Looking for advice on flipping a relatively remote system

[Khaleed al-Faisal]

Hi all, I'm hoping to get some advice as we've been unsuccessfully trying this since late May.

I lead Selous Syndicate. Our & our PMF's home system is HIP 8396. Sirius Corp currently owns the system and all assets, and it has been in a perpetual Investment state as long as we've been here. The nearest systems (also owned by Sirius Corp) are around 70ly away; as a result, the only available missions we have are donate credits/items missions and passenger missions.

Our PMF was created in late May and within 3 or 4 days we pushed our influence up to the mid-high 30s. However, it peaked there and towards the end of June it was stuck around the high 20s/low 30s. Most of our players burned out by this point and we stopped working on it. Three of us started working on it again around the middle of July; however, we couldn't push our influence higher than the low 30s and gave up again in early August.

I started working on this again two days (Jan. 5th) at which time our influence was 8.4%. I completed passenger missions worth +71 influence and donate credit missions worth +24 influence, which led to a meager influence increase to 13.9% (a 5.5% gain). Yesterday, I completed passenger missions worth +90 influence and donate credit missions worth +38 influence for a smaller influence increase to 17.2% (a 3.3% gain). For perspective, I ran every inf++ to inf+++++ passenger mission offered by our agent that spawned over an ~8 hour window, as well as a handful of inf+ passenger missions.

Based off the small influence increases, I'm assuming there are others in the system giving Sirius Corp positive transactions. As a relatively remote system, system traffic is always low; however, there's always a few other ships on system traffic. I've never seen another player in this system, so I'm assuming they're either playing in solo/wing or play at a different time.

Any advice/suggestions/thoughts are appreciated, thanks.

 

[FrogsFriend]

A couple of other things to check:
Does the System Status panel (right hand display) show up/down arrows against both factions?
What do the Bounties/Crimes/Most Wanted/Trade messages show in the station news?

 

[SciTrekker]

I've no idea why all your completed missions for INF rewards isn't raising the MF's INF other than:

Your actions have opposing actions by someone(s).​

However, I'm fairly certain the following used to be true if they aren't still true:

• The higher a MF's INF, the slower it rises and the faster it lowers with respective and appropriate BGS activity.
• Working INF for multiple/all other MFs than the MF you want to lower is better/faster at lowering that MF's INF.
• Do things that lower the target MF's INF while also doing things that increasae your MF (and the other MFs).
• If a ship is already in the system when a player logs in and doesn't leave the system, regardless of what they do in the system they're not counted toward the Detailed Traffic Report numbers.

If I'm wrong on any of these points, I hope someone posts a correction.

 

[Jmanis]

Missions aren't great at tipping influence tbh, and they tap-out (i.e diminishing returns kick in) much quicker. That's the only thing I can think of.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

With a system like that, the controlling faction will get a lot of influence from passing traffic just for existing. It's not impossible to win against that, but it's very difficult.

Individual types of actions all get separate diminishing returns. So, you need to do as many different types of actions for you - and negative ones for your opponent.
- missions for you
- bounties for you (KWS won't pick up many but it's better than nothing. Just make sure you don't hand in the primary Sirius bounties in-system!)
- loss-making trades for them
- murder or assault of their ships (assault is less effective per crime, but easier to get away with)
The murder will drop your rep quite badly, but fortunately Sirius Corp is present in many systems so you can give them some exploration data or bounties over in one of those before it hits hostile. May be best to have people split between murder and missions and not try to do both.

The combination of those might make it easier to draw level - but you'll have a further problem in taking the system: elections don't count combat actions (bounties, murder), so you'll be basically down to just missions to win the election. On the other hand, elections are counted differently, so lots of missions might be enough.

 

[Sapyx]

Your problem is, you're in the HIP 8396 system. I don't know why you guys thought that was a good idea, but it really wasn't. You have chosen poorly. And I don't know why FD approved giving you HIP 8396 as a home system (they're not supposed to give away significant systems like that any more), but they did, and now you're stuck with it.

For a while there, up until around a yer ago, HIP 8396 was the only system left on the Sothis Spur that was still in Sirius Corp control. So there are an awful, awful lot of pieces of advice, both recent and rather old, floating around out there that anyone who wants to level up with Sirius Corp (in order to get the Sirius Permit to eventually gain the G5 Palin thruster mods) should go to HIP 8396, and spam lots of missions for Sirius Corp. Do a Google Search for "best way to level up with Sirius Corp", and the entire top page of results will be people telling you to "go to HIP 8396". So, on top of the regular stream of explorers and visitors passing through the system (on their way to and from Sothis, usually) selling exploration data and otherwise bumping up the system, there are probably a rather large number of people who are deliberately flying to HIP 8396 and supporting Sirius Corp, undoing (or at least counteracting) all your hard work.

