The Lugh System Experiment...continues.

[Roybe]

Please do not use this thread as a discussion document. This thread will be a direction document for investigations into the influence system. Please utilize this thread to add to the discussion:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=71699&page=60

Questions. Questions. Let's see if we can work out some answers! Scientific method needs peer reviewed reports! Utilize this thread to generate a hypothesis and then go and experiment. Utilize this thread as a test bed. I will update the knowns and the unkowns as they are asked and answered.

If you come up with an answer, post the answer with supporting documentation. Narratives are fine, but if they cannot be documented with screenshots MUST be supported by 3 other narratives that are identical to be considered approved.


A glossary (Term: Definition. Known Outcome) this will take experimentation (I have found some information by the devs here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6305)

Entity- Lowest unit that the Background Simulation applies (either system or stations=world population)

Civil Unrest-Internal Conflict with no other named entity
Lockdown-
Economic Boom-Upsurge in economy
Economic Bust-Downturn in economy
Civil War- INTERNAL civil war (Note: would be called WAR if between named entities) (NOTE 1: This might have changed from the original document)
Expansion-Shows a readiness for the listed faction to spread to a new system
Threat of war-Preparing for war with other named entity
War- Entitiy at war with other entity
Famine- Lack of enough food to support planetary needs
Drought- Water production reduced
Outbreak- Disease spreading throughout




What we know (facts from doing said item):
In system trade missions affect the giving factions influence and the station recieving the goods influence.

Trading in system with only one group increases their faction.
Doing missions successfully for only one group increases their faction.
Factions can be brought to the brink of civil war.

We think we know:
Taking missions for opposing and failing them drives down their faction
Trading with opposing factions increases their faction %
Changes in 'civil unrest', etc. are applied to populations of planets.

What we are testing:
Is system ownership fixed forever or can be changed without devs intervention?
How economic boom or bust affects influence?
Players can foment a civil war between factions
Courier missions can spread influence

What has been 'hinted' at by other sources:

Player trading has an important effect on the civil war 'switch'.


What we need to discover:
How much can in system Faction influence be changed?
How much In system Faction is available for manipulation?
Faction listing on the screen 0%, why?
How does influence spread? Does it? Does it only do this for a certain faction/station or does it spread around. Should we work with only one faction in each system to expand.

How nuanced is this system? Not sure how to measure this, I know there are smarter people than me that can help test this out! ;P

 

[Raf von Thorn]

We definitely NEED some definitions released. What IS faction influence? How economic boom or bust affect commodity market prices? Is system ownership fixed forever or can be changed without devs intervention? How event missions (eg Sorbago battles) influence the story? Lots of question they dont want to answer. We need to put pressure on the devs, i plan to organize some people to do just that next year.

 

[donpost]

There is a term you are missing: Expansion. It seems to cause the faction to spread to a nearby system.
.
For an example see the Democrats of Suyarang in the Suyarang system. They were on "Expansion" and soon after they appeared as a new faction in the nearby Naiti system.

 

[Roybe]

There is a term you are missing: Expansion. It seems to cause the faction to spread to a nearby system.
.
For an example see the Democrats of Suyarang in the Suyarang system. They were on "Expansion" and soon after they appeared as a new faction in the nearby Naiti system.

Thank you!

 

[_Flin_]

A few more Hypothesis:
- It is easier to raise the influence of factions in a system with a small population.
- Handing in exploration data increases influence of the station owner
- Bounty Hunting increases influence of the ruling faction

Another unknown:
- When trading with a station, does it raise the influence of the owning faction, or of the system ruling faction?

 

[Sakeel]

Question: How much, if any, faction influence is gained or lost from forked missions taken from opposing factions, whether in the Lugh system or a neighboring system.

Narrative: I took a Crimson State mission to kill pirates in a neighboring anarchic system a couple hops from Lugh. When I arrived and engaged the first pirate, the mission forked at that point, and I was offered an alternative option to go kill system security ships in the same system as the original mission to kill pirates, but for the benefit of the Purple Pirate Group, and return to a different neighboring system to Lugh for a reward if I so chose that alternative outcome.

I chose to continue hunting pirates in the hopes of potentially increasing faction influence for the Crimson State, but unfortunately the mission timed out before I could find them all. But it raises an interesting thought, whether taking missions from neighboring systems and their opposing factions, then triggering a mission fork, and subsequently trying to figure out if the forked mission could potentially benefit the Crimson State.

What to test: Travel to neighboring systems and look for missions that have a forking possibility. Take those missions, wait for the mission to offer an alternative, and assess if the alternative offered provides a clear boon to the Crimson State, such as if they are explicitly mentioned in the alternative mission.

