The Mercs of Mikunn bring you another wall of text
Really Relevant References:
The Price of Peace: Local Community Goal In-Depth Analysis - What can your group accomplish?
As you may or may not be aware, the Mercs of Mikunn recently had the honor of testing a type of community goal I have been calling the "Local Community Goal" due to its nature of only being broadcast in the local station news rather than the far-reaching galnet. In an LCG, it is up to the players to run and grab as many Commanders as possible to help the ambitions of the NPC faction offering the LCG. LCG’s may or may not be something Frontier decides to continue doing. This is an experiment, not necessarily a feature of a future update.
Upon learning that we would be getting to test out an LCG, which happens to be the first colonization attempt of a player backed NPC faction, I hastily made up an experiment which would hopefully help Frontier better understand the capabilities of various sized groups that could possibly participate in an LCG assuming they are implemented. At the very least, it should help you, the random player, understand your own groups capabilities. Use our data to extrapolate.
I decided to break the experiment up into three sections as follows:
First phase occurred over the first 28.5 hours, the second phase lasted to the 53.5 hour mark, and phase three lasted for the following five days. I gave phase three larger time period because I assumed it would take that group a longer time to ramp up and “plateau”. I assumed that each phase would have sign-ups that would gradually taper off as the possible pool of CMDR’s dried up.
Obviously, a LCG where I tested each group individually would have the most accurate results; however, I wasn’t sure if I would have this opportunity again so I tried my best to squeeze the different groups into one event the best way I could. The data is included in the references above.
The Tiers – based off a series of info and very educated guesses and may be off slightly but not much
Phase 1: What can your small group achieve?
Over the first 28.5 hours we had 40 commanders sign up. You can see where we start to plateau as we start to drain the pool of possible commanders that could sign up from our small group. The interruption and small burst later in the plateau comes from people signing up in our most active time zone who missed the first day. You can see where our active time zones take place by looking at the oscillating line in “Total Tonnage Collected”.
At the 28.5 hour, we collected 171,648 tons; however, judging from the trend line a total of 173,150 tons would be collected at the 30 hour mark. The entire event lasted for 170 hours, just barely over a week. Following that same trend line out to 170 hours, we hit 981,183 tons. That is just unfortunately just under 1 million tons collected (Tier 3), but close enough for it to be possible for a group of 40 people. In addition, if we had let phase 1 run for one more day, with all 40 people working the trend line would probably hit 1 million. After all, we were under 20 players for the first 8 hours. So I think one million is possible, and a good benchmark of a group this size with a high level of dedication.
The good news is that we managed to acquire enough materials to build the station shortly after the 16 hour mark, with 6 and a half days of our week left. Most people might not like this, but I feel they are setting the bar low here. Keep in mind this is an entire station – an outpost would be far less effort. One Merc of Mikunn player who has a full time job managed to transport around 90k tons and certainly could have hit the 100k tons required all by himself. He stopped the before the last day though once we realized the 1 million mark.
With a benchmark of 1 million for an invested group of 40 players as seen in Phase 1:
*Note Phase 1 occurred over a work day for the United states, and a Friday night and Saturday morning and afternoon for Europe.
Phase 2: What can a small dedicated group of 40 with allies accomplish?
Starting at the 28.5 hour mark to the 53.5 hour mark, phase 2 was implemented. And I must admit here I botched this one up a bit with false expectations. I assumed allies would be able to jump to task as quickly as my group can. Instead we had them join in at various times throughout phase 2… and some throughout phase three. This doesn’t ruin phase three data as each phase is meant to include the groups from the previous phases plus the new phase. In addition, perhaps this is accurate data. Your allies won’t be as invested as YOU are in seeing YOUR project succeed. They may very well come in halfway through, and that’s fine and probably realistic. Notice the sporadic plateaus/ boosts we get during phase 2. That’s different player groups coming in - a total of four during phase 2, plus one that arrived during phase 3.
At the end of phase 2 we collected 342996 tons; however, judging from the trend line a total of 375,299 tons would be collected by hour 60. Extrapolating out to 170 hours we hit 1,063,347 tons. This places us just barely past phase three. Not that much of a difference – notice how a linear trend line still accurately fits the data. Let’s take a look:
We were able to bolster our numbers by 40 % but only saw an increase of 80,000 tons by the end of the week. Essentially the 40% boost in player count gave about a total 8% increase, which would have been slightly over 9% accounting for the missed day. This begins what I have come to call the “invested player”. The more invested you are, the more you pull. Makes sense, and I’ll go over more of this at the end.
With a benchmark of 1 million + for a small group plus a 40% boost in player numbers from allies:
Hey wait! According to that the number of players you need to hit the same tier increases when you add allies even though you have the same base as in phase 1. Well, no. I’m basing this off the average player rate so technically when I reduced the number from 56 to 53, 1.8 of those players were the valuable invested, "phase 1 players" so it takes more phase two players to keep up at the same ratio.
Also keep in mind, the more players you see, the less you feel like you need to push. Cmdr Samwise Gamgee over there will share the load…. I don’t need to push as hard. That being said you will certainly hit that tier more comfortably than with just the phase 1 player base; however, it is hard to calculate this effect.
*Note Phase two happened on a Saturday so the allied contribution is probably overly optimistic. Worse performance when calculated over a work week should be expected
Phase 3: What can a small group accomplish that has attempted to mobilized the community
Phase three which lasted the rest of the LCG saw 493 commanders sign up. With these 493 commanders we hit a realized total tonnage of 1,151,222. This is an increase of about 8% from the results of phase 2, just like phase 2 was an 8% increase from phase 1. Mind you, we increased our numbers by 780% to get that 8%, so you see the “invested player” trend even more exaggerated here. Hell, the trendline is so accurate it hides between almost all three phases perfectly. Also interesting to note is that the top 5 of the 40 invested players from phase 1 ended up pulling about 30% of the combined total from all the groups.
Also this is not a jab at the unaffiliated players from reddit or frontier who helped us. We greatly appreciate it. Some of those players pulled quite a bit of weight. If you are one of those players, good on you! (Join the mercs already please). The reality is though, you are few and far between. As for the little guys, we appreciate you too! Even if you feel it didn't amount to much, you helped bring everyone this data.
With a benchmark of 1 million + for a small group plus a 40% boost in player numbers from allies, and a 760% increase with players from the swarm:
*The ratio used for the above is 40, 16, 437 for invested, allied, swarm respectively
Nice… How do I use this?:
Well think about the group size you play with. Use the data here and the various groups sizes and ratio of player types listed to find out what type of station level your group can accomplish. For example, if you have a group thats massive enough and can pump out tonnage all at the same rate as shown in Phase 1, and you don't need help from the swarm, by all means, use phase one benchmarks as an example. If you want to use varying mixes use the other examples. You might find the graph below useful as well.
More graphs, far more descriptive than what I have shown here, are available in the reference link a the top called "A Copy of the Data Collected". Want to learn more for some ungodly reason? Think you can improve on it? Have at it, by all means.
Think the bar is set a little high? Think it’s set a little low? Or both? Think my data is a load of old fashioned fertilizer? (too optimistic or pessimistic?) I’ve already given my opinion to Frontier. So before I put words in your mouth, you tell me. What do you think?
Things to remember, or consider:
This was no Lugh. No galaxy wide galnet for LCG’s by definition. If LCG’s are ever triggered automatically it is unlikely you will get warning. If Frontier opts to manually do it for all of eternity you might get warning. Ideally many LCG’s would be triggered at once, unless only the most vocal groups on the forum are getting paid attention to. How many allies can you expect to drop their LCG and aid you? How many random people from the swarm will drop what they are doing and aid you in your LCG and why would they pick yours from the multitude? Also you may get the chance to upgrade a station later through further community goals, though this is speculation and I have not seen it. This could give you a second chance at adding another module.
In addition, profits were low and few incentives were given, also unlike Lugh.
Also quick opinion piece:
If Frontier doesn’t have these LCG’s automatically generated there is no way they will be able to cater to all the player groups in the same way and only the most vocal will get their goals. This is why the background sim is vitally important!!eleventyone!11!! (And why I spend so much time poking it with a stick) The devs playing tabletop DND as dungeon master with hundreds of thousands of players to cater to will probably turn into a shouting match. Which would be a shame because this whole thing was fun, and I want everyone to experience it.
