Hostile from fighting in CZ - no missions taken

It doesn't count to the war. Anything claimed through Interstellar Factors has no effect.

EDIT: And just for completeness, handing them in a different system where the relevant faction is present likewise has no effect in the war.

As only combat bounds count toward victory (not kills) then it seems logical that selling them should work regardless to place, including interstellar factors and faction in other system.
 
As only combat bounds count toward victory (not kills) then it seems logical that selling them should work regardless to place, including interstellar factors and faction in other system.

The problem is BGS doesn't track the origin of the bonds. If you fight a war in two different systems (i.e Faction X is at war with Faction A in System A, and Faction B in System B, and don't hand in the accumulated bonds, you end up with a single bond transaction with the combined value of both those bonds, not two separate bond transactions (one for the fight against Faction A and another for the fight against Faction B).

So the BGS has no concept of where you earned those bonds, only where you hand them in at, which is what registers any effects on the war. You hand it in at system C, it counts at system C.

Having the effect trigger sit on when you get paid is totally illogical though. It should be on ship-kill, just like what happens when you murderhobo ships to reduce security/influence out of war.
 
I can see why some have a problem with this, but I'm fine with it.

Tell it, Winston.

Quotes like that are what upset me about this change, for to be successful at what I enjoy in this game I must ensure I make no enemies.

Whilst 'fighting on the beaches' I'll also be forced to do work for my enemy to keep them friendly. Yesterday I spent 4 hours in CZs fighting a faction....twice during that time I donated money to their cause, my enemies cause, to keep my rep high enough to drop bonds. What's Winnie got to say about that?

I want enemies, that's the whole problem here. I'd love for my actions to have consequences that made me change the way the galaxy feels to me. There are so many things that could be done to reach that dream - this isn't it.

Like I said before, this isn't just the mechanics being off and causing imbalance, it makes no sense on the side of the argument that that quote is trying to support - a sense of realism, a sense of ethics, a sense of cause and effect that mirrors the real world. It fails on both counts.
 
Some additional thoughts:

This benefits factions that control all assets massively. However, if you are working to take all assets in a system, it is going to be a significant barrier if the system has a high number of ports controlled by one faction. Practically speaking, this means that factions that already control all assets in their systems are at a significant defensive advantage, and that factions aiming for this advantage will find it to be very difficult to achieve.

This change also somewhat perversely punishes group play. If you are anticipating a long campaign in a system where you'll want repeated wars with one faction, reputation becomes a critical resource. If you're involved in planning for your squadron, the reputation of your pilots becomes a resource you have to track. If you spend that resource by allowing your pilots to fly in a wing, you may find it exhausted before the campaign is complete. So it may make sense to divide into teams, where some pilots are pushing for conflicts, and others are actually fighting them.

I feel that the action rebalance was intended to promote more "organic" play, where CMDRs are taking a more variety of actions rather than just accepting whichever missions will be easiest or pouring data into the factions they want to support. To an extent, it's succeeded. But I feel that this new change is contrary to that: while it makes sense for there to be a reputation loss, it does not make sense for the system to effectively restrict what parts of BGS campaigns pilots can participate in — and that's what will happen. Moreover, I agree with the concern raised by Arica — that this change will promote conflicting actions just so that people can maintain their rep. Yes, those actions are optional, but most pilots treasure efficiency and dropping to hostile is inefficient.

I would just cap the rep loss for fighting in wars at unfriendly. Ultimately we are mercenaries and governments we fight one day may hire us the next.
 
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I want enemies, that's the whole problem here. I'd love for my actions to have consequences that made me change the way the galaxy feels to me. There are so many things that could be done to reach that dream - this isn't it.

Exactly this. I want to roam around Hostile to as many Federal factions as possible. I want -100% rep with the Federation to actually do something, because right now this:

130939


... does absolutely nothing. Any Federal station will greet you with open arms.

But the reality is, that's a smart move by FD, because they know there's absolutely no reason to reach this state right now. Why? Let's say there's a federal-occupied system, and you're neutral to everyone. What ways can you bring down that government outside of wartime?
  • Dock at their starports and accept missions from opposing factions
  • Dock at their starports and trade for loss on their markets
  • Dock at their starports and sell on the black market[1]
  • Dock at their starports and hand in bounties for your faction
  • Murderhobo their ships in the system
  • Flip mission boards for hours on end in a neighbouring system and try to luck out with a mission targeting them with negative effects (Good luck if they're anything but an anarchy)

If you're hostile, your options are:
  • Murderhobo; and
  • Boardflip for hours in a neighbouring system.

