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

[Walt Kerman]

And how many of them are actually still playing - the number of Zombie pmf is a regular topic of debate?



I did, much as I dislike Reddit, and I failed to find any substantial difference between the debate there and here. If you do get people making personal contact - show them towards the BGS sub-forum, which is as polite, collaborative and helpful as an online forum can be.

Exactly my point. Probably very few - they gave up on something that would be very easy knowing transactions. Also not everyone wants or expects to go outside of the game to find obscure rules. Most people probably expect it to work like the real world.

I didn't find a difference between the two either, which is why I'm confused as to why the he couldnt find players who didn't know on either platform.

Single selling was patched out ages ago.

Mentioned that in the OP. I was pointing out and old exploit and titled it "Past Exploits", emphasis on past. Also said it was old news. We agree on past.

 

[Schlack]

BGS, commander! Do. You. Fiddle. It?

This issue presented in this topic is quite severe. As every player who is seriouly into bgs have to deal with this nonsense of a system.

You are of course entitled to your own opinion. I don't see this as a severe issue. The transactional nature of the system works for the most part. Yes bounties and bonds can be gamed by multiple cashing. Have you tried it though?

I suggest you do and see how long you can continue playing like that. If youre still playing next week ill begin to consider it a problem.

Also both the "solutions " presented (credits/ship kills) would make bh the most powerful bgs tool at a stroke and make all other activities irrelevant. It would be like old murder on steroids unless the effect of each individual kill was practically negligible. This is without even taking into account the ability to park an engied ship unattended in a res all night.

 

[Jmanis]

The transactional nature of the system works for the most part. Yes bounties and bonds can be gamed by multiple cashing. Have you tried it though?

I have, and I'd sooner gouge my own eyes out than do it again. Once was enough to know that it's a painfully boring thing.

 

[Jane Turner]

Exactly my point. Probably very few - they gave up on something that would be very easy knowing transactions. Also not everyone wants or expects to go outside of the game to find obscure rules. Most people probably expect it to work like the real world..

The very long time that most of them took to be put into the game is cited as the reason they haven't expanded because they don't exist. Quite a few have fallen foul of internal bickering too. Can you seriously produce a list of players factions that can't expand becuase they don't know about the BGS?

 

[Walt Kerman]

The very long time that most of them took to be put into the game is cited as the reason they haven't expanded because they don't exist. Quite a few have fallen foul of internal bickering too. Can you seriously produce a list of players factions that can't expand becuase they don't know about the BGS?

I believe that many didn't know and the response and comments back it up. I already provided links and pictures of people talking about it too. Theres a lot of info in that post I provided and in this thread. There are another 200 on top of the 600 that have only managed to take their home system. Sent you the rest of my response in Coalition chat with some group names.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

The ones mentioned in this thread.
1 ton trading
bounty hunting and combat bonds having different effect on the BGS depending on how the bounties/bonds are handed in and not based on the number of bounties/bonds handed in
system security killing spree being close to impossible to oppose
discovery data INF bombing

Yes some of those have been fixed, but all of them are the result of the BGS treating transactions differently.





I think at some point FDev will have to go back to the start as more and more specific fixes to problems add up and cause problems. Sometimes it's easier to rebuild something from scratch, or fixing a very fundamental problem, than to patch around the effects of that problem.
The sooner this is done, the less work it is.

Btw, by simpler system I didn't mean simplistic or reduced functionality. I meant an system with rules that aren't complicated and designed in a way that they can be applied to various situations without having to do a lot of special adjustments or exceptions.

You are right that it probably doesn't really affect the player just playing the game and constantly learning the news addition or change to the way the BGS works.
But redesigning or fixing fundamental aspects of the BGS could make it more accessible for players and easier to understand.

But the 1 ton trading is no more and a cap was introduced for the sys auth killing - how are they still a problem?

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

You are of course entitled to your own opinion. I don't see this as a severe issue. The transactional nature of the system works for the most part. Yes bounties and bonds can be gamed by multiple cashing. Have you tried it though?

I suggest you do and see how long you can continue playing like that. If youre still playing next week ill begin to consider it a problem.

…

I do this all the time when there is a war I want to influence. (Not that often anymore, since I try not to expand the faction I support).

Before knowing that handing in a few low effort bonds is much more influential than cashing in the result of one or two hours of CZ farming I usually tried everything possible to win a war in the pending state.
Now I just have a bit of fun with "silly" combat ship loadouts. For me it's more fun than doing missions.
It does get annoying if the CZs are a few hundred light seconds away from the station.