Per usual I have a solution; however I know some will not like it so, rather than distract from the content I want to impart above, I will post it later.
Despite the slight grind, the knowledge that I was actually expanding the colonized space in game of my chosen faction made the whole thing highly enjoyable! Would recommend taking LCG's home to meet your family! I like the idea of local community goals and had fun.
And again: LCG’s may or may not be something Frontier decides to continue doing. This is an experiment, not necessarily a feature of a future update. Nor are the values set in stone. Keep your concerns polite. Thank you for reading.
Do you like our lame attempts to inform the community? Want to help make the game better through stress testing the background sim? Then join the Mercs! We could use you. This data is brought to you because I have a dedicated team behind me. Links in my sig and the references.
Really Relevant References:
- Mercs of Mikunn: The bugtesting group
- The Thread on the Event Being Analysed
- The Lugh Analysis
- One of our Bugtesting threads on the Background Sim
- A Copy of the Data Collected
The Price of Peace: Local Community Goal In-Depth Analysis - What can your group accomplish?
As you may or may not be aware, the Mercs of Mikunn recently had the honor of testing a type of community goal I have been calling the "Local Community Goal" due to its nature of only being broadcast in the local station news rather than the far-reaching galnet. In an LCG, it is up to the players to run and grab as many Commanders as possible to help the ambitions of the NPC faction offering the LCG. LCG’s may or may not be something Frontier decides to continue doing. This is an experiment, not necessarily a feature of a future update.
Upon learning that we would be getting to test out an LCG, which happens to be the first colonization attempt of a player backed NPC faction, I hastily made up an experiment which would hopefully help Frontier better understand the capabilities of various sized groups that could possibly participate in an LCG assuming they are implemented. At the very least, it should help you, the random player, understand your own groups capabilities. Use our data to extrapolate.
I decided to break the experiment up into three sections as follows:
- Phase 1: Mercs pushing the community goal only – What can a dedicated and active group of 40 do?
- Phase 2: Alert allied factions – What can a small group of 40 push with some allied support?
- Phase 3: Attempt to mobilize reddit – What can a small group with allies, reddit, and frontier forums accomplish.
First phase occurred over the first 28.5 hours, the second phase lasted to the 53.5 hour mark, and phase three lasted for the following five days. I gave phase three larger time period because I assumed it would take that group a longer time to ramp up and “plateau”. I assumed that each phase would have sign-ups that would gradually taper off as the possible pool of CMDR’s dried up.
Obviously, a LCG where I tested each group individually would have the most accurate results; however, I wasn’t sure if I would have this opportunity again so I tried my best to squeeze the different groups into one event the best way I could. The data is included in the references above.
The Tiers – based off a series of info and very educated guesses and may be off slightly but not much
- First tier: Success (Station Built): 100k
- Second Tier: Repair Refuel: 500k
- Third Tier: Economy/Market : 1 million
- Fourth Tier: Better Economy and Market : 5 million
- Fifth Tier: Bestest Economy and Market : 10 million
- Sixth Tier: Standard Outfitting : 20 million
- Seventh Tier: Better Outfitter : 40 million
- Eighth Tier: Standard Shipyard : 80 million
Phase 1: What can your small group achieve?
Over the first 28.5 hours we had 40 commanders sign up. You can see where we start to plateau as we start to drain the pool of possible commanders that could sign up from our small group. The interruption and small burst later in the plateau comes from people signing up in our most active time zone who missed the first day. You can see where our active time zones take place by looking at the oscillating line in “Total Tonnage Collected”.
At the 28.5 hour, we collected 171,648 tons; however, judging from the trend line a total of 173,150 tons would be collected at the 30 hour mark. The entire event lasted for 170 hours, just barely over a week. Following that same trend line out to 170 hours, we hit 981,183 tons. That is just unfortunately just under 1 million tons collected (Tier 3), but close enough for it to be possible for a group of 40 people. In addition, if we had let phase 1 run for one more day, with all 40 people working the trend line would probably hit 1 million. After all, we were under 20 players for the first 8 hours. So I think one million is possible, and a good benchmark of a group this size with a high level of dedication.
