Negative Influence

[Abil Midena]

So, as far as I'm aware, the best way to bring a faction down is to work other factions to go up, thus taking inf from the faction you want to go down. But when that's not enough...

If you want to make a faction's inf go down, here's the other ways I'm aware of:

1. Murder Hobo: kill clean ships of that faction.
2. -ve trade: trade for a loss at their starport/outpost (you need to do positive inf for other factions for this to work)
3. smuggle: smuggle for profit at their starport/outpost (only works if they have a BM open)
4. failing missions.
5. taking mission alternatives.
6. losing scenarios after choosing sides.
7. taking missions targeting a factions assets.

If there's other ways, I'll add them, but that's all I know of. Also, murder hobo is the most effective, I think, and the others not very effective at all.

Let me know if I'm missing anything or got something wrong please.

*edited with info from posts below.

 

[goemon]

failing missions.
taking mission alternatives.
loosing scenarios after choosing sides.

 

[goemon]

taking missions targeting a factions asset.

 

[Daniel Klimchuk]

Trading at a loss no longer affects influence as far as I'm aware. Also, timing out missions has an effect on influence, not failing them.

 

[goemon]

Also, timing out missions has an effect on influence, not failing them.

afaik

• aborting a mission: does not reduce influence
• failing a mission: reduces influence. timing out is just a case of failing. there are more options to fail missions than running out of time.

 

[Jmanis]

Trading at a loss no longer affects influence as far as I'm aware. Also, timing out missions has an effect on influence, not failing them.

Timing out is a subset of and Failing. Any event where the mission remains in your transactions tab with the red "Failed" note is a failure. All missions can be failed by timing them out, but a much smaller subset can be deliberately failed.

• Risk-averse passenger missions; scrape your ship against the wall so they become miserable, then when you dock anywhere the mission fails.
• Assassinations fail if the target is destroyed, but not registered against you, e.g if authority ships destroy the target
• Hijack (need to double-check); destroying the target without jacking the cargo first (might?) result in mission failure. It definitely results in a notification saying, paraphrasing "We hope you got the cargo you needed!"
• Megaship turret missions - Oddly, fail when you abandon them.

Everything else can only be timed out.

EDIT: On a side note, wish you could do more practical things to deliberately fail missions, if this is the mechanic. For example, selling all the delivery goods on the black market... onselling passengers as slaves, destroying the civilians at an assassination mission USS, destroying the black boxes etc.

 

[Abil Midena]

@JMainis...Yeah, those are all good ideas in your 'edit'. As it is, we're stuck with murder hobo and letting missions time out, for the most part. I guess I need to get gud at murder hobo-ing.

 

[Just Paul]

loosing scenarios after choosing sides.

Does that really work? Seems a bit strange that it has a neg inf effect beside rep as it can be gamed to no end. I'm pretty sure losing CZs has no neg effect on the side you fighting for. Same as neg actions have no effect on election outcomes. The loosing scenarios is something to add to the long list of odyssey tests for sure.

To OP: neg trade still works and everybody is using it. It's not a direct inf transfer like BM trade. The consensus is that it is making more inf of the market owner available. You need to do pos actions for the other factions to get the effect.

P.S: Tested the BM and yep demand goes down now. Everything else is still the same though.

 

[Abil Midena]

...
To OP: neg trade still works and everybody is using it. It's not a direct inf transfer like BM trade. The consensus is that it is making more inf of the market owner available. You need to do pos actions for the other factions to get the effect.

P.S: Tested the BM and yep demand goes down now. Everything else is still the same though.

Interesting...I'm not aware of any cap or diminishing returns for trade vs inf. Is there a point where negative trade (either total $ for the tick, or tons, or whatever) stops being useful? I feel like that would be really hard to test.

 

[Kissamies]

Also note selling the stuff you have pirated on BM as a subset of smuggling. I think there needs to be both profit and demand for the good for the transaction to have an influence effect. This can be hard to guarantee with regular smuggling. With pirated goods there will always be profit and you can choose the right economy for the system you pirate from to increase the chance that the goods you get will have demand.

 

[goemon]

• Hijack (need to double-check); destroying the target without jacking the cargo first (might?) result in mission failure.

it does!

Does that really work? (failing scneario objectives)

no idea, i was just going by what is shown if you happen to fail a defend scenario at a megaship. it says influence decreased.

