You could be right, but it's not just wrong text on the screen - that information is still in the journals as well. Hopefully detailed bug reports will allow them to either fix the missions or remove that text.
Last edited:
Famine and outbreak: are they possible?
- Thread starter Rubbernuke
- Start date
You could be right, but it's not just wrong text on the screen - that information is still in the journals as well. Hopefully detailed bug reports will allow them to either fix the missions or remove that text.
I still think it's simply because there's not enough availability, ability or incentive to do things which cause negative states.
We *do* see Civil Unrest and Lockdown because murderhoboing has always, and still is, a viable tactic, and is something even RP'ers do just for funsies as a matter of course.
But for the economic scales, we have as factors for negative trading:
- Trading for a loss... nobody does that as a matter of course, especially since 1t trading was (rightly) shut down.
- Black Market Sales. Powerplay shuts down the black markets all over the place, and anarchies, which are the most common place to find Black Markets, only get positive effects from them now. When people want to deal illegal goods, they'll look for a criminal-owned entity as that almost guarantees a black market. What they don't do is look for a lawful station which *might* have a black market. Of course, not everywhere has Black Markets, so if that's the case, you're SOL trying to weaken the economy like that.
- Missions. The kicker with missions is you *cannot* target negative effects, you can only target positive effects by taking a mission offered by the faction you want to benefit. Negative effects cannot be targeted, and can only apply to the luck-of-the-draw from the procedural generation. But a lot of (naive) people also avoid missions that may make them wanted because of the notoriety/IF requirements (though these are very manageable for any capable player). But those negative effects will be directly competing against missions with positive effects at both ends, which are much more appealing to your average player.
I'm not gonna find the quote at the moment, but Adam once said in a BGS Livestream regarding player actions and the BGS "We generally see positive outcomes because if a commander is successful at an activity, positive things happen, and if they're unsuccessful, negative things happen. Commanders are generally capable players, so their actions are mostly successful, and not very often unsuccessful".
What's missing is any real support for negative outcomes from *successful* activities on the economic scales.
The other way to read that is missions are too easy with little chance of failure, so people simply view them as money waiting for them.
That's fair, but if missions were harder I think the result would not be more people failing them for negative transactions, but fewer people doing them for positive ones.
And most non-mission things failure is just personal anyway - get blown up while trading, or before returning combat vouchers, or exploring - there's no "sponsor" faction which gets a negative effect from not getting those items.
It works fine for influence since one faction gaining pushes all the others down, but the sliders need some sort of counter-pressure as well (probably not the same "zero-sum" as influence has, though)
Pirates have the clap. Confirmed.
Pirate attack leads to 4 factions in the same system being in Outbreak
https://inara.cz/galaxy-starsystem/9142/
(A fun observation, not a causal relationship)
Pirate attack leads to 4 factions in the same system being in Outbreak
https://inara.cz/galaxy-starsystem/9142/
(A fun observation, not a causal relationship)
I disagree, as there's an implication there which suggests negative actions should only be the outcome of failure.
FD's a game, and with that comes the necessity of good game design. Two things fall out of that when it comes to the challenges your game sets out. Either:
- Players can happily achieve tasks, and if they hit anything they can't do, they learn how to not fail in the future; or
- They get frustrated and stop playing.
Mangal's stats show that, while the contrast of Boom/Investment vs Bust/Famine is absolutely stark, only ~2% of the factions in game are in a positive economic/security state. So it's not unreasonable to achieve that with an amount of negative states which has parity to the positive ones. If we assume that these states are directly caused by player actions, you're suggesting that players need to fail =~ 50% of activities. That would be a terrible state for the game to be in.
Bust used to happily exist, though less frequently pre-3.2 because of how the state buckets worked. Player activity would generally be targeted, leading specific factions to boom, and bringing associated factions up with it (mission targets). Meanwhile, Bust would percolate away as players did actions with negative outcomes, and eventually it'd land (usually in a situation where both Boom and Bust may be pending at the same time... this was definitely a problem)
Post-3.3, bust/famine *cannot* exist without pushing through the positive activity first, and there's simply too much of that happening and not enough of the negative actions for it to ever stand a chance of actually occurring.
It needs to come by the product of *successful* player activities, who've made a choice as to whether they're going to be 'good guys' or 'bad guys'
This is I think a very tricky point for Frontier when it comes to balancing the BGS for its "dual purposes".
The majority of players tend to engage in "lawful" activities - trade, mining, exploration, bounty hunting - rather than criminal ones. So for the "general background" purposes you'd want them to weight the negative actions quite a bit heavier, so that the negative states showed up once in a while.
On the other hand, the criminal activities aren't slower or more time-consuming to carry out ... they just require more planning and don't pay very well. So for the "competitive political sim" side you want to weight them about equally so you don't need an entire squadron just to counter one pilot doing a bit of murdering.
Maybe the market could help.
Buying puts money into the economy, so should increase the economy
Selling takes money out, so should decrease it.
Huge void opal prices would then suck away that investment
I have always been dubious about profit and profit only effecting inf. What does the faction care about how much you paid for the goods?
Buying puts money into the economy, so should increase the economy
Selling takes money out, so should decrease it.
