Influence caps/gains and the wine analogy

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
Factabulous said:
Nice thread! One question on the OP:



Should this read:

  • In each tick the factions present "compete" over a bottle of wine. That bottle of wine is formed by taking a fraction of a bottle of wine proportional to the percentage of system's wine that they own... so a faction with 75% influence provides 75% of the bottle.

because I thought the Influences in a system always added up to 100%, but then I am no BGS expert, as I constantly find :)
Click to expand...

Yes! I'll change it
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
I hate to poke an already stretched, complicated analogy with a sharp stick, but... how does War and Conflict fit into the wine analogy?
 

Misaniovent

Misaniovent
Sapyx said:
I hate to poke an already stretched, complicated analogy with a sharp stick, but... how does War and Conflict fit into the wine analogy?
Click to expand...

Imagine a table for seven.

The wine is already poured, but some people want more than they were allotted. When diner sitting next to them leaves to go to the rest room, they pour a bit of wine from their neighbor's glass into their own. Then when the dissatisfied diner gets up, their neighbor takes the stolen wine back. This repeats until one of them has taken enough wine from the other to feel satisfied. In some situations the leading diner may find an excuse to take a bit of wine from the diners not sitting next to them. For example, the waiter may indicate that he has killed one of the diner's enemies. Custom dictates that in response to a successful head hunted on behalf of one of the seven at the table, the other six will ritualistically siphon a small amount of their wine from their glasses into his.
 

Patau82

Patau82
Got to do the whole restaurant now, the waiter has messages to deliver as well as free meals and gifts from the other tables! :D
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
Sapyx said:
I hate to poke an already stretched, complicated analogy with a sharp stick, but... how does War and Conflict fit into the wine analogy?
Click to expand...

It struggles... in the war system - both factions provide their share, but its held separate and they fight over it. If the non-warring factions earn more than their share back - its taken from the warring factions stock. If one warring faction earns back all the war share of the wine, they can then take the wine from the other pot so long as any faction that is not at war is also in deficit.


I'm really struggling to work in the non contribution of non-combat!
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
Misaniovent said:
Imagine a table for seven.

The wine is already poured, but some people want more than they were allotted. When diner sitting next to them leaves to go to the rest room, they pour a bit of wine from their neighbor's glass into their own. Then when the dissatisfied diner gets up, their neighbor takes the stolen wine back. This repeats until one of them has taken enough wine from the other to feel satisfied. In some situations the leading diner may find an excuse to take a bit of wine from the diners not sitting next to them. For example, the waiter may indicate that he has killed one of the diner's enemies. Custom dictates that in response to a successful head hunted on behalf of one of the seven at the table, the other six will ritualistically siphon a small amount of their wine from their glasses into his.
Click to expand...

Damn I should have read yours 1st!
 

John Xaverius

J
Jane Turner said:
I just found myself explaining how influence gains are calculated in Elite to someone else, who was having trouble with the maths, using a wine-based analogy. It breaks down in a couple of places but it sort of works.

  • 1) In each tick the factions present "compete" over a bottle of wine. That bottle of wine is formed by taking a fraction of a bottle of wine proportional to the percentage of system's wine that they own... so a faction with 75% influence provides 75% of the bottle.
    2) If there is no activity in the system, then the wine is returned and nothing happens.
    3) If one faction does 10 or more BGS transactions net (ie the difference between +ve and -ve activities) and no one else does anything, they get the bottle of wine added to their cellar.
    4) If that faction does fewer than 10 BGS transactions and no one else does anything, then they get x/10 of the bottle of wine, and the rest is returned pro-rata to how it was initially staked.
    5) The bottle that is played for is the same size regardless of the total wine production of the system, consequently the % gain is smaller in large population system. This is both how caps arise and why they are related to 1/log population
    6) If more than one faction has net positive BGS transactions, then their % of the total points determines how much of the bottle of wine returns to them. This is why there is a diminishing returns effect, getting closer to, but never quite as much as the unopposed gain, even with very high BGS transaction counts
    7) Since the end result is expressed as a % change, this explains why the amount gained decreases as the starting influence increases. It also explains why it takes fewer BGS points to raise a low starting influence faction when more than one faction has positive points.
Click to expand...


  • I need little help to understand it. More help... :D

    add.1
    Got it. For example i have three factions in system with population 1 000 000.
    A) 65% infl.
    B) 25% infl.
    C) 10% infl.

    add.2
    No acitivity, no changes. Got it.

    add.3
    More than 10 BGS transactions for "A"; "B+C" without changes.
    "A" is winner and they got? 35% infl. Everything from "B+C"?
    Or
    Maximum influence calculated base on 1/log population?
    Btw. what is "1/log population"? Some sort of number calculated based on population size? :)

    add.4
    Fewer than 10 BGS transactions for "A" (i will count 8). "B+C" without changes.
    "A" get x/10.
    But
    "x" is number of transactions (8) or initial influence of faction "A" (65%)?
    (Rest infl.points returned to "B+C" -comparatively. -> Got it.)


    So, i'm lost. Can you explain my questions?
    Please
 
Last edited:

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
if there are 8 points they will get 8/10th of the cap.

If there are more than 10 points an no other activity, they get all of the cap

the cap gets smaller with increasing population.
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
Going to Add this to the 1st Post- its a sort of Log table for influence gain v population and starting influence

JEbC78i.png


Notes
  • This is the maximum achievable by completing positive actions for one faction.
  • If there is any positive activity or any other faction in the system it will not be possible to reach this the quoted value, though with very high levels of positive transactions it is possible to get close. The relative starting influence of the actions with positive transactions affects the number of transactions needed, with much higher numbers needed if the faction you are supporting has much higher starting influence (think of it a being like a lever)
  • If a different faction loses influence through net negative transactions (Black market, murder etc), it is possible to exceed the quoted value by a considerable margin. The amount will depend on the level of negative activity and the starting influence of the affected faction. The lost influence is redistributed pro-rata to starting influences of the other factions.
 
Last edited:

Abil Midena

Abil Midena
Sooo...is the table trying to say that if the starting inf is 10% for a 10M pop system, the max theoretical inf gain is ~20? That is way off from the chart, so I must be using the table wrong.

Also, the chart would be a little easier to use with more, but not too much more, grid lines. I understand it's not 100% accurate, but it's pretty good from what I've experienced.

And thanks for the info!
 

WhoCares

W
Another number example:
Two factions in a 100k system, starting at 30% and 40%, both put in the same number of tranactions while anybody else is idle. How would the distribution be for those? 50% of the theoretical max. for the 30% faction would be +5.7%, for the 40% faction 3.9%?
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
WhoCares said:
Another number example:
Two factions in a 100k system, starting at 30% and 40%, both put in the same number of transactions while anybody else is idle. How would the distribution be for those? 50% of the theoretical max. for the 30% faction would be +5.7%, for the 40% faction 3.9%?
Click to expand...

As soon as more than one faction has transactions it gets more complex. Assuming its a 7 faction system, the 40% one would end up with 41.6 and the 30% one with 33.2.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom