Helping a Pirate Faction

[quackinthebush]

I'm having a hard time figuring out the BGS and moving the needle on my adopted pirates. I've read many of the guides, but the actual rules to the BGS seem so opaque that I feel a little silly putting in so much time trying to gain them influence. I'd like to have them take over the system and expand to another.

I've managed, through running missions for influence, moved them up from 3% to 30%. They are now in 2nd position,but only entered one conflict state and therefor only gained one asset, an Odyssey settlement with a small landing pad. I feel like I'm treading water at this point, with running multiple 5+ Inf missions and only gaining 1 percent per tick. Any suggestions?

Some details: System is 50,000 population. The #1 faction owns all planetary ports and stations and most of the settlements. I can't attack them without losing my ability to run missions for my pirates. Their only asset is a small settlement, so trading commodities seems silly with such limited cargo space. Player activity in the system, according to the local news, is only 5-7 ships per day.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Northpin]

I guess you need to do the full spectrum:
Run various missions only for the benefit of that faction
Equip a kws and go bounty hunting, but sell in the system only the bounties for that faction, the rest sell outside of that system
Since they have a settlement, go sell some goods with a decent margin of profit to that settlement

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I can't attack them without losing my ability to run missions for my pirates.

You should be able to get Odyssey and Horizons missions from the settlement you own, though it might be a slightly limited set.

trading commodities seems silly with such limited cargo space

You probably don't want to do too much trading, but because all activities have diminishing returns it'll probably benefit you to do at least a couple of trips.

5-7 traffic shouldn't be that big a deal, but of course it does depend what they're doing while there. What's the crime/bounty stats like in local news? (If it's "just passing through" I'd expect less than a million credits)

 

[quackinthebush]

Thanks for the replies. I was under the impression that trading with a small ship (since I'll be limited to the small landing pad for the pirate settlement) wouldn't be worth it, but perhaps it is? The system does not have a shipyard, so I'd be restricted to using a small ship for bounty hunting, which might be challenging as I'm terrible with fixed weapons. Otherwise I'd have to fly to a neighboring system to switch out ships, which seems like a pain.

I was also under the impression that I could not hand in bounties to an anarchy faction. So are you implying that I should be handing in bounties to the #1 faction at their stations for bounties against them? And that will reduce their influence?

In general struggling to understand why influence gains are so small despite running 4-6 missions that are 4 or 5+ Inf. I've noticed that many of the 5+ Inf rewards are still bugged, and show as 0 Inf when you hand in the mission (but not all). Perhaps these are indeed counting as 0 and I'm wasting my time with those.

Overall I guess I just assumed that in a small population system without a player run faction, I could impact the influence more per day running missions, assuming there is no other player meddling, although I have not checked crime/bounty stats. I'd like to see this through and help these pirates take a slice of the galactic pie, but I'm getting a bit bored of running the same Smuggling, Interact with the Data Link Data Link, Disable the Power Grid, and Assassinate Politician missions. And as far as Odyssey missions go, I have no idea what their impact is on the BGS beyond the stated Inf+++ reward, which doesn't seem worth the time they take, although they can be a fun way to mix things up.

 

[GeoJase]

To gain INF for your faction, the other factions also need to lose INF. Try lowering the controlling faction's INF (profitable smuggling, passenger fails, etc) while also running some missions for your guys.

There is also the possibility of over cooking the INF+ on a daily basis. Do more than 20+ INF per day may start to have negative effects, although opinions vary on this number and the impact.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Thanks for the replies. I was under the impression that trading with a small ship (since I'll be limited to the small landing pad for the pirate settlement) wouldn't be worth it, but perhaps it is? The system does not have a shipyard, so I'd be restricted to using a small ship for bounty hunting, which might be challenging as I'm terrible with fixed weapons. Otherwise I'd have to fly to a neighboring system to switch out ships, which seems like a pain.

I was also under the impression that I could not hand in bounties to an anarchy faction. So are you implying that I should be handing in bounties to the #1 faction at their stations for bounties against them? And that will reduce their influence?

There are four separate sources of positive BGS influence:
- trade
- bounties
- exploration data
- missions
Each of these has an independent diminishing returns curve, so "1 trade + 1 bounty + 1 exploration + 1 mission" is much better than "4 missions" (exactly what "1 trade" or "1 exploration" is ... harder to tell)

You're correct that as an Anarchy faction you'll find it very hard to gain bounties for your own side (it is possible once you control a space station, and easier once you control a system, but for now you can't), and your Odyssey settlement presumably doesn't have Cartographics (most don't), so that leaves you with Trade and Missions as your positive influence sources. Even a small amount of trade can therefore be worthwhile in your position as it won't be as steeply affected by diminishing returns.

