Correct me if I'm wrong, but that wouldn't include Witchhead, right?
The Bubble isn’t Big Enough Anymore for Hardcore BGS Players
- Thread starter Zetoraki
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- player factions
I believe witch head is off limits to new player factions anyway but yes witch head is completely dominated by multiple bgs specific squadrons either supporting player factions or supporting the npc factions already in the game
Unless you can prove and find a spot that isn’t
I just got confused because you said 300ly, and WH is 700-800ly away. There is also the California Nebula, but it's pretty sparse so I don't see players willingly setting up shop there even if it was free.
If I could I would pick a system on the opposite side of the galaxy. Sadly uninhabited systems are not possible and inhabiting an uninhabited system isn’t possible either
which are the squadrons you are referring to by name? those well organised, hardcore bgs squadrons?
if you are talking about the pleiades, i can imagine it is dense of players and player groups from what i see. but at least about one of those groups i can say, they are not the slightest hardcore BGS players (but an anti-xeno group). there is another, which is a very longstanding BGS group (the only one actually expanding to the pleiades instead of being put in). also there was recently a new group added in the pleiades, which took the weird way of requesting a system without another system to expand from or to.
your picture of what causes the situation in the pleiades is imho wrong. and it leads imho to the wrong conclusions. i mean - i could pick up an independent faction in sol region, and start working for it, and wouldn't have the slightest effect - for the sheer number of random pro-fed players there. those are not "hardcore BGS squadrons", but simply the effect of a lot of traffic, and a lot of players backing feds...
but as soon as you move a bit away from those famous locations, or move to the edges not in direction of the lore-rich systems, you can have a minor faction and work it to your liking quite easily.
Would that group happen to be in support of the Alliance? I know that Alliance players pushed every other faction out of the Pleiades, so logical I'm assuming it's that BGS group you are referring to that did it.
Poke around first to see if they are really that strong and if not make space for your chosen faction. There are "big" groups with lots of systems that barely know how the bgs works and somebody motivated and knowledgeable can dismantle them easily. On the opposite end there are "small" groups you don't want to cross as they will play real hardcore bgs with you. Faction size doesn't mean anything.
that would be witchhead, not pleiades afaik
So the Alliance always controlled all the Pleiades?
Doesn't look like it. Mostly independent groups there. You can't expand from the Pleiades to the Witchhead or the opposite way.
Witchhead was a CG there all 3 powers established systems and factions. After it was over the Alliance took over all systems bar one.
Either I'm remembering wrong, or the Pleiades got flipped back.
Nah. There's a few big BGS groups, but they're far from ubiquitous.
I'm gonna drop a copypasta from the time I was discussing this in discord the other day.
Generally speaking from what I've seen, active PMFs in elite fall into the following broad categories:
1 - the big boys.
These are your Celestial Light Brigades, your Lavigny's Legions, your EXOs, your SIMBADs. Big groups with a lot of territory, a lot of players, often powerplay aligned. Typically not the people small groups have to worry about since honestly the odd system here or there isn't worth their time. They didn't get to be where they are by ing off their neighbours, and while they could just march in and steamroll a smaller group if they wanted, it'd be more effort than to just go around them, not to mention the PR implications. That's not to say they'll just sit there and take it if you go after them though.
2 - the wannabe empire-builders.
Usually a medium-sized group with big ideas. They spring up fairly often in the low traffic areas and have a habit of grabbing territory, wanting to be big names and hold lots of turf. Often think they're bigger fish than they actually are and tend to just try and steamroll groups that they think are smaller than them. Sometimes those groups are not actually smaller than them, and that's where the fun begins.
3 - the family/friend groups.
Small to medium groups with moderate territory. They generally don't bother with a big empire, usually happy to just have their home system, maybe a couple of others for prestige's sake, maybe grab the nearby bounty hunting system if their home isn't good for it. Tend to play well with neighbours where they can, since they're just wanting to maintain their little garden. Tend to be to wannabe empire builders what a period is to a sentence, as that "little group with only a tenth of the territory" turns out to have four times the manpower.
4 - the vanity project.
Really, these guys just wanted to put their pin on the map. Usually created before squadrons and carriers, these days they'd just get one of those. Might be active? Maybe?
great list for reference!
i'd add a 5 to it, because i think that's another type:
5 - the special interest group gone large
Large groups with a community behind them around something else, which also have a groups minor faction ingame, but are not BGS focussed. Exampels would be Hutton Truckers, Fuel Rats, Canonn, Teabaggers, Buckyball Racing Club, Interplanetary Exploration, Eastindia Company et others - Code used to be such a group as well. many of the regional/national-themed groups like Brazilian League of Pilots and Chinese Wing of Elite, or the Winged Hussars fall under the same category. They will build an empire over time due to some very active, and a lot of active, but not bgs focussed members, but are unlikely to stomp a small group, as their ethos is inclusive, doesn't care about the BGS or their broad variety of members think everybody should play the game they like. (that said, you probably want to avoid attacking them, as i don't think you want to get into a data-courier-mission-contest with the buckyball racing club, or a trade war with the truckers...)
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It'll be longer than that ... but it is definitely coming.
Currently:
approximately 20450 inhabited systems in the bubble
approximately 15000 have at least one PMF present
other exceptions (permits, lore, etc) <<1000 systems
So there's about 5000 left where a PMF could be added. Many of them wouldn't provide much chance of growth ... but a PMF could (and probably will) still go there eventually.
The rate of growth in "at least one PMF present" has been about 2500 systems/year fairly consistently since the start, so about two years before the space finally runs out, assuming no changes in either policy or bubble size from Frontier.
Then what? No-one knows, possibly including Frontier.
There was some sort of agreement where the Alliance groups gave it back or some of it. Not sure of the details.
I knew I wasn't crazy. But I am surprised they gave stuff back, given their seemingly insatiable appetite to turn things green.
The Pilot just made a "burn the Bubble" video and yeah, I agree with those points and those of the OP. There's so much potential the game is missing out on because there's only one "Bubble". Then there's just Colonia. There's no way we can form our own Bubbles or expand existing ones etc etc. There's just....billions of star systems of nothing with nothing to do in them. That's it.
Blaze our own trail? Hmmm, it's feeling like less and less of that the more I play.
Blaze our own trail? Hmmm, it's feeling like less and less of that the more I play.
it is still NOT the pleiades, but witchhead.
But WH is all green, I checked.