Push and Pull

[rekurzion]

I need some insight from those wiser than me.

some backstory...

I play as a solo commander and have gained my BGS understanding from my personal experimentation and reading these informative threads. My greatest achievement was flipping my 'home' system some time ago against a team of about 10 players and my chosen faction has done well to hold prominence ever since. (I know, its not 500 systems but its my little mountain top) I attribute some of this to my guile and greatness but also to what was obviously a lack of understanding of bgs mechanics by my opponents - they refused to fight in any wars and were unable to defend themselves.

The system is a 4 million pop system I returned to democratic rule from the clutches of corporate tyranny and I've been able to maintain a 60% plus influence rating. Alas, a minor faction I have been watching for some time in a nearby system seems to be getting their BGS legs under them and has begun to expand. A few months ago they expanded into my home system. In response I expanded my supporting faction and some other factions to deny them any more expansion opportunities. For a time they were fumbling about and not a threat but they have recently began a concerted effort to wrest control of the system. As with my previous opponent I am one commander against a squadron of 10+ yet they still lack the resources to compete against my guile and greatness .

here is a look at their recent ambition from Inara. The faction i support is up top while they are the yellow. The faction who i previously disposed is the red line that dips above 20% just after May 17 and now sits in 3rd place.

You can clearly see towards the beginning of june a concerted effort to create conflict. I was not doing any work in the system during this rise. (of great benefit is the systems location, close to a large power play system which draws a lot of residual traffic. helps me keep the influence up without having to put in work, as long i make sure those external factions are in boom states and offering missions) However I was easily able to stay their ambition with minimal effort, a few sessions of 5+ influence missions and bounty hunting then stopping back once an a while and dropping off some exploration data, a bounty here, a mission there.

My guess is they were purely focused on missions for their own faction which, after some wars with other factions, now controls the planetary base in the system.

Question 1: if this assumption is correct, why is their incline directly proportional to my supported factions decline and vice versa? What about the wine analogy am i not understanding? What other information should i be considering to gain a better understanding?

over the last week i decided to, instead of only completing missions for my supported faction, do missions for all faction except theirs...and also maybe shoot down some of their security around their planetary base (i promise, it was a justified response to an unwanted manifest scan of my ship). i assume they were still actively doing their thing for their faction during this time and might have been partaking in some shooting my supported factions ships/security also. it looks like doing broad missions is contributing to hurting my factions influence.

Question 2: can someone explain what is happening here? should i assume they are putting in more work to counter what they now see as opposition? is it because i spread the influence around evenly while they were focused on influence gains for a single faction?

Note I've been away from the system for a few days to see how things shake out get a feel for their tactics without my presence. I also have a feeling they may have recruited the corporate faction i disposed to their cause but that's pure speculation.

Ultimately my question is one of tactics. I think I will need to drive them from the system to stay their ambition. With killing ships now seemingly an equal transaction value as a crime holding less power than before I'm considering two paths. Push them down by doing missions only for my supported faction or by doing missions for the corporate faction i disposed and pushing them down through constant conflict and asset challenges. Right now it feels like option A will be more work but safer while option B may be less work (because the faction has lower influence) but threatens to drop my supported factions influence to a concerning level once the dust settles.

thanks in advance

 

[drty]

I’m not trying to suppress your greatness, of course, but you wouldn't have any chance if a squadron of 10 commanders was acted against you. That was 1-2 persons probably, who either didn't particularly want to confront you, or didn't know what they were doing.

 

[rekurzion]

as i mentioned, the first faction refused to participate it conflict states. this was before the recent BGS changes, so it was to their severe detriment. i can tell this new faction is learning the game. my comments were tongue in cheek. what i'm trying to understand is why when a faction of lower influence pushes, with no other significant transactions in the system, why a the primary factions influence dips and not the rest from what i can tell. and in the reverse, why when i counter by only focusing influence into the top faction why the faction who is challenging sees a dip and not the rest. this made sense to me before the changes, but i was also contributing a heavy amount of negative influence. here, i'm only doing positive influence transactions (the killing wasn't until later).

and yes, a smaller more capable army can defeat a larger less prepared army.

 

[rekurzion]

That was 1-2 persons probably

what evidence are you basing that assumption on?

