Fix Anarchies before they go extinct !

[Obi Wan Naboo]

Anarchies were always difficult to maintain, but making them the designated villain in Odyssey has led to a sharp decline in their survivability and turned them from an endangered species to near extinction.

There are 20k+ inhabited systems in the galaxy. Anarchy now only controls 474 of them, with most being remote and tiny systems that no one ever visits. Only 54 anarchy systems with a population above 10 million remain. With no expansions and constant negative actions against them, it's only a matter of time until the remaining anarchy PMFs falter and extinction is complete.

The main reason is the popularity and ease of (pirate) massacre missions and the huge influence loss they inflict. Anarchies simply lack any tools to reverse that trend. Compared to every other government we don't have:

• Bounties (no bounty hunting possible at res sites)
• Donations (easiest way to support a faction)
• System Security, Civil Liberty and any means to defend our systems from constant undermining and destruction
• any advantage from owning Odyssey Settlements / they just attract massacre tourist and fasten our demise
• decent Missions worth doing
• last but not least the Lore tells everyone to gang up on us and kill our citizens with impunity

Update 10 tried and failed to improve the standing of anarchy factions. The gain from pirate attack is negligible to non existent. No more security means we now lose economic status due to negative actions which ruins our economies. Every anarchy system is the potential target for dozens to hundreds of massacre missions from all the neighboring systems.

The solution:

Simply change the formula and make it so that massacre missions that target anarchies increase their influence and economic status instead of destroying it. Analog to how Black Markets work. The lore would be that society profits from the cleansing out of the criminal elements.

 

[Bottom Hat]

You forgot to use green.

 

[metatheurgist]

Yeah, I don't think it's the MMs. Those have been around forever. Odyssey and lazy gamers on the other hand....

 

[DrMorto]

You forgot to use green.

That was helpful.

 

[Maolagin]

The main reason is the popularity and ease of (pirate) massacre missions and the huge influence loss they inflict

This doesn't follow. Anarchies started dropping precipitously after Odyssey arrived, which suggests it's an Ody mechanic that's harming them. Logical candidates would be the popularity of murdering anarchy bases to loot them for materials, or the wide availability of settlement massacre missions targeting criminal factions. The space-based pirate massacre missions have been around a long time, and anyway probably only cause influence problems for factions in the handful of systems that are optimally configured for mission stacking.

 

[DrMorto]

Yeah, I don't think it's the MMs. Those have been around forever. Odyssey and lazy gamers on the other hand....

I agree it isn't the missions, per se. Rather the mat farming involving anarchy settlement massacre where no bounty or notoriety is a risk.

 

[HRDiagram]

Anarchies were always difficult to maintain, but making them the designated villain in Odyssey [...]

Rather than designated villain, I would say designated baby seals, which is even worse.

A great portion of the playerbase is more villainous than any anarchies could be.

 

[Bottom Hat]

That was helpful.

Then my intent was clear, thanks for confirming this for me.

 

[Obi Wan Naboo]

This doesn't follow. Anarchies started dropping precipitously after Odyssey arrived, which suggests it's an Ody mechanic that's harming them. Logical candidates would be the popularity of murdering anarchy bases to loot them for materials, or the wide availability of settlement massacre missions targeting criminal factions. The space-based pirate massacre missions have been around a long time, and anyway probably only cause influence problems for factions in the handful of systems that are optimally configured for mission stacking.

They have been dropping already for a couple of months due to a sharp increase in bounty and mission payout combined with a nerf of other income sources. Odyssee has increased the targets tenfold though.

 

[Sedum]

Can I recommend playing the BGS to try and create anarchy systems. It's great fun, and remarkably easy. And you get to do lots of space crime.

 

[Ruurka]

@Sedum Create creating, but keep anarchy system without economy and influence dropping if they have Odyssey settlements by at least week in a system well known by lots of traffic. Or even better, reach anarchy faction to at least Boom or Investment state, while you know, that can be attacked without consequences.

About topic, yeah. I still repeat on anarchy topics and here also repeat - Anarchy factions and systems must need serious changes, which strengthen them, not weaken, otherwise we'll go to extinction! Anarchies also must find a place in PP, because their presence are always fought by all powerplayers, including Delaine. And we, anarchists, are downgraded to common criminals.