 

[Jmanis]

Does that really work? Seems a bit strange that it has a neg inf effect beside rep as it can be gamed to no end. I'm pretty sure losing CZs has no neg effect on the side you fighting for. Same as neg actions have no effect on election outcomes. The loosing scenarios is something to add to the long list of odyssey tests for sure.

no idea, i was just going by what is shown if you happen to fail a defend scenario at a megaship. it says influence decreased.

All scenarios and losing CZs impact the BGS, and yes, deliberately failing them works.

A common tactic I use during conflict is to farm the "Get the black box" scenarios at Combat Aftermath Threat 1 USS during conflict. For ones spawning for the side I support, I scoop... for ones spawning for the other side, I accept then blow up the black box. They're equal effort either way, so it's not really exploity. I've even tested by exclusively failing those scenarios; it's resulted in the enemy losing a day.

 

[goemon]

neg trade still works and everybody is using it

i don't!

 

[Dommarraa]

i don't!

I feel like Oppenheimer, so I dont either.

 

[CptArcher]

To OP: neg trade still works and everybody is using it. It's not a direct inf transfer like BM trade. The consensus is that it is making more inf of the market owner available. You need to do pos actions for the other factions to get the effect.

So neg trade by itself does nothing at all? If neg trade no longer has an effect by itself, how was it determined that it had any effect regarding pos actions for other factions?

 

[Just Paul]

Also note selling the stuff you have pirated on BM as a subset of smuggling. I think there needs to be both profit and demand for the good for the transaction to have an influence effect.

For bgs reasons demand or profit is irrelevant for BM sales. The sell value is the important one. All BM sells have a neg impact, you can't do a neg (pos?) BM sale and the BM owner gains inf through it. This was actually really hard to test as setting an inflated price through a carrier didn't work.

So neg trade by itself does nothing at all? If neg trade no longer has an effect by itself, how was it determined that it had any effect regarding pos actions for other factions?

You have a small effect, but it's nothing to write home about. BM sale is much more effective if you just want to do trading. Independent testing and observations be multiple groups. On the how, test two variables at the same time but keep one constant.

neg trade still works and everybody many factions are using it.

 

[Kissamies]

For bgs reasons demand or profit is irrelevant for BM sales. The sell value is the important one. All BM sells have a neg impact, you can't do a neg (pos?) BM sale and the BM owner gains inf through it. This was actually really hard to test as setting an inflated price through a carrier didn't work.

Anecdotal: I deliver 720 tons of battle weapons or narcotics to the BM, discover it has 0 or 1 demand. Slight profit. Apparent effect on inf: 0. In another case I deliver tobacco that happens to be banned in the station and discover I can't get profit. Again 0 effect on inf. Then I deliver 128 tons of pirated goods, mostly with demand. Effect: Bit over 2% negative inf.

Granted this is far from rigorous testing with no interference from other traffic, but it's enough to keep me convinced that piracy is a way to go.

 

[goemon]

Granted this is far from rigorous testing with no interference from other traffic, but it's enough to keep me convinced

... that the backgroundsimulation does a good job in making it possible being convinced by certain things, which might or might not hold up the scrutinity of testing.

it is often very surprising for me to see, what a test shows, as i would have sworn on certain things being the case before.

i wouldn't rule out selling stolen goods being more effective than illegal goods (but it wasn't last time i tested that 5-or-so years ago)-

 

[Just Paul]

Anecdotal: I deliver 720 tons of battle weapons or narcotics to the BM, discover it has 0 or 1 demand. Slight profit. Apparent effect on inf: 0. In another case I deliver tobacco that happens to be banned in the station and discover I can't get profit. Again 0 effect on inf. Then I deliver 128 tons of pirated goods, mostly with demand. Effect: Bit over 2% negative inf.

Granted this is far from rigorous testing with no interference from other traffic, but it's enough to keep me convinced that piracy is a way to go.

I tested normal and Anarchy BMs back in December. Demand, profit, or government type didn't matter, it was always the same result. Direct inf transfer with equal % to each faction. They also seem to work with the 2k profit/150t rule, but I didn't test directly for that.

 

[goemon]

For bgs reasons demand or profit is irrelevant for BM sales. The sell value is the important one. ...

I tested normal and Anarchy BMs back in December. Demand, profit, or government type didn't matter, it was always the same result. Direct inf transfer with equal % to each faction. They also seem to work with the 2k profit/150t rule, but I didn't test directly for that.

but not profit, sell price?