Squadrons and supporting Minor Factions

[Misty_Dark]

So we have those things called Squadrons, where players can group up ingame, and be recognized as a Squadron member, one of the things you can do as a squadron, is to pledge your support for a manor faction, of ANY kind. And if you do this pledge, it is final, you cannot undo it, change it, unless you deletes your Squadron and create a new one.

So from a Squadron perspective, there is no difference what kind of faction they support. Minor factions cannot reject Squadrons to pledge support, not even player requested ones.


Backstory
So why might player groups not create a new Minor Faction? Because they have already invested time and effort to manage an existing Minor Faction, and that what the ONLY option available for a long time. So when player requested minor faction was added, there was very limited options to "adopt" an existing minor faction... I understand that there might be technical issues behind the scene that made this stance logical. But then they did add Squadrons, and with Squadrons, they gave us the option to support ANY minor faction... not only player requested ones!


So Frontier, have access to a big list of all the minor factions that is supported by players. and yet, somehow, this list is not used when some players request a minor faction to be inserted, so now Frontier is happily adding new player requested minor factions in the home system where there are already a player supported minor faction.



Now this is a recipe for disaster...
The existing player group now have an "invader" in their home system, of course, you could argue, they should have created a minor faction, but with the option to pledge to a minor faction, they decided we can "adopt" this as our minor faction, why else would this option be there? There is no denying that this group was here first, support a minor faction longer than the other group.

The new players, arriving in the system, soon realises, that something is not right here, as their efforts to grow their minor faction is pretty slow. Now these players might be a bit entitled, and think that this is now "their" system, as Frontier placed their minor faction here, and try to use that as the argument that other team should just "roll over and give up"



So this is a clearly a messy situation, no doubt. and the new player group are now stuck in a system with another player group, with very limited options.
1. They work something out with the existing player group, so they have an agreement to share the home system, they do not need to be friends, just accept there are two player groups and two minor factions. and if the new player group want to expand, the existing player group would help them to expand.

2. The second player group, decides to try and take the system by force, and then work on expanding their faction, which could work, if they are the stronger player group, but if the other player group decide to fight against this, they can put a spanner or two in their plans to get to expansion, and blocking the other player group from expanding... so ALOT effort could be wasted to gain nothing...

3. The existing player group, gives up and move to a new system.

4. The new player group, gives up and move to a new system. And they are less likely to be granted to get a second minor faction?

5. Both groups exists and the status quo is maintained, there is no real power struggle, and the new player group is stuck from expanding...



So for the most part, it would a terrible situation to be the new player group in such a system, and the dreams and ideas they had, all the role playing they might have envisioned, and then they learned that Frontier allowed to them to place their minor faction in system, that have is the home system for player supported minor faction.
I do realise that another player supported minor faction might invade your home system and take it over, but that is a different situation and hopefully, you have managed to expand, and can atleast continue try to expand your minor away from the the other player group. Here, you start in a system already controlled by another player group... and could thus be stuck before you even get to try to expand.





Situation (the drama that prompted this post)
I am the cranky one here, who belong to the player group that was first in the system, so I have first seat row on how this can turn out with having a new player faction land in your home system. So it took the other group quite some time to realise that they where not alone in this system, so they initiated "talks", and after some questions if we would be willing to support their minor faction that we respectfully declined with the argument, we like our minor faction, then the direction of the "talks" quickly went something like this:

New players: Give up your system, Frontier gave this system to us, and we will help you settle elsewhere, OR we bring in over 100 friends to destroy your minor faction and forces it to retreat back to your home system.

As you can imagine the "talks" quickly broke down from there... I get that they are frustrated, and I think this is a situation that Frontier have created out of lazyness. And we are adjusting to having another player group living in our home system, and they are grinding their teeth on their bad luck in ending up with us... There is no winner here.. and I fully understand that the other player group is in a really tough spot, and that they might never get to expand to another system if we work against that.




What could be improved on
As player groups can pledge support to ANY minor faction, Frontier knows which minor faction have player support. so whenever a player group want to request a minor faction, they could get alerted that they chosen system is in control of a player supported minor faction. are you sure you wish to choose this system? That is the bare minimum to help players pick a "clean" system, that should allow them to be grown their faction without to much opposition from other player. This would also make the one time choice Squadrons can do on what minor faction they support to actually mean something!

