Is the MF native to the system? Native systems cannot retreat. You can frequently tell because system generated factions have the system name in the faction name.
Retreat tried several times in vain - your ideas?
- Thread starter Starman 1966
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Is the MF native to the system? Native systems cannot retreat. You can frequently tell because system generated factions have the system name in the faction name.
Ah yes, that's it. I wasn't aware of this definition. I also thought their only could be one 'native' faction but obviously I was wrong. Thanks for clarifying - and again I've learned something new.
Typically there will be 4/5 native factions in each system that can never retreat, only invasive factions that started somewhere else can retreat. If in doubt look the faction up on Inara and it will tell you where they originated from.
It is still the same situation from ED 3.3 start and I think the independent commanders traffic is the difference in this problem - why somewhere retreat is easy and somewhere impossible. I met and talked with many such commanders (with enough courage to play in Open mode) and they told me that they do random missions anywhere. Mission generator adds many special "support escape" missions for the faction in retreat state with very high INF, well paid, to the same destinations so easily stackable - so attractive enough for independent commanders. Doing mission for faction with very low influence has the biggest impact to their influence so doing few such missions can easily do more than 5% influence change in system with low-to-average population. Remove these support escape missions and it will fix the problem. Another possibility is just logically do what these mission are named - lower influence of the faction in retreat state instead of increasing it.
I arranged a number of retreats over the years, most were simple grind everybody but target, they drop, they go.
However if somebody attempts to counter the retreat it's simple to stall you, the low inf seems to provide a bigger impact on missions for them and while they are playing 1, you have to play multiples and beat them on all to stop the rise. It can also be an issue if a cmdr is playing a similar faction nearby and that factions starts offering missions into your target faction, the odd 0.1% bumps for each delivery soon takes a toll. Add a small number of passing trade taking advantage of the good paying missions to avoid retreat and you can get stalled with no real intent to block you.
After trying to retreat a faction 5 times and being actively countered, a friend and I took the nuclear option instead and popped them into full system control, got all other factions in war and then tanked the target faction through crime, attacking system security and black markets, that did the trick while we engineered for most of the others to remain in war while we just had 2 to support. Took a lot of work but did the job.
However if somebody attempts to counter the retreat it's simple to stall you, the low inf seems to provide a bigger impact on missions for them and while they are playing 1, you have to play multiples and beat them on all to stop the rise. It can also be an issue if a cmdr is playing a similar faction nearby and that factions starts offering missions into your target faction, the odd 0.1% bumps for each delivery soon takes a toll. Add a small number of passing trade taking advantage of the good paying missions to avoid retreat and you can get stalled with no real intent to block you.
After trying to retreat a faction 5 times and being actively countered, a friend and I took the nuclear option instead and popped them into full system control, got all other factions in war and then tanked the target faction through crime, attacking system security and black markets, that did the trick while we engineered for most of the others to remain in war while we just had 2 to support. Took a lot of work but did the job.
The full Ahab? I like the cut of your jib, sir. Sometimes too much is not enough.
was the only option we had left so needed to done. Hard work but worth it
Retreat mechanics have not changed, nor have best practices. We have achieved several retreats since 3.3, including one that was accomplished after the server-side patch mid-March. Mission spawn mechanics, however, have changed. We have clearly observed that factions in retreat are significantly more likely to be destination factions for delivery missions in the region. If you live in a high traffic area, then this is going to result in factions gaining influence during retreat and may prove to be an extremely difficult mechanic to overcome, especially if you are dealing with a low population system already prone to large influence gains for low starting-influence factions.
Despite this, you still have an advantage. Because mission influence effects are nerfed, but bounties are not and murder and trade continue to work as expected, you should be able to, with an appropriate amount of work, suppress influence gains for the faction in retreat. But you are really going to need to use every tool available to you.