 

[DNA-Decay]

I’m going to draw attention to two things from the AEDC training video above.
https://youtu.be/BsBTSt6ncac

1) EVERYTHING that you do in inhabited space affects the BGS. Everything.
Even just passing though a system changes the traffic count which can have an impact.
The transactional nature of the BGS goes to the very core of the game.
It’s not some hidden secret. It is how the game works.

2) If you look carefully as the (discontinued) Squad Board passes by, you can note that we define our trade and combat goals by value. “Contribute XXX MCr in Combat Bonds” or Bounties or whatever.
Because it is sufficient.

When we take a system, we wing up and smash the Combat Zones and cash in whenever we run out of ammo.
The goals are defined in Credits not “Cash-Ins”.

It’s fun. It’s respectful of our members time. It is sufficient.
It works.

The notion that the BGS experts are EXPLOITING the system - is a fiction.
The AEDC sees massive success, by posting Value based targets internally.

Small groups are not failing because the BGS is transactional.
They fail because some actions are ineffective in certain states; because they cannot attract new members; because they don’t mentor and promote their recruits; they fail because they give up.

 

[Walt Kerman]

Small groups are not failing because the BGS is transactional.
They fail because some actions are ineffective in certain states; because they cannot attract new members; because they don’t mentor and promote their recruits; they fail because they give up.

Who said they are failing because its transactional? Not me. My point is that if they knew it was transactional and are interested they wouldnt fail.

If one person is active in the group, and he knows its transactional, its very hard to fail. Its a small part of my evidence they do not know its transactional. Perhaps you don't agree and everyone of those knew it was transactional. If thats the case we will just have to disagree.

I also stated in my original post that its no longer a secret so the original post agrees. Cool group stuff btw.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Well, from the title and OP onwards this subject has seen a lot of melodrama and fake outrage over a non-issue. It would be better re-titled as "I would like the BGS to work differently for vague reasons" and leave it at that.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Who said they are failing because its transactional? Not me. My point is that if they knew it was transactional and are interested they wouldnt fail.

If one person is active in the group, and he knows its transactional, its very hard to fail.

My point is that it doesn't matter whether you are working it with an understanding that it is transactional.
There is no exploit - because the end result is the same.

It doesn't matter whether you treat the system as value based or transaction based - the practical result is that work is rewarded.

Hear me - "Work is rewarded."

Transactions are a reasonable measure of work - Value favours the wealthy.

There is no exploit. - Transactions are intrinsic to the game.

 

[Ryan Murdoc]

Sitting in my Truck and waiting for my 45min to go by.

I just saw that CMDR / Moderator Jane Turner posted something over in the BGS Forum.

The place where a discussion like this should belong to in the first place. Not on Reddit or any other toxic-ridden platform.

 

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

You are of course entitled to your own opinion. I don't see this as a severe issue. The transactional nature of the system works for the most part. Yes bounties and bonds can be gamed by multiple cashing. Have you tried it though?

I suggest you do and see how long you can continue playing like that. If youre still playing next week ill begin to consider it a problem.

Also both the "solutions " presented (credits/ship kills) would make bh the most powerful bgs tool at a stroke and make all other activities irrelevant. It would be like old murder on steroids unless the effect of each individual kill was practically negligible. This is without even taking into account the ability to park an engied ship unattended in a res all night.

I might had been hasty with assumptions about you. No statements were made though.
And I hadn't ever played BGS, and had not stated otherwise. Had learned about all I can about it though.

And I am sure I will avoid it as much as I can, given it's ridiculous nature and most efficient methods.
And the fact that I do not want to avoid it make me voice my opinion here at all.

And yeah, 180 degree switch to value would not work without further adjustments either. Yet full-on transaction base makes BGS ridiculous.

As much as about other things in this game, problem here is based on the fact that it is proceduraly stuffed with placeholders which are based on other placeholders; and unrealistic things which are this way cause they are based on other unrealistic things.

So about bounty-hunting, the problem here is there is more criminals than population in the system. And in my opinion, this can be counteracted with placing hard limit on influence of BH and other types of activities per day. And giving separate value to each other transaction, such as data missions. Player rank can be factored in as well, in order for this thing not coming down to big ships only.

 

[RamirezKurita]

My point is that it doesn't matter whether you are working it with an understanding that it is transactional.
There is no exploit - because the end result is the same.