And to improve of this, is to also alert if the choose system with a player supported minor faction also is the home system of that minor faction.

So this could be presented with two lines:
Player supported minor faction in control=Yes
Player supported minor faction home system=No

And then ask for confirmation if any of these two lines shows "Yes". Now the new player group can choose a new home system without pre-existing player supported minor factions, or be ready to face opposition from the start...or do their homework and find out if the supported player group are active/inactive etc.


Then to complete this, is my suggestion I made that would allow minor factions to expand via a secondary expansion mechanism, so you would have another option expand, without actually having to combat the controlling faction for influence. And this would also make it easier if your faction finds itself only located in systems taken over by other player minor factions, as you would still have the option to work and expand your minor faction, without having to fight for control with other and most likely stronger player groups. So strong playergroups get to have control of many systems, and smaller/weaker player groups can still play the BGS game and do their thing, and "accept" that they will loose control if a stronger player group takes control over their system, so they can make a choice to try and fight or simple move and and try to expand to new systems they can take control over.


Sorry for all the ramblings, but I just think the current situation and past history regarding minor factions is just terrible and Frontier Support are dodging every questions about this...

 

[goemon]

i somehow have the urge to straighten out some things.

• having a player groups minor faction ingame entitles you to exactly nothing. and you also can do as you please.
• there is no entitlement to system control (quite some, even active, player groups have minor factions not in control of their homesystem)
• there is no entitlement to expand.
• pledging your squadron to a minor faction entitles you to nothing.
• any system is any players one or none.
• the only exception to the above is restriction of putting another player groups minor faction into a system with another player groups minor faction present, or an officially adopted one (which is not possible anymore).
• all the rest of player groups politics, which is interesting and worthwile in itself, is in no way part of the backgroundsimulation.

(that might read harsh, but i'm talking from the perspective of somebody who has been forced/takenover by 2 player groups 2 times, the second time by a player group placed into my homesystem and testing grouds, after they picked up the system from these very forums - i'm playing with those happily these days, as any good colonized native!)

as for your two suggestion:
1.
- player groups already have a problem finding a spot for their home system. adding "squadron backed minor factions" to that list would restrict the available systems even more.
-some player groups players are part of very different squadrons (for exampel, explorers of a player group might sport their own squadron for additional bookmarks). i foresee player groups filling spots around their minor faction by pledging alt accounts squadrons to minor factions to fend off player groups

2.
- if somebody wants to expand, they need 75% influence. not sure why to change that for an alternate process? it's not like you need to expand a faction to back it, or as you are entitled to expansion.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Politics is a dirty business
There's no guarantee that everyone gets to build their sandcastles in peace. The tide of change can come along at any time and wash it all away. At the end of the day, you only get to keep control of systems by luck, force or agreement.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Politics is a dirty business
There's no guarantee that everyone gets to build their sandcastles in peace. The tide of change can come along at any time and wash it all away. At the end of the day, you only get to keep control of systems by luck, force or agreement.

True, but before flinging players out in the deep end of the pool at random, perhaps give them little heads up on what might be ahead of them. and also allow for more diversity for smaller/weaker groups to thrive and have something to work for, despite them ended up in location where there is a big player group doing their things.

 

[goemon]

True, but before flinging players out in the deep end of the pool at random, perhaps give them little heads up on what might be ahead of them. and also allow for more diversity for smaller/weaker groups to thrive and have something to work for, despite them ended up in location where there is a big player group doing their things.

the truth is, most player factions do their reserach after having their minor factions added.
recent exampels:

• requesting their minor faction to be added to a rare goods system for the rare good type, while their goverment is blocking the rare good.
• requesting their minor faction being added to a powerplay bubble, and afterwards finding out, their goverment type is opposed by the powerplay commanders.
• requesting their minor faction being added to a system without system in expansion range and later wondering why they don't expand.
• not checking into the traffic report (the most usefull report...), bounty report and crimes report before requesting that system.
• requesting their minor faction being added in expansion range of another active player group minor faction, and wonder why they are kept from expanding.

all of that could come with some warning, could be disallowed automatically - or, as it is, your pick, your responsibility to do the research or deal with the situation. both can be fun.

 

[Rebel Yell]

KILL'EM ALL.

