Mercs of Mikunn results after 3 weeks of effort - Also a request for documentation, in game and out

[bdragon9222]

Regarding missiin availability... it seems there a different bulletin boards in different game modes, so you might want to try a switch between open, solo and private group to find more missions.

It's also enough to save and exit to the main menu and restart your open play. That's enough for me to get new missions. But personally it's too cheatish for me.
I found some stations, where the station owner asks for scrap or nonlethal weapons, even though these are available at the same station the mission is shown. So you could exploit your rep with some factions, but it doesn't feel right.

 

[Riiveni]

It's also enough to save and exit to the main menu and restart your open play. That's enough for me to get new missions. But personally it's too cheatish for me.
I found some stations, where the station owner asks for scrap or nonlethal weapons, even though these are available at the same station the mission is shown. So you could exploit your rep with some factions, but it doesn't feel right.

No luck with this one. I spent one evening docked at one of the outposts, logged in every now and then to check if I get any missions and after 4-5 hours only saw one naval ascension opportunity -mission. Didn't try exiting to main menu and then back in though...

 

[_Flin_]

Ah, yes, I was meaning to elaborate on that a bit as well: During the past three weeks we've tried to boost the smallest faction of the system there's been basically no change at all. Some 0.1% shifting here and there but the percentages remained firmly around 55%, 21%, 15% and 9%. We've mostly tried doing the missions for the one we are supporting (although I've only seen one of their missions) and in some measure tried failing the missions for the opposing factions. Last week we also tried to shoot down the ships of the other factions as well. (Obviously we're unable to do bounty hunting or trade with the smallest faction since they don't have a station.)

Of course, there's always the chance that our 4-10 people group is too small to make the difference but I'd imagine we'd see some shifting in the balance.

Good idea about the game modes though. Need to see later today if that makes any difference.

These results are similar to what we have experienced.
While the state modifications appear to be working (we triggered Boom), the influence did not seem to change from doing missions for a faction without a station.

 

[Michael Brookes]

These results are similar to what we have experienced.
While the state modifications appear to be working (we triggered Boom), the influence did not seem to change from doing missions for a faction without a station.

We're looking into this.

Michael

 

[Soda Popinski]

Anybody want to confirm we still have the Mission Influence bug post today's update?

Checked it myself. Missions from HR 7327 for the Dukes and missions to the Dukes in HR 7327 still show the Dukes of Mikunn IN Mikunn Influence level, not in HR 7327.

Ah, yes, I was meaning to elaborate on that a bit as well: During the past three weeks we've tried to boost the smallest faction of the system there's been basically no change at all. Some 0.1% shifting

Weird thing is, as you can see on the graph, after the state queue fix went in (and presumably Influence change queue), we continued to gain Influence for about 5 days at a decent rate. This was when we were doing mostly missions, but also killing some system authority.

Spoiler

View attachment 16180

It clearly wasn't just gaining Dynamic Commodities lost Influence, as we seem to be doing now, otherwise the other factions would have gained Influence at the same proportion Dukes did. Makes me wonder if a change around the 20th or so broke the Influence for non-station holding / expansion minor factions.

 

[Riiveni]

It clearly wasn't just gaining Dynamic Commodities lost Influence, as we seem to be doing now, otherwise the other factions would have gained Influence at the same proportion Dukes did. Makes me wonder if a change around the 20th or so broke the Influence for non-station holding / expansion minor factions.

I agree with that: (in the graph) there's a clear difference between the middle of January and last weeks. What scale has your Dynamic's ships killing been?

 

[Telakin]

**** URGENT MESSAGE **** EXPANSION ****

The dukes have moved into Sukua, currently at 9.1 %

**** URGENT MESSAGE **** EXPANSION ****

 

[_Flin_]

We're looking into this.

Michael

Great! Thank you and good luck.

 

[Nahkahiiri]

**** URGENT MESSAGE **** EXPANSION ****

The dukes have moved into Sukua, currently at 9.1 %

**** URGENT MESSAGE **** EXPANSION ****

Devs, what did you reset when you resetted civil war critical in HR? I guess you freed a spot from Dukes' queue for expansion. It would be nice to know was the expansion a normal behaviour or just a side effect of altering the queue? Other reason for Dukes expansion might be that the day Dukes' influence passed Dynamics' influence, Dukes expansion pending changed to expansion critical... So Dukes skipped civil war critical with Dynamics and decided to expand instead. And Dynamics were so relieved that they went to Boom a day later for no obvious reason. Did Dukes and Dynamics make a deal???

 

[Soda Popinski]

Devs, what did you reset when you resetted civil war critical in HR? I guess you freed a spot from Dukes' queue for expansion. It would be nice to know was the expansion a normal behaviour or just a side effect of altering the queue? Other reason for Dukes expansion might be that the day Dukes' influence passed Dynamics' influence, Dukes expansion pending changed to expansion critical... So Dukes skipped civil war critical with Dynamics and decided to expand instead. And Dynamics were so relieved that they went to Boom a day later for no obvious reason. Did Dukes and Dynamics make a deal???

From what I understand, when Walt originally started this, Dukes of Mikunn were already at 100% in Mikunn. He and his friends started running missions which pushed it into Expansion. Michael Brookes stated Expansion occurs when a faction has a certain amount of Influence.

