Some BGS questions

[Yuri Gagarin Mendez]

Hello!

I´m new to the game and really want to help a PMF, but the influence is not going up enough, and sometimes even going down. So I have some questions:

1) Bounties: in order to gain influence for a faction, do I have to redeem only boutines issued by it, or redeeming any bounties at a station controlled by the PMF is enough?
2) Is there a cap for influence gained on trading missions (courier, source and return, deliver)?
3) Can I gain influence by selling profitable cargo? If yes, there´s a cap, also?
4) Which are the best methods to lower the influence of a specific faction?

Thanks!

 

[goemon]

hey,
1. yes, only bounties issued by the faction help - if redeemed in system. do not redeem bounties of factions in system you don't want to back.

2. all activities have diminishing returns, and there is a general cap on maximum influence change by system population.
so i think it is safe to say that missions have a diminishing return as well, even if you don't meet the maximum influence change by system population..
it is always advisable to combine all sources of influence gain-

for exampel here is the curve on bounties as of a few years ago:

link: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/bountyhunting-and-influence-fc-update-bounty-buff.565678/
here is the thread on influence caps by system population: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/influence-caps-gains-and-the-wine-analogy.423837/ (the rest of it is at least outdated for bounties and trade)

while values might have changed in detail, the general picture still holds true.

3. yes, you can. profit, tonnage and demand of the market controlling faction. it only starts to make a dent with medium pad, and as a real tool you need large pads. the general picture can be drawn from here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/trading-for-influence-ii-fc-update.555082/ --- but there are additional effects by demand now. fdev also claims buying having an effect - but i have never seen that, and i don't know of a clean retest.

4. the best method to lower a factions influence is to raise all others, especially if the target is on high influence levels. as a faction of low influence gains from the same action more than a faction of high influence, it is much more effective to back those 5% factions than to undermine the 40% faction. also negative influence actions hurt low influence factions more than high influence factions.

but your options are:

• missions targeting them (massacre, ground...)
• if they have an L-Pad black market: smuggling
• if they have jurisdiction/assets: violent crimes in their space
• failing (not abandon!) missions

i recommend to always check the in-station news reports: traffic- and bountyreport at least.

traffic is usually the case why you can't move a system into the direction you want.

if it is random traffic, there are some methods to move a system nevertheless patiently.

if it is targeted traffic by people knowing what they do (powerplay ... playergroups...) you need to triple the activity at least.

 

[Rebel Yell]

if it is targeted traffic by people knowing what they do (powerplay ... playergroups...) you need to triple the activity at least.

If it is in Archon Delaine space pls let us know (may be we can help... or not ).

 

[Jmanis]

4) Which are the best methods to lower the influence of a specific faction?

Thanks!

Not to start my salty old rant, but what Goemon said pretty much sums it up.

There's no practical activity loops to consistently target a particular faction, and it's a big shortfall of the BGS. It's all awkward application of BGS rules rather than something as simple as "run missions to hurt this faction"

The best effect is to combine positive work for other factions with negative effects for others... to exemplify this, unless the math has changed, if you did two activities for one faction in a five- faction system that netted you 4% influence gain, each of the other factions would lose 1%... but if you did one positive for 2% and one negative for your target, only that target would lose 2%.

This might seem intuitive, but it makes a bigger difference when you start talking about things like diminishing returns.

 

[Old Duck]

Not to start my salty old rant, but what Goemon said pretty much sums it up.

There's no practical activity loops to consistently target a particular faction, and it's a big shortfall of the BGS. It's all awkward application of BGS rules rather than something as simple as "run missions to hurt this faction"

The best effect is to combine positive work for other factions with negative effects for others... to exemplify this, unless the math has changed, if you did two activities for one faction in a five- faction system that netted you 4% influence gain, each of the other factions would lose 1%... but if you did one positive for 2% and one negative for your target, only that target would lose 2%.

This might seem intuitive, but it makes a bigger difference when you start talking about things like diminishing returns.

Looks like I asked my question in the wrong thread. So destroying ships owned by the controlling faction or attacking a factions installation (space-based where you can pick a side in a battle) have no practical effect on hurting that faction? What about this smuggling mentioned above? That could be fun. If smuggling does work, is it based on price, volume, or number of transactions?

 

[Jmanis]

Looks like I asked my question in the wrong thread. So destroying ships owned by the controlling faction or attacking a factions installation (space-based where you can pick a side in a battle) have no practical effect on hurting that faction?

So, destroying ships hurts the person who issued the bounty more than the owner of the ship, as i understand it. The ramification is then getting hostile rep which is far more damaging to your ability to hurt enemy factions...

Doing the scenarios that occur at installations such that they hurt your target faction have an effect, but it's too little and not easily repeatable compared to just supporting other factions. In the time it takes to run, say, 4 of these scenarios, I'll have run 20 missions, earned more credits/ materials and had way more effect against the target.

What about this smuggling mentioned above? That could be fun. If smuggling does work, is it based on price, volume, or number of transactions?

Smuggling only works if your target has a black market... kicker there being:

• anarchy actually benefits if they own the BM
• authoritarian governments shut down BMs
• some powerplay powers shut down BMs
• not all stations have black markets;
• the presence of a black market doesn't necessitate easy access to black market goods; and lastly
• it's still not that effective

Don't get me wrong, there exists ways to hurt a faction, they're just completely ineffectual compared to simply running positive effects for factions other than your enemy.

The other general impracticality is hostile rep, and how it locks you out of stations. Makes sense but you also cut off your only effective mechanisms to hurt a faction.

Imagine if you're happily helping a faction, and when you hit allied rep they started saying "nope, you're not allowed to help anymore"... that's what happens with hostile rep... you're happily hurting a faction, and suddenly the game goes "nope, you aren't allowed to do that anymore"... it's just so dumb.

But run hundreds of missions to supply one faction's enemy with weapons during war? They don't bat an eyelid.

Have posted suggestions to fix this before, but this isn't the right place to regurgitate that.

Edit: the caveat to this is hurting anarchies. Virtually every mission reliably targets anarchy factions, and because most anarchies don't stay asset holders for long (thanks to this), blatting an anarchy faction into oblivion and earning a billion credits along the way is easy.

This is why I often refer to "Elite: Best Friends"... the path to ruining another (lawful) faction is lined with the corpses of pirates and having allied rep with other lawful factions, including your enemy.

 

[Rebel Yell]

If smuggling does work, is it based on price, volume, or number of transactions?

Just volumes... you can even sell at a loss the same commodity for days.

Having said that, apart for the limited changes and effects on system/station facilities the most relevant BGS effect for gameplay is between anarchies and all-the-others [powerplay effect are way much relevant, depending on the power specs].

IMHO this is a big gameplay missed opportunity as PMFs are totally irrelevant for players' squadrons (apart for having the PMF name on the squadron main page and, some times, the name). There are no political or economical implications for PMF (it's not possible to implement "diplomatic" relations in the game) and some times the game even provides weird/counterlogical activities (i.e. like 2 factions at war in one system, and one providing missions to support the other in different systems and so on...).

More or less every faction in the game provides same mix/type of stuff to do, to the point that gameplay is flattened and apart for the RP or "putting a name on that system" there's no additional or relevant outcome.

Bottom line: BGS is a waste of time (for the most part lol) in the long run.

 

[Nepeta Uchiha]

Hello!

I´m new to the game and really want to help a PMF, but the influence is not going up enough, and sometimes even going down. So I have some questions:

1) Bounties: in order to gain influence for a faction, do I have to redeem only boutines issued by it, or redeeming any bounties at a station controlled by the PMF is enough?
2) Is there a cap for influence gained on trading missions (courier, source and return, deliver)?
3) Can I gain influence by selling profitable cargo? If yes, there´s a cap, also?
4) Which are the best methods to lower the influence of a specific faction?

Thanks!

Everything done BGS wise is soft capped per faction per system. So...
1) Bounties issued by the faction will raise the influence for the faction. Soft cap is about 11-15 million in bounties.
2) All missions are lumped together so doesn't matter which you do. Soft cap is about 25 to 30 influence bars.
3) Trade is solely demand driven. So fulfilling demand even at a lost nets you influence. Since this was a somewhat recent change the jury is out on the soft caps but doing 2000 to 3000 tons seems to be a sweet spot.
4) Best way to lower a faction influence is either failing missions or directly murdering their ships. Murder is the only thing that's a per player soft cap.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Murder was nerfed several times. It used to be the best way but now FD have made it the least effective (even though its punished the harshest).

It also has several loopholes and drawbacks. For example Delaines R5 negates murder BGS effects, and that assaults (but not murder) count about 1/4 of a murder with no harsh penalties (so tag cops with a low power turret and run / repeat, and not have to pay billions in bounties).

But eh. FD force players away from emergent ways to do things and now its all funnelled through combat missions.

 

[Jmanis]

But eh. FD force players away from emergent ways to do things and now its all funnelled through combat missions.

Getting a bit OT... but missions (IMO) should be the mechanism for

• introducing all game mechanics; and
• immediate access to a specific playstyle

... and should generally be "OK" to do, in absence of any other activity... but the better (though more unstable) reward should come from pursuing these activities organically. By unstable, I mean diablo-like Fire vs lightning damage... where fire is the reliable 4-6 DPS, while lightning is 1-12 DPS.

 

[Screemonster]

It also has several loopholes and drawbacks. For example Delaines R5 negates murder BGS effects, and that assaults (but not murder) count about 1/4 of a murder with no harsh penalties (so tag cops with a low power turret and run / repeat, and not have to pay billions in bounties).

I used to rack up mass assault bounties with a minelayer at horizons bases until odyssey launched and changed attacking turrets to a "damaging defences" fine instead of an assault bounty.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I used to rack up mass assault bounties with a minelayer at horizons bases until odyssey launched and changed attacking turrets to a "damaging defences" fine instead of an assault bounty.

 

[Jmanis]

I used to rack up mass assault bounties with a minelayer at horizons bases until odyssey launched and changed attacking turrets to a "damaging defences" fine instead of an assault bounty.

For me, it used to just be that Lawfuls offered plenty of "Massacre Civilian" missions, where "Civilian" = Not a pirate, and the target faction wasn't hidden behind a "Spec Ops" veil. I flipped a few systems like this (and never had to pay off the bounty I got in the process).

 

[Old Duck]

Bottom line: BGS is a waste of time (for the most part lol) in the long run.

That's why I quit BGS play long ago, but more because I didn't have the stamina to fight the effects of other players. Now that I have a truly empty(ish) sandbox to play in (Legacy), I think I could find enjoyment in flipping a specific system. It gives me a reason to play, because I don't need more credits or ships or Arx - I have basically "won" the game in every regard except BGS (and finding Raxxla).

Now once I do flip this system, assuming I actually do (I might get bored before it happens), I don't know what I'll do next. I have no desire to rule the galaxy like some of these obnoxious PMF squadrons. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

 

[Old Duck]

the path to ruining another (lawful) faction is lined with the corpses of pirates and having allied rep with other lawful factions, including your enemy.

I'm trying to understand this sentence. Are you saying that killing pirates aligned to the lawful faction I'm trying to dethrone will hurt that faction? That's cool if so. Of course it's also an oxymoron in that a "lawful" faction is hurt when I remove its criminal element.

Oh, and if this does work, how does it work? Does the faction's INF decrease at time of kill, or when bounties are turned in? If the latter, how do I turn in these bounties when the controlling faction currently owns all the stations and outposts? I'm guessing I'll need to at least take ownership of one station before I can use bounties to help my underdog faction.

 

[yelboc]

You might find this useful, even though its quite long in the tooth now:

Remlok Industries » The Background Simulation Guide – Elite: Dangerous

remlok-industries.fr

it is also a very beautiful website..

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'm trying to understand this sentence. Are you saying that killing pirates aligned to the lawful faction I'm trying to dethrone will hurt that faction? That's cool if so. Of course it's also an oxymoron in that a "lawful" faction is hurt when I remove its criminal element.

That's what a lot of people expect to happen, but no, killing locally wanted ships has no effect on the ship's owner or your reputation with the owning faction, regardless of who has issued the bounty. (Which leads to various intuitive absurdities)

No, the way for A to beat another lawful faction B is for A to kill (via mission) pirates belonging to Anarchy faction C.

You might find this useful, even though its quite long in the tooth now:

Too long, unfortunately - it largely hasn't been updated for the major changes made in 3.3, so there's more of it that's very very wrong than right nowadays.

 

[Old Duck]

No, the way for A to beat another lawful faction B is for A to kill (via mission) pirates belonging to Anarchy faction C.

Well, at least that involves combat, which I prefer over hauling.

Speaking of, if two factions are locked in civil war / elections, does that lock all INF across the board or just the factions at war? I used to know the answer to all these questions, but it's been a long time since I soloed the BGS.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Speaking of, if two factions are locked in civil war / elections, does that lock all INF across the board or just the factions at war? I used to know the answer to all these questions, but it's been a long time since I soloed the BGS.

Normally just those factions - but you can have the situation where e.g. the system has 7 factions and 6 of them are locked in conflict, so the 7th can't move either.

It also doesn't lock INF changes as a result of "side-effects" - e.g. if a faction is losing 1% INF a day from Infrastructure Failure, it still does that inside a conflict (though that doesn't have any effect on the conflict itself)

 

[yelboc]

Apparently last updated " on the 24/02/2020" which is after 3.3, I believe?

However I'm no BGS expert, so have no idea if or where its correct.. perhaps those with more knowledge can point to what's changed, or even perhaps help them update the info there - its always easier to have a guide in one place rather than distributed forum messages etc.