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

[Agony_Aunt]

You're seriously going to argue that your Cobra should affect the BGS the same way another player's Cutter might affect it?

Not the same way, but a chance to be equally, or almost equally as effective.

Look at it this way, credits are a joke these days. People are getting into big ships within days of starting. The status symbol of having a big ship these days is long gone.

And yeah, big ships are really more impactful when it comes to trade, but why not have small ships more impactful when it comes to smuggling or other operations where a small ship would be more suitable?

 

[Yosharian]

Because it would be boring if everyone flew big ships?

All ships should have their uses. You don't send an aircraft carrier or battleship to sneak an elite team of snipers onto the mad scientist's island of doom, you use a small craft, probably a submerisble. And yet that small team can save the world from the scientist's ray of doom.

You're defeating your own argument. 'All ships should have their uses' is the opposite of what you're suggesting, because you're asking for a Cutter with 720t of cargo space to have the same influence as a Cobra shuttling 4t back and forth.

I agree that non-big-3 ships should have some role in BGS influence, and the way to do that is not the way Frontier has done it.

Rather, the way to do is to have some critical missions only present at medium pad-only stations, for example. Or smuggling missions which smaller ships excel at; I mean you can smuggle in a Cutter but it's mega-risky compared to a smaller ship.

Not the same way, but a chance to be equally, or almost equally as effective.

Look at it this way, credits are a joke these days. People are getting into big ships within days of starting. The status symbol of having a big ship these days is long gone.

And yeah, big ships are really more impactful when it comes to trade, but why not have small ships more impactful when it comes to smuggling or other operations where a small ship would be more suitable?

> Not the same way, but a chance to be equally, or almost equally as effective.

That is a laudable goal but it should be achieved by mission diversity

> but why not have small ships more impactful when it comes to smuggling or other operations where a small ship would be more suitable?

Sounds reasonable

 

[WorldsGreatestForumDad]

While I can nod my head to a lot of what you are saying Walt, the problem with making it by value pushes people into the big ships.

In that case, missions at least need to be doable in small ships and have a comparable effect to other activities, although then there is the whole issue of stacking.

I'm now flying mainly Cobras, and i'd hate it to become so that I can't have an impact on the BGS compared to someone flying a big ship.

Seems like no matter where we go. There will always be a META. Am I right?

These META's are a reason League of legends changes things all the time to keep the game fresh and stop it from stalling out.

Changing stuff "seasonally" I feel would be healthy in a game like this as well. Everything from ship builds, Restrictions, Flight control and much more.

META's like this will always settle. What im trying to say is. The more you shake it up and make changes. The less time META's have a chance to settle. And it keeps people interested in doing or playing the same thing over and over again.

For example, the engineers changes in 3.0 created a whole new PVP META. People are using things like Beam lasers now. Thermal Vent and Drag actually works!

The BGS can and should handle shake ups with ships and changes too. Otherwise, we just fly the same dilapidated boat and builds cause it can be the most efficient.

Huh, Funny, I was just going over this very thing in another thread somewhere.... I was even told I was crazy!

 

[WorldsGreatestForumDad]

Not the same way, but a chance to be equally, or almost equally as effective.

Look at it this way, credits are a joke these days. People are getting into big ships within days of starting. The status symbol of having a big ship these days is long gone.

And yeah, big ships are really more impactful when it comes to trade, but why not have small ships more impactful when it comes to smuggling or other operations where a small ship would be more suitable?

You have a group of students going on a field trip. Whats more effective? Your car that sits 4 people? Or the Bus that sits 50?

You can do it in a smaller ship. But it would be less effective.

Same way a Corvette has a lot more Alpha and firepower than a FDL. But the FDL can out maneuver the Corvette and can win a PVP match based on skill.

So, which ships can take what missions? I think we see a lot of this restriction in a place like Colonia where you make the most impact in a Python. Its the Largest Medium ship out there. Comparable to the cutter for the bigger ships.

So its kind of there already. But Hardpoints, cargo space and all that stuff is going to be a lot more optimal than a cobra.