 

[Misty_Dark]

the truth is, most player factions do their reserach after having their minor factions added.
recent exampels:

• requesting their minor faction to be added to a rare goods system for the rare good type, while their goverment is blocking the rare good.
• requesting their minor faction being added to a powerplay bubble, and afterwards finding out, their goverment type is opposed by the powerplay commanders.
• requesting their minor faction being added to a system without system in expansion range and later wondering why they don't expand.
• not checking into the traffic report (the most usefull report...), bounty report and crimes report before requesting that system.
• requesting their minor faction being added in expansion range of another active player group minor faction, and wonder why they are kept from expanding.

all of that could come with some warning, could be disallowed automatically - or, as it is, your pick, your responsibility to do the research or deal with the situation. both can be fun.

The BGS is quite complicated as is for most players, so when, especially smaller player groups, decides to do something they are likely only doing once, that process could do with some more guidance, before they press the big commit button, so if they pay attention, they wait on pushing commit button, and check out what they where alerted about and look those things up.


I am not trying to make it harder, I just want to make it easier for players to avoid ending up in a bad situation form the start, what happens later is a totally different story and the bigger/better player group take the system from you. but atleast you had some time "alone" to try to work your faction and try to expand it before that happens...


and am I not so sure that many player groups do that much research before selecting a new home system for their minor faction, or even thinking about checking even half of the very useful things you pointed out.

Since we cannot add as many minor factions as we like, lets try to make it easier for player to place their mior factions in a better starting position, so that they can enjoy their minor a bit before the harsh reality of that 500+ player group expanding into their little corner of space comes crashing down and breaks the spirit of that player group. And we there would be options to co-exists with the big players without actually having to compete with them and still be able to expand etc, that would not make it that bad if a big player faction ran over your systems. Basically we can let the big boys and girls to compete over dominance and then the smaller bouys and girls can play alongside them and do their thing and still expanding their minor faction, without causing any problems, now if that was possible, loosing control of their home system would not be as bad as it is today, where you could get stuck and unable to work with your faction.
Anyway, I am just trying allow more people to enjoy BGS in various ways, and where you place your home system can be a big part of that, so if we can make that part better, then my hope is that more player can enjoy it more.

 

[goemon]

what is your suggestion to counter an expansion with the assumed mechanism of "you don*t need 75% influence" to do so?

 

[goemon]

and unable to work with your faction.

how does a faction not expanding bars you from working for/with them? you can bring them into favourable states, you can win that hospice in system ... and i know some player groups (beside those who don't care) creating a lot of gameplay by fighting a lost cause, resist the overwhelming massacre-mission-farmers, being the PITA for some highnose. one thing you'll always have is 1 faction that can't be retreated from 1 system (no matter whether that is a generic npc faction or a player groups minor faction). and as attacking is easier than defending, and all bgs conflicts are wars of attrition, if not endedout of game, a large group would be well advised to find a compromise.

I'd also argue that most player groups that can't stomach the hardships of BGS (whether that hardship for them is a compromise, or a lost station/system) are most likely not the player groups which will play the BGS long term. You might be placed in a nice and perfect system, but the next system you get to has all those problems you might have avoided by luck or research.

A squadron is in a better place for that - at least it can be disbanded and reformed to move somewhere else.

 

[RisingPhoenics]

From what I understand, unless you have a top 3 leaderboard medal, you can make replacement squadrons with no real losses. If you change your mind on which Minor Faction your squadron will support, you can just make a new squadron and delete the old one, or, at worst, it becomes an empty squadron with no tangible effect on gameplay. It will annoy some data miners on sites like Inara perhaps though?

With a player minor faction though it's in the game permanently. I play on Xbox one. The way games work there is any gamertag can play ED on my home console and I can play ED on anyone else's console. Provided that it's on my specific console, I could have, I dunno, 1000 alt accounts using the same bought once copy of the game. And if it were moved to a system of squadron supported NPC minor factions count as systems inhabited by players and thus blocking a PMF spawning there, then you could pretty much create a wide barrier around you and prevent expansion into ""your" territory. That would then mean that a worryingly large, disproportionate number of systems would be "owned" by a few players, using relatively less legitimate means.
Frankly it spits in the face of those that worked hard for the last few years and kept the game alive.

