Mercs of Mikunn - 3 Year report: The Once Secret BGS mechanics and how to figure out exploits

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

What do you define as big here? 10mil? 100mil? 1bil? 10bil or more?

Around one billion maybe more, maybe less.
The effect of players on systems should decrease gradually - it already does like you pointed out, but I think it player activity should have less effect on factions on a political level (war, government, system allegiance change…).

Personal playground is about right, I mean why else would you otherwise want to have your own Minor faction installed by FD if it wasn't for the sake of creating your own mark on the Galaxy? …

In my opinion that's the core of the problem since the BGS doesn't look like it was designed for providing that functionality. It is used for that now, and I think it shows that it wasn't initially designed for player factions fighting against each other.

Any change to the BGS should not only take the interests of player groups supporting a faction into account, but also all other players.
A system that affects everybody should be affected by everybody in a similar way. Similar activities should have the same result, no matter how those activities are cashed in.

A lot of this conversation about how the BGS should get affected by players is based on the interests of players supporting factions, how to protect that aspect of the game from getting affected by "non players". Taking one aspect of the BGS and trying to separate the whole BGS from the rest of the player base.

btw: I think it's going to be interesting how squadrons get implemented into the game.

 

[RamirezKurita]

No - I don’t agree.
One CMDR. One ship. One effort.

That at is at the core of the game.

Transactions are not some thoughtless add on- they are fundamental to the mechanics and philosophy of this game.

I am as virulently opposed to Value based influence as I am to Real World $ buying in-game advantage; and to in-game credit transfers between CMDRs.

It’s not an economical position: it’s ethical.

Okay, but due to how easy it is to exploit a transaction system, how do you feel about a trader using a simple key macro to sell goods a few tonnes at a time (just enough to reach the minimum size transaction threshold for the BGS) being able to outperform 50 other players who happen to be trading properly?

Transactional systems create some stupid and counterintuitive gameplay loops, such as selling goods a few tonnes at a time or returning back to port to hand in bounties every 5 minutes rather than racking up countless victories before returning triumphantly to port. These artificial gameplay aspects are what players can and will exploit, as long as the game separates the number of transactions from the value of them, players will exploit it by separating their transactions out as much as possible.

Value based systems are only as exploitable as the exploits that generate credits. The issues surrounding potential exploits around them aren't actually exploits within a value based system but instead exploits/flaws in other aspects of the game (such as a barely functioning economy), which would be fixed when the actually broken aspects get fixed. "Exploiting" the system by trading large volumes of in-demand wares, sweeping HAZRESs clean and dominating the local CZs for hours on end isn't an exploit, it's actually playing the game and achieving as much as possible for your local faction.

As Walt has pointed out, the best solution overall would be to separate value for a faction from credit profits, but that would involve the creation of a new and entirely separate balance metric, which would be quite a lot of work overall. A similar effect could simply be done by making the trading economy base its prices much more on supply and demand to encourage a greater variety of trade goods rather than simply ignoring all but the most valuable 5 goods in the game; make it so that profit margins are more of a property of the market rather than even poor trades with expensive goods yielding greater profits than a cheaper good.

As far as ethics go, all Horizons owners have access to the exact same ships (except those with the CobraIV), so why don't the cobra pilots invest into a Cutter or even just a T-9? Right tools for the job and all. The only reason why someone might not have a T-9 is because they are unwilling to invest in one, but in that case they should accept that their capabilities to impact the galaxy via trading will be reduced should they hang around in lower capacity trade ships.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Okay, but due to how easy it is to exploit a transaction system, how do you feel about a trader using a simple key macro to sell goods a few tonnes at a time (just enough to reach the minimum size transaction threshold for the BGS) being able to outperform 50 other players who happen to be trading properly?

Transactional systems create some stupid and counterintuitive gameplay loops, such as selling goods a few tonnes at a time or returning back to port to hand in bounties every 5 minutes rather than racking up countless victories before returning triumphantly to port. These artificial gameplay aspects are what players can and will exploit, as long as the game separates the number of transactions from the value of them, players will exploit it by separating their transactions out as much as possible.

Value based systems are only as exploitable as the exploits that generate credits. The issues surrounding potential exploits around them aren't actually exploits within a value based system but instead exploits/flaws in other aspects of the game (such as a barely functioning economy), which would be fixed when the actually broken aspects get fixed. "Exploiting" the system by trading large volumes of in-demand wares, sweeping HAZRESs clean and dominating the local CZs for hours on end isn't an exploit, it's actually playing the game and achieving as much as possible for your local faction.

As Walt has pointed out, the best solution overall would be to separate value for a faction from credit profits, but that would involve the creation of a new and entirely separate balance metric, which would be quite a lot of work overall. A similar effect could simply be done by making the trading economy base its prices much more on supply and demand to encourage a greater variety of trade goods rather than simply ignoring all but the most valuable 5 goods in the game; make it so that profit margins are more of a property of the market rather than even poor trades with expensive goods yielding greater profits than a cheaper good.