It all just comes down to balls of stats. Id like to see what you want as well. But stats have to change, as well as mission availability.

 

[rekurzion]

Just to note I am not arguing with the sentiment. I always found it odd that Cobra/Python/Anaconda does the same BGS workload regardless of capacity or durability.

We really need the Value of work to be more adequately represented between the effort and results.

value driven sim rewards the minority elite and punishes those with less

transaction driven sim is fair and counts every player action equally

why would you want to handicap your opponent in order to claim victory?

 

[Walt Kerman]

value driven sim rewards the minority elite and punishes those with less

transaction driven sim is fair and counts every player action equally

why would you want to handicap your opponent in order to claim victory?

It's only fair in that its no longer a game a devolves into people pushing a button over and over again, getting only one good and turning it in. Why get a big ship when anything can be handled with one transaction?

And even then it isnt fair as the bigger groups will have more people to push the button at a faster rate.

Or a bigger ship with more goods to create more transactions. So now its not fair AND doesnt make sense. As long as the transactional nature exists, I can find an exploit.

 

[Jmanis]

The Trade trick nowadays is by profitable items by variety from what I can tell.

Trade with smaller batches of different items per trip.

So instead of trading 1-ton individually of say Bertrandite from an Extraction to Refinery, you want to trade some Bertrandite, some Indite, Gallite, Coltan... then its counts each transaction of item type on that trip.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. When the 1t trading exploit came to light a while back, that was my proposed "Gentlemans agreement" at the time; to trade diverse goods rather than 1t trade.

In my opinion, trade should have nothing to do with profit earned (in fact; I would argue higher profit margins should *hurt* a faction, but I digress, I think profit margins should have no effect). What should matter is trading to low/medium/high demand items.

That is, trading 20t of palladium when it's at low demand for 900cr/profit should have 1/3rd of the impact of trading 20t of cobalt for 200cr profit, when demand is high. Additionally, for large pop economies, I would argue that such an economy receiving 1m tonnes of gold traded at high demand (i.e one demand of many satisfied immensely) should be worse-off than an economy where multiple demands have been traded to, to a lesser degree.

Missions most notably make the tradeoff of credits versus influence in the reward mechanics... trade should be no different in that respect.



Meanwhile for Exploration data, while 1t trading was most definitely an exploit (in my opinion), the handing in of exploration reports one-by-one for increased influence effect is actually the *proper* influence outcome, and it's the bulk hand-in (up to 50 per page) that needs to be fixed. The logic of this is that, if you cast your mind back to when ED first came out, there was no option to hand in bulk-volumes of exploration reports. It was one-by-one, and so the influence effect back then is no different to now. If the implementation of the bulk-hand-in doesn't reflect the correct influence effect for the reports handed in, it's that function that needs repair, not the exploration data issue.

Combat bonds and Bounties? Yeah, that needs to base increases off value, not transactions.

 

[Noob]

there was no option to hand in bulk-volumes of exploration reports. It was one-by-one, and so the influence effect back then is no different to now. If the implementation of the bulk-hand-in doesn't reflect the correct influence effect for the reports handed in, it's that function that needs repair, not the exploration data issue.

Combat bonds and Bounties? Yeah, that needs to base increases off value, not transactions.

Both remarks spot on. +1

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

To Keep the small ships in the run, why not Keep the Transaction Count, but implement a cooldown after every Transaction of a specific type. So when you hand in a stack of bo0nuties, the stacks of bounties you Hand in in the next 10 or 15 minutes (time values subject to debate) are merged with the first one, -wise. If you Hand in a bounty and sell commodities however, those are counted as two different Transactions, but each one has a cooldown before you can do them again in a way they Count towards the BGS.

This would make that exploit, if still used, very tedious yet would spare us the value Count.

 

[Walt Kerman]

To Keep the small ships in the run, why not Keep the Transaction Count, but implement a cooldown after every Transaction of a specific type. So when you hand in a stack of bo0nuties, the stacks of bounties you Hand in in the next 10 or 15 minutes (time values subject to debate) are merged with the first one, -wise. If you Hand in a bounty and sell commodities however, those are counted as two different Transactions, but each one has a cooldown before you can do them again in a way they Count towards the BGS.

