Michael Brookes
Game Director
Mercs of Mikunn results after 3 weeks of effort - Also a request for documentation, in game and out
- Thread starter Walt Kerman
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Dear Michael,
so the result is only visible for the home system, but is the result also applied in the mission system?
Michael Brookes
Game Director
Wait a moment - does this mean minor factions don't have global reputations like major factions (same reputation with Empire, Alliance and Federation, no matter in which system I am) and instead local reputations for every system they are present in? That would explain the issues I had with presumable multiple minor factions going by the same name (partly even in the same system: two "Patron's Principles" in the Liabeze system alone) that I described in detail in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=100146.
I am allied with the "Empire League" and "Empire Party" minor factions in Achenar and "friendly" with the Empire major faction. But every other imperial system where I encounter the imperial minor faction "Empire League" or "Empire Party" shows them as only "friendly", too. Does this mean that reaching a higher reputation level with some minor faction in one system does not have any effect on my reputation with the same minor faction in another system?
I even submitted a ticket a many weeks ago but never got an answer. Could any of you guys explain to me if that's how the minor faction reputation system works? You seem to have earned quite some experience with your experience, so perhaps you could enlighten me. Thanks!
Michael Brookes
Game Director
Minor factions have influence on a per system basis. Reputation is per minor faction - but minor factions names aren't unique. For minor factions allied with major factions you get a bonus for your major faction reputation as well.
Michael
Cool. Thanks.
I wonder if it's related to the old bug with expanded factions having the state changes apply to the wrong system. I saw this post, which I suspect is also an expanded system, since it's at the 9% Influence level common for expanded factions.
Thanks a lot for your response Michael. Kind of unfortunate that my efforts to increase reputation with a minor faction does not pay off when I reach the same faction in another system again. Would also add some nice feeling of continuity.
And if minor faction names are not unique, how do I know if some faction in another system going by the same name is indeed the same one or a different one?
Final question: in my ticket (ticket number 00000027385) I describe two minor factions with the exactly same name ("Patron's Principles") in the same system (Liabeze). Is that intended? Since we don't have any other means to distinguish between factions apart from the name, how do I know who I am actually helping when accepting missions from "Patron's Principles"?
Theory isnt gone yet.
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My take is that they are different factions which have the same name, which I guess is confusing.
ollobrains
Banned
the way i understand how it should work and i do wish micheal would really make sure it works properly soon. If i take a mission in HR for example for the dukes and run the mission to mikunn * the dukes should get influence boost in HR for the pickup point for the mission and the drop off point should also get the influence gain. Where minor party in multiple systems occour, this would be a quick way to get the factional influence up. Its quite simple and any programmer with good QA oversight would get the system right straigh t up, if not frontier need someone to recheck programmers code and or more programmers. And say they expand into kwatee, that then opens up taking missions from dukes in mikunn or HR and delivering preferrably to dukes in kwatee once they are established.
There are more minor faction missions now ( smaller factions in pand for example now have almost as many missions being offered as the station owning dominant faction purple central industry) if i was wanting to flip it up here that would give us options.
Just seems im not trying to be to nasty or unfriendly that the devs cant get a handle on what should have been sorted out, or reintroduced bugs. It smells of a very rushed timetable to get patches out.
We know turning in exploratin data has influence raising properties, so once u guys in mikunn capture a station in HR send the call out to youre group to collect exploration data and thats a much cleaner way of raising influence quite quickly, what me and a few others in pand have been doing is turning in 1 single set of exploration data if we have a lot every time the mission screen updates, if u sit at station long enough and refresh from home page every 11 minutes the mission lists updates. Weve been using this as a baseline for turning in a data pont of exploration data. Influence rises quite quickly, it might be meta gaming the system but weve with a very small group been able to raise it 30% in 16 days.
Im not sure if it applies to trading and or turning in USS bounties. But i generally turn in my bounties every hour or so along the same train of thought. Its taking advantage of how often non mission influence actions are counted. Based on a bit of a loose open ended non committal comment from micheal but it seems to be working
There are more minor faction missions now ( smaller factions in pand for example now have almost as many missions being offered as the station owning dominant faction purple central industry) if i was wanting to flip it up here that would give us options.
Just seems im not trying to be to nasty or unfriendly that the devs cant get a handle on what should have been sorted out, or reintroduced bugs. It smells of a very rushed timetable to get patches out.
We know turning in exploratin data has influence raising properties, so once u guys in mikunn capture a station in HR send the call out to youre group to collect exploration data and thats a much cleaner way of raising influence quite quickly, what me and a few others in pand have been doing is turning in 1 single set of exploration data if we have a lot every time the mission screen updates, if u sit at station long enough and refresh from home page every 11 minutes the mission lists updates. Weve been using this as a baseline for turning in a data pont of exploration data. Influence rises quite quickly, it might be meta gaming the system but weve with a very small group been able to raise it 30% in 16 days.