One of the things I've loved about the game is the level of in depth realism relative to other games. It doesn't hold your hand, you're left to fend for yourself. If you jump into a system and run out of fuel.... well you chose to do that. Don't get me wrong, I've made a few stupid mistakes over the years and thought eugh why did I do that? But I don't blame the game at all, in fact, that kinda thing helps me immerse deeper. Unlike many other games I can't just press A and respawn a few feet away with no penalties.

Much like with real life, you need to know what you're doing before you do it. I've known ppl to buy a house and not realise it's under a flight path despite being next to a huge international airport. It's incumbent on the buyer, to research the things that will be important to them, and not make assumptions. Our player group has been playing since...I think 2017? Properly since 2018. We wanted a player minor faction from the beginning, and we spent a lot of time thinking about, what would we do with it, how would we run it, what would we want from it, where would be good and bad. We spent a few months researching places, and started the process of applying back in October. Got approved only a week ago. So, 2 years of research and there's still things we won't know. We have no guarantees of how successful we'll be. We know it'll be tough at times, and need a fair bit of work. I'm hoping that our research and getting prepared will pay off, but that's not a guarantee, and we're at peace with that. It was our decision to apply after all.

Our squadron was based in a quiet system right near Sol, good location, lot of things in outfitting and shipyard. Took us a long while to realise the controlling minor faction was a player one in fact. We have moved now a good few hundred light years away.

I'm not at all saying the squadron or minor faction system is perfect. I'd be open to alterations to it certainly. I just think the idea of reserving a system because one group plays there currently, is problematic. After all, what's to say there wasn't a squadron in that system before you were?

In real world geopolitical history, most countries have an independence day, so most territory was previously claimed by someone else. Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Spanish Empire, British Empire. In many cases, through military conquest, or colonisation despite a population already being there. I don't really want to get in to the politics of that stuff, but, in the real world, they've had, and still have, wars and skirmishes over territory they both claim using different criteria from each other to back up their claim. The population changes over time, migrations etc. At times, who has a right to a territory is down to what one YouTuber calls bigger army diplomacy.

With our previous home, we worked out the controlling player faction was in 4 systems. And the influence had pretty much remained static for a year. The traffic report only really logged our ships. In a 3 month period, we worked out that 90% of player traffic was our player group and that was 6 players at the time. It was the home system of the Player Minor Faction, so, one could argue since we were the ones actually playing there, that that should be our system not theirs. But, they took over the system before we arrived, they got it to where it was, and we just maintained a status quo. We kept out of wars as didn't wanna mess things up for others or be seen as a target.

Ultimately, a PMF gets what it puts in. And even then, circumstances beyond our control might mess things up. Maybe your main station gets hit by Thargoids and it hampers your plans and others expand into territory you were eyeing up. It happens

As for Inter player group diplomacy, nobody is obliged to do that. They might be roleplaying as a pirate group. Or roleplaying with Powerplay. You can make suggestions sure. But they don't have to accept them. Ideally a middle ground can be reached, but a squadron can be anywhere. It's a group of players. A player minor faction is more restricted in the fact that they are only in a small number of systems. Half the PMFs are only in 1 system.

I hope that didn't come across as rude. Not my intention at all. But we have to go by the restrictions of the game currently regarding this. I'm not sure what solution for dormant player minor factions could be, or for squadron supported NPC minor factions either. I just don't think this idea would work as it's open to abuse and winding up a lot of folks

 

[Misty_Dark]

what is your suggestion to counter an expansion with the assumed mechanism of "you don*t need 75% influence" to do so?

I made it here:

Another mechanism to expand a minor faction

The suggestion Allow another mechanic for a minor faction to be able to expand. based on an expansion meter. you are doing stuff for you minor faction and that builds on your expansion meter, once this reaches a threshold, for example 50%, the only way to progress this meter would be to do a new...

forums.frontier.co.uk

And to counter it would be push the influence level that blocks the alternative expansion mechanism.

 

[Misty_Dark]

From what I understand, unless you have a top 3 leaderboard medal, you can make replacement squadrons with no real losses. If you change your mind on which Minor Faction your squadron will support, you can just make a new squadron and delete the old one, or, at worst, it becomes an empty squadron with no tangible effect on gameplay. It will annoy some data miners on sites like Inara perhaps though?

