Do Wartime/Stragegic Missions affect the war process?

[Davonex]

I'm getting mixed signals from google. Most places seem to say that only combat related missions/actions have an effect but there are some places that believe missions like 'Wartime Black Box Salvage Opperation' and 'Strategic Data Transfer' missions have an effect as well. And to quote the games mission screen. "Our war effort can be bolstered by successful salvage contracts, which will bring useful materials for our armament factories."

A vast majority of the info out there is old.

Am I wasting my time doing these missions to help a war effort? I'm terrible at combat and would like to contribute without a plethora of rebuys trying to do Massacre Missions in CZ where i clearly have no business sticking my nose in.

Or do i need to just "Git Gud".

Thanks and looking forward to your replies.

 

[SciTrekker]

I believe it is still the case that only combat actions impact the BGS during war and combat actions are not helpful to sway an election. I haven't kept up with the latest BGS tweaks FDevs may have made, so someone more active recently will hopefully confirm or counter with more confidence than I can.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

General experimentation seems to be that combat-themed missions (massacre, assassination) work in war, and other sorts don't even if they're themed that way.

If you're not great at combat and want an easier way to help out than a CZ, bounty vouchers do help, so a bit of hanging around in the appropriate difficulty of RES can still help your faction.

If you have Odyssey, then ground CZs are much easier than the corresponding space versions, with a low-intensity ground CZ being winnable with basic equipment and a little practice, while giving a similar value of combat bonds to the space version.

 

[Dragsham]

AFAIK influence between 2 warring factions is locked until its end..rep too but not 100% on that

 

[Davonex]

General experimentation seems to be that combat-themed missions (massacre, assassination) work in war, and other sorts don't even if they're themed that way.

If you're not great at combat and want an easier way to help out than a CZ, bounty vouchers do help, so a bit of hanging around in the appropriate difficulty of RES can still help your faction.

If you have Odyssey, then ground CZs are much easier than the corresponding space versions, with a low-intensity ground CZ being winnable with basic equipment and a little practice, while giving a similar value of combat bonds to the space version.

So if there is no RES could i possibly hunt the opposing faction at the nav beacon or would that set off the system security?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So if there is no RES could i possibly hunt the opposing faction at the nav beacon or would that set off the system security?

If you control any other systems, bounty hunt there and hand the bounties in. Then you can just shoot any wanted ship in that system, nav beacon or RES or otherwise.

If this is your first system, you'll probably just have to put up with it and do what you can in a Low CZ - go in, blow up a couple of easier targets (Asps are a nice mix of "not ridiculously tough" and "easy to hit") then get out and hand in the bonds. But the next time will be easier.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

AFAIK influence between 2 warring factions is locked until its end..rep too but not 100% on that

Influence is locked (except for influence movements caused by other BGS states), but some actions which would cause influence movement contribute to the outcome (which actions depends on whether it's a war or election)

Rep is very definitely not locked - accidentally becoming hostile mid-war can be inconvenient.

 

[Dragsham]

Slightly off topic but if after a series of wars between factions in a given system stops. What State will it adopt? And how can that be changed?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Slightly off topic but if after a series of wars between factions in a given system stops. What State will it adopt? And how can that be changed?

All else equal, any states which aren't War will continue in effect after the war ends. If there are no other states in effect, the factions will return to state None. Actions which cause non-conflict states will do this as normal regardless of the War in most cases.

 

[Davonex]

If you control any other systems, bounty hunt there and hand the bounties in. Then you can just shoot any wanted ship in that system, nav beacon or RES or otherwise.

If this is your first system, you'll probably just have to put up with it and do what you can in a Low CZ - go in, blow up a couple of easier targets (Asps are a nice mix of "not ridiculously tough" and "easy to hit") then get out and hand in the bonds. But the next time will be easier.

So if i go to another system we control with a RES and go bounty hunting and turn in the bonds at the station where the war is happening that will help the war effort? And the kills don't even have to be the faction we are at war with? Or I can dip into a CZ pop a couple enemies and bug out and turn in the kills and i don't have to stick it out till a win or loss?

 

[Dragsham]

Jumping out of a cz ain't a good idea. Tactically it's better to just ride it out till its end.
Don't focus on any given enemy until you have a capable ship.
Mill about with your allies and watch how they group up on one target. And join in being careful not to aggro the target. This way in a low cz you'll get a win.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So if i go to another system we control with a RES and go bounty hunting and turn in the bonds at the station where the war is happening that will help the war effort? And the kills don't even have to be the faction we are at war with?

Correct. Any bounty for your faction, regardless of where it was obtained or who you killed to get it, will help a war effort in the system it was handed in to.

Or I can dip into a CZ pop a couple enemies and bug out and turn in the kills and i don't have to stick it out till a win or loss?

Yes - both the bonds and the CZ result contribute towards the war result. If you're not being opposed by other players at all, dropping into a low CZ, killing one target, and going home to hand in the bond will get you a win for that day.

 

[Davonex]

Jumping out of a cz ain't a good idea. Tactically it's better to just ride it out till its end.
Don't focus on any given enemy until you have a capable ship.
Mill about with your allies and watch how they group up on one target. And join in being careful not to aggro the target. This way in a low cz you'll get a win.

