PMF Minimum Players
- Thread starter Sithilis
- Start date
There are several possible explanations:
1) The faction was founded before that requirement was introduced
2) Not everyone in the player group is in the squadron / inara page / whatever you're using to tell how many there are
3) The player group is cross-platform so covers multiple squadrons
4) As you say, some of the players have since left or moved to another group. Especially likely for ones which have been around for a while.
5) They lied on the application form
What are you referencing to say a PMF has "less than 10 players"? I'd argue it's impossible for you to accurately get this figure.
Neither Inara nor Squadrons are authoritative for this figure; what matters is the registered player group, which can either be a group without any representation in the game, or a Squadron... remembering multiple Squadrons can support the same faction?
My Squadron has four people... our player group has more than ten.
So returning to this thread after doing more BGS I'm entitled to suggest FDev do a "purge" of PMF's that have no activity and languish at the bottom of their only system they are present in.
I've come across 2 PMF's with little or no activity and this could be preventing expansion from other factions, no?
I've read lots of threads where people claim systems are clogged with PMF's and there is hardly any more real estate. Surely not?!
Do FDev do a periodic purge?
I've come across 2 PMF's with little or no activity and this could be preventing expansion from other factions, no?
I've read lots of threads where people claim systems are clogged with PMF's and there is hardly any more real estate. Surely not?!
Do FDev do a periodic purge?
They don't prevent expansion, just insertion of new ones.
Not all pmfs exist for bgs. For many their mere existence is enough to legitimise an otherwise active group.
Unless FD allow individual Cmdrs to 'join' a faction (which they should have done years ago), it's impossible it tell a supported pmf from a dead one.
New PMFs can't be added to systems with another PMF already present.
At the moment 13233 systems have at least one PMF in them, 8933 of those systems have a PMF as controlling faction.
There are about 20000 inhabited systems at the moment, so there's still plenty of room for now. In a few years, at the current rate of addition of new ones and expansion of existing ones, that might be different.
No. It's hard to tell what criteria they would use for one, either.
Most PMFs will show some activity - missions run for them, etc.
Exploration expeditions can take months, and it would be unreasonable to abolish PMFs just because their supporters were on Distant Worlds 3.
A faction might be showing no real sign of movement because it has no support ... or because it has support but the local Powerplay group is keeping it suppressed. The Powerplayers would be very happy to have the PMF removed rather than continue to have it pushed against them.
(And of course most NPC factions have no real supporters, are present in just a single system, and rarely get into double-digit influence ... but serve a valuable function in the BGS as a whole nevertheless. Criteria for removing factions which only applied to PMFs and not other factions would seem arbitrary ... applying the criteria to other factions too would be very dangerous)
Don't forget, it's technically very difficult (if not impossible) to remove a faction from the game.
No faction has ever been removed from the game, not even League of Reparation (if you're allied with them, you can even create a squadron and pledge to them, which gives great insight into how FD deal with "removing" factions).
But as @Dommarraa said, some people put factions in the game with the express intent of never expanding, per some group lore.
Groups like my own also strategically exploit passive traffic from non-members... about the 25% of our expansions (so around a dozen) have been entirely due to passive traffic.
Also remember my previous post; it's genuinely impossible to tell who has players actively supporting them. What do you go on? Squadron members? ... noting more than one squadron can support a single faction, and a single squadron can support multiple factions. Registered group sizes? The barriers to that are already satisfied when you register. Inara wing size? Sif I'd put details on there. Facebook group size? Twitter followers?
Nope... it's impossible to tell how many players support a faction, because players don't have any membership of that faction. A faction at 1% in its home system does not necessarily have no supporters.
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fdev could add functionality to remove PMF - maybe a new state 'eradication' that happens if you go below 1% in your home system with no presence in other systems. The if you don't do something something something you get removed. ofc as Ian pointed out that would also remove NPC factions, so would need some thought*. And you just know some player group would devote themselves to destroying others.... and probably not the ones with no support...
* a really obvious one would be removing the factions that give out system permits
* a really obvious one would be removing the factions that give out system permits
I'm pretty confident it's not a question of mechanics, rather, the BGS would bug out if a faction were removed from it
It'd be interesting to see the "exile" system state make a comeback for abandoned PMFs.
Get retreated from your home system as above, and the faction gets dumped on a carrier/megaship and effectively has no influence effect any more (similar to how engineers are handled - they control their bases, but don't participate in the BGS of the system. Fleet carriers have a similar mechanic, they're all dummied to a "fleetcarrier corps" faction that doesn't appear in the system influence tables so they can't change hands via conflict.
Have the megaships roam around on the weekly tick for funsies, with some means to support them making inroads into and settling in a system again, like a megaship scenario where you can either support them settling wherever they've wandered to, or else drive them off.
edit: hell, it would have been great if expansions were handled this way, by jumping a settler megaship into the target system that the defenders could chase off if they didn't want the faction there.
Get retreated from your home system as above, and the faction gets dumped on a carrier/megaship and effectively has no influence effect any more (similar to how engineers are handled - they control their bases, but don't participate in the BGS of the system. Fleet carriers have a similar mechanic, they're all dummied to a "fleetcarrier corps" faction that doesn't appear in the system influence tables so they can't change hands via conflict.
Have the megaships roam around on the weekly tick for funsies, with some means to support them making inroads into and settling in a system again, like a megaship scenario where you can either support them settling wherever they've wandered to, or else drive them off.
edit: hell, it would have been great if expansions were handled this way, by jumping a settler megaship into the target system that the defenders could chase off if they didn't want the faction there.
Well, as you said yourself - they have (klunky) ways. Is it worthwhile? Probably not, quite a few more important things to fix (like smuggling I hear
)Honestly though I like abandoned PMFs 'cause it means that I don't have to worry about anyone else deciding they like the look of whatever my home system is right now and getting all up in my grill about what I do to the BGS. It, along with having my carrier parked there, is a nice handy "this system's taken" sign.
That's a really good point!
Right, but it's impossible to monitor. You won't find the number of people in my group anywhere on the Internet, for example, because we all know each other and talk IRL.
It simply can't be measured, without changing the fundamental purpose and function of factions in the game.
