So, ground CZs... Do they have an effect on conflicts?

[CMDR Quade]

Here's the update on that war. Concluded at the tick as a Total Victory. Our faction dominated every day of the conflict, per the local news. We were matched for the war at 35.4% and pulled ahead to 39.4% vs 31.3% after the win. Our faction captured the only station in the system and maintained control of the sole Horizons ground asset. These were the only two assets listed as at risk in the war. Now, as noted above, our group spent extra time in this system winning several rounds per day at every single ground CZ - of which there were 2 owned by our faction and 8 by the opponent. None of these Odyssey surface settlements were listed as at risk in the war. I don't think we faced any serious opposition in the conflict.

So, how did it go? Well our faction now controls uh... 12 Odyssey settlements. That's right, we even seized a pair of settlements from factions we weren't at war with! What's even weirder is that the faction we were fighting still controls 3 Odyssey settlements, two that we fought over and gained 1 from another faction. There were no other settlements belonging to these two factions that somehow sat out the war. Every single EDO settlement belonging to these two factions was a conflict zone.

Here's an anonymized list of the EDO settlements involved and what happened when the war resolved. Yay tables:

settlement	before	after
EDO 1	US	US
EDO 2	US	US
EDO 3	Them	US
EDO 4	Them	US
EDO 5	Them	US
EDO 6	Them	US
EDO 7	Them	US
EDO 8	Them	Them
EDO 9	Them	US
EDO 10	Them	Them

And here are the remaining EDO settlements that somehow changed hands

EDO 11	3rd place faction	US
EDO 12	4th place faction	US
EDO 13	4th place faction	Them

So, I have no idea what's going on. The question in my mind was: can we fight at each settlement and win them all for our faction? This seemed to be implied by the way FD described conflict resolutions at EDO settlements. I had my doubts. And to that I can answer a firm maybe? If it weren't for the other 3 settlements, I'd have said yes and that someone might have out-competed us at settlements 8 and 10. But now I'm just confused.

Theory: It's tied to a faction's overall influence. That's my best guess. Or is it maybe complicated by fighting for system control?

Had another war kick off yesterday so I guess I'll be working it (and every conflict ) until I understand what's happening. This new war also has 10 EDO Settlements, 1 of ours and 9 belonging to the system controller. The guys are bushed so I'm guessing we'll fight this more normally at the most convenient CZs, lol. If we see a similar redistribution of systems, this time without fighting in every single CZ several times then... I still don't know. Ha!

 

[CMDR Quade]

Next war concluded. I won't mess with a bunch of tables but a similar thing happened, albeit with a different flavor. We won with a total victory dominating all days of the conflict per local news. Our faction went from owning 1 EDO settlement to owning 5. Our opponent went from owning 9 EDO settlements to owning 12. They lost the war and gained three settlements. We also captured one of three space assets, which was the only asset listed as at risk in the war's information. Once again, several settlements were captured from other local factions not involved in the war and delivered to our faction and our opponent in the conflict. Note: this was also a control war. I've not monitored wars for lower slots in the systems I'm watching.

We look to be blessedly free of wars for a few days so I can get back to doing other stuff. I hope some of the deep BGSers here can follow up with their own conflicts and how the settlements resolve. It's not really clear to me what the mechanism is that makes these new settlements change hands. I do not suspect there are many players pushing hard against our efforts (though it can't be totally ruled out). The gaining and losing of settlements from factions not involved in these wars is a puzzle, and I think it may be tied to the overall influence a faction has in a system, rather than, say, winning enough CZs because those settlements wouldn't have been CZs.

As to the overall question of being able to gain settlements while losing a war: yes that does appear to be possible. The follow up question is: can players reliably manipulate this gain and loss? Time will tell.

 

[goemon]

Next war concluded. I won't mess with a bunch of tables but a similar thing happened, albeit with a different flavor. We won with a total victory dominating all days of the conflict per local news. Our faction went from owning 1 EDO settlement to owning 5. Our opponent went from owning 9 EDO settlements to owning 12. They lost the war and gained three settlements. We also captured one of three space assets, which was the only asset listed as at risk in the war's information. Once again, several settlements were captured from other local factions not involved in the war and delivered to our faction and our opponent in the conflict. Note: this was also a control war. I've not monitored wars for lower slots in the systems I'm watching.

