EDIT: The war for Fuelum is over! Well done everyone, our ratty friends prevailed.

[Goose4291]

I Stand Corrected.

After today’s tick it’s Fuel Rats 60% vs opposition 30%.

I’m still suspicious of the linear slope to the influence loss back at the start of October.
Can someOne please post a screen grab of traffic in the next couple of hours?

From what I read, Fuel rats players were encouraged to use the 'Get 1 kill, hand it in, repeat.' Exploit.

Because BGS exploiting is only frowned upon when the chosen few and their supporters do it.

 

[Alec Turner]

From what I read, Fuel rats players were encouraged to use the 'Get 1 kill, hand it in, repeat.' Exploit.

Because BGS exploiting is only frowned upon when the chosen few and their supporters do it.

Is understanding that the BGS (currently) works on a transaction basis (rather than a total value one) frowned upon? Can't say I'd noticed that. I don't think it's an exploit to understand how the games works? Maybe a bit gamey/immersion breaking - but not really an exploit.

 

[Goose4291]

Is understanding that the BGS (currently) works on a transaction basis (rather than a total value one) frowned upon? Can't say I'd noticed that. I don't think it's an exploit to understand how the games works? Maybe a bit gamey/immersion breaking - but not really an exploit.

Well it was when people were using the 1t transaction exploit against Hutton and the ilk a while back, so much so we got a magic hotfix a few days after it was confirmed as being used to remedy the issue.

The only difference here is that its combat bonds as opposed to single units of cargo.

Oh and of course, who's using it against whom.

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

Well it was when people were using the 1t transaction exploit against Hutton and the ilk a while back, so much so we got a magic hotfix a few days after it was confirmed as being used to remedy the issue.

The only difference here is that its combat bonds as opposed to single units of cargo.

Oh and of course, who's using it against whom.

But surely the one ton cargo exploit was so much more easy than turning in a single combat bond at a time? I see your point, but I don't think you can really claim they have the same level of severity.

This is coming from someone who hates the one combat bond method and refuses to do it, for what that's worth.

 

[Stigbob]

From what I read, Fuel rats players were encouraged to use the 'Get 1 kill, hand it in, repeat.' Exploit.

Because BGS exploiting is only frowned upon when the chosen few and their supporters do it.

Just take seekers or anything with a low ammo count, you hand in more often without resorting to cheap tricks. Best of both worlds.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Well it was when people were using the 1t transaction exploit against Hutton and the ilk a while back, so much so we got a magic hotfix a few days after it was confirmed as being used to remedy the issue.

The only difference here is that its combat bonds as opposed to single units of cargo.

Oh and of course, who's using it against whom.

Is there similar disdain for the "every murder is a transaction" method?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The only difference here is that its combat bonds as opposed to single units of cargo.

That makes a very large difference, though. Selling cargo one unit at a time is a bit slower than selling hundreds at once, but you can stay in the station throughout the process and get a keyboard macro to do it for you. It doesn't significantly make things more difficult.

Getting combat bonds one at a time means a ridiculous amount of flying back and forth to the CZ. In most circumstances actually doing that will become painfully grindy very quickly, and it can't be automated. If the exploit was "stay out in the CZ for hours then hand in all the kills one at a time" then that would be the same thing - and would probably have been fixed a long time ago. It's nowhere near the same scale of exploitability.

...but good news! The CZs are getting re-done in 3.3 anyway and it looks like the new solution will make this sort of back-and-forth at the very least "not obviously superior" and probably "rather suboptimal" (but in a way that doesn't make AFK turretboats optimal either)

 

[Speedcuffs]

I'm a bit confused.
Were the other side not handing in Bonds in the same way?
Because if not they are silly-daft .

No its not an ideal mechanic, back and forth grinding.

 

[Goose4291]

But surely the one ton cargo exploit was so much more easy than turning in a single combat bond at a time? I see your point, but I don't think you can really claim they have the same level of severity.

This is coming from someone who hates the one combat bond method and refuses to do it, for what that's worth.

I'm just going to begin by saying if the whole combat bond equation was purely value based, things would be easy to understand and balanced, so for example if you killed a Corvette in a CZ worth say 500k, and I killed 2 eagles worth 50k a pop, its reflective of firstly of the effort involved in achieving the kill, and secondly rewards the efforts and risks for those who stay 'on-task' in a CZ for longer to rack up their kills/credits.

Secondly, I think the level of severity is probably relative to how affected by it you've been.