 

[graflex22]

if Sirius Corp has any stations with Black Markets you could smuggle in illegal goods and sell them there. this should give their influence a knock downward.

but as Sapyx pointed out, you have a long row to hoe.

 

[Speedcuffs]

if Sirius Corp has any stations with Black Markets you could smuggle in illegal goods and sell them there. this should give their influence a knock downward.

but as Sapyx pointed out, you have a long row to hoe.

There are indeed black markets.

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

If all your good labor seems to be insufficient, laboring for the other's side(s) will cause them to be less sufficient. Which in the LONG RUN, causes your labor to become more sufficient.

 

[Khaleed al-Faisal]

Thank you for the responses, everybody. I appreciate them. As an update, I completed passenger missions worth +61 influence and donate credit missions worth +4 influence for today's tick. This resulted in a +2.5% gain, increasing our Inf to 19.7%.

A couple of other things to check:
Does the System Status panel (right hand display) show up/down arrows against both factions?
What do the Bounties/Crimes/Most Wanted/Trade messages show in the station news?

1) Up Arrows only for both Sirius Corp & my PMF
2) Prior to making this thread, there had only been a handful of bounties turned in over the preceding two days. After making this thread, bounties have skyrocketed up to 106 bounties turned in for 6.2m over the last 24hrs. Regarding crime, bounties worth 13.92m have been issued in the last 24hrs. Not sure how relevant Top 5 Local Bounties/Trade Reports are.

I've no idea why all your completed missions for INF rewards isn't raising the MF's INF other than:

Your actions have opposing actions by someone(s).​

However, I'm fairly certain the following used to be true if they aren't still true:

• The higher a MF's INF, the slower it rises and the faster it lowers with respective and appropriate BGS activity.
• Working INF for multiple/all other MFs than the MF you want to lower is better/faster at lowering that MF's INF.
• Do things that lower the target MF's INF while also doing things that increasae your MF (and the other MFs).
• If a ship is already in the system when a player logs in and doesn't leave the system, regardless of what they do in the system they're not counted toward the Detailed Traffic Report numbers.

If I'm wrong on any of these points, I hope someone posts a correction.

I tried running passenger missions for both my PMF and the third faction in the system (the Black Hand) back in June or July. The outcome was very odd in that I ran vastly more passenger missions for my PMF than Black Hand, but Black Hand was gaining nearly twice the amount of Inf. Might have been because they were starting at 1% inf.

With a system like that, the controlling faction will get a lot of influence from passing traffic just for existing. It's not impossible to win against that, but it's very difficult.

Individual types of actions all get separate diminishing returns. So, you need to do as many different types of actions for you - and negative ones for your opponent.

• missions for you
• bounties for you (KWS won't pick up many but it's better than nothing. Just make sure you don't hand in the primary Sirius bounties in-system!)
• loss-making trades for them
• murder or assault of their ships (assault is less effective per crime, but easier to get away with)

The murder will drop your rep quite badly, but fortunately Sirius Corp is present in many systems so you can give them some exploration data or bounties over in one of those before it hits hostile. May be best to have people split between murder and missions and not try to do both.

The combination of those might make it easier to draw level - but you'll have a further problem in taking the system: elections don't count combat actions (bounties, murder), so you'll be basically down to just missions to win the election. On the other hand, elections are counted differently, so lots of missions might be enough.

We originally started with KWS and Murdering Sirius Corp ships; however, the Inf gains were minor so we switched to missions. Also, the murder bounties got ridiculously large and fast, which is a problem when all assets in-system and all assets in the nearest systems (70-100ly away) are all owned by Sirius Corp. Loss-making trading and black markets might be an option; however, passenger missions seemed a better use of time given the distances.

Your problem is, you're in the HIP 8396 system. I don't know why you guys thought that was a good idea, but it really wasn't. You have chosen poorly. And I don't know why FD approved giving you HIP 8396 as a home system (they're not supposed to give away significant systems like that any more), but they did, and now you're stuck with it.