The good news is that we managed to acquire enough materials to build the station shortly after the 16 hour mark, with 6 and a half days of our week left. Most people might not like this, but I feel they are setting the bar low here. Keep in mind this is an entire station – an outpost would be far less effort. One Merc of Mikunn player who has a full time job managed to transport around 90k tons and certainly could have hit the 100k tons required all by himself. He stopped the before the last day though once we realized the 1 million mark.
With a benchmark of 1 million for an invested group of 40 players as seen in Phase 1:
- Tier 1: Can be completed with 4 players of same commitment
- Tier 2: Can be completed with 20 players of same commitment
- Tier 3: Possible (but a grind) with 40 players of same commitment
- Tier 4: Possible with 200 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 5: Possible with 400 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 6: Possible with 800 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 7: Possible with 1600 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 8: Possible with 3200 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
*Note Phase 1 occurred over a work day for the United states, and a Friday night and Saturday morning and afternoon for Europe.
Phase 2: What can a small dedicated group of 40 with allies accomplish?
Starting at the 28.5 hour mark to the 53.5 hour mark, phase 2 was implemented. And I must admit here I botched this one up a bit with false expectations. I assumed allies would be able to jump to task as quickly as my group can. Instead we had them join in at various times throughout phase 2… and some throughout phase three. This doesn’t ruin phase three data as each phase is meant to include the groups from the previous phases plus the new phase. In addition, perhaps this is accurate data. Your allies won’t be as invested as YOU are in seeing YOUR project succeed. They may very well come in halfway through, and that’s fine and probably realistic. Notice the sporadic plateaus/ boosts we get during phase 2. That’s different player groups coming in - a total of four during phase 2, plus one that arrived during phase 3.
At the end of phase 2 we collected 342996 tons; however, judging from the trend line a total of 375,299 tons would be collected by hour 60. Extrapolating out to 170 hours we hit 1,063,347 tons. This places us just barely past phase three. Not that much of a difference – notice how a linear trend line still accurately fits the data. Let’s take a look:
We were able to bolster our numbers by 40 % but only saw an increase of 80,000 tons by the end of the week. Essentially the 40% boost in player count gave about a total 8% increase, which would have been slightly over 9% accounting for the missed day. This begins what I have come to call the “invested player”. The more invested you are, the more you pull. Makes sense, and I’ll go over more of this at the end.
With a benchmark of 1 million + for a small group plus a 40% boost in player numbers from allies:
- Tier 1: Can be completed with 5.6 players of same commitment
- Tier 2: Can be completed with 28 players of same commitment
- Tier 3: Possible with 53 players of same commitment (56 players in phase 2, but only 53 needed to hit this tier at that rate: 38.2 invested players, 14.8 allied players)
- Tier 4: Possible with 265 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 5: Possible with 530 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 6: Possible with 1060 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 7: Possible with 2120 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 8: Possible with 4240 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
Hey wait! According to that the number of players you need to hit the same tier increases when you add allies even though you have the same base as in phase 1. Well, no. I’m basing this off the average player rate so technically when I reduced the number from 56 to 53, 1.8 of those players were the valuable invested, "phase 1 players" so it takes more phase two players to keep up at the same ratio.
Also keep in mind, the more players you see, the less you feel like you need to push. Cmdr Samwise Gamgee over there will share the load…. I don’t need to push as hard. That being said you will certainly hit that tier more comfortably than with just the phase 1 player base; however, it is hard to calculate this effect.
*Note Phase two happened on a Saturday so the allied contribution is probably overly optimistic. Worse performance when calculated over a work week should be expected
Phase 3: What can a small group accomplish that has attempted to mobilized the community
Phase three which lasted the rest of the LCG saw 493 commanders sign up. With these 493 commanders we hit a realized total tonnage of 1,151,222. This is an increase of about 8% from the results of phase 2, just like phase 2 was an 8% increase from phase 1. Mind you, we increased our numbers by 780% to get that 8%, so you see the “invested player” trend even more exaggerated here. Hell, the trendline is so accurate it hides between almost all three phases perfectly. Also interesting to note is that the top 5 of the 40 invested players from phase 1 ended up pulling about 30% of the combined total from all the groups.