This makes me think Influence isn't simply a percentage, but some arbitrary number of points. The percentage comes from the fractions of the total number of Influence Points. If Influence were only a percentage, you can't go over 100%, so there would be no way to judge when the background simulation should trigger Expansion. If on the other hand, there are arbitrary Influence points, past that threshold, or past a threshold in increasing these points, could trigger Expansion.

That said, it's possible the Influence in HR 7327 had nohing to do with Expansion into Sukua. It could have all been in Mikunn.

 

[_Flin_]

Why shouldnt factions expand more than once?

 

[Cmdr Sharky]

Why shouldnt factions expand more than once?

Is someone saying they shouldn't or can't? I've looked and I can't see anything.

 

[Rearden]

From what I understand, when Walt originally started this, Dukes of Mikunn were already at 100% in Mikunn. He and his friends started running missions which pushed it into Expansion. Michael Brookes stated Expansion occurs when a faction has a certain amount of Influence.

This makes me think Influence isn't simply a percentage, but some arbitrary number of points. The percentage comes from the fractions of the total number of Influence Points. If Influence were only a percentage, you can't go over 100%, so there would be no way to judge when the background simulation should trigger Expansion. If on the other hand, there are arbitrary Influence points, past that threshold, or past a threshold in increasing these points, could trigger Expansion.

That said, it's possible the Influence in HR 7327 had nohing to do with Expansion into Sukua. It could have all been in Mikunn.

Actually, from what I've seen expansion is triggered at 75%. Not a very complicated system.

This means that factions that are based on a system where they are the only faction (as I see one in my neighbourhood) are constantly in a flow of Expansion -> Cooldown -> Expansion (I think you will have the same thing with the Dukes home system) since they're always above 75% influence.

Make of that what you will

 

[Dominico]

Ah, yes, I was meaning to elaborate on that a bit as well: During the past three weeks we've tried to boost the smallest faction of the system there's been basically no change at all. Some 0.1% shifting here and there but the percentages remained firmly around 55%, 21%, 15% and 9%. We've mostly tried doing the missions for the one we are supporting (although I've only seen one of their missions) and in some measure tried failing the missions for the opposing factions. Last week we also tried to shoot down the ships of the other factions as well. (Obviously we're unable to do bounty hunting or trade with the smallest faction since they don't have a station.)

Of course, there's always the chance that our 4-10 people group is too small to make the difference but I'd imagine we'd see some shifting in the balance.

Good idea about the game modes though. Need to see later today if that makes any difference.

Dont fail the missions. Keep them till you get a better offer. It can often be from the people you want to help. Then you get good influence for them again.

 

[_Flin_]

We're looking into this.

Michael

While you are at it:
We managed to creatively trigger a civil war in one of our target systems (through a mix of expansion and supporting an opponent faction).

Now we cashed in over 3 million Credits in combat bonds. The result was 0 influence change.
Our faction does not own a station and is an expanded faction. System is Naitis and it expanded from Wolf 406.

Thank you.

 

[kastia]

Just out of curiosity, my friends and I have managed to trigger a civil war in our home system between two of the smaller minor factions, we are aiming ultimately to oust the dominant federation faction but we want the smaller minor faction's larger base as a staging ground (makes sense? )

Aside from participating in the conflict zones, is there anything else we should be doing? How long does a civil war typically last?

 

[Soda Popinski]

Actually, from what I've seen expansion is triggered at 75%. Not a very complicated system.

This means that factions that are based on a system where they are the only faction (as I see one in my neighbourhood) are constantly in a flow of Expansion -> Cooldown -> Expansion (I think you will have the same thing with the Dukes home system) since they're always above 75% influence.

Make of that what you will

That would mean any system that has only one faction must constantly be in that state. I was under the impression Walt and his buddies drove the Dukes to Expansion by doing missions. They started at 100% Influence in Mikunn. No idea if they were in Expansion before any of the missioning started.


Anyways, looks like we're still at 9.1% in Sukua since Thursday. So either there's a lag time, or we've got the original stuck at 9.1% bug again, and the queue is stopped up.

Until we know for sure, I'm personally going to focus on HR 7327. We're not gaining as quickly as before there. Also, Dynamic Commodities is out of Boom, and in Lock Down. I'd like to have a Civil War push in HR 7327, but I'm afraid we're going into Boom again, likely bolstered by the missions.

 

[BoVademan]

I've also seen issues with influence for non station owning factions. It's ofcourse imposible to know if it's correct or not but I've worked on a faction without a station for a week and they haven't moved at all. They've been at 7.4% the whole time. Before it seemed at least something happened to the influence.

 

[kastia]

I've also seen issues with influence for non station owning factions. It's ofcourse imposible to know if it's correct or not but I've worked on a faction without a station for a week and they haven't moved at all. They've been at 7.4% the whole time. Before it seemed at least something happened to the influence.

We had that in our system too, though we managed to trigger a civil war by boosting one of the other factions a bit and now things are moving again

 

[Soda Popinski]

Mr. Brookes,

After expanding into Sukua on Thursday, we've been stuck at 9.1%, even after doing many many missions to bolster Influence there.

Is there a lag time for the Influence to get calculated in, or are we experiencing the same bug that you guys fixed on Jan 15th, after being stuck at 9.1% for weeks in HR 7327?

Interesting note, the Mission Summaries now show the Sukua Influence level for the Dukes of Mikunn no matter which system the Mission is in (Mikunn, Sukua, or HR 7327). Prior to the expansion, it always showed Mikunn, the "home system."