Excited by the BGS, but plenty of questions.

[deanom59]

I've been playing for a couple of months now and have only just started to realise how interesting and complex the BGS is. The threads that deal with it are generally pretty long so a couple of quick questions:

When visiting a system how can I tell whether there is a player group active so that I can avoid randomly interfering with what they are trying to achieve?

is there a list of the active groups, where they are operating and an insight into their ethos?

How much of an effect can a single Cmdr exert? (I'm currently not part of a group)

For me this area is much more interesting than just randomly picking up the most profitable missions and is something that I'd like to explore more in a couple of weeks when exams (mature/ancient student) are over for this semester.

 

[hypervoodoo77]

Funny I am just getting in to this myself and posting questions.
I would suggest you try inara it states if there are player factions in the systems.
Or you could help me out in cumulus supporting cumulus interstellar I am by myself here.

O7

 

[damon8r351]

How much of an effect can a single Cmdr exert? (I'm currently not part of a group)

Depends on the population of the system you're affecting. A commander working solo can easily tip over a system with a population of 1500 in a couple weeks, I know because I've seen me do it. Just remember, 15 missions per day will affect influence, anything more than that will only affect your credit balance. Try and pick missions that give you Influence+++.

As for your other questions, there's no real way to tell in-game if a player group if working a system. But if you go to Inara.cz and these forums and look around, you'll start getting a feel for the big groups like Ghost Legion, AEDC, Inara Nexus, Black Omega, and where they operate. EDDB.io will also mark what factions in a system are player factions, so if you see a system with one you can bet a group will have an interest in it. Some groups purposefully mask their operations to limit malicious undermining of their BGS goals. Influence changes in a system where just the simulation is working tend to be small, so if you see a change of several percent points in a single day, that's usually an indicator that a player group is acting there.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

When visiting a system how can I tell whether there is a player group active so that I can avoid randomly interfering with what they are trying to achieve?

Player-created factions are usually reasonably obvious from the name, as it doesn't fit the fairly standard naming schemes.

Other than that it can be difficult to tell - a player group may be interested in affecting an NPC faction even if they aren't present in the system (or perhaps don't have their own faction), or a player group may no longer exist as all its players quit years ago, but the faction remains. Watching the system for a few days will make it more obvious

is there a list of the active groups, where they are operating and an insight into their ethos?

Not comprehensively. You can get some of it from https://inara.cz/wings/ and there's an attempt to do something more detailed at http://elite-factions.wikia.com/wiki/Elite_Factions_Wiki too. In Colonia, I list all of them at https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/ (though per-faction "activity" is not something I attempt to estimate)

How much of an effect can a single Cmdr exert? (I'm currently not part of a group)

It depends on the population of the system, how much time you put in, how much random traffic there is (in general, this will tend to benefit the faction controlling the system) and how much you know about the fine details.

If you're in a system with < 1 million population, on the fringes of the bubble where no-one really visits much, you should be able to make changes pretty easily.
If you're in a system with > 1 billion population and hundreds of passing commanders every day, you'll find it very difficult even if no-one is actively working against you.

 

[MadHamster]

Almost all player factions are named so that they are unique compared to to generic native factions.
In addition to Inara, another good tool to check out possible player factions or factions that are clearly supported (or were) by players is just using https://eddb.io/faction. Filter for example by amount of controlled systems.
Also, https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/241826-Player-Groups-and-Minor-Factions-Submission-Form-and-Information contains long list of PMFs.
Also, one thing to reconsider that there are now plethora of PMFs that are "abandoned" due to no activity.

Single commander can even flip big systems (though albeit more slowly) IF not much player traffic that intervenes. Small population systems are easy to flip but one might want to remember that opposite is also true = such systems are also very vulnerable for random cmdr actions. That's why low traffic systems are usually place to go for you empire building alpha projects... Or have group of cmdrs working for common goal.

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

Small populated Systems can be used to quickly initiate conflicts if you're in need of such (though the coming update after the Beta hopefully won't require that anymore).