Before the transactional vs Value nature of the BGS became 'common knowledge' amongst the groups, I was part of a group that kept its nose to the grindwheel in a BGS war against a group who knew about this and utilised it to outpace our participation by a considerable figure, despite us being equal(ish) in player numbers.

I will close by saying it also kind of annoys me that if the boot had been on the other foot, and we weren't getting the BGS changes arriving soon, I can safely guarantee big daddy FDev would have steamrolled in with a hotfix within 48hrs.

Just take seekers or anything with a low ammo count, you hand in more often without resorting to cheap tricks. Best of both worlds.

You see, to me the idea the Federal Corvette Galactica can stay in a CZ for an hour, rack up millions of combat bonds before cashing them in, while I roll in with my scumbag Adder and net one kill and RTB to equal their participation just seems counter-intuitive (or fair for that matter) to me as a person.

Is there similar disdain for the "every murder is a transaction" method?

Funnily Maynard-Bot, if you read my posts instead of copy-pastaing vaguely connected 'All modes are equal' responses in ad nauseam, you'd know I have been very much against how easy that is since day one.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Funnily Maynard-Bot, if you read my posts instead of copy-pastaing vaguely connected 'All modes are equal' responses in ad nauseam, you'd know I have been very much against how easy that is since day one.

You have made quite a few posts, over time....

.... and, in terms of the BGS, all modes remain equal - per Frontier's double restatement of what the BGS *is*, in the BGS and Scenario stream and also in the stream recap thread.

 

[Stealthie]

Incidentally, when I look at the "highest galactic bounties" list at a variety of stations, in a variety of systems, it seems like quite a few of the featured CMDRs are currently to be found in the Fuelum system.

I guess a lot of big-time outlaws are either supporters of the Rats or, y'know, not...

 

[Aashenfox]

From what I read, Fuel rats players were encouraged to use the 'Get 1 kill, hand it in, repeat.' Exploit.

Because BGS exploiting is only frowned upon when the chosen few and their supporters do it.

I encouraged my players and anyone else who wanted advice to get to 150k bonds and hand them in. This is indeed because of the transactional nature of the bgs. I understand that 3 or 4 kills is optimal and /or over 100k bonds. For some that 100k could indeed be one enemy Corvette or well geared Anaconda, but for most it's a mix of two vultures, an eagle and a challenger, or something like that. We do this because that is the most efficient way to affect the bgs, and defending the fuel rats was an important operation for us. I'm petty sure one kill, one hand-in isn't the most efficient way to game the bgs (I've heard you need at LEAST 3 kills)but I can't prove that. Even the way we were doing it 4 or 5 kills, is a bit immersion breaking, I agree. It's not something that we enjoy much obviously, spending 4 minutes fighting and 8 in SC, and that is, I assume, why they are changing this in beyond, from what I understand.

It is in no way an exploit though.

 

[Aashenfox]

I'm a bit confused.
Were the other side not handing in Bonds in the same way?
Because if not they are silly-daft .

No its not an ideal mechanic, back and forth grinding.

This too, both sides were in possession of the real facts surrounding what is optimal, so...

I'm just going to begin by saying if the whole combat bond equation was purely value based, things would be easy to understand and balanced, so for example if you killed a Corvette in a CZ worth say 500k, and I killed 2 eagles worth 50k a pop, its reflective of firstly of the effort involved in achieving the kill, and secondly rewards the efforts and risks for those who stay 'on-task' in a CZ for longer to rack up their kills/credits.

Secondly, I think the level of severity is probably relative to how affected by it you've been.

Before the transactional vs Value nature of the BGS became 'common knowledge' amongst the groups, I was part of a group that kept its nose to the grindwheel in a BGS war against a group who knew about this and utilised it to outpace our participation by a considerable figure, despite us being equal(ish) in player numbers.

I will close by saying it also kind of annoys me that if the boot had been on the other foot, and we weren't getting the BGS changes arriving soon, I can safely guarantee big daddy FDev would have steamrolled in with a hotfix within 48hrs.



You see, to me the idea the Federal Corvette Galactica can stay in a CZ for an hour, rack up millions of combat bonds before cashing them in, while I roll in with my scumbag Adder and net one kill and RTB to equal their participation just seems counter-intuitive (or fair for that matter) to me as a person.



Funnily Maynard-Bot, if you read my posts instead of copy-pastaing vaguely connected 'All modes are equal' responses in ad nauseam, you'd know I have been very much against how easy that is since day one.

With you on all of this (as pertains to effect per kill difficulty and other technical relationships that are missing).