We look to be blessedly free of wars for a few days so I can get back to doing other stuff. I hope some of the deep BGSers here can follow up with their own conflicts and how the settlements resolve. It's not really clear to me what the mechanism is that makes these new settlements change hands. I do not suspect there are many players pushing hard against our efforts (though it can't be totally ruled out). The gaining and losing of settlements from factions not involved in these wars is a puzzle, and I think it may be tied to the overall influence a faction has in a system, rather than, say, winning enough CZs because those settlements wouldn't have been CZs.

As to the overall question of being able to gain settlements while losing a war: yes that does appear to be possible. The follow up question is: can players reliably manipulate this gain and loss? Time will tell.

my take on that would be:

• reads buggy.
• i assume you have checked ownership by system map or landing? because some other methods aren't correct (most notable nav panel, which works for space installations ....)
• looks as if all in system odyssey settlements of any faction are at stake during any conflict (bug).
• my guess would be, that other actions count as a win as well (bounties for exampel? other scenarios?).
• another option is, that some actions count as well as loss (but i wonder how the game than decides which other faction wins).

 

[Retropolitan]

• looks as if all in system odyssey settlements of any faction are at stake during any conflict (bug).

This (obviously) is disastrous if true. But the slightly less horrible possibility that all settlements of the warring factions are at risk, when the description of the conflict lists no more than one settlement at stake for each side, is what has us maintaining large influence margins at the moment. I really don't want to do multiple ground CZs in six or eight settlements in addition to "winning" the war in space.

Edit: I should mention that I've only been in two wars since Odyssey's release and I haven't seen uninvolved settlements change hands.

 

[CMDR Quade]

my take on that would be:

• reads buggy.
• i assume you have checked ownership by system map or landing? because some other methods aren't correct (most notable nav panel, which works for space installations ....)
• looks as if all in system odyssey settlements of any faction are at stake during any conflict (bug).
• my guess would be, that other actions count as a win as well (bounties for exampel? other scenarios?).
• another option is, that some actions count as well as loss (but i wonder how the game than decides which other faction wins).

Definitely doing all the identification by hand in each system. Can't trust the UI, why would anyone want a trustworthy UI? Or any indication of how their efforts would impact the game? Silly us trying to establish the concrete rules of the universe.

 

[CMDR Quade]

Figured I'd keep posting the occasional update here. We have a war concluding at today's tick that we are intentionally not fighting in. We pushed ourselves up to the point where we got into control conflict with another player faction that we have known for a while and who love themselves some war. We're sitting this one out and are currently at a 0 vs 3 total defeat. We do not own any space assets or horizons assets in the system. We own three EDO assets, one of which is listed as at risk in this conflict. Our opponent owns 17 EDO settlements and have a space asset listed at risk. As with many prior wars, every EDO settlement owned by both participants in the wars became a CZ and we promptly ignored them to do other things. I do not know if our opponents are fighting primarily in space, on the ground, or some combination of both. We had a 3x spike in traffic and a new fleet carrier pop up in the system, so it's safe to say a number of players showed up to fight. I'll check back in and report how this one went. Our goal is to reduce the number of assets we have in this system, but past experience makes it seem like that's a crapshoot.

 

[CMDR Quade]

War concluded, our faction lost in a total defeat. None of our squadmates fought in this one. Our faction owned 3 EDO settlements and the conflict resolved with us owning 3 EDO settlements. One settlement was originally ours and the other two traded from our opponent to us. The two settlements we lost went to our opponent making it an even trade, I guess? Our opponent started with 17 EDO settlements and the conflict resolved with them owning 22 EDO settlements. Their gain of four settlements was 2 taken from us and two taken from the 3rd place faction.

 

[Jmanis]

Their gain of four settlements was 2 taken from us and two taken from the 3rd place faction.

Wait, so a faction not involved in n the conflict lost settlements?

 

[CMDR Quade]

Yep, this has happened to us twice.

 

[bangermsuk]

when does the frontier solutions ground war end or are you talking a bgs war. everytick? i play alot of ground cz and just seem to go in a endless loop.

 

[CMDR Quade]

when does the frontier solutions ground war end or are you talking a bgs war. everytick? i play alot of ground cz and just seem to go in a endless loop.

Wars last between 4 and 7 days but the individual CZs are repeating loops as long as the war is active.