 

[robbyp]

We have to think about if Anarchy is really a good way to run a solar system. Maybe its time they went the way of the Dodo.

 

[Rainbro]

We have to think about if Anarchy is really a good way to run a solar system. Maybe its time they went the way of the Dodo.

Frontier's ineffective attempts at fixing this prove its not an intentional design, in addition to the lack of significant differences between other government types and how effective they are.

 

[Obi Wan Naboo]

We have to think about if Anarchy is really a good way to run a solar system. Maybe its time they went the way of the Dodo.

Since we can't compete with other governments that are already obsolete, like communism. feudalism or theocracy, it's definitely not by design but simply put by the incompetence of those who put the BGS rules in place. It needs an urgent fix, especially considering that anarchies provide services and materials that no one else does.

 

[photomankc]

Been thinking on this and really the concept of the "Anarchy system" is fundamentally poor it seems to me for anything other than tiny populations with next to nothing there. It seems to really stand in for what ought to be a criminal syndicate, maffia, or gang run system where the authorities are the criminal gang in question. Killing those aligned to to them should make you pretty hostile to them pretty damn quick. The notion that criminal and pirate systems offer for-free killing is.... well odd... to say the least. I guess the idea is that the Pilot's Federation provides no assistance or criminal tracking for them, but that just leaves it a free for all since there is nothing else of consequence to the player involved in just wiping them out. The need to scour their settlements for data materials only made matters worse.

I'm not sure exactly how you easily remedy it within the lore. It just seems a broken concept overall because criminal organizations are not anarchies.

 

[DemiserofD]

What if they just gave Archon Delaine players +100% influence gain with anarchy factions?

 

[Obi Wan Naboo]

What if they just gave Archon Delaine players +100% influence gain with anarchy factions

Anarchy ain't favorable to any power, so we're not welcome in their bubbles. Makes any bonus for anarchies obsolete right there. Just one more reason we're being hunted down by everyone.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

This doesn't follow. Anarchies started dropping precipitously after Odyssey arrived, which suggests it's an Ody mechanic that's harming them.

Not necessarily.

Anarchies were declining pretty consistently before Odyssey - from 1300ish controlled systems originally to less than 600 when Odyssey released. Odyssey made it even harder for them, and so accelerated the rate of decline, but some of the issues they have, they've had since 1.0.

It just keeps stacking up and eventually overwhelms the capacity of players to fight back.

I suspect it's not fixable without at least
- making Anarchy factions grant bounties (which might purely be local ones only recognised within the jurisdiction) and perhaps renaming them to "Criminal" government - as photomankc says, the current concept and operation just isn't coherent for a territory-owning faction as opposed to a bunch of disorganised criminals.
- moving most of the mission types which target Anarchy factions to instead target ships owned by the generic "Pirates" faction.
which would both be pretty major changes

(On the other hand, the BGS as currently stands only really requires Anarchy factions to exist. It doesn't require them to control assets except in a few minor cases.)

 

[DemiserofD]

Anarchy ain't favorable to any power, so we're not welcome in their bubbles. Makes any bonus for anarchies obsolete right there. Just one more reason we're being hunted down by everyone.

That could change!

How about this; first off, make Archon Delaine benefit from Exploited anarchies. Second, change his effect on exploited systems from '-50% security' to '-1 security level'. That would be slightly less effective against high security systems, equally effective against medium security systems, but would actively reduce low-security systems to Anarchies, regardless of what faction is in control, or what government type they are. Finally, give Archon Delaine players increased influence with Anarchy factions.

This would result in all Archon Delaine exploited systems slowly progressing towards being anarchies, as anarchies would be boosted, while all other governments would be weakened, due to their new inability to issue bounties.

@Rubbernuke you're the expert, what do you think?

 

[Obi Wan Naboo]

That could change!

There are a grand total of 6 anarchy systems in AD space. Also there hasn't been a PP update in like forever. Not sure how these helps the remaining ones. Especially considering we're talking about the last few remaining anarchy PMFs that try to stay alive yet can't move from their location.