This would make that exploit, if still used, very tedious yet would spare us the value Count.

I would find out the time and collect a trade item, a exploration system to sell, one bounty, etc. And put each alotment allowed in as fast as the time let me. Most other players effort would go to waste while each of mine would still be counted. I bet knowing this i could still out perform by a factor of ten or more.

The thing is its less tedious than not using the exploit. You are trying to achieve a number of bgs points to have an effect. With the exploit you get there faster.

 

[Noob]

I can't see why the fascination with keeping the small ships comparable to the big ones.

When you want to move a factory you call 16-wheelers, not micro vans. Major combat at sea? Battleships, not patrol boats.

Here you can have all the care-free gaming with Sidey or a Cobra, which is fun and engaging and all. But if you want to make a real difference (BGS, major CZ's etc) make an effort and go big. And the results should be directly proportional.

 

[Deareim]

Thank you Walt for the post. IMO, i knew it so no big surprises. Nevertheless, for more transparency, you should put the actual threshold you(plural) found. At least, all factions reading the forum would know it. Just my 0.002cts.

I understand why FD and some people - beside demagogy- are defending the transaction method as it allows beginner to have an impact on BGS. Nevertheless, i would prefer a system by value as it would reward time spent IG (i.e. time to get a cutter) and would reduce the feeling of grind (i.e. back and forth to station for bounties/combat bonds redeem).

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

I'd also like it to be based on value. Since payouts increased a lot, new players can sit in a ln Anaconda in lesser than 3 days.

I know it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be better than right now, especially in terms of bountyhunting and combat bonds as same as in trade.
Also missions need to be fixed, some claim to impact influence if they actually doesn't. They should just disappear during that.

In fact, i don't know if i really want to continue in BGS due to all this creepy mechanics of repetitive tasks. Shooting 1-2 ships, going back to hand over....rince and repeat. It's not fun.
The demand on Bots increased over the last year immensely due to many people don't want to do these exploits, but need them to survive their faction or want them to destroy another one.
IMO this is not good for Elite....

 

[Walt Kerman]

Thank you Walt for the post. IMO, i knew it so no big surprises. Nevertheless, for more transparency, you should put the actual threshold you(plural) found. At least, all factions reading the forum would know it. Just my 0.002cts.

I understand why FD and some people - beside demagogy- are defending the transaction method as it allows beginner to have an impact on BGS. Nevertheless, i would prefer a system by value as it would reward time spent IG (i.e. time to get a cutter) and would reduce the feeling of grind (i.e. back and forth to station for bounties/combat bonds redeem).

Anything I post I want to be 100 percent true. I'm afraid if I may find a way around something, the reason WHY it works may elude me. Example: Lets say you notice that player factions no longer receive massacre missions but non-player factions still do. You might assume that its because their must be a difference between player and non-player factions. In reality it might be because, its a difference between native and non-native factions and player factions often fight in systems they are not native to.

Also I feel like it may arm people too much. I realize this may set the galaxy on fire in terms of the BGS. This gives the discussion a headstart and moreover, if I do have an incorrect value I dont want people to know

TLDR: I don't want to post something technically incorrect and have it derail the validity of the rest.

 

[Abil Midena]

...
Dear God Why???
I don’t know for sure, but before we call anyone stupid for a horrible implementation, my guess is that the purpose was to allow anyone, be they in a sidewinder or an anaconda, to have an effect on the game and “blaze their own trail”. Problem is, as we discover the thresholds and frontier patches them higher and higher, the threshold will become out of range of the sidewinder, but still provide an exploitative spamable transaction giving the worst of both worlds.

Only Frontier can really say why...

My view on this one is that if you, somehow, just got the game, and are in a sidewinder, or small ship, and somehow have found out about the BGS, and decided you don't want to make cr, that you'd rather work the BGS (note the absurdity of this scenario, used as an excuse, perhaps, for the transactional nature of the BGS) ...then find a low pop system and go to town.

You can cut your teeth and learn about the BGS AND still see an impact in your wee ship.

