Failed Retreat - any thoughts

Greno Zee · Feb 13, 2019

Hi all,
recently my group tried to push a retreat and we didn't succeed while to my best knowledge we should have. Can anyone help me out and tell me why it failed?
Here is the history (INF and State values after the tick on that date:

Date	INF	State
6.2.	2.4	None
7.2	1	Retreat
8.2.	1.8	Retreat
9.2.	2	Retreat
10.2.	1	Retreat
11.2.	2.5	Retreat
12.2.	1	None

Thanks in advance.

Mangal Oemie · Feb 13, 2019

Hi Greno,

Looks like on Feb 11 you just exceeded the threshold of 2.500%...

Greno Zee · Feb 13, 2019

That seems to be the cause. But I was always under the impression a faction needed to be under 2.5% at the end of Retreat, not the day before...

Mangal Oemie · Feb 14, 2019

it must remain under for the entire time. Any time it goes above, retreat is cancelled.

Captain Willard · Feb 14, 2019

Curious as to how you tried to hold them down. I would have tried to buff all other factions, is that what you did? or did you try to put that faction down thru other means? Only way I'm gonna learn.

I'm trying to do the opposite. Keep a retreating faction from leaving.

Ian Doncaster · Feb 14, 2019

Mangal Oemie said:
it must remain under for the entire time. Any time it goes above, retreat is cancelled.

A couple of recent counter-examples:
https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/systems/45/history?minrange=3305-01-28&maxrange=3305-02-06
Carpe Noctem retreat from Poe despite being above 2.5% for a couple of days during the period. (Presumably they were back below 2.5% on the missing 4th February record, though!)

https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/systems/7/history?minrange=3305-01-28&maxrange=3305-02-05
Brian's Thugs retreat from Metztli with a peak of 4.1% during the retreat period

So far as I can tell only the last day matters.

lollo1572 · Feb 14, 2019

Well Greno, someone says Retreat works, someone says only need the last day under 2.5%..... someone says for the entire period. I say: retreat doesn't work, probably only somewhere.....!!!! I opended a thread about too.... I copy and paste my Group experience, worst than yours, read it:

"06/02/2019
-retreat: doesn't work.
we failed our second attempt to put a npc faction in retreat. Same as the first time: first two days of retreat after a war 1%; lots of missions/passengers against. Third day inexplicably 6.5%. Fourth day other missions/passengers against 4.9%. Fifth day other missions/passengers against 4.4%. Sixth day end retreat 6.4%.

And..... almost sure that no CMDRs have interest in that System against us!

Low population: 171464."

And...... lockdown, civil unrest don't work too in my experience!!!!! Lot's of kills, clean and wanted, notoriey 10 !!!!!! Don't go under status none. With multiple status at once now..... think abuot retreat+lockdown...if it were possible!!!!!!!

Factabulous · Feb 14, 2019

What causes factions to go INTO retreat? I had a quick look and only see info about how to end it, not what causes it to start.

(Reason: I have been watching a faction at 1% INF for the last 2 weeks which I'm trying to get into Famine and am a bit worried it will go into retreat before I get there...)

lollo1572 · Feb 14, 2019

Factabulous said:
What causes factions to go INTO retreat? I had a quick look and only see info about how to end it, not what causes it to start.

(Reason: I have been watching a faction at 1% INF for the last 2 weeks which I'm trying to get into Famine and am a bit worried it will go into retreat before I get there...)

Pending Retreat starts as soon as a Faction goes under 2.5%. After that, goes in Status retreat that lasts 6 days but..... expecially now is very very easy to stop a retreat...!!!! Just a cople of missions for that Faction one time...!!!!! More than 2.5% easy.

FrogsFriend · Feb 14, 2019

Factabulous said:
What causes factions to go INTO retreat? I had a quick look and only see info about how to end it, not what causes it to start.

(Reason: I have been watching a faction at 1% INF for the last 2 weeks which I'm trying to get into Famine and am a bit worried it will go into retreat before I get there...)

Is the faction native to that system? If so they can't retreat.

Factabulous · Feb 14, 2019

FrogsFriend said:
Is the faction native to that system? If so they can't retreat.

Yes! That's the reason

So much BGS, so few brain cells - thx!

lollo1572 · Feb 14, 2019

Yes, for sure!!!! A Native Faction can't go away!!!

Rubbernuke · Feb 14, 2019

As Mangal pointed out, I imagine you shaved above 2.5% just slightly. The way to check is to look on the news reports as sometimes these show more decimal places.

