes you retreat faster).
 
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Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Why is it in the new CZs you have T-9s but not its chunky brother, the T-10? Its like having Phil Mitchell when you should be sending Grant.

Also, in the BGS beta I had CZs pop up in asteroid belts. I have not seen one in the 'live' build ever again. Can CZs appear anywhere?

In the olden days I had CZs appear in the same instance of refugee convoys and distribution centres. It was manic and really chaotic- but it was really really fun. Will these 'mash ups' of USS/ POI types ever be a 'real' thing?
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Why is it coup wars do not operate like retreats but in reverse? I.e. in retreat you must hold a faction below 2.5%, why not have coups holding the subverting faction above 60% (giving the defender a chance to lower it?). This would reflect coups being wars of influence rather than outright killing as you do with CZ struggles.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Back to NPCs in the BGS: how are their modules picked? Currently Pirate Lords use one of either two loadouts- will this ever change? For example will Corvette Pirate Lords use modules beyond twin huge plasma?

Will we have greater consistency with instanced mission NPCs? For example a chasing pirate or bounty hunter has the same ship but the name changes each time they appear in my instance.
 

FrogsFriend

FrogsFriend
Question: Factions that reach 75% and Expand, now suffer no drop in Influence during the Expansion. Previous to Chapter 4 they would drop a few percent every day while in the Expansion state. This means that Factions in low/no traffic systems can stay in Expansion indefinitely (allowing for a cooldown period in between each Expansion). Is this intended or a bug?

Also, really looking forward to this. Thanks FD 👍
 
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