With a player minor faction though it's in the game permanently. I play on Xbox one. The way games work there is any gamertag can play ED on my home console and I can play ED on anyone else's console. Provided that it's on my specific console, I could have, I dunno, 1000 alt accounts using the same bought once copy of the game. And if it were moved to a system of squadron supported NPC minor factions count as systems inhabited by players and thus blocking a PMF spawning there, then you could pretty much create a wide barrier around you and prevent expansion into ""your" territory. That would then mean that a worryingly large, disproportionate number of systems would be "owned" by a few players, using relatively less legitimate means.
Frankly it spits in the face of those that worked hard for the last few years and kept the game alive.

One of the things I've loved about the game is the level of in depth realism relative to other games. It doesn't hold your hand, you're left to fend for yourself. If you jump into a system and run out of fuel.... well you chose to do that. Don't get me wrong, I've made a few stupid mistakes over the years and thought eugh why did I do that? But I don't blame the game at all, in fact, that kinda thing helps me immerse deeper. Unlike many other games I can't just press A and respawn a few feet away with no penalties.

Much like with real life, you need to know what you're doing before you do it. I've known ppl to buy a house and not realise it's under a flight path despite being next to a huge international airport. It's incumbent on the buyer, to research the things that will be important to them, and not make assumptions. Our player group has been playing since...I think 2017? Properly since 2018. We wanted a player minor faction from the beginning, and we spent a lot of time thinking about, what would we do with it, how would we run it, what would we want from it, where would be good and bad. We spent a few months researching places, and started the process of applying back in October. Got approved only a week ago. So, 2 years of research and there's still things we won't know. We have no guarantees of how successful we'll be. We know it'll be tough at times, and need a fair bit of work. I'm hoping that our research and getting prepared will pay off, but that's not a guarantee, and we're at peace with that. It was our decision to apply after all.

Our squadron was based in a quiet system right near Sol, good location, lot of things in outfitting and shipyard. Took us a long while to realise the controlling minor faction was a player one in fact. We have moved now a good few hundred light years away.

I'm not at all saying the squadron or minor faction system is perfect. I'd be open to alterations to it certainly. I just think the idea of reserving a system because one group plays there currently, is problematic. After all, what's to say there wasn't a squadron in that system before you were?

In real world geopolitical history, most countries have an independence day, so most territory was previously claimed by someone else. Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Spanish Empire, British Empire. In many cases, through military conquest, or colonisation despite a population already being there. I don't really want to get in to the politics of that stuff, but, in the real world, they've had, and still have, wars and skirmishes over territory they both claim using different criteria from each other to back up their claim. The population changes over time, migrations etc. At times, who has a right to a territory is down to what one YouTuber calls bigger army diplomacy.

With our previous home, we worked out the controlling player faction was in 4 systems. And the influence had pretty much remained static for a year. The traffic report only really logged our ships. In a 3 month period, we worked out that 90% of player traffic was our player group and that was 6 players at the time. It was the home system of the Player Minor Faction, so, one could argue since we were the ones actually playing there, that that should be our system not theirs. But, they took over the system before we arrived, they got it to where it was, and we just maintained a status quo. We kept out of wars as didn't wanna mess things up for others or be seen as a target.

Ultimately, a PMF gets what it puts in. And even then, circumstances beyond our control might mess things up. Maybe your main station gets hit by Thargoids and it hampers your plans and others expand into territory you were eyeing up. It happens

As for Inter player group diplomacy, nobody is obliged to do that. They might be roleplaying as a pirate group. Or roleplaying with Powerplay. You can make suggestions sure. But they don't have to accept them. Ideally a middle ground can be reached, but a squadron can be anywhere. It's a group of players. A player minor faction is more restricted in the fact that they are only in a small number of systems. Half the PMFs are only in 1 system.

I hope that didn't come across as rude. Not my intention at all. But we have to go by the restrictions of the game currently regarding this. I'm not sure what solution for dormant player minor factions could be, or for squadron supported NPC minor factions either. I just don't think this idea would work as it's open to abuse and winding up a lot of folks

I think you have misunderstood the whole point here. I am not trying to block anything, I am trying to avoid placing players minor faction in potential bad starting positions. as long as you are accepting that there is already a player supported minor faction there, go ahead, but what is problematic, is that if you ended up with your new minor faction in a system that already had a player supported minor faction in control, you could now be stuck there, and if the other player group is stronger than your group, then you coudl get stuck in that system for a really long time, that would be bad for player experience, and sure, you can move to another sytem, but what about all that work about the name, the story etc, of your minor faction? it is gone, it is permanent stuck in that other system, and you need to have some really good arguments to get a seconds minor faction... and if that fails too, then you are unlikely to get a 3rd one!