If i catch aggro can i run away till it drops then fly back in?

 

[Dragsham]

Yup just don't leave...fly 20 klicks and back again pop a sink or run silent.

 

[Davonex]

First:
I would like to thank you all for answering and helping out you're all awesome.

Second:

Dear FDev:

I love your game but please sort out some of the info regarding the BGS. It's all about as clear as Mud.


Thanks again guys

 

[Jmanis]

Dear FDev:

I love your game but please sort out some of the info regarding the BGS. It's all about as clear as Mud.

That bit's by design. The BGS is meant to be murky and unpredictable.

WRT Missions, there's really no clear answer. The FD line is, to paraphrase a chart ever so slightly, the effect of missions on wars and elections is "variable".

Just to put a few things out there...

• Assassination missions definitely do help win elections. I've won uncontested elections doing nothing but assassinations, because that was basically all the mission board offered.
• Missions more broadly do help win wars, though the exact rules around this are murky, and player experience inconsistent. I've made progress in a war by running a boom-time delivery mission (as the faction was also in Boom). I've also made no progress by doing "Wartime Black Box Recovery", noting those observations were only current as of pre-odyssey.
• An important consideration is just how little flavouring we're seeing of new missions/states these days (i.e none). Odyssey missions do not have stateful flavouring at all. The newer states i.e Civil Liberty, Pirate Attack, Drought, Infrastructure Failure, Public Holiday, Terrorist Attack, Natural Disaster, Blight, have no flavoured missions. Only the original 2.4 states have flavoured missions, so this suggests mission flavouring simply doesn't matter.
• (Only observable in Horizons) we know the effect of missions on conflict (war or election) includes some sort of "influence redirection" method or a variant thereof... at one point it was a direct redirection of influence effects, but FD had to rebalance that as everything went out the window at that point. If you look at the mission result page when you hand in a mission, the "influence effect" bar is not present even though a mission might have an influence reward listed during the conflict. This is true for all conficlts, war, civil war and election This shows that, while the exact mechanics are opaque, all missions are at least considered for their effect on the conflict... although whether that effect is zeroed for particular missions (or even, the correct mission templates at all) is totally unknown.

 

[Don Alvarez]

AFAIK influence between 2 warring factions is locked until its end..rep too but not 100% on that

Couple questions on that. Forgive me I've been away for a while

Is that working as intended, or is it a bug? Because I've seen systems in Inara where two factions are at war but have different influences, so either that's wrong or there are exceptions to this. Since I've come back though, I've seen three wars in systems I frequently haunt and they seem to stick at the same influence till the war ends.

So what then determines victory? Because now I see this information in the news channel: "This faction has dominated the conflict for x days" So then does influence still determine who wins? Can I run up a big score on day one, not "dominate" the war for the next three days and still win? Or is it now whoever dominates the most days and war is basically now a best of 5 series?

 

[Dommarraa]

Couple questions on that. Forgive me I've been away for a while

Is that working as intended, or is it a bug? Because I've seen systems in Inara where two factions are at war but have different influences, so either that's wrong or there are exceptions to this. Since I've come back though, I've seen three wars in systems I frequently haunt and they seem to stick at the same influence till the war ends.

So what then determines victory? Because now I see this information in the news channel: "This faction has dominated the conflict for x days" So then does influence still determine who wins? Can I run up a big score on day one, not "dominate" the war for the next three days and still win? Or is it now whoever dominates the most days and war is basically now a best of 5 series?

Inf can vary during a conflict only if one part has an addition State that adjusts inf (e/g/ Infrastructure Failure ? Not sure which ones do it, but not many)
At the end of a conflict, the winning side gets +4%, the losing side gets -4%. A draw gives +2/-2 to prevent them just starting again immediatly.

A Conflict is resolved over a maximum of 7 Days, each day being resolved individually. Once it is impossible to stop 1 side winning (e.g 4 v 0), the conflict will finish early.

In an uncontested War, you can complete a CZ on day 1 (and win), then hand in the bounties on day 2 (and win again). You can then walk away (2 v 0) and the conflict will end on day 6.
If neither side do anything, then neither side wins the day.

 

[antoca]

Strategic data transfer missions do not contribute, this is for sure. Black box missions are also not combat missions, however I didn't verify it. Not sure about most on-foot missions. But I had verified myself that legal on-foot missions "collect an item" do really contribute for an election.

If you're really bad in combat I can suggest you to perform single missions like kill a deserter or kill a general danger 0. They are simple and they do contribute.

 

[Screemonster]

So if i go to another system we control with a RES and go bounty hunting and turn in the bonds at the station where the war is happening that will help the war effort? And the kills don't even have to be the faction we are at war with? Or I can dip into a CZ pop a couple enemies and bug out and turn in the kills and i don't have to stick it out till a win or loss?

You can absolutely just kill a couple of targets and grab the bonds. Last year when I was out on the edge of the bubble messing around in some zero-traffic systems, I had a bunch of wars on at once and since I was fighting unopposed, what I'd typically do is not even switch out of my cargo python, drop in and pop a single eagle, cash in the bond, then go back to whatever other system I was messing around running missions in.

Note that this is not a recommended strategy if there's any opposition whatsoever, it only works if there's absolutely nobody working for the other side.