So already.... you want to harm your opponents in the most effective way possible? You have to stay friendly with them. Personally, I think that's pretty back-to-front.

Now, some might argue "Well, that makes sense, you're in peacetime, maybe political maneuvering, trade, espionage and other non-combat activities make more sense rather than kicking the doors in"... and y'know what? Despite how short-sighted I think the current implementation of Hostile rep is... there's a level of merit to that argument. If being Hostile means I have to rely on a paltry amount of missions originating from neighbour-systems[2] for incursions against my target faction during peacetime, or I need to maintain just a tiny bit of "decorum" around my enemy in order to assist my faction within that system... while I heavily disagree with the concept, I understand it.

But that means in wartime, the gloves should be off. Nothing should hold me back. Instead, the botched implementation of the BGS mechanics in combination with Hostile-lockouts means that in order to be the most effective fighting machine during war, I'm forced to "play nice" because for bizzaro reasons my kills in combat "won't count" unless I dock at the enemy(?!?!) port and get paid for it.

If Hostile means the enemy constantly sends spec ops ships at me, fine
If Hostile means I'm locked out of stations, whatever
If Hostile means I can't accept missions, great

But Hostile should not mean I can't continue to hostilities towards that faction.

[1] Unless they're anarchy. Good luck there
[2] I've talked before about the desparate need for a "military career" path beyond the joke of a system we have now, where a reliable source of missions targeting factions rather than supporting them needs to be made available.
 
Exactly this. I want to roam around Hostile to as many Federal factions as possible. I want -100% rep with the Federation to actually do something, because right now this:

View attachment 130939

... does absolutely nothing. Any Federal station will greet you with open arms.

Unfortunately there appears to be a fundamental flaw with the game that Frontier either cannot or will not fix: the default allegiance for all stations appears to be Federation, rather than neutral or independent. This means that if you drop out of supercruise onto a station and experience latency issues due to other pilots being present, the station may momentarily treat you as hostile if you are hostile to the Federation, no matter the actual allegiance of the station.

This is called the Fedbug. Imperial powerplayers know it well. Part of Frontier's solution to it was to change it so that superpower hostility will not result in stations aggressing pilots.
 
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Ah yes, the Fed Bug :D -- probably the biggest cause of AEDC rebuys the last couple of years. We have one CMDR who is at over 100 such incidents (not all ended in ship destruction :D )

A quick way to repair rep is to get in an explo ship and map a bunch of ELWs and Ammonia worlds. Did about 8 or so of those, and that brought my rep up from unfriendly to allied with our opponent, allowing me to continue the war.
 
I hate to be cynical, but calling it now:

Phase 3 of the new Interstellar Initiatives will be won by the host faction unless this issue is addressed.

Conflict Zone CGs are won by bonds submitted at the hosting station. If the hosting station is owned by a faction involved in the conflict, then players locked out by becoming hostile for supporting the opposing faction will be unable to hand in bonds and contribute to winning the CG for that faction.

FD have no choice but to fix this issue. I have pre-emptively reported the bug here: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/1842
 
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I don't understand the issue here. It is normal that fighting against a faction is reducing your rep. And you don't need to redeem bonds anymore, just CZ completion.

What is the issue here ? Sorry, but I skipped the last pages.
 
I don't understand the issue here. It is normal that fighting against a faction is reducing your rep. And you don't need to redeem bonds anymore, just CZ completion.

What is the issue here ? Sorry, but I skipped the last pages.

Yes, you can still help win wars by means other than handing in bonds, but handing in bonds still counts. tl;dr It shouldn't.

Let me ask: Which faction should win?

The faction who has a high-intensity CZ cleared for them? Or the faction who has a high intensity CZ cleared for them, and pays 1m to some rando pilot for the work?

It should be a draw... because whether or not a faction has to pay out credits to anyone should have zero impact on the outcome of the war. Arguably, the faction who pays out should actually lose, as they're more out of pocket, all other things being fair.

Specifically, for Phase 3 of the Interstellar Initative, by all accounts it's going to be your bog-average conflict CZ. These are won by whoever hands in the most bonds. If it's hosted in a station owned by one of the factions involved in the war, anyone supporting the opposing side will eventually be locked out of the station, and prevented from participating further, due to becoming hostile.