Huge void opal prices would then suck away that investment
I have always been dubious about profit and profit only effecting inf. What does the faction care about how much you paid for the goods?
I can 100% get behind this... pre-3.3 I had some very hardline views this sort of thing. I didn't consider it for exploration or trade profits because of no way to separate the act with the reward, but for Bounty Hunting, I've always been of the impression that claiming bounty vouchers should *reduce* influence, and the influence effects should derive from the targets you destroy; destroying a ship reduces that faction's influence and increases the influence of other factions as expected, but handing in vouchers is an outright exchange of that factions influence in exchange for filling your own pockets.
Now that we have a more complex BGS, I'd propose (and probably suggest over in the suggestions forum) the following:
Trade (regardless of profit/loss):
Buying goods off a market: ++ Economy
Selling goods to a market: -- Economy
Selling goods to demand commodity: ++ Influence
Selling goods to a supply / no demand commodity: -- Influence
Selling goods to a Black Market owned by Anarchy: ++ Influence, -- Economy for owner
Selling goods to a Black Market owned by non-Anarchy: -- Influence, -- Economy for owner
Hand in exploration data: ++ Influence, -- Economy
Destroying any ship: -- Influence, -- Security for owning faction
Handing in Bounties: -- Economy, ++ Security for issuing faction[1]
Handing in Exploration data: ++ Influence, -- Economy
In all cases such as Exploration Data/Bonds/Trade, there should be the option to "donate" the goods which voids the economic penalties. Conversely, "Donation" missions should be removed from the game, and replaced with the ability to donate arbitrary credits and goods (only goods in demand) in exchange for Reputation and the appropriate economic increase.
In this case, missions become *vitally important* for propping up a faction. Sourcing goods demanded in a mission or undertaking deliveries should still carry the overall positive benefits to both influence, rep and economy, as it's a specified activity that will purpotedly aid the faction beyond the realms of standard trade arrangements.
I'd also argue handing in Combat bonds should be ++ rep and -- economy for the issuer, and -- rep for the opposition, but Hostile is still a broken rep state in this context. Until Fleet Carriers come in (provided they're implemented correctly) there's no way to address the lack of rep loss with opposition during a war.
[1] This is a tricky one. Ideally the security effect would occur on destruction, but the ships destruction is really only relevant for the bounty issuer's security, and without knowing more about the game's internals, it would probably be the only way to perform a ++ Security for the appropriate faction.
Just a minor point, but an important one. I try to constantly refer to "unlawful" activities as antagonistic, rather than criminal. They *are* criminal in the relevant jurisdiction, but in my opinion it doesn't make the perpetrator, broadly, a criminal.
Case in point I was a heavily wanted criminal in a Federal jurisdiction at one point, then I managed to flip the jurisdiction (And control) out of the relevant jurisdiction where I was wanted, and this happened to be the total jurisdiction of that faction. That meant there was no way for that faction to ever bring me to justice against my will.
The lack of any Military career path like what existed in FE2/FFE functioned exactly like that... your actions were activities sanctioned by the power of your choice, but were of course criminal in nature at the target; that doesn't make the player a criminal, or even a "Bad guy". Such activity is sorely lacking in ED, but that's very off-topic here.
tl;dr It's why I keep saying "Boost being hostile/antagonism" rather than "criminal activities".
Killing and robbery should be more granular as well. I'm not really a fan of the sliders as you can't go right to lockdown like you could before- for me you should have states that are independent of sliders.
Killing security should lower the sec level and INF levels, while destroying freighters should lower INF and the economy, increasing civil unrest. Robbing anything of value should directly increase the chances of bust, while killing passenger ships should increase civil unrest. BM / people smuggling should increase civil unrest in non anarchy systems, and increase the chance of an outbreak (due to unchecked dodgy stuff coming in). It could also be like UA bombing where you can take diseased passengers and spread the infection if you do it enough.
If civil unrest / outbreak / famine carries on past say, 5 days it triggers a lockdown state with pirates and navy ships with security, where all kills count for double influence.
In short, FD should not shy away from giving people the tools to be a despicable person.
Killing security should lower the sec level and INF levels, while destroying freighters should lower INF and the economy, increasing civil unrest. Robbing anything of value should directly increase the chances of bust, while killing passenger ships should increase civil unrest. BM / people smuggling should increase civil unrest in non anarchy systems, and increase the chance of an outbreak (due to unchecked dodgy stuff coming in). It could also be like UA bombing where you can take diseased passengers and spread the infection if you do it enough.
If civil unrest / outbreak / famine carries on past say, 5 days it triggers a lockdown state with pirates and navy ships with security, where all kills count for double influence.
In short, FD should not shy away from giving people the tools to be a despicable person.
Good point- the wording on missions is worth paying attention to. However the new BGS says by supplying advanced medicines you have now given everyone the plague
Please be Black Markets - Narcotics was our primary Nerf methodPlease be the Outbreak missions
Please be all crime, murder, BM etc. Unleash the chaos!
Possibly it's the assassination and massacre missions having largely positive effects on the target.
This. I don't see other effects.
Well, Famine is possible, though pretty difficult to get:
Well, Famine is possible, though pretty difficult to get:
Yay!