For a while there, up until around a yer ago, HIP 8396 was the only system left on the Sothis Spur that was still in Sirius Corp control. So there are an awful, awful lot of pieces of advice, both recent and rather old, floating around out there that anyone who wants to level up with Sirius Corp (in order to get the Sirius Permit to eventually gain the G5 Palin thruster mods) should go to HIP 8396, and spam lots of missions for Sirius Corp. Do a Google Search for "best way to level up with Sirius Corp", and the entire top page of results will be people telling you to "go to HIP 8396". So, on top of the regular stream of explorers and visitors passing through the system (on their way to and from Sothis, usually) selling exploration data and otherwise bumping up the system, there are probably a rather large number of people who are deliberately flying to HIP 8396 and supporting Sirius Corp, undoing (or at least counteracting) all your hard work.

The why is we wanted a remote system with an asteroid base, and the PMF creator wouldn't allow us to select T Tauri which is where we'd been setup for a while. And unfortunately, we weren't aware of the value it has, or had, w/r/t Sirius Corp. But this is where we chose, so we're stuck here.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

We originally started with KWS and Murdering Sirius Corp ships; however, the Inf gains were minor so we switched to missions. Also, the murder bounties got ridiculously large and fast, which is a problem when all assets in-system and all assets in the nearest systems (70-100ly away) are all owned by Sirius Corp. Loss-making trading and black markets might be an option; however, passenger missions seemed a better use of time given the distances.

Because of how influence calculations work, a mixed approach will tend to do better than all one thing or another.

Assaulting rather than murdering Sirius ships will mean the bounties rack up a lot slower.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Not sure how relevant Top 5 Local Bounties/Trade Reports are

They're not as directly relevant but they are an indicator of whether people are selling lots of goods at the stations (which increases Inf for the station owner) or perhaps murdering lots of (your) ships to keep you down.

 

[Khaleed al-Faisal]

Because of how influence calculations work, a mixed approach will tend to do better than all one thing or another.

Assaulting rather than murdering Sirius ships will mean the bounties rack up a lot slower.

Would this also apply to a mix of regular missions and passenger missions?

They're not as directly relevant but they are an indicator of whether people are selling lots of goods at the stations (which increases Inf for the station owner) or perhaps murdering lots of (your) ships to keep you down.

The trade report has never changed since I've been in this system. Its always Void Opals > Grandidierite > Alexandrite > Painite > Thorium > Rhodplumsite; however, none of these minerals sell for competitive prices in the system. Eg Void Opals sell for less than 400k/pu.

 

[AnvadicA]

- murder or assault of their ships (assault is less effective per crime, but easier to get away with)

If getting a bad reputation is a problem, then there is an option to kill wanted Sirius corp ships in HIP 8396 (but don't cash bounties there, cash it only via interstellar factors).

The best option to raise your INF in that particular situation is a COMBINATION of:
1. Passenger missions for your faction
2. Passenger missions for The Black Hand, because in will lower Sirius corp inf much faster
3. Killing sirius corp ships in HIP 8396
4. Smuggling in the black market (4 commodities in one run). Means that you find a trading ship in the system full of commodities, steal these commodities - and sell it on a black market

On the other hand I don't really understand the sense of all that actions, because your faction woun't expand anywhere, because it is a remote system lol

 

[Craith]

If getting a bad reputation is a problem, then there is an option to kill wanted Sirius corp ships in HIP 8396 (but don't cash bounties there, cash it only via interstellar factors).

The best option to raise your INF in that particular situation is a COMBINATION of:
1. Passenger missions for your faction
2. Passenger missions for The Black Hand, because in will lower Sirius corp inf much faster
3. Killing sirius corp ships in HIP 8396
4. Smuggling in the black market (4 commodities in one run). Means that you find a trading ship in the system full of commodities, steal these commodities - and sell it on a black market

On the other hand I don't really understand the sense of all that actions, because your faction woun't expand anywhere, because it is a remote system lol

Maybe they just want to control their home system? Also, it is possible to expand further than 20 lys, it just takes longer. I think current record is slightly above 40 lys for an expansion, by Sacra Oculus.

But OP: whatever you do, don't try to put Sirius into retreat, or you will have quite a bunch of CMDRs actively working against you.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Maybe they just want to control their home system? Also, it is possible to expand further than 20 lys, it just takes longer. I think current record is slightly above 40 lys for an expansion, by Sacra Oculus.

Maximum possible distance is probably just short of 70 LY, provided the target system is in the right direction. Though I think it's more isolated than that, even.

Simple Elite Corps managed 42.17 LY (Kajuku -> Asura) - not sure if that beats the Sacra Oculus record or not.

 

[Craith]

Just checked, apparently it was 45.8 for Sacra Oculus. It was to Acani, but not sure from where (not a member)