Would be nice if there was a radius of systems that each Frontline service desk could send you to, rather than being restricted to only conflict in the same system. More convenient for the player and more realistic too if you think about it. Maybe make it like a 30ly radius where it will list out the systems and conflicts, you can choose which one to sign up for, and the shuttle takes you there.
Frontline Solutions
- Thread starter lefty1117
- Start date
I agree, it's not very important but it would be super convenient if I didn't have to always go searching on EDDB for a nearby conflict.
Good idea. Would be even better in the Suggestions forum. 
Cant you just filter map by War state? That's what I've been using.
Ask the mods. I think you have to report the thread, and I'm not winding you up as I normally do to people.
Oh, and hear me out, just make a new thread in there, post a link to it yourself in here, and let this one will wither and die?
Frontline service is limited to factions in conflict in given system. you want to go to a different system in conflict or fight for different factions in conflict, use Apex to get there.
This'd be nice if only because some systems only have outposts and thus no frontline solutions.
It'd also be nice for conflicts where all the stations with access to frontline solutions are controlled by the same faction, where becoming hostile with them could lock you out of access.
It'd also be nice for conflicts where all the stations with access to frontline solutions are controlled by the same faction, where becoming hostile with them could lock you out of access.
I literally had no idea that was possible thank you so much.
Yeah I tried that while in Nanomam and there was hardly anything nearby, which I wasn't sure if that's because there really WASN'T anything, or was it because there are systems I haven't visited nearby that might be in a war state, but aren't showing because of previously mentioned Not Visited...
Yeah, that would have caught me as well. I'm just now trying to explore the surrounding systems and the nearest War state was like 12 systems away. Definitely would have been unsure whether it would have shown war on an unknown system.
It looks good on paper... but the challenge becomes once you finish up and fly back, you've got a bunch of bonds you won't be able to hand in, because it's likely for a faction which doesn't exist in your origin system.
But surely apexing to the target system and just using frontline from there would do the trick?
But surely apexing to the target system and just using frontline from there would do the trick?
Well to me it would be logical that if Frontline sends you to a system within x LY to fulfill a merc contract, they would accept the combat bonds from that contract even if it was in another system...
Local factions can be at war without the entire system system being so.
But they won't. That's not how combat bonds and bounties work in the game. There's an effect in favour of the faction at war where you hand them in. The only way around that is to hand them in at an IF, which incurs a -25% penalty to your earnings. That is, your options are:
- Collect the bonds where the faction is present and apply the effect to help them win the war; or
- Hand in at an IF, incurring a -25% penalty, but having no effect on the war
That's deliberate, otherwise you can just pad your relationship by helping the enemy without actually having an effect on the war, and would be a substantial loophole without that -25% penalty. Maybe you only fight wars for the credits, rather than win them, but this matters if you're trying to win a war.
The war-progress effect of handing in bonds is not location bound. If you go fight for a faction in one system, then go to a different system they're at war in, the bonds all fall under the same total. Like all BGS effects in ED, the war-progress effect occurs at the time of submission, because it's impossible to determine which war the bonds came from... the only option is to apply it to the relevant conflict in the current system. For the standard mechanic (which is what you're proposing) to just silently ignore the loss of war-progress would be a crazy-rubbish mechanic.
Yes you could do something like prompt with a warning, but that, and any other options (of which they're a few) just make this a convoluted mess compared to the current option; just APEX to the system you want to fight in and fight there.
I think you're trying to adapt what I'm suggesting into the current design. Let us free ourselves from that. If a Frontline agent has a list of conflict zones in different systems you can sign up for, then it should be able to handle the responsibility to forward the bonds on to the correct faction in the correct system, thereby impacting their influence correctly. This is not an insurmountable problem, nor is it likely even all that difficult, but it may be if we simply try to adapt what I'm suggesting to the current model. The new development might require the "bond records" in the database to store additional information such as where the bond was acquired and what faction it was for & against. (would be surprised if at least some of this isn't already captured) Then the Fontline bond redemption process would have to be adapted to apply it (and therefore any influence changes) against the appropriate system and faction even though that agent isn't in the system. Again this should not be insurmountable, it's already halfway done via the interstellar factors hand-in anyway, isn't it?
No, it isn't. IF does not count bonds towards the war effort they came from. Again, it can't.
And yes, I'm trying to adapt your suggestion into the current design. Suggestions which don't are, frankly, useless, because they break things in unintended and unforseen ways. We saw this happen when FD buffed the price of minerals for "balance" without considering the impact on mission rewards, which then became a massive cash cow... so massive FD knee-jerked and left delivery missions in a worse state than they originally were.
It's not insurmountable, for sure, in a universe with unlimited resources, but it turns this from a small QOL change into a fundamental rewrite of certain functions in the game. That would put it on the "won't do" pile of tasks.
Firstly, nothing in the BGS really functions this way, breaking a single transaction into multiple, arbitrary, regionalised locations. FD have picked the effect occurring at the point it's handed in to a vendor for a reason. You suggest this isn't insurmountable... but you don't know what the game looks like under the hood, and so it may very well be insurmountable. Neither of us can make a claim either way here, but I'd suggest
Secondly, how do you represent this? Do you have separate entries for each faction in each system that the bonds can be handed in to? If so, better do the same for bounties as well, otherwise it will be confusing to players when they have "Bonds from faction X in system Y" and "Bounties from Faction X" in the same panel. And then you've just created a cluttered mess which players will want collated down to a single representation (because many are just here for the credits, and hate a cluttered transactions panel).
On the surface that might seem like a good idea, but you've just smashed the optimisation of your transaction panel searches. Why? Instead of storing a list of transactions, your now storing lists of lists of transactions. That's Big-O of N^2. The practical effect is, you know how if you get a awarded a bounty and it takes 2-3 seconds to update if you go look at your transaction panel? That's now 4-9 seconds.
Tagging the location could also become an issue if you got a bond for a particular faction, in a particular system, and then that faction is retreated ... suddenly your transactions reference something that doesn't exist, and you've got a stale record pointing to a nonexistent combination of faction and system. Factions are persistent, but their presence in a system is not, which is why tagging the location of anything tied to a factional effect is fraught (just look at missions and similar issues people have with that...)
And then of course, there's the issue of IF. Basically you're saying that Frontline Solutions, which is universally available at non-outposts, is taking on the role of IF which is available far less frequently, and with no penalty? Again, the penalty is there for a reason... so how are you going to incorporate that? And are we going to leave the whole of IF in just for one function now? Seems a bit of overkill.
I might be "going too deep" with this, but so many suggestions which even get incorporated into the game, don't, and cause major issues later on down the track. I'll agree, this is all surmountable, in a world with infinite resources. In a world where FD can't even fix smuggling which is a far simpler "the maths is wrong, make it right", I daresay the resources required for this suggestion are well beyond FD's ability, for such little payoff.