Expected Results: Turning in the mission back in Lugh, as opposed to the neighboring system where the mission originated, should show some sort of faction increase. I was unable to verify due to the mission timing out, and also unable to determine if there would have been some sort of faction gain for the Purple Pirates had I chosen that alternative.

Naturally, failing enough of these missions by choosing the alternative which supports the Crimson State will no longer allow you to take them from the opposing faction due to reduced reputation. This test could likely only be done by commanders who have neutral reputation with any of the opposing factions, and would therefore only be of limited use.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Hi guys, very interesting work here. I've not been involved in this but I've been working another system and watching the results.

Lockdown - I've noticed that this increases when I bring weapons into a system, or any form of narcotics. It also appears to increase when I carry out violent missions in the system; killing smugglers, pirates, etc. Does this perhaps indicate that it's becoming more of a 'police state' due to the increased crime/violence i.e. the ruling faction stifling any dissent or opposition, becoming more entrenched. This could explain why it's become increasingly difficult to take percentage points off the ruling faction. Maybe a more 'economic' revolution could be the way to go. Boost your chosen faction through 'economic boom' and let the losing faction start the civil war.

Damaging a faction to reduce their influence - the missions that appear to cause the most red markers for a faction and reduced influence seem to be ones from neighbouring systems, that either kill their ships or otherwise benefit the other factions in your system.

 

[_Flin_]

Setting up a test environment

Ideally, a system to test the influence characteristics will have the following characteristics:
- independent
only in an indepedent system there won't be faction related events; it has been said in the ddf that a system will get faction ressources if it cannot cope with a situation, e.g. a pirate thread. To eliminate this, you need an independent system.
- hardly any traffic
To limit player influence the system should ideally have 0 visits over 24 hours. Only if there are no other players around, the results can be reliably connected to the experiment. Low traffic with up to 10 players is probably o.k. 100 and more players are way too many.
- the test system should have a station/outpost belonging to a minor faction
- the state of the system is "none"
- the state of the stations is "none"
- low number of inhabitants

Team and conducting the experiment
- the people conducting the experiment and their ships are known. That way the traffic increase can be tracked and attributed to the participants, further increasing significance of the experiment.
- the influence numbers need to be tracked on an per update basis
- the participants need to be disciplined and limit themselves to actions in the experiment. This is especially hard for refueling and repairing
- the participants should have the means to document their efforts. A shared documents platform with a template (e.g. Google docs) will be helpful to gather data in a comparable way.
- the actions of the experiment have to be defined, communicated to and acknowledged by the participants.
- the time frame of the experiment has to be defined and communicated time zone neutral, preferrably in GMT.
- the results have to be saved and then published with the raw data, to allow analysis by others.

 

[_Flin_]

I have identified 3 good test candidate systems for conducting influence tests and am ready to take part.

 

[Sakeel]

Are you planning to do this in a closed group? Wouldn't open play still have the possibility, however slim, of contaminating the effort by random visitors that might show up in the test system and start doing missions outside of the test parameters?

 

[Julio Montega]

Are you planning to do this in a closed group? Wouldn't open play still have the possibility, however slim, of contaminating the effort by random visitors that might show up in the test system and start doing missions outside of the test parameters?

Whichever gamemode you play, they all influende the system parameters,
there are no alternate system versions for open solo and closed group.

If a trader in open work for faction A
and another in solo for faction b they will both influence the system xyz in total.

Hypothesis to be tested:
when you influence a faction in a negative way below 0% influence on a system,
the faction will vanish in that system.

 

[Beermachine]

Another unknown:
- When trading with a station, does it raise the influence of the owning faction, or of the system ruling faction?

I can answer that question, trading raising both the sub-faction reputation which controls the station, and the overall reputation of the main faction if they are allied (much less than sub-faction). Reputational gains are proportional to trading profit.
----------
Edit - Apologies, misread, not idea on influence so can ignore, but given that reputational gains are proportional, I'd assume influence gains are also.
----------
To test the system, I'd suggest choosing somewhere out on the rim where no one visits. Lugh is both too central to civilised space, and a very large population with good trading stations that it's a magnet for traders who don't care which side their on, ruining any legitimate testing.

 

[Roybe]

Fact: Intrasystem trade missions increases influence for the supported faction and faction that owns the station traded with:

Screenshot_0032 by Roybe62, on Flickr

Screenshot_0033 by Roybe62, on Flickr

Do not do intrasystem trade missions with stations that are not of your faction.

NOