Retreat tried several times in vain - your ideas?

[goemon]

I was able to do 10 INF+++ missions to help this faction in retreat just in 40 minutes of my time. I expect spike up as always after this when server tick happen. Now I see that commander who try push that faction to retreat and what he need to do so many days (expecting he is hunting and murdering the faction ships) and I ruin his work in that 40 minutes. For me this is very bad balanced.

what would be balanced in your opinion?
(in my opinion the problem is that too many expansions happen by random traffic, increased by the bounty buffs - so i personally would change that side of the equitation).

(expecting he is hunting and murdering the faction ships)

he probably isn't, but working for the other faction(s). we pushed 4(!) factions at once into retreat a while ago with around 40 man minutes per tick or so, and avoided them going through with around 20 minutes.

 

[MrMarkusCZ]

I just say it is too easy to get 4 small delivery missions for the same faction to the same (and near) destination at the same time.

 

[goemon]

I just say it is too easy to get 4 small delivery missions for the same faction to the same (and near) destination at the same time.

so, your suggestion would be to take factions in retreat down from the list of mission destinations (as mission generation is more likely for factions in any state)?
and/or not to have missions generated for factions in retreat?

(i think the implementation of it was to avoid too many systems having a low number of factions, as a low number of factions reduces the total missions available).

 

[MrMarkusCZ]

That second one - I see problem that there are too many missions generated for factions in retreat state and it is easy to stack these missions because they are to the same destination. But I am not game designer I just saw what I saw.

 

[goemon]

easy to stack these missions because they are to the same destination.

... which is not down to the retreat state, but to other factors (possible systems in mission range), for exampel populated system density. a faction in retreat with no pirate factions in range for exampel would not generate delivery missions. Jmanis thread on mission boards is quite an eye-opener how that works: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/rev-enging-mission-boards.543467/


imho concerning retreat that effect is balanced, as it is easy for the other factions in the same system to stack missions the same way (of course, a low inf faction in retreat will gain more from those than a higher inf faction, probably outlasting even the influence penalty of active retreat)

 

[Ian Doncaster]

(of course, a low inf faction in retreat will gain more from those than a higher inf faction, probably outlasting even the influence penalty of active retreat)

This I think is the problem with both retreat and expansion states as things are currently arranged.

Influence must be harder to get at high levels, easier at low levels, or in most systems you'd end up with the runaway leader effect we saw just after the FC release as the controlling faction has so many extra levers available they'd be pinned above 90% most of the time.

That, however, means that in systems with high passing traffic (or active opposition), getting any faction below 2.5% or above 75% is incredibly difficult - the only thing keeping the BGS moving in terms of faction relocation is that most systems don't have high passing traffic. If Frontier got their wish with the Odyssey expansion and doubled the active player count, even more systems would end up over-stabilised for influence [1].

Instead they could have a slider-state scale of Retreat-None-Expansion with the middle bit fairly wide, actions contributing to it in various ways, and a return-to-centre default tendency like the other sliders. Keep a faction in the Retreat zone for N continuous days and it disappears (if non-native) or gives up an asset to the highest influence faction (if native). Keep it in the Expansion zone for 7 days and it does an expansion action and immediately drops to neutral again.


[1] Colonia I always find a good example of this - https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/systems/1/history - it's a 400k population so should be relatively susceptible to large swings, and it has daily traffic in the 600-1000 ships range. The daily influence movements are tiny - generally 1-2% a day - and generally within a very narrow stable range. Deliberately pushing it off that equilibrium (leaving aside that it's capital-locked so there's no point in doing so) would be virtually impossible. If every system had 3-figure daily traffic (which is also the point where you start to be likely to meet other players, so not a bad ideal in other respects) everywhere would end up similarly stagnating.