It doesn't matter whether you treat the system as value based or transaction based - the practical result is that work is rewarded.

Hear me - "Work is rewarded."

Transactions are a reasonable measure of work - Value favours the wealthy.

There is no exploit. - Transactions are intrinsic to the game.

Except that taking down a dozen elite Anacondas is far more work than a single harmless Sidewinder.

Except that hauling 500 tonnes of cargo is far more work than hauling 5 tonnes.

Credits, although far from perfect, are a much fairer representation of work done and much harder to exploit than simply counting transactions. It is being exploited by maximising the number of transactions rather than actually doing more work. Effects should be proportional to the amount of work done and not based on how players figure out how to break said work down into the largest possible number of transactions.

 

[the100thmonkey]

I might had been hasty with assumptions about you. No statements were made though.
And I hadn't ever played BGS, and had not stated otherwise. Had learned about all I can about it though.

And I am sure I will avoid it as much as I can, given it's ridiculous nature and most efficient methods.
And the fact that I do not want to avoid it make me voice my opinion here at all.

And yeah, 180 degree switch to value would not work without further adjustments either. Yet full-on transaction base makes BGS ridiculous.

As much as about other things in this game, problem here is based on the fact that it is proceduraly stuffed with placeholders which are based on other placeholders; and unrealistic things which are this way cause they are based on other unrealistic things.

So about bounty-hunting, the problem here is there is more criminals than population in the system. And in my opinion, this can be counteracted with placing hard limit on influence of BH and other types of activities per day. And giving separate value to each other transaction, such as data missions. Player rank can be factored in as well, in order for this thing not coming down to big ships only.

So you're basically saying the you don't know anything about it, don't like it, and want to change it for something that you know nothing about...

You ARE Brexit!

I'd offer you congratulations, but that would suggest something other than what exists.

 

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

So you're basically saying the you don't know anything about it, don't like it, and want to change it for something that you know nothing about...

You ARE Brexit!

I'd offer you congratulations, but that would suggest something other than what exists.

Read a bit better, please.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Except that taking down a dozen elite Anacondas is far more work than a single harmless Sidewinder.

And who does that?

That is the point. Seriously. That is the point. Aside from stupidly overengineered shield-tank ships, 12 elite Annies is simply not the goal for a bounty-hunting session. Spawn rates dictate how often it happens, at the very least, and it's not a common occurrence.

Except that hauling 500 tonnes of cargo is far more work than hauling 5 tonnes.

But it's not. If I have a 500t-capable ship, it's just as easy as a 5t-capable ship. It's just not more work. Whether or not it should be is perhaps the point of this thread, even though that's not exactly clear.

Credits, although far from perfect, are a much fairer representation of work done and much harder to exploit than simply counting transactions. It is being exploited by maximising the number of transactions rather than actually doing more work. Effects should be proportional to the amount of work done and not based on how players figure out how to break said work down into the largest possible number of transactions.

Sorry, that's just not true. As a case in point, I challenge you to determine exactly how much work each mission in the game should require a priori.

This is the basic problem with the charlatan's initial premise, and with yours too: How does one quantify "work", and how does one prevent players from working out how "work" is defined and then min-maxing it?

Your post is basically petitio principii. It's also the same problem that affects the charlatan's posts.

I don't expect that either of you will be able to provide even a minimally adequate answer. This is not an insult; it's just an observation derived from the available facts.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Read a bit better, please.

Trust me, pal, I read far better than you.

 

[Roybe]

But it's not. If I have a 500t-capable ship, it's just as easy as a 5t-capable ship. It's just not more work. Whether or not it should be is perhaps the point of this thread, even though that's not exactly clear.

The extra work isn't in the transportation (well you might have to make one more jump...), or even the loading of the cargo...it's the sale/offloading where the difference in 'work' is. So, 500 tons, has an extra 495 clicks...in the idea of work...not that much...in the terms of drudgery, kind of damaging.

As an aside, the 'work/reward ratio of Engineers was truly broken...spend hours to find something, bring it back, and come out behind on a roll. Anyone who played this part of the game prior to the fixes in 3.0, were truly masochistic...IMHO.

 

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

Trust me, pal, I read far better than you.

Didn't know I read so bad.

And how about moving CGs to transaction base, in the name of Sidewinder's disparity? I am afraid that this won't happen unless Fdev would want everyone to think that they are .

So how this is acceptable here? The fact that yield of your effort is not affected by your skill and/or progression is not disturbing?