Either way, the transactional nature of the BGS is a poor implementation, IMO. BTW, I thought this was common knowledge.

Also, I think the reason it's this way is because it's simple to code and keeps the load on the servers down, vs some other more complex way. And god knows, with the mission screen taking upwards of 15-20 sec just to load, that's the last thing we need, is slower servers.

I reaaaaalllllyyy wish they'd change it though.

 

[PeLucheuh]

Very nice OP!

[up] for putting in light another stupid aspect of the BGS design. Unfortunately, it will be soon hidden in the sub-forum.

edit : you should also make a reddit post

 

[rootsrat]

Nevermind

 

[Walt Kerman]

My view on this one is that if you, somehow, just got the game, and are in a sidewinder, or small ship, and somehow have found out about the BGS, and decided you don't want to make cr, that you'd rather work the BGS (note the absurdity of this scenario, used as an excuse, perhaps, for the transactional nature of the BGS) ...then find a low pop system and go to town.

You can cut your teeth and learn about the BGS AND still see an impact in your wee ship.

Either way, the transactional nature of the BGS is a poor implementation, IMO. BTW, I thought this was common knowledge.

Also, I think the reason it's this way is because it's simple to code and keeps the load on the servers down, vs some other more complex way. And god knows, with the mission screen taking upwards of 15-20 sec just to load, that's the last thing we need, is slower servers.

I reaaaaalllllyyy wish they'd change it though.

Its become common knowledge for certain established groups. I just explained it last week to an established one and another discussion today of nerfing one of the defensive exploits had me worried with the thought of offensive ones remaining. Thus the post. We need to get it out in the open now.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

IMHO very old news, although at least with Bounty Hunting as mentioned in OP there's a trick to still greatly capitalize on the Multi. However, it carries a requirement that depends on the location and the key factor is not in the hand of the Player.

On the Transaction issue itself, technically speaking it placed all Players (regardless of assets flown) onto an even table.
However, that means (worst-case example) a Wing of Cutters/T9s can run a huge +++++Inf Wing Mission - while an Intrepid Sidewinder CMDR can stack Courier Missions and delivers {nn} +++Inf Inputs in less time - and having a bigger impact on the BGS.

The way I see it, the Transaction-model BGS emphasizes the difference between BGS-effective and BGS-ineffective work.
A Miner handing in just 100 tons of Painite has less BGS impact than a BGS Miner handing in 10 tons Silver/Gold/Bertrandite/Indite/Palladium/Platinum each + 15 tons Painite.
A Bounty Hunter handing in a single 2.0M Bounty Voucher has less effect than a BGS Bounty Hunter handing in 6x 250k Vouchers.
A Trader handing in 500tons of the single most profitable Commodity has far less effect than a BGS Trader dropping off 10 Commodities @ 10 tons plus a high-profit Commodity filling up the remaining 400 tons.

Maybe that was the plan, set apart "Indie Traffic" not primarily seeking BGS Inputs (cosmic Noise within the BGS) from dedicated BGS Workers looking for Inf, Faction States or i.e. fighting undesired Trends building up.
Still, I'd still like some of the "Volume matters" metrics back in business. 100% Allied CMDRs employing large assets and investing alot of time into big (time-consuming) Missions IMHO should benefit from that constellation. Game IMHO should reflect that.

 

[Walt Kerman]

A Miner handing in just 100 tons of Painite has less BGS impact than a BGS Miner handing in 10 tons Silver/Gold/Bertrandite/Indite/Palladium/Platinum each + 15 tons Painite.
A Bounty Hunter handing in a single 2.0M Bounty Voucher has less effect than a BGS Bounty Hunter handing in 6x 250k Vouchers.
A Trader handing in 500tons of the single most profitable Commodity has far less effect than a BGS Trader dropping of 10 Commodities @ 10 tons plus a high-profit Commodity filling up the remaining 400 tons.

Here is someone who knows what they are talking about. Old news to you but you didnt come into the game knowing this. Its not like its intuitive. Now when people read my guide thats stickied here, they will find this linked in the stickied guide. New groups will know now too, if its not fixed.