Im not sure if it applies to trading and or turning in USS bounties. But i generally turn in my bounties every hour or so along the same train of thought. Its taking advantage of how often non mission influence actions are counted. Based on a bit of a loose open ended non committal comment from micheal but it seems to be working
Actually I think the mission influence doesn't work at all in systems where the minor faction does not own a station.
We are currently operating in an area where we change target systems to juggle around the cooldowns.
But so far...
Our trading operations are making great and steady results.
Our combat / mission operations had so far:
- great results (1 civil war in 3 days, 1 won station in a 5 day civil war) in one system (where "our" faction owned a military station without a commodity market)
- bad results (no influence changes at all over 2 weeks, neither with our doing nor without)
- worse results (constantly sinking influence for "our" faction)
Since all things were equal, same people, same group, same organization, systems next to each other... the only difference between the system where it worked and the two where it didn't... was...
one had a station, so we could hand in bounties. And we were running "our" faction's missions out of "our" station.
In the two systems where no influence changes were happening, or our faction is losing influence, we have Boom and Boom critical for our factions. So it's not as if we don't do anything. Just influence does not change positively.
Something similar was experienced close to Jotunheim.
In case some dev reads this, I opened ticket No. 38115 with more informations regarding the placement and detailed influence numbers.
We are currently operating in an area where we change target systems to juggle around the cooldowns.
But so far...
Our trading operations are making great and steady results.
Our combat / mission operations had so far:
- great results (1 civil war in 3 days, 1 won station in a 5 day civil war) in one system (where "our" faction owned a military station without a commodity market)
- bad results (no influence changes at all over 2 weeks, neither with our doing nor without)
- worse results (constantly sinking influence for "our" faction)
Since all things were equal, same people, same group, same organization, systems next to each other... the only difference between the system where it worked and the two where it didn't... was...
one had a station, so we could hand in bounties. And we were running "our" faction's missions out of "our" station.
In the two systems where no influence changes were happening, or our faction is losing influence, we have Boom and Boom critical for our factions. So it's not as if we don't do anything. Just influence does not change positively.
Something similar was experienced close to Jotunheim.
In case some dev reads this, I opened ticket No. 38115 with more informations regarding the placement and detailed influence numbers.
What Flin said reflects on my own experiences so far, missions offer very little in the way of influence both on absolute terms and on relative terms (compared to trading). And this is why I think that the Mercs of Mikun have been losing influence lately, it only takes 2 or 3 dedicated players trading against them to offset 20 or 30 guys running missions (pulling numbers out of my **** but it more or less reflects my experience)
I only do missions for my faction when they are on the way of a trading run, won't even do kill missions as they are a massive time sink for little return regarding influence. In one occasion me and a friend were able to do little more than turn in 2 kill anaconda missions each (so 4 missions total) for our faction that day and the result for the day was that we actually lost influence. With no one else on the system the only conclusion possible is that 4 missions is not enough to defeat the NPC trading much less active players trading against you.
I only do missions for my faction when they are on the way of a trading run, won't even do kill missions as they are a massive time sink for little return regarding influence. In one occasion me and a friend were able to do little more than turn in 2 kill anaconda missions each (so 4 missions total) for our faction that day and the result for the day was that we actually lost influence. With no one else on the system the only conclusion possible is that 4 missions is not enough to defeat the NPC trading much less active players trading against you.
ollobrains
Banned
theres a few solutions i can see, weve been doing stuff in pand in raising influence, trading expensive exports outbound ( platinum palladium gold and silver) does seem to affect boom + influence. USS sites definatly increase influence if turned in at a controled station ( which the dukes dont have yet in HR). same goes for exploration data turned in at faction controlled stations. Theres still so much black box data its a bit hard to tell what works and what doesnt
So when I am allied to "Empire Pact" in system A and I travel to system B, I can't expect "Empire Pact" in system B to be allied with me!? -For a layman like me..
(forgive me for the simple question but I haven't spend hours thinking about this mechanic since its marked "black-boxed" and therefore requires endless amounts of time on the forum to gain an understanding)
Makes no sense whatsoever.
(forgive me for the simple question but I haven't spend hours thinking about this mechanic since its marked "black-boxed" and therefore requires endless amounts of time on the forum to gain an understanding)
Makes no sense whatsoever.
It seems that there can be multiple factions with the same name, but they are in essence different factions. The faction name generator only has so many words, so sometimes faction names will be reused.
They should just make it so they are all the same faction but in different systems. Sure you should still have to work on rep with each station but a boost for being friendly somewhere else with the same faction.
Adding more names might help as well. And rename the duplicates. Believe me, you dont want a minor faction spanning 8 systems with shared states and cooldowns.
Well the states and cool downs should of course be per system.
Except as the game works right now states are per faction not per system, so a faction spanning 20 systems will have one state.
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