Noob Questions and Confusion

[Old Duck]

FWIW, there has been a spike in CMDR bounties in the system, a system that originally had only one bounty issued for 400 credits. That can't be a coincidence.

And I'm highly confident I've caused Pirate Attack state myself more than once by blowing up clean ships in another system a few months back. Why are we so sure PA isn't player triggered?

 

[Jmanis]

And I'm highly confident I've caused Pirate Attack state myself more than once by blowing up clean ships in another system a few months back. Why are we so sure PA isn't player triggered?

Originally, Pirate Attack was first thought to be spawned by having Civil Liberty + Investment states. This was a logical, if incorrect idea, as a natural "terminator" of a prolonged positive state. But then Pirate Attacks started happening in places without such states. There's also been some suggestion (happy to be corrected) that Pirate Attack can "spread" like Outbreaks if unchecked.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that PA isn't triggered by player activity, but what that specific activity is, if any, is not known. I'd defer to Ian again here, as he's probably got a lot more stats on it than I do (which is zero).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Originally, Pirate Attack was first thought to be spawned by having Civil Liberty + Investment states. This was a logical, if incorrect idea, as a natural "terminator" of a prolonged positive state. But then Pirate Attacks started happening in places without such states. There's also been some suggestion (happy to be corrected) that Pirate Attack can "spread" like Outbreaks if unchecked.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that PA isn't triggered by player activity, but what that specific activity is, if any, is not known. I'd defer to Ian again here, as he's probably got a lot more stats on it than I do (which is zero).

My belief is that it's either "any activity at all" or "any positive activity", with a threshold to reach. It's very hard to run more controlled tests on it because of the 14 day invisible pending period, and Colonia doesn't have any 'clean' systems for that sort of test anyway.

Obviously the factions which attract high activity tend to attract lots of positive transactions, so the correlation with Investment and Civil Liberty is pretty strong - but it's because they have a common cause, not because those states cause Pirate Attack directly.

I don't see any sign that Pirate Attacks can "spread" directly - but they may well appear to because Pirate Attacks attract core miners, which may then increase the activity level in nearby systems too. (For that matter, I'm unconvinced that Outbreak can spread directly either [1])

[1] My current working theory for Outbreak is that it is increased by two things:
- negative transactions (or maybe ship losses?) of a certain volume
- those missions which say +Outbreak
and this combined with it also having a 14-day invisible pending period and being blocked by Pirate Attack is sufficient to make it look clustered just through player action. This is somewhat speculative but fits the data I have.

But there doesn't appear in general to be a mechanism where a faction in Outbreak is more likely to get Outbreak in its other systems, or an Outbreak in one faction in one system is more likely to cause other Outbreaks in that system or nearby systems.


I'm actually quite impressed by both the PA and Outbreak states - they're driven like the rest of the BGS solely by player activity, so far as I can tell, but wth sufficient indirection that in most cases it's impossible to predict where and when they'll appear next.

 

[Old Duck]

Now that I control this system, what's the role and effect of exploration data these days? I've read it's a good BGS tool, but like missions has diminished returns once a certain point is reached. Is this true even if I'm being opposed?

If there's one thing I can do well, it's exploration

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Now that I control this system, what's the role and effect of exploration data these days? I've read it's a good BGS tool, but like missions has diminished returns once a certain point is reached. Is this true even if I'm being opposed?

Exploration data is generally useful for maintaining or boosting influence, once you control a station, especially since you can both carry an unlimited amount around with you and fine-tune how much you hand in each day.

If you're opposed you probably don't need to worry too much about diminishing returns:
- either you are putting in several times the effort of your opposition, in which case you don't need to worry about the opposition to the extent of precisely optimising your actions until you're dealing with a multi-system behemoth being attacked on several fronts
- or you're putting in comparable effort to them or less, in which case you don't need to worry about diminishing returns

 

[jimbeau1571]

Influence is locked has nothing to do with winning a war now, and all about the activities you do in a war, in a best-of-seven-ticks style event.

It's not just CZ activity now though. The following activities are all but proven (to varying degrees) to affect the outcome of a war.

• Handing in bonds
• Resolving CZs
• Missions
• Scenarios

EDIT: The varying degrees to which these impact are speculated on, but not known.

Resolving CZ's .... i assume thats the part where you defeat your enemy in the CZ and make them run with the message of Battle Won. Do we know if the Low/Med/High CZ's have any difference in their weight towards the affects of winning a War as a whole. I tend to do Low's as it is easiest as a Lone fighter, and winning 99% of them while building up a good amount of Combat Bonds to hand in.
Also, does defeating the Spec Ops squads in the Medium/High Cz's make much of a difference?

 

[Jmanis]

Resolving CZ's .... i assume thats the part where you defeat your enemy in the CZ and make them run with the message of Battle Won. Do we know if the Low/Med/High CZ's have any difference in their weight towards the affects of winning a War as a whole. I tend to do Low's as it is easiest as a Lone fighter, and winning 99% of them while building up a good amount of Combat Bonds to hand in.
Also, does defeating the Spec Ops squads in the Medium/High Cz's make much of a difference?

Defeating Spec Ops and other situations in the Meg/High CZs just helps to winning that CZ (when you resolve those situations, you'll note a corresponding jump in your (or the enemies, if you fail) progress bars.

As for whether there's difference between winning the CZs and other activities, best look here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/what-counts-what-in-war.518738/

My own running theory... there's a difference, but it's not substantial enough. L/M/H are probably awarded something like 1/2/3 points respectively, and bonds/missons/other activities are also 1 point, where it needs to be more like a range of 1-3 points for other activities, then 4/8/16 for CZs

 

[Old Duck]

A couple of new questions:
1) Does using an Interstellar Factor to collect bounties from factions in other systems benefit the owners of the station where the IF is located?
2) Boom delivery missions - is the affect on Trading Rank based on the money made? In other words, I'm assuming that choosing INF++++++ over a few million credits is at the cost of my rank progression towards Elite.

 

[Jmanis]

A couple of new questions:
1) Does using an Interstellar Factor to collect bounties from factions in other systems benefit the owners of the station where the IF is located?
2) Boom delivery missions - is the affect on Trading Rank based on the money made? In other words, I'm assuming that choosing INF++++++ over a few million credits is at the cost of my rank progression towards Elite.

1. Nope. No influence effects occur when using an IF.
2. Yup, but I wouldn't worry too much about Elite rank progression.

 

[jimbeau1571]

Just came out of a CivWar and on the next tick had a new CivWar pending. Expecting a 5 day pending lead in, i'm shocked to find only the next tick later the CZ's are up and the CW is active. Have the days pending changed?

 

[Jmanis]

Just came out of a CivWar and on the next tick had a new CivWar pending. Expecting a 5 day pending lead in, i'm shocked to find only the next tick later the CZ's are up and the CW is active. Have the days pending changed?

It's just the one day pending, for all states now.

 

[jimbeau1571]

Ah. that'll account for it then.

 

[Jmanis]

FWIW, there has been a spike in CMDR bounties in the system, a system that originally had only one bounty issued for 400 credits. That can't be a coincidence.

And I'm highly confident I've caused Pirate Attack state myself more than once by blowing up clean ships in another system a few months back. Why are we so sure PA isn't player triggered?

Just thought I'd revisit this one... per the recent livestream, one of the factors which contributes to the occurrence of Pirate Attack is trade.

 

[Old Duck]

Just thought I'd revisit this one... per the recent livestream, one of the factors which contributes to the occurrence of Pirate Attack is trade.

I missed the livestream, but I'm hoping to watch it video of it today sometime. I'm very fascinated in this subject now!