I haven't noticed that being mentioned in this thread before you brought it up. The discussion is about the transactional nature of the BGS as related to influence. Splitting commodities bought from a station up into smaller batches to sell them is not related to influence. It might be related to carpel tunnel syndrome though.
Mercs of Mikunn - 3 Year report: The Once Secret BGS mechanics and how to figure out exploits
- Thread starter Walt Kerman
- Start date
I haven't noticed that being mentioned in this thread before you brought it up. The discussion is about the transactional nature of the BGS as related to influence. Splitting commodities bought from a station up into smaller batches to sell them is not related to influence. It might be related to carpel tunnel syndrome though.
Yeah, that's what I thought you were saying, but you said "selling batches large reach the minimum size transaction", which made me think you were saying they had 50t in the cargo bay and sold 10 at a time, which takes about 5min including time to go get the 50 in the first place. You then said they'd "have to spend as much time and travel the same distance as the Cutter Pilot" to have the same 2.5% inf effect. So I thought you were saying the Cobra/Trutter pilot being able to move the BGS the same amount by trade, given the same amount of real life time input, was ok. Maybe I read too much into that last part.
I know what this thread is about, thanks. The old 1t trade exploit, that was fixed mostly, has been mentioned in this thread.
And apparently, I misunderstood what Jane was saying.
Ok, so just to clear up, I hope, the 'sell smaller batches' thingy...I went back to this thread from June/July of last year, so some of it may have changed https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/357715-BGS-Trading-for-Influence/page2
Basically, it's better, for example, to sell 10t each of different commodities, than a large batch of one. Specifically, you could get more inf movement by buying/selling 10t of 5 different kinds of metals, than 50t of one metal.
Basically, it's better, for example, to sell 10t each of different commodities, than a large batch of one. Specifically, you could get more inf movement by buying/selling 10t of 5 different kinds of metals, than 50t of one metal.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Currenty no. 10t of 5 different metals bought in station A and sold in station B has the same affect as 50t of one metal.
Interesting...then 10t of 5 different metals bought at station A,B,C,D,E and sold at Station F has more effect than 50t of one metal bought from station G? So different commodities *from different systems*.
Either way, I'm not a fan of the current 'balance' of transaction/value and the impact on the BGS. But as I've said before, I don't think FD is going to change it, so this discussion feels a bit meh anyway. I guess fwiw I'll just say I'd be more interested in the BGS and ED if the BGS was handled differently. Things like the war/civil war transaction vs value/rank/ship make me want to log off when those states are active.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Yes visiting 5 different station will have 5x the effect - it will be a little more time efficient as a profitable trade run between A+B 5 times and in boom either will hit the influence cap for the system in the absence of other activity, but completely wiped out by a handful of murders
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Great post
When was this last tested? I have not verified my statement since 3.0 dropped - as I have always found missions have more impact - but in 2.3-2.4 it was the case that 10 tons of 5 different metals had more impact than 50 tonnes of one metal.
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Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Reconfirmed straight after 3.0.
Really?
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Missions will almost always have more impact anyway, as they state their influence impact before you take it (you want to take the inf+ mission? Really?) One trade is one trade; a single inf+ for a commodity delivery mission is actually rather unusual, especially when you have a high trade rank and are flying a ship that is easily capable of defending itself.
Try delivering 5t of commodidites from 5 different systems. That will have 5x the impact of 5 x 1t of commodities bought from one station. This is not an exploit, as it will take longer to accumulate the commodities to do the 5-for-1 transaction than it would otherwise take to just run 5 points of missions. Sure, you can always pick up the commodities on your travels, but while there is no absolute cap on influence that people can push in a system, there is a practical cap brought about by diminishing returns. It's therefore almost always more efficient to just run missions (which ing tell you how much influence/Rep you will gain from them!)
And this is really the flaw with Walt's post - he claims that the BGS is readily exploitable and that the problem is down to the transactional nature of the BGS. That's actually just not true, a fact that is obvious to groups that have taken the time to work out the BGS (and not, in Walt's case, to take information given to him by other, far more knowledgeable individuals, and turn a minimal understanding of facts into a post worthy of wokesloth.) Switching to a value-based system ignores the fact that financial value is not the same as political or social value, and sociopolitics is one of the things that the BGS is, by design, intended to represent.
In short, Walt, despite his claims otherwise, doesn't actually know what he's talking about (he's a bit of a snake oil salesman; hence the clickbait title) and his suggestions for how to "modify" the BGS are based on that absence of understanding. I'd like to point out that his response to my earlier post on this thread was to basically call me a cheat (I'm "too used to exploiting," apparently) rather than actually address my points. Any reader will, of course, make of this what they will, but I believe it reveals an underlying weakness- if you can't actually refute (in the actual sense of the word, not one you make up, Walt) a statement, it's a common tactic to attack the character of the person who delivered the statement.
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WorldsGreatestForumDad
Banned
I agree with Maka.