And you example of you creating hundreds of accounts and then creating one squadron for each of those, well that would not really do anything as it would not really block anything. I have not read about this in the TOS, but I woudl suspect that this would fall under some bad behviour at FDevs own judgement, so if yhey spot you doing this, and then they can decide what todo about it. So at best you would not get any new active player supported factions as new neighbours, but it woudl do nothging to stop anytone to expand into your "bubble",m and also pretty sure, that once other playters found out what you did, they toss you into the same group of players using bots and other shady stuff to get an edge here...


Nowhere have I said that player diplomacy should be any sorts of requirement.

 

[RisingPhoenics]

I didn't say I did that, nor that I condone it.

What I'm saying is that a squadron can disappear. It can cease to exist. A player minor faction cannot. A squadron can disband and immediately reform and choose another system. A player minor faction cannot be disbanded at all.

I'm not saying that a squadron SHOULD do that. But the fact remains that they're only anchored by their own personal preference. A player minor faction is anchored to their home system. A huge 500+ player minor faction could come and swallow the territory of either.
But a player minor faction is stuck there. They can't relocate. A squadron can. They might not WANT to. But they have that ability, and a player minor faction doesn't.

We were based in a system for 2 years, and now we have had to leave all that work behind now we have a PMF. It was pretty quiet there and we all have high reputations with that area still. Does it suck? To us, no. To other player groups, sure maybe. Sometimes that's just life though. For example I'm on Xbox and Odyssey will be delayed for us. Meaning the systems I discovered and mapped, I might not get a hat trick of first landed, as others may get there before me. It doesn't stop me enjoying the game though. It's just one of those ""that's a shame" situations.
I know it's not the same as real life but their is the concept of terra nullis. Walking on an island isn't the same as claiming it.

One possible route that those with a player supported NPC minor faction could do, is apply for a player minor faction, and then control the handover, in essence, give "yourself" the systems assets through "losing" wars to your new player minor faction. In essence switch one for the other.

Many of us will play in a variety of ways. Some roleplay a lot harder than others. Some just wander around. Both are valid. But, if one chooses to play the game a certain way, for their own enjoyment, like, never buying fuel etc only scooping, or never smuggling or never attacking ships of certain classes, that's their choice, and they're restricting themselves, not the game. I'm not at all criticising them, if it makes them happy, by all means, go ahead. I know someone who is a big Empire roleplayer, and never fires on any Empire design ship, or Empire faction ship, Player or NPC. That means that bounty hunting can be harder at times, and that with their own adopted minor faction, they're gonna be relying on friends to stop them losing wars. But that's how they wanna play. It isn't what I would do but I'm not them.
I don't understand why the game would need to decide what is a good system for your faction, given that we will have a variety of needs. The game doesn't say "careful, those weapons will overheat your ship", or "make sure you check for x y and z". There is no path it lays out for you, at all. Aside I guess from unlocking engineers but even then that's ultimately optional. It took me a while to get used to the lack of hand holding in this game. I had to really learn a lot. Still learning a lot. But that's part of the charm in my opinion. The game let's you make bad choices. And it has consequences for those bad choices. It's one of the few games where I feel more like I'm in the game instead of on my sofa.