Also this is not a jab at the unaffiliated players from reddit or frontier who helped us. We greatly appreciate it. Some of those players pulled quite a bit of weight. If you are one of those players, good on you! (Join the mercs already please). The reality is though, you are few and far between. As for the little guys, we appreciate you too! Even if you feel it didn't amount to much, you helped bring everyone this data.
With a benchmark of 1 million + for a small group plus a 40% boost in player numbers from allies, and a 760% increase with players from the swarm:
- Tier 1: Can be completed with 49.3 (4 invested, 1.6 allied, 49.3 swarm) players of same commitment ratio
- Tier 2: Can be completed with 246.5 (20 invested, 8 allied, 218.5 swarm) players of same commitment
- Tier 3: Possible with 428 (use same 40,16,437 ratio) players of same commitment (56 players in phase 2, but only 53 needed to hit this tier at that rate: 38.2 invested players, 14.8 allied players)
- Tier 4: Possible with 2140 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 5: Possible with 4280 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 6: Possible with 8560 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 7: Possible with 17,120 players of same commitment (extrapolated)
- Tier 8: Possible with 34,240 players (2778 invested, 1111.237 allied, 30,350 swarm)of same commitment and ratio(extrapolated)
*The ratio used for the above is 40, 16, 437 for invested, allied, swarm respectively
Nice… How do I use this?:
Well think about the group size you play with. Use the data here and the various groups sizes and ratio of player types listed to find out what type of station level your group can accomplish. For example, if you have a group thats massive enough and can pump out tonnage all at the same rate as shown in Phase 1, and you don't need help from the swarm, by all means, use phase one benchmarks as an example. If you want to use varying mixes use the other examples. You might find the graph below useful as well.
More graphs, far more descriptive than what I have shown here, are available in the reference link a the top called "A Copy of the Data Collected". Want to learn more for some ungodly reason? Think you can improve on it? Have at it, by all means.
Think the bar is set a little high? Think it’s set a little low? Or both? Think my data is a load of old fashioned fertilizer? (too optimistic or pessimistic?) I’ve already given my opinion to Frontier. So before I put words in your mouth, you tell me. What do you think?
Things to remember, or consider:
This was no Lugh. No galaxy wide galnet for LCG’s by definition. If LCG’s are ever triggered automatically it is unlikely you will get warning. If Frontier opts to manually do it for all of eternity you might get warning. Ideally many LCG’s would be triggered at once, unless only the most vocal groups on the forum are getting paid attention to. How many allies can you expect to drop their LCG and aid you? How many random people from the swarm will drop what they are doing and aid you in your LCG and why would they pick yours from the multitude? Also you may get the chance to upgrade a station later through further community goals, though this is speculation and I have not seen it. This could give you a second chance at adding another module.
In addition, profits were low and few incentives were given, also unlike Lugh.
Also quick opinion piece:
If Frontier doesn’t have these LCG’s automatically generated there is no way they will be able to cater to all the player groups in the same way and only the most vocal will get their goals. This is why the background sim is vitally important!!eleventyone!11!! (And why I spend so much time poking it with a stick) The devs playing tabletop DND as dungeon master with hundreds of thousands of players to cater to will probably turn into a shouting match. Which would be a shame because this whole thing was fun, and I want everyone to experience it.
Per usual I have a solution; however I know some will not like it so, rather than distract from the content I want to impart above, I will post it later.
Despite the slight grind, the knowledge that I was actually expanding the colonized space in game of my chosen faction made the whole thing highly enjoyable! Would recommend taking LCG's home to meet your family! I like the idea of local community goals and had fun.
And again: LCG’s may or may not be something Frontier decides to continue doing. This is an experiment, not necessarily a feature of a future update. Nor are the values set in stone. Keep your concerns polite. Thank you for reading.
Do you like our lame attempts to inform the community? Want to help make the game better through stress testing the background sim? Then join the Mercs! We could use you. This data is brought to you because I have a dedicated team behind me. Links in my sig and the references.
Last edited:
but that ain't me.