It's a game-breaker. Frankly, it doesn't matter if there's other methods you can do. The act of handing in bonds should not affect the outcome of a war, in terms of the BGS. It should depend purely on running missions, clearing CZs and finishing scenarios at USS.

And for the fourth time... nobody thinks you shouldn't become hostile for attacking a faction. But becoming hostile actively restricts your ability to undertake further hostilities. This is what's broken, and has been ever since FD made hostile-station-lockouts a thing.

Tangentially: The reality is FD have neglected antagonistic/aggressive/hostile gameplay for too long. This is easily proven with the current state of the galaxy, reflecting more of an Elite: Best Friends universe with the prevalence of Boom/Investment and Civil Liberty, and the near-complete absence of negative states. The actual thing FD needs to do is invest in game mechanics which offer balanced rewards and equally incentivise pushing one faction into Investment and Civil Liberty, while crushing another into Famine and Lockdown. Somewhat cynically, this is never going to happen... but this particular issue is, like it or not, now a gamebreaker, and a product of that neglect. The easiest and most realistic fix right now is just removing the effect of combat bonds. Less-powerful commanders can still very easily contribute in low-intensity CZs, scenarios and missions, and combat bonds should nothing more than "a nice cash bonus".
 
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[Elite: Best Friends]

Very true. ED needs to get its baseball bat out and hammer in a few nails- its got to say something when there are so few systems that are properly messed up.

Logically speaking bonds should not affect the outcome now: CZs have an overall win / lose condition, making individual kills redundant. This logically decouples the BGS effect of bonds and CZ massacre missions as their role is to tempt you to fight to win that battle. In fact all wars should be decided in CZs, with no support missions as there are now way too many inconsistencies to take care of. My peeve is the CZ influence value of kills: a Corvette is worth the same as a lowly Eagle- there should be weight to a bigger kill.
 
This would easily be resolved if interstellar factors started correctly assigning bonds and mission rewards to respective factions (they get a fee for it, don't they?)
 
This would easily be resolved if interstellar factors started correctly assigning bonds and mission rewards to respective factions (they get a fee for it, don't they?)

That could work. Earned Bonds are already split into different Factions, so adding an identifier for the system too may be an option.

But probably simpler to just stop Bonds counting towards the day's conflict score, if that's the way they want to go. Though I'd still like to see war-missions and USS scenarios counting as an alternative to fighting in CZs.
 
Using the Interstellar factors would allow you to deliver bonds and keep mining a faction's influence on a system, despite being hostile to it and unable to land in any station inside it.
Hell, you could even get hunted by that faction (ships sent after you), to increase the immersion.
 
Using the Interstellar factors would allow you to deliver bonds and keep mining a faction's influence on a system, despite being hostile to it and unable to land in any station inside it.

Just because bonds are issued and stacked per-faction and not per conflict, I can't help but wonder if tracking the origin of the war/system bonds were earned would require an unreasonable amount of database work to change.

I get the sentiment, but I still maintain; the impact of the ships I destroy in a war should not be determined by whether I get paid for it or not.

Murderhoboing system authorities hurts the influence and security state of a faction, but there's no need to get paid for it to have that impact. Destroying ships in a war should be the same (i.e the kill is what counts to winning the war)
 
In my fantasy ED that haunts me each day, I'd like wars to be fought like this:

Regular matched wars: each side has a Checkpoint SS generated, and using the old/ very rare these days T-9 trader USS drop off bonds there. It would be a cool staging post that could build some atmosphere. Each day CZs are generated between these two points, and depending on if you are winning or losing they get closer or further way from your 'base'. You lose when the CZ engulfs your base (where the last days war takes place).

Coup: acts like retreat but in reverse- you get to 60% + and have to keep that level to win. If your enemy can lower your inf below 60% your coup fails.
 
Murderhoboing system authorities hurts the influence and security state of a faction, but there's no need to get paid for it to have that impact. Destroying ships in a war should be the same (i.e the kill is what counts to winning the war)
Agree. The reputation and influence effect in a CZ should be resolved with each kill, or after a winning wave, and only the money side delivered afterwards in combat bonds.
 
I agree that bonds should not count anymore with the new way of working of CZ.
Even if, loss rep is not an issue as your actions in general should have consequences so you feel it as meaningful. As you should not have money for it unless you have a mission.
Bear in mind bonds can be redeem in other systems (aside IF)...

Anyway, CZ completion is more rewarding than bonds now. And i personally like the loss rep even if it is half baked implementation (you should not have bonds $
 
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