As MadHamster stated there are a lot of PMFs out there who only exist in the System info description but are otherwise abandoned and empty husks. Still it'll be good if one would try to get in contact first (if at all possible) to make sure you're not stepping on anyones toes. I'd try Inara for such.

Then again there are the type of people who don't give a rats rear (can't use the other word ) about other's efforts and simply thrive by making your life harder. When you're lucky and have enough people by your side who can fight back it's no issue though, but to have such a dedication is not easy to come by.

With the coming changes in the first update we might also see the decline of the Mercenary Wings whom you can pay (500mil or so is the standard price I've heard) to wreck other peoples BGS efforts.

And yes, there exist a lot of PMF who are named in different ways. Some of them match the name of the Wing that supports / works them, others have chosen a different name. Either due to Lore / RP reasons or because it was easier in the beginning of the BGS to avoid people messing with your progress.

 

[deanom59]

Thanks for the replies. Really useful and interesting.
The Inara site was really clear on which were the player factions and I was able to use that to work out that the player factions on EDDB had a little icon to differentiate. It seems that the systems that i am working do not have any player factions but i have spotted NPCs with a player faction affiliation on my travels from a system about 60ly away. There are also some player factions listed nearby but with no supporters. How does this work? Are they defunct factions?

I haven't found a way of contacting a faction to see if I can make a positive contribution to their efforts. is there a thread/list of contacts anywhere?

"The Bubble" is mentioned regularly. is this just the highly populated area around Sol or does it include Empire/Alliance systems too?

Funny I am just getting in to this myself and posting questions.
I would suggest you try inara it states if there are player factions in the systems.
Or you could help me out in cumulus supporting cumulus interstellar I am by myself here.

O7

I'll check it out when my exams are over. Currently just grinding out some cash and Empire rank in case I decide to try out a Cutter at some point in the future. Edited: I couldn't find a system named cumulus. Not sure where you are.

 

[_Flin_]

"The Bubble" is the core worlds of humanity. It is where most inhabited systems are.

Areas not in the bubble are places like Colonia, Pleiades, some science and supply stations towards Colonia etc.

 

[Ashnak]

...
"The Bubble" is mentioned regularly. is this just the highly populated area around Sol or does it include Empire/Alliance systems too?

There are probably just about as many definitions for "the Bubble" as there are people caring about it. One of those is very easy: go into the GalMap and switch it over to the PowerPlay representation, then zoom out a bit. You'll see what I mean .

 

[hypervoodoo77]

Thanks for the replies. Really useful and interesting.
The Inara site was really clear on which were the player factions and I was able to use that to work out that the player factions on EDDB had a little icon to differentiate. It seems that the systems that i am working do not have any player factions but i have spotted NPCs with a player faction affiliation on my travels from a system about 60ly away. There are also some player factions listed nearby but with no supporters. How does this work? Are they defunct factions?

I haven't found a way of contacting a faction to see if I can make a positive contribution to their efforts. is there a thread/list of contacts anywhere?

"The Bubble" is mentioned regularly. is this just the highly populated area around Sol or does it include Empire/Alliance systems too?



I'll check it out when my exams are over. Currently just grinding out some cash and Empire rank in case I decide to try out a Cutter at some point in the future. Edited: I couldn't find a system named cumulus. Not sure where you are.

Sry it's Camulus

 

[Sapyx]

"The Bubble" is mentioned regularly. is this just the highly populated area around Sol or does it include Empire/Alliance systems too?

"The Bubble" is the roughly egg-shaped region of space where most of Humanity lives. It extends roughly 200 LY in the North, South, East and West directions, about 250 LY in the Up direction and 300 LY in the Down direction. There are some settlements outside of this Bubble (notably the Pleiades outposts where all the Thargoid action is, and the California Nebula Alliance colonies, and of course Colonia and the string of outposts leading out to it).