Despite this, you still have an advantage. Because mission influence effects are nerfed, but bounties are not and murder and trade continue to work as expected, you should be able to, with an appropriate amount of work, suppress influence gains for the faction in retreat. But you are really going to need to use every tool available to you.
We've just tried another retreat with a whole player group. Going down from 8 to 2% was easy and afterwards we went the suggested murder route. But of course immediately some BGS magic kicked in and the influence jumped back to 5.1 and 5.3% the next two days. We called it off then. So I still consider this retreat to be substantially borked.
That's just the way the maths in the influence calculations work. It's easy to increase a low percentage faction by a couple of percent with minimal effort.
Remember: the important part is tick 6, if the faction is <2.5% on that tick ONLY then they retreat. Before this, you can go above 2.5% and still retreat someone.
Of course day 6 is the decisive one. But if any tool you're using gives unexplainable detrimental results it's simply a moot discussion.
Hi there, I would like to start an exchange of ideas as I've found it still impossible to bring a MF into retreat. I tried two systems in the last 20 days or so, i.e. after the last game update introducing the BGS fixes. These very-low traffic systems have both seven MF in place (all non-player of course) and a population of 2 resp. 3 mio. The controlling faction in both systems had around 45% influence, the others between 4 and 14%, the retreat candidates already around 3%.
My strategy was to do around 40 INF+ missions each day divided between all other MF but the controlling MF and the retreat candidate. The controlling MF always got some bounty vouchers (2 or 3 each day) from the usual pirate interdictions while doing the missions and occasionally some exploration data (max. 5 systems each day).
The course of things (influence of the MF to be retreated) was as follows:
System A: 2.8% => 1.1% => system left alone for one day => 8.1%(!) with triggering a conflict => conflict won for the other MF => 3.8% => 3.4% => 3.1% => 2.8% => 2.4% => back to 3.1% => left alone another day out of frustration => 2.2% (sic!)
System B: 4.2% => 3.8% => 3.3% => 3.0% => 2.8% => 3.0% => 3.2% => 2.8% => 2.1% => 2.8% => 2.2% => 3.2% => 3.3% => abandoned
I'm very sure that significant influence from other CMDRs can be excluded as it's a remote part of the bubble and the underlying pattern in both cases looks identically. As matters stand there are inexplicable and unpredictable BGS fluctuations that render it impossible to hold a MF constantly below the 2.5% treshold until retreat is completed.
If my initial strategical considerations are wrong, please let me know. As well I would very much like to hear your own current experiences with retreats - both successful and failed.
Looking forward to a hopefully fruitful discussion!
There is only one STARMAN!
It's been explained. We continue to observe what I described above. Factions moving from retreat to above 10% in low population systems simply due to influence received by delivery missions. There is no hidden mechanic, and retreats are not bugged.
A system with a 1 billion population is not exactly considered to be low-pop IMO.
Sorry, that wasn't clear. I'm saying that the effect is more visible in low-population systems. In high pop systems, things are actually in your favor because the maximum gains are much lower. You still need to suppress them, though.
Could you please let us know the system you are targeting?
FWIW we tried CD-46 12902.
Unless you are trying to displace the faction in charge, you can only really do lots and lots of missions for everyone else while failing missions for the target (unless that has been nerfed / bugged) since you only have one station and no useful bases to use. If this is in a busy system its going to be pushing a boulder uphill using chopsticks.
Doing lots of missions for everyone else works fine and predictably until retreat is pending. Matters become strange only then. The boulder analogy is exactly what it feels like.
The only other recourse is more drastic: you promote your victim into control and kill them to death and retreat. I think I did this once (in a much smaller system ) because I got so fed up. As others have said it sounds like the retreating faction becomes a 'hot' endpoint for missions.
) because I got so fed up. As others have said it sounds like the retreating faction becomes a 'hot' endpoint for missions.I'm not so sure about this. The offered "retreat" missions look more or less the same and are equally payed compared to any other ordinary cargo or data delivery mission.