As far as ethics go, all Horizons owners have access to the exact same ships (except those with the CobraIV), so why don't the cobra pilots invest into a Cutter or even just a T-9? Right tools for the job and all. The only reason why someone might not have a T-9 is because they are unwilling to invest in one, but in that case they should accept that their capabilities to impact the galaxy via trading will be reduced should they hang around in lower capacity trade ships.

Keep in mind value doesn't necessarily mean credits. Value could be the type of ship in a warzone. Or the nutritional value of food to a famine - coffee might not help much.

Otherwise you are on the money.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

… The only reason why someone might not have a T-9 is because they are unwilling to invest in one, …

An other reason would be that flying big ship simply isn't that much fun for some players. Not really a problem when it comes to the BGS since rare goods could be used as a way to provide similar effectiveness for small ship CMDRs - or other methods.

 

[Walt Kerman]

An other reason would be that flying big ship simply isn't that much fun for some players. Not really a problem when it comes to the BGS since rare goods could be used as a way to provide similar effectiveness for small ship CMDRs - or other methods.

Then maybe affecting the BGS by trade isn't your thing, unless you want to push rare goods as you mention.

I too, wish my scissors could hammer in nails, or sweep the floor efficiently. [noob] I think the rares would be a good outlet for that.

 

[Jane Turner]

Going to unpick this and clear up some rampant misconceptions that are being promoted, either intentionally or accidentally

Okay, but due to how easy it is to exploit a transaction system, how do you feel about a trader using a simple key macro to sell goods a few tonnes at a time (just enough to reach the minimum size transaction threshold for the BGS) being able to outperform 50 other players who happen to be trading properly?

So let's take the example of one pilot in a Cutter make 5 trips to a 6 million population system with a £1500 a ton profit commodity against a BGS aware pilot visiting the same system in a Cobra and selling batches large reach the minimum size transaction. If the owner of the station started with 60% and nothing else happened, the cutter pilot would produce about a 2.3% uplift whilst the Cobra pilot would produce a 0.5% uplift. If it was in a huge system the Cutter would give a 1.7% lift and the Cobra would probably get lost in rounding. In both cases the Cutter pilot would be rewarded by a rep increase to allied (from neutral) and the Cobra Pilot yould probably still be neutral, but on the cusp of being cordial. In order to have the same influence effect the Cobra pilot would have to spend as much time and travel the same distance as the Cutter Pilot, though they would still only be cordial in terms of reputation.

Transactional systems create some stupid and counterintuitive gameplay loops, such as selling goods a few tonnes at a time or returning back to port to hand in bounties every 5 minutes rather than racking up countless victories before returning triumphantly to port. These artificial gameplay aspects are what players can and will exploit, as long as the game separates the number of transactions from the value of them, players will exploit it by separating their transactions out as much as possible.

You don't have to switch to a value-based BGS to level the playing field between bounty hunting/combat bonds and murder, you just count each bounty/bond as a transaction, rather than count each drop of bonds/bounties. However if this happened, there is probably an argument to re-inflate the effect of murder a little.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Then maybe affecting the BGS by trade isn't your thing, unless you want to push rare goods as you mention.

…

Wouldn't it be cool if there where special rare goods that are needed by factions - things that aren't luxury items like the current rare goods - but specialized and very important for running a space station / planetary station.
(Looks hard in the direction of fleet carriers…)

Your concept of commodities (and actions) having a "BGS-value" would fit nicely for those rare goods. In addition long range trading could be added. All of those things could have different values for the BGS, creating more diversity in the actions a player could do.
Those BGS values could depend on the demand of the commodities (rare goods), based on what the faction/station actually needs.

Guess that's a few steps ahead of the topic, close to off topic.

 

[Abil Midena]

Going to unpick this and clear up some rampant misconceptions that are being promoted, either intentionally or accidentally



So let's take the example of one pilot in a Cutter make 5 trips to a 6 million population system with a £1500 a ton profit commodity against a BGS aware pilot visiting the same system in a Cobra and selling batches large reach the minimum size transaction. If the owner of the station started with 60% and nothing else happened, the cutter pilot would produce about a 2.3% uplift whilst the Cobra pilot would produce a 0.5% uplift. If it was in a huge system the Cutter would give a 1.7% lift and the Cobra would probably get lost in rounding. In both cases the Cutter pilot would be rewarded by a rep increase to allied (from neutral) and the Cobra Pilot yould probably still be neutral, but on the cusp of being cordial. In order to have the same influence effect the Cobra pilot would have to spend as much time and travel the same distance as the Cutter Pilot, though they would still only be cordial in terms of reputation.



You don't have to switch to a value-based BGS to level the playing field between bounty hunting/combat bonds and murder, you just count each bounty/bond as a transaction, rather than count each drop of bonds/bounties. However if this happened, there is probably an argument to re-inflate the effect of murder a little.

So the Cobra pilot made 10t trades 5x for about 50t or 75000 cr profit. That took him about 5 min.
The Trutter pilot made 720t trades 5x for about 3600t or 5.4Mcr profit. That took him probably about 60 min.

