I love a good mystery but (as I've mentioned before) my current gameplay ambitions preclude my going after these. I'm happy to report them (although I'm no longer certain that's desired - feel free to clarify).
I can't say that I feel like I've invested much in the way of contributing to this.
Sorry, I'll try to clarify (not the simple thing with my level of English). Tip Off (TO) investigation (yes, another one) still running, earlier I've just pointed out that the OP doesn't participate actively in this new initiative.
Investigation is completely open and all participants and information are only welcome. However it's my fault that there is no good documentation written and assembled in one place for this project and no dedicated thread on the official forums (beside some reports in the other Tip Off related threads). Active communication takes place mostly on discords (IRH, CEC, Census, reports on Cannon and others, statistics says about 195 contributors, hmm, not always voluntary=) )
Also this time the TO investigation has been divided in two parts (and, I must admit, mostly oriented on "technical" matters):
1) Tip Off target locations and related mechanics - crash sites, unidentified wreckage's, bases and resulting end messages (at the present state of the game commander can visit and scan TO locations without appropriate mission in the mailbox)
2) Tip Off missions and the mechanics of their assignment.
Primary effort has been concentrated on the first part, as in fact Tip Off mission can be assigned only to currently "active" TO locations. One can say that Tip Off Locations are "independent variables" - having their own attributes and activity timetable - while Tip Off missions are "dependent functions". It's not the fact of the "mission" assignment that activates the related site, but the contrary - a mission can be assigned only to an already active site, end even the text of the mission depends on this sites "attributes" (i.e. subgroup of logs attached to this site).
And in fact the effort and time invested in the first part is already quite fruitful. All ever reported locations examined and sorted (collecting cartographic, material/commodities data), literally hundreds of end messages logs recorded. Quite a bunch of new discovered. Rules and timetables established for all "blinking" sites both in Colonia and in the Bubble. Proved pattern established by commander
@Ian Doncaster. Finally the end messages logs division into subsets has been established (mostly due to their "strange" dependency on game client localization).
However, at least for the Bubble, some approximations let us suppose that not ALL TO locations has been discovered yet (~ 30-50 still unknown crash sites, even less data on the final count of the planetary bases with TO messages... ~60?).
The same concerns tip off end-messages. Most likely ~3-5 have not yet discovered.
So there is still work to do.
2) About Tip Off mission assignment mechanics. So far we have the post of commander
@Ian Doncaster (and comments/hints already posted by
@Dominic Corner) with some additional ideas/precision's by other commanders. So missions (many), minor faction reputation (may be just as the consequence of the latter), "geo-check"/distance and quite probably something else - that all we have now. Besides my own recent experiment that shows that game engine do not assign TO missions not only to already assigned and still valid locations, but also omits those that has been already scanned (recently and can be still on "cooldown"). That's is not 100% proved - I really hate grinding and not really experienced in that kind of activity - but after quick scan of all known
active TO locations and spending 4 days (and large amount of credits on donations) in "grind-friendly" systems (sothys-ceos-robigo) my commander has received zero TO.
So, what kind of data is required? This depend on current tasks, at the moment:
1) Any new (not listed in the TO Archives) TO locations - always appreciated. Timing can be of big help (received, valid up to - for missions). Also, that can be not necessary newly acquired missions - many of commanders maintain there proper archives and logs. This information is also valuable.
2) Systems where given TO mission has been assigned (for geo-check testing)
3) In ideal case I'm trying to acquire all 6 possible logs from the sites - members of the "rare" message subgroups (i.e. using 6 different game client localisations - that require vising site by 6 commanders/accounts)
The best way to provide this data - using the appropriate data submission forms. Or contact me elsewhere (forums, discords).
Finally, I hope that when the "technical" part will be finished all acquired data can be transferred to "lore-friendly" commanders/groups (pity, that is not my case) for further analysis.
o7