 

[Dommarraa]

At the beginning of June, they had nothing better to do, so started working your system.
Then they :
a) Got Bored
b) Had better things to do
c) Decided the system was too much effort (for now). Remember, they probably have no idea that the ruling faction is actually supported, and in with that in mind, the system looks like it has PITA traffic.

 

[drty]

what evidence are you basing that assumption on?

It's an assumption as you have correctly stated, so I've no evidence. But basing on the facts about how BGS is operating (about the diminishing of influence gains specifically), you won't be able to withstand alone to 3 or more commanders firmly acting against your faction.

 

[rekurzion]

It's an assumption as you have correctly stated, so I've no evidence. But basing on the facts about how BGS is operating (about the diminishing of influence gains specifically), you won't be able to withstand alone to 3 or more commanders firmly acting against your faction.

precisely. these folks are only online together at most twice a month and on weekends, typically a saturday. otherwise they rarely work together if at all. they only seem to be focused legal transactions if their actions in other systems are of any indication. the wars they were part of in this system did not give me the impression they are fighting in them as they all lasted the full length and influence between them barely moved if at all and there were no standard combat ship traffic through the system. mostly transport ships.

so my plan is to remove them before they figure things out or present a force i cannot counter. as i said, guile and greatness

but i'm confused why positive only actions are decreasing faction influence for only one faction. like i said, i wasn't killing their ships at first but their faction took the biggest cut from my positive only transactions.

 

[drty]

but i'm confused why positive only actions are decreasing faction influence for only one faction. like i said, i wasn't killing their ships at first but their faction took the biggest cut from my positive only transactions.

You can't say for sure that there were no other INF transactions (from a random traffic for instance) applied to the other factions. The less influence they had, the easier to push them up, and the harder to push them down respectively. Just one delivery/courier mission targeting one of those lower factions, that was turned in by a rando, might get faction influence back to the initial level. So you won't notice the difference after all.

 

[Phongsalt]

What about the wine analogy am i not understanding?

Gin.

 

[rekurzion]

You can't say for sure that there were no other INF transactions (from a random traffic for instance) applied to the other factions. The less influence they had, the easier to push them up, and the harder to push them down respectively. Just one delivery/courier mission targeting one of those lower factions, that was turned in by a rando, might get faction influence back to the initial level. So you won't notice the difference after all.

of course you are right. i can't really know for sure. that's why i posted the chart. other than the corp faction i displaced and the PMF the other lower factions don't move that much. in fact, the most short term movement was when i concentrated influence across all factions but the one PMF. so shouldn't my actions push all other factions down evenly? why did it appear to concentrate pushing down the PMF? is that because they are next highest influence?

Gin.

only with juice and only with my homies

 

[Ian Doncaster]

why did it appear to concentrate pushing down the PMF? is that because they are next highest influence?

Yes, basically. If there's a faction on 5% and a faction on 50%, and a third faction gains 5%, much more of that gain will come from losses on the 50% faction than on the 5% faction.

So in a situation like this where there's a high faction, a medium faction, and a lot of low factions, unless someone takes actions which cause big gains for one of the low factions, the majority of the influence transfer will be between the high and the medium.

Conversely, because a low faction has much more of the potential influence pool it can try to claim from, it's much easier to push a faction from 1% to 2% than it is to push one from 81% to 82%. Again, this probably serves to flatten out their influence as activity between the top two goes on.

 

[Jane Turner]

Question 1: if this assumption is correct, why is their incline directly proportional to my supported factions decline and vice versa? What about the wine analogy am i not understanding? What other information should i be considering to gain a better understanding?

If all they do is support their own faction, their gains will be taken from the other factions pro-rata to their starting influence [unless locked by a conflict state] This appears to be exactly what happened

Question 2: can someone explain what is happening here? should i assume they are putting in more work to counter what they now see as opposition? is it because i spread the influence around evenly while they were focused on influence gains for a single faction?

this will dilute your effectiveness - whilst you are still in the lead influence-wise, doing work for low influence factions will take more influence from you than from your opposition, for the reasons outlined above.

 

[rekurzion]

thanks all. this actually makes me feel that negative influence actions like murder didn't need to be as strong as they were. i was worried that without a strong negative influence transaction available it would be hard to counter this very situation, a challenge to a high influence faction. but it appears the challenger puts themselves at a disadvantage for being aggressive and standing out from the pack (given the main faction has the resources to counter the effort).