The Cobra pilot got about 20% of the inf change Trutter did (0.5/2.3*100=22%) for 8% of the time taken (5/60*100), and about 0.1% (7500/5400000=0.1%) of the profit.

Are you arguing that's ok? It appears to me the Cobra pilot made out like a bandit, especially considering the real life time comparison. And which one of those two played the game more "naturally"?

I sort of agree with what you said about bonds/bounties, but shouldn't it also consider the relative rank/type between the killer and killee?

 

[Walt Kerman]

You don't have to switch to a value-based BGS to level the playing field between bounty hunting/combat bonds and murder, you just count each bounty/bond as a transaction, rather than count each drop of bonds/bounties. However if this happened, there is probably an argument to re-inflate the effect of murder a little.

Yay we are making progress. By doing transactions like this its value based on the number of ships. This is what i mean by how valuable it is in terms of utility to a faction. Killing more ships should have more value and net you more.

 

[Jane Turner]

So the Cobra pilot made 10t trades 5x for about 50t or 75000 cr profit. That took him about 5 min.
The Trutter pilot made 720t trades 5x for about 3600t or 5.4Mcr profit. That took him probably about 60 min.

I see no reason why 5 visits in one ship should take less time than 5 trips in another ship, unless the Cutter pilot really can't park

 

[Walt Kerman]

5 mins to go out and get rare goods?

Clearly not rare as the profit he quoted is only 75k total for 50 tons.

 

[Jane Turner]

Yay we are making progress. By doing transactions like this its value based on the number of ships. This is what i mean by how valuable it is in terms of utility to a faction. Killing more ships should have more value and net you more.

I proposed that in my 1st post in this thread, and have advocated it at any opportunity to anyone who showed an interest in the subject since the game started!

 

[Walt Kerman]

I proposed that in my 1st post in this thread, and have advocated it at any opportunity to anyone who showed an interest in the subject since the game started!

Then you don't oppose value based if its by utility. We've agreed all along!

 

[Abil Midena]

I see no reason why 5 visits in one ship should take less time than 5 trips in another ship, unless the Cutter pilot really can't park

Oh c'mon. You were saying the Cobra 'bgs aware' pilot traded batches 'large enough to reach the min batch', which means they made one trip with 50t, traded 10t at time. That takes 5 min in one trip.

 

[Jane Turner]

Oh c'mon. You were saying the Cobra 'bgs aware' pilot traded batches 'large enough to reach the min batch', which means they made one trip with 50t, traded 10t at time. That takes 5 min in one trip.

So firstly - no Cobra carries 50t... lets make it and Asp or a python which can carry 50t... selling 10t at a time would still require 5 trips to have the same BGS impact as the Cutter making 5 trips, in which case the BGS impact is the same but the rep gain and profit is the reward for using a Cutter rather than an ASP/Cobra/Python.

 

[Abil Midena]

So firstly - no Cobra carries 50t... lets make it and Asp or a python which can carry 50t... selling 10t at a time would still require 5 trips to have the same BGS impact as the Cutter making 5 trips, in which case the BGS impact is the same but the rep gain and profit is the reward for using a Cutter rather than an ASP/Cobra/Python.

This Cobra carries 50t. http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=B020,...cw0Aq_0B4c0BKE0Bb60,,07200720072003w003w02Uc0

So, ok, we're changing the example. Please explain why you are saying selling 10t at a time takes 5 trips wrt BGS. It doesn't and we both know that.

And now you're adding that the reward for using a Trutter can only be rep gain and money. Someone using a Trutter shouldn't get more rewards in BGS for going through the time/effort to use a Trutter. Wow.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[MottiKhan]

Oh c'mon. You were saying the Cobra 'bgs aware' pilot traded batches 'large enough to reach the min batch', which means they made one trip with 50t, traded 10t at time. That takes 5 min in one trip.

A BGS aware pilot wouldn't buy 50t commodities at a station and then split them up into 10t batches when selling them.

 

[Abil Midena]

A BGS aware pilot wouldn't buy 50t commodities at a station and then split them up into 10t batches when selling them.

It wasn't my example. But splitting cargo (different types are better) into smaller batches when you go to another system to sell them is part of what is being discussed in this thread.

 

[Jane Turner]

This Cobra carries 50t. http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=B020,...cw0Aq_0B4c0BKE0Bb60,,07200720072003w003w02Uc0

So, ok, we're changing the example. Please explain why you are saying selling 10t at a time takes 5 trips wrt BGS. It doesn't and we both know that.

And now you're adding that the reward for using a Trutter can only be rep gain and money. Someone using a Trutter shouldn't get more rewards in BGS for going through the time/effort to use a Trutter. Wow.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

I said, or at least meant to make it clear that selling 5 batches of 10 has the same impact as selling 1 batch of 50 and the rep gain and money IS the current situation if moving larger volumes for larger profits. I offered no personal opinion on the matter.

 

[Jane Turner]

It wasn't my example. But splitting cargo (different types are better) into smaller batches when you go to another system to sell them is part of what is being discussed in this thread.

Are they? That's news to us!