I'll agree that they could have more info on things to consider during the process. A section that says like, think about economies, traffic, proximity to other groups etc. But then, some of those player minor factions could be dead, and so that wouldn't apply. One PMF has 5 systems, is in 11 systems, and has been in decline in all since October. Dropped 10 to 30% influence in all, at steady rate. Minimal traffic too. Much like with real life that you can get married at say, 16-18, even if it's a bad idea, you can also make decisions in this game that Also have long term consequences. A friend spent a lot of money saving up, getting and kitting out a corvette, spent 1 billion, sold most of his stuff to do it, and then flew it and got blown up by a star because he forgot heat sink launcher, and didn't have rebuy costs. It sucks, I was gutted for him, but, he chose to fly without money for rebuy. I've had to do I think 19 rebuys, and I'd say most were my fault. Biting off more than I could chew, not paying attention, falling asleep, forgetting to equip things. Let's just say those big mistakes really stuck with me and don't make them again. I know you can't try again with applying for PMF exactly, but, concept is still valid. If you are asking to be permanently placed in the game for eternity, and they say they won't alter things once you apply, it's your responsibility to ensure that you ask about what to do.
And without wanting to seem harsh, but the Player Minor Faction mechanic has been up for a while, and the requirements are explicitly stated in the forum and official website. The number of candidate systems is going down by about 1 per day on average, with about 300 PMFs added per year. If a group has an attachment to a system they need to apply asap before others do.

I will add, I don't agree with their sentiment of, Frontier put us here, this is our system, you have to leave. Frontier put them there yes. But it isn't their system. Not until they control it. And they can lose control too. You don't have to leave just because they want you to. Neither party is entitled to the system.

Looking at it from their perspective, they picked a valid legitimate choice via the developer, and I'm assuming on things like Inara it wouldn't say it's looked after by a player group. They can't relocate to another system. They can't apply again. They can't be moved elsewhere by Frontier. Even if they wanted to let you have that system, and they go elsewhere, they need 75% influence to expand. If it's a full system of 8 factions, that's an average of 3% for the other 7 factions each. If your player supported NPC minor faction has say, 3 controlled systems, then losing one to let them escape and taking it back, would just mean they're on your doorstep and not going away, and you'd be overlapping territory. In which case, either it would be a lot of wars against them, some kinda treaty to coexist with some rules, having them constantly attacking as they're stuck and have nothing to lose, or relocation. They have far less options available, one of which is just give up and not play anymore which really doesn't benefit the community.

I'm not saying this doesn't need addressing. Both sides have a situation that sucks. They have fight, coexist, quit. And they might not be happy coexisting if they're imprisoned in one system.

How you go about it, is up to you, and how they respond is up to them. How you respond to them is up to you.

The expansion meter idea has flaws. It'll just hasten the reduction of viable PMF starter systems. If you need less to expand, then systems will fill up, and then there won't be any free slots to expand into, let alone start your PMF in. It also would be kinda odd for the BGS and style. Why would you be able to expand into another system at say 50% but others have to wait to 75%. Any changes to the mechanics would need to ensure that the life expectancy of being full, isn't brought forward. Odyssey could be a good way to change things. Now that Horizons is free, and Odyssey has more landable planets coming, they could have a lot more systems to pick from. If I recall, only 1 in 3 systems in the Core Systems bubble is inhabited, a lot of them just have a few lonely icy bodies usually around a brown dwarf.

Perhaps that could be a way to resolve the issues with the concept as a whole? Filling in the gaps in the bubble. Might help with power play a bit too, as the independent Powerplay folks systems are usually surrounded by uninhabited systems, make it more dynamic that way?

 

[RisingPhoenics]

The other thing is, to an extent, a squadron doesn't really get you much. A group of shared bookmarks, and leaderboard ranking system. Adding squadrons in didn't really change gameplay. There's no squadrons content, missions, modules, etc

I can wing up with, or be in private session, with anyone regardless of squadron. I mean hell, forthe first year of our squadron, we didn't even base ourselves near each other. One was by Cubeo, I was in Procyon, one up by Alioth. One by Maia.

 

[Misty_Dark]

I am not following here.

I am trying to bring a solution to a problem I have encountered in the game, and this is from our experience, and I can see the problem from both perspectives in our case, and my first thought was, this will probably not end well, we are not very keen in changing allegiance, and what are the odds of the new group want to change theirs? they went through with all the work to apply for their minor faction and made a lousy pick for a system. I am sure they where hyped on what they wanted todo, as I know I would have been, if I where in their shoes. and then realise, that the system they picked was already home for annother player group, what how did this happen, etc. I do not blame them, it is easy to miss, but Frontier, could have given them a heads up, to atleast give them an option to reconsider this system, instead of here you go, and now they are stuck. so they could have a "clean" system to work with their minor faction.


That is why I am suggesting that Frontier should atleast alert player about stuff like this, and obviously a few other things mentioned, as there is no undo on requesting a minor faction. that is also why I suggested an alternative method to expand a minor faction without having to disrupt the controlling faction. All this to allow more players to enjoy and working with their minor faction, it is a great feeling the first time you see your faction expand to a new system! I do not want to deny anyone that feeling, it is less fun to see one of the bigger player groups gobble up your systems ,you have worked hard for.. and being a small player group there is nothing you can really do.


All I am after is to make this more accessible to more players, without blocking any existing stuff. I still think that the player group that picked our system was real unlucky and the main fault here is Frontiers. As they already block you from selecting a home system for your minor faction that already have a player minor faction in it...they do it in one instance, but not another...


what would you do if you missed all the signs, and placed your minor faction in our home system? and lets assume that we are equally strong...so you cannot brute force your way to 75% influence, as would put in equal amount of work to stop you.


did you even bother reading my alternate expansion option? you would still have to work it, doing specific expansion missions. there should be alot of work involved. but it would have been an alternative, and allow people to better coexist without always creating a conflict... and how does that reduce the number of possible starter systems?the presence of a PMF in a system does not reduce it as a potential system for a new PMF

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's going to need some sort of radical change soon, since 75% of systems have at least one PMF present, and it can probably be assumed that there's some reason - be that Powerplay or a supported NPC faction or one of the formal ineligibility rules - why most of the others don't yet. Probably only two years before space runs out entirely...

 

[goemon]

what would you do if you missed all the signs, and placed your minor faction in our home system?

i would:

• approach you to talk about the problem.
• suggest you, that we will expand your faction from another system to another system, before changing ownership of the system in question.
• split up the system in question, so our faction gains control and 75% to expand, and you keep a station to manage influence more easily.
• propose a treaty to work the BGS together if this works nicely.

alternatively i'd ask you, what your suggestion is how to deal with the situation.
the opposite approach

• you expand our faction from system in question
• we help to reestablish your system control after expansion

would be also okay, but will have to have a few more afterthoughts.

beside that, i'd always be ready for a fullout conflict. if we have the numbers, and you don't, and you don't comply with any of the two suggestions above, i'd attack all systems you are in, until you get back to senses to find a compromise. if we don't have the numbers, i'll focus on being maximum destructive until you get back to senses to find a compromise.

it's a very basic variance of ti-for-tat or reciprocal altruism, which is successfull in a lot of games and biology.

unfortunately, in a a // b // a and b // neither a nor b -matrix, the last option isn't really given, as a player groups minor faction can not retreat from their home - but of course there is also the option to make the system in question a neutral ground (moving it to a third parties control together after moving both factions out of system).

 

[Kryxix]

It's going to need some sort of radical change soon, since 75% of systems have at least one PMF present, and it can probably be assumed that there's some reason - be that Powerplay or a supported NPC faction or one of the formal ineligibility rules - why most of the others don't yet. Probably only two years before space runs out entirely...

After a definition of "inactive player faction" those could be forced to a Retreat state. Then its still time to rescue those factions representatives in some systems (but not all).

Other way is to blast powerplay, with slicing up the strongest powers, f.e. a new "Kaine" can be an Alliance Aisling with a support not on corporates, but social factions. This way some systems would be flipped instantly to make fortification penalties and controller factions have to let others in control if PP want to keep its stregnth.That could work on other strong powers ofc, can bring in new strategies and colour into long "stoned" regions.

A limitation of non-player factions to only allow to have representatives in a maximalized numbers of systems, to avoid second line "adopted" defense factions supports, whats confusing new players ingame now. The same would go on player faction goups: we dont need 100+ system controlling supergiants blocking new independent factions to appear just to be a diplomatic servant forever.

Expansion would be slower for large factions (1-2 months), and faster for small factions (f.e. ~4 day). Expansion time would depend on the size of a faction. Expansions would start at 80%, not 75% and additionally based on economy bar level, not security happiness (missions, trading, explo charts vs. bounties).

Etc, etc.

 

[goemon]

we dont need 100+ system controlling supergiants blocking new independent factions to appear

please push for this change in the next 13 months!

 

[goemon]

but yes, on a more serious note it needs some mechanic to disband inactive player group factions as promised at beginning, if the rule "no player groups faction inserted into a system with a player groups faction pesent" should go on.