The Bubble contains almost 20,000 inhabited star systems and nearly 7 trillion people. Most of these people live in the densely populated inner systems that comprise the hearts of the Federation, Empire and Alliance. If you look at the Powerplay map, Powerplay is only interested in the most populous systems, since population = profit in Powerplay. So, to imagine the entire Bubble, look at the Powerplay region as an "inner bubble", while the Bubble proper is a shell of thinly populated space roughly 50 LY thick, wrapped all the way around this.

Or if you need a little more help visualizing it, then bookmark the following systems:
North pole: Pand (-10,-3, +208)
South pole: Maruda (-10, -14, -185)
East pole: Sabi (+174, 32, 23)
West Pole: Mechelkanu (-211, 21, -11)
Up pole: Gleise 460 (+17, +208, -17)
Down pole: Kilique (+90 -265 +7)

A spheroid emcompassing those six points is The Bubble.

 

[deanom59]

Sry it's Camulus

Camulus has six player factions but Inara lists 2 systems with 4 factions and 7 with 5 nearby that look promising. I think that I'll join an established faction to see how the mechanics of it work and then see if I fancy the challenge of helping to create a new one.
Keep in touch.

 

[DaveC]

I think that I'll join an established faction to see how the mechanics of it work and then see if I fancy the challenge of helping to create a new one.

That's probably a good recommended way of getting involved in the BGS. You can be guided away from rookie mistakes, and quickly learn effective ways of achieving results. Plus you'll meet lots of new friends

 

[Mangal Oemie]

Not all player factions are player-named factions, so apart from Inara to see if the player group is actually listed, it is also wise to simply check how many systems a faction is in.

While some anomalies occur through random game play, this is like to produce only multi-system faction where they rule one, and are bottom feeders in others. If on the other hand you find a faction in multiple systems, and they control many of them, too, it is almost certain that a player or player group is supporting that faction.

 

[Starwolfe]

One interesting thing to keep in mind is not all players work with a customized faction.

I am aware of a few instances of players supporting an existing minor faction instead of making one.

 

[Schlack]

One interesting thing to keep in mind is not all players work with a customized faction.

I am aware of a few instances of players supporting an existing minor faction instead of making one.

Those of us working the BGS in the early days were allowed to formally adopt the existing Factions that we were working with. Limited to one unfortunately. Also as Star has said may people work with existing factions without any formal link.

 

[Jane Turner]

We adopted and existing minor faction, then frontier surprised us by putting us into the game as well.

 

[CMDR Endincite]

Just to add something, as it's a common question:

Identifying player vs. NPC factions - 99% (at least) of the NPC factions contain their home system's name in the title. If they don't, chances are it's a player faction.
Caveats:
1) there are perhaps a couple dozen bespoke NPC factions with nonstandard names (e.g. Mother Gaia in Sol, Kraken Shield Specialists in Vequess [which it seems someone has adopted], etc)
2) <Colourname> Advanced/Bridge/Central/Comms/Creative/Dynamic/Electronics etc are NPC corporate names (e.g. Blue Central Group; Crimson Bridge Ltd). One or two have been adopted.
3) Some of the 800+ player factions ingame have a system name in the title (the vast majority do not).

So it's a solid rule of thumb at least.

 

[Schlack]

We adopted and existing minor faction, then frontier surprised us by putting us into the game as well.

For a brief period there was a second version of our primary faction inserted, thankfully subsequently removed. It caused no end of mirth and a little creativity in the RP department.

Suffice to say that things don't always run smooth!

 

[DaveC]

For a brief period there was a second version of our primary faction inserted, thankfully subsequently removed. It caused no end of mirth and a little creativity in the RP department.

Suffice to say that things don't always run smooth!

Yeah, try spotting the difference between your proper faction "Faction A" and the duplicate faction "Faction A."
The mission board sometimes puts a full stop on the end of faction names, and sometimes doesn't. Somehow we had to figure out whether the dot was part of the name or not - crazy times!