Definitely do not hand in bounties for the controlling faction (or any faction except yours) anywhere in the system. If you accidentally obtain some, get rid of them at an Interstellar Factor outside the system.

If adding in a bit of trade doesn't get you there, you're going to need to go for negative actions against the controller - murder their authority ships, fail their missions (fail, not abandon), if they have a black market smuggle to it. (This is where having more than one person is helpful, as one can do the negative actions and not need to care about their rep, and the other can do the positive ones)

Swapping out ships may be necessary - it's a bit inconvenient, definitely. Save up for a Fleet Carrier?

There is also the possibility of over cooking the INF+ on a daily basis. Do more than 20+ INF per day may start to have negative effects, although opinions vary on this number and the impact.

I don't think this is the case. There was a bug around the 3.3 release which made it look like this was happening (though the actual cause was slightly different) but that was fixed years ago.

You won't get very much benefit out of the 100th or 1000th action compared with the first, but it will still help. (Otherwise, ultra-high traffic systems which get tens of thousands of BGS actions daily would go haywire, and they don't)

 

[GeoJase]

I don't think this is the case. There was a bug around the 3.3 release which made it look like this was happening (though the actual cause was slightly different) but that was fixed years ago.

You won't get very much benefit out of the 100th or 1000th action compared with the first, but it will still help. (Otherwise, ultra-high traffic systems which get tens of thousands of BGS actions daily would go haywire, and they don't)

Thanks for the clarification. Makes sense when you put it in context of high traffic systems.

 

[Sapyx]

If you're in a system with such a tiny population, and you're doing that much +INF work and seeing such tiny influence gains, then somebody is working against you. If it's not you, accidentally trading, handing in explo data or handing in bounties to the enemy, then it must be other players.

• You haven't mentioned the Powerplay status of your system. All Powerplayer groups hate Anarchies. They'll tolerate a few, but won't be keen on seeing another one pop up suddenly in their space.
• You haven't mentioned whether the controlling faction is a player-made faction or not. PMFs are generally better supported and well defended and they won't be keen on seeing one of their systems lost to an apparently random anarchy faction.
• Anarchies, generally, have been given the short end of the stick when it comes to the Odyssey update. In the 3 months immediately following the update, the total number of Anarchy-controlled systems in the galaxy fell from 652 to 517 (that's a drop of 20%), with many large Anarchy-based PMFs reporting that they've been haemorrhaging dozens of systems despite their group members putting in 110% effort in defending them.
• System traffic reports may not necessarily be a reliable indicator of actual player presence. If players are camping in the system overnight or longer (i.e. they never leave the system and come back again) then they aren't included in the count, since it only includes "arrivals" into the system.

You mentioned that your faction controls an Odyssey settlement. That's really bad news for you, as Anarchy-owned settlements tend to attract anti-anarchy missions from all over surrounding space. If it's a small, resource-poor out-of-the-way system with no real reason for anybody to casually visit it, then it's highly likely that most of those "5-7 ships per day" are all coming to your system specifically to wreak havoc at your pirate settlement.

In short, I think you may be on a Quixotic quest. Your Anarchy is going to find it difficult to seize control, and even more difficult to gain enough influence to expand into another system. And if they do somehow manage to expand, they probably won't last long in that other system before being kicked out again.

 

[quackinthebush]

Just wanted to post a quick update. After trying a combination of positive actions for my pirates (missions and maybe 100t of cargo at a 4000/ton profit) combined with negative actions for the controlling faction (killing system defense ships mostly and racking up 8 notoriety and a 6mil bounty on my head), I've finally managed to get some solid traction and have now entered a civil war! I think the Influence missions alone were just not sufficient or efficient, even in a small population system.

I find the "tick" very odd, since it's really difficult to judge the impact of your actions, and wish you could see the impact immediately like your reputation.

Thanks for the solid advice here, much appreciated. Here's hoping they can maintain the momentum and the quest isn't quixotic after all.

 

[quackinthebush]

Question about handing in combat bonds...do I need to hand them in to my faction base, or any station in the system? Or can I use an IF and still get the credit towards the war effort?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Question about handing in combat bonds...do I need to hand them in to my faction base, or any station in the system? Or can I use an IF and still get the credit towards the war effort?

Any station in the system is fine (a neutral station, if any exist, would be more convenient). Using an IF will get you reputation but not war progress.

If you're in a war you're not going to be able to hand in to your Odyssey settlement, as it'll be a warzone.