 

[Echo32]

The Fuel Rat Mislead

Over the weekend, the Fuel Rat Civil War in Fuelum was a great event to be part of, however, I do question whether the majority of the Fuel Rats actually care about Wollheim Vision or their player faction.

I was a fuel rat for several months but soon realised that being a rat was more about boasting and ing in their IRC chat room whilst a very small number actually got on with the rescuing. The Fuel Rat Mischief player faction, Fuelum and Wollheim Vision didn’t feature much, if at all.

Looking on Inara, I see that TFRM influence in Fuelum was lost over a few weeks whilst war was going on in one of their many low population systems. If the player faction rats or the rescue fuel rats actually cared much about Wollheim Vision or their player faction, they could of easily have spotted this and repaired that lost influence. Most BGS mission work can easily be done whilst still being ready and waiting to perform rescues.

Although a good community goal weekend with a good result and not wanting to distract at all from the excellent work the rescuers do, I conclude that only a very small number actually care about Wollheim, an even smaller number care about their player faction and once again we were tricked into doing their BGS work for them.

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

I'm just going to begin by saying if the whole combat bond equation was purely value based, things would be easy to understand and balanced, so for example if you killed a Corvette in a CZ worth say 500k, and I killed 2 eagles worth 50k a pop, its reflective of firstly of the effort involved in achieving the kill, and secondly rewards the efforts and risks for those who stay 'on-task' in a CZ for longer to rack up their kills/credits.

Secondly, I think the level of severity is probably relative to how affected by it you've been.

That's a really excellent point. I remember finding out about the transaction nature after similar kind of war. You do all that work thinking the value is what matters then it turns out it was some grindy one kill trick and you got your butts kicked. Was very bitter about it.

My current view on the matter is partially a hold over from that bitterness. In the end though, seems we agree it's a pretty un-fun way to play the game and not very ideal in general.

 

[Rob At Work]

Beware of the bots, they are becoming quite sophisticated and they don't sleep

 

[Saikun]

It was already stated that BGS cannot be limited to Open Mode only because that would make Solo and Private Group players feel punished for playing these. There are plenty of reasons why people play these modes.

Screaming to limit stuff to Open Mode only is like demanding PS4 players to stop playing in X System, cause Y faction has no PS4 representation in that place.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Considering likely noone (outside of the BGS Forums and affected Player Group(s) ) even noticed...

...I hardly believe any part of such a conflict could show or demonstrate FDev something. They likely didn't even notice amongst the thousands of Faction conflicts that take place every single day.
It was just another completely normal Day in the Galaxy, like any other.

 

[biot]

If this truly was an attempted exercise to show how "unbalanced" it is for each mode to influence the BGS then nothing would have been proven even if it had succeeded. If this were not a system associated with a PG then who would have noticed?

For the sake of argument, if BGS were Open only then unless somebody was regularly watching the state or flying CAP in the system then the attack would have gone unnoticed and likely would have been flipped long before anybody realized it, i.e. bascially what is already happening now for 99% of the systems. And how is that an improvement? "Oh goody, time to log in and fly around a few systems for a couple of hours on the off chance they might get BGS attacked". It's one thing to watch grass grow, it's entirely another level of mind-numbing grind to know how many blades if it there are.

Without any rational (gameplay) means of detecting such an attack in time it's pointless to argue whether it would be better Open only or whatever.

 

[Aashenfox]

Over the weekend, the Fuel Rat Civil War in Fuelum was a great event to be part of, however, I do question whether the majority of the Fuel Rats actually care about Wollheim Vision or their player faction.

I was a fuel rat for several months but soon realised that being a rat was more about boasting and ing in their IRC chat room whilst a very small number actually got on with the rescuing. The Fuel Rat Mischief player faction, Fuelum and Wollheim Vision didn’t feature much, if at all.

Looking on Inara, I see that TFRM influence in Fuelum was lost over a few weeks whilst war was going on in one of their many low population systems. If the player faction rats or the rescue fuel rats actually cared much about Wollheim Vision or their player faction, they could of easily have spotted this and repaired that lost influence. Most BGS mission work can easily be done whilst still being ready and waiting to perform rescues.

Although a good community goal weekend with a good result and not wanting to distract at all from the excellent work the rescuers do, I conclude that only a very small number actually care about Wollheim, an even smaller number care about their player faction and once again we were tricked into doing their BGS work for them.

I don't feel tricked. Even under the circumstances that you describe (they don't care that much/took their eye off the ball), which I don't doubt, I'm happy to help them out in that regard.