Rubbernuke · Feb 14, 2019

lollo1572 said:
Well Greno, someone says Retreat works, someone says only need the last day under 2.5%..... someone says for the entire period. I say: retreat doesn't work, probably only somewhere.....!!!! I opended a thread about too.... I copy and paste my Group experience, worst than yours, read it:

"06/02/2019
-retreat: doesn't work.
we failed our second attempt to put a npc faction in retreat. Same as the first time: first two days of retreat after a war 1%; lots of missions/passengers against. Third day inexplicably 6.5%. Fourth day other missions/passengers against 4.9%. Fifth day other missions/passengers against 4.4%. Sixth day end retreat 6.4%.

And..... almost sure that no CMDRs have interest in that System against us!

Low population: 171464."

And...... lockdown, civil unrest don't work too in my experience!!!!! Lot's of kills, clean and wanted, notoriey 10 !!!!!! Don't go under status none. With multiple status at once now..... think abuot retreat+lockdown...if it were possible!!!!!!!

Lockdown is very useful in certain situations to pin down a faction. However, its only practical in low traffic systems with low to medium / high populations. Ironically sometimes its easier to maintain a retreat in a higher pop system as low pop can swing wildly with little input.

FrogsFriend · Feb 14, 2019

Rubbernuke said:
...Ironically sometimes its easier to maintain a retreat in a higher pop system as low pop can swing wildly with little input.

That's a good point, and an effect that appears to have been enhanced in the latest update. High pop systems seem to be much harder to arrange to your liking now, but once done you can walk away and they're very stable. Low pop systems can change at the drop of a hat.

Rubbernuke · Feb 14, 2019

FrogsFriend said:
That's a good point, and an effect that appears to have been enhanced in the latest update. High pop systems seem to be much harder to arrange to your liking now, but once done you can walk away and they're very stable. Low pop systems can change at the drop of a hat.

From my experience, high traffic makes any work an order of magnitude harder in the new system- which is both good and bad.

Mangal Oemie · Feb 14, 2019

Ian Doncaster said:
A couple of recent counter-examples:
https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/systems/45/history?minrange=3305-01-28&maxrange=3305-02-06
Carpe Noctem retreat from Poe despite being above 2.5% for a couple of days during the period. (Presumably they were back below 2.5% on the missing 4th February record, though!)

https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/systems/7/history?minrange=3305-01-28&maxrange=3305-02-05
Brian's Thugs retreat from Metztli with a peak of 4.1% during the retreat period

So far as I can tell only the last day matters.

Interesting, thanks. When we retreat, we tend to keep the retreater at 1% throughout if possible, so it's been a while since we properly tested that.

Mangal Oemie · Feb 14, 2019

Rubbernuke said:
As Mangal pointed out, I imagine you shaved above 2.5% just slightly. The way to check is to look on the news reports as sometimes these show more decimal places.

EDSM.net is also good for this. It actually shows influence with 3 decimals

Greno Zee · Feb 15, 2019

Thanks for all the replies. I'll try to report this as a bug because so far there hasn't been a clear reason for this retreat to fail.
To sum up:

Clearly cases exist of factions getting above 2.5%, then back below that and retreating at the end of the Retreat period.
On the final tick of the Retreat period the INF dropped to 1%

It almost seems like the BGS first evaluates the potential state changes and only afterwards recalculates the INF.

On another note, there have been questions regarding how we did this: there are 7 factions, we managed to bring 4 into conflict just around the start of the Retreat period and worked to lock the final 2 as well (without success though). Through that time whenever we saw INF increase for the targeted faction, we destroyed several of their clean ships.

Ian Doncaster · Feb 15, 2019

Greno Zee said:
It almost seems like the BGS first evaluates the potential state changes and only afterwards recalculates the INF.

That appears to be the case.

If it was the other way round you'd get the reverse "bug" - the faction would be above 2.5% on the final day, but on the critical tick it could get its influence decreased to 2.4%, then the retreat evaluated which succeeds so you never actually see its influence in that system was 2.4%, so it would have appeared to be retreated despite its influence being too high.

I think this way round is probably the better of the two, though it leads to issues either way.

At least - with the new multistate approach - it's possible for it to be consistently "state then INF". With the previous ability for a war in another system to forcibly end the retreat, sometimes it was state-then-inf and sometimes it was inf-then-state