Walt did a great deal of service showing whats wrong here. Yeah this has stuff thats been around for a while. No different than the engineers exploit we tried to report over the years. Finally everyone just started doing it and making videos about it. Then it got removed after numerous reports from the community.
The BGS has major problems. This is just a handful of them on its own.
The BGS is a really awesome tool. And its something ive never seen or been a part of before. But it does need some work from the ground up. Its not all bad. It just needs a pass like engineers 3.0 did. Same concept. Its still the same game. It would just be reworked to be a level playing field for everyone involved.
To be honest they should do the same with missions and payouts with credits too and influence points based on the risk of a mission.
BGS rework and mission rework should literally go hand in hand here.
Read my subsequent post.
Be aware that I'm not in the business of denying that the BGS would benefit from elaboration, or that the mission system needs more work. What I am in the business of here is clarifying what's actually going on here, which has more to do with Mr. Kerman's need for attention than anything else.
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WorldsGreatestForumDad
Banned
Yea but this is like saying the general population during someones CG doing missions would wreck the bgs. There is Intent and basic trading and mission taking.
If its done with intent. Its easily exploitable. If its done in passing it would be very different and not effective at all.
Hes 100% correct Monkey.
Not to mention the rest of the community doesnt know about this trick. So if they dont use whats most effective with all rules laid out on the table. They would lose by default.
All the rules from here on out need to be defined and established coming from Frontier.
We read the rules of monopoly when we got it out of the box. No rules or strategies were hidden from anyone else.
The same needs to apply to Elite Dangerous. When it comes to other players. You MUST have a level playing field. Hopefully Engineers 3.0 is a sign of things to come in the way of the BGS and Mission reworks as well.
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I was of the understanding that FD now posted messages indicating that BGS states could, and possibly would, undermine CG completion. Forgive me if I've missed your point.
If I wanted to mess up a CG, depending on the nature of it, I would, at the very least, be able to have a damned good go, on my own (and not without having to ask Jane Turner, or Schlack, or Roybe, as Walt would have to). There is intent, and there is basic trading and mission taking. One is, by definition, intentional, while the other is incidental. My understanding is that the BGS is actually designed for this.
Again, forgive me if I've misunderstood your point, but it seems to me that you're saying that the BGS shouldn't be open to intentional manipulation. Is that a charitable interpretation? In other words, is it an exploit if it's actually a design choice? Can it be an exploit?
Sounds like what happens with a lot of PvP encounters. There's nothing wrong with that. Indeed, the forums are full of threads about both ganking, and how to avoid it.
Would you therefore accept that not all information need (or, indeed, can) come from the developers? Emergence, in systems theory, is defined as the properties of a system not being predictable from the underlying components of the system.
Personally, I don't think that's possible. Moreover, I don't think it's actually a reasonable expectation.
Sure they were - the rules of human social interactions are actually a core component of the game. They're assumed. Furthermore, the game is a really simple grind that is often determined by the luck of the dice in the first handful of turns.
Sound familiar?
There already is a level playing field - a CMDR in a Sidewinder can have as big an impact as a CMDR in a Cutter, provided the Cutter pilot exploited their way to their endgame ship and the Sidey pilot has a clue.
What's not to love about that?
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WorldsGreatestForumDad
Banned
Thats not a level playing field. You should'nt get to skip 99% of the game just to effect someone else.
I feel my time has been wasted enough as it is. Im not rewarded in ANY WAY right now for the amount of time I have spent in building my ships, as well as the personal progression I have put in.
Its NOT a level playing field. Not by a long shot.
This would be like getting a level 1 character and joining an End Game World of Warcraft raid without having to level, learn skills, learn the game. None of it.
Its also a major reason Bots have been taking over this game.
I could buy a new account and effect anyone I want anytime I want and there is nothing anyone can do about it in the confines of solo and private.(not trying to trigger anyone about the modes here but its true).
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Why is the intellectual effort of elucidating the workings of the BGS any different to effort inc constructing a ship, or developing skill in learning to fly?
I'm not even sure what that means.
The BGS is your friend. It rewards me all the time with really well-paying missions that also give great G5 material rewards. What else should the system do, apart from give me the opportunity to put my footprint on the galaxy?
That's the point under debate, not the conclusion.
There are actually brakes on this - my alt is really low-ranked - novice/mostly penniless/mostly aimless, IIRC. I don't play the account often, although I have been working on it (fitfully) the last few days. The missions I get offered are, for want of a better word, crap in comparison to the ones I get offered on my main, even when both CMDRs are allied with the same faction.
Rank makes a major difference. I didn't appreciate this until very recently (for reasons outlined above.)
Nonsense. Cheaters will cheat because they want to cheat. Players will play because they want to play. If it's not fun, why do it?
Sure, but you'd have a very hard time, in your starter Sidey with no ranks, affecting anyone in a way that would be indistunguishable from noise. If you actually know what you're doing, you can flip some rather large systems on your own (my record is 2.5 billion), but if those systems are trafficked or otherwise curated (i.e. someone cares about the faction in charge), you'll find any ship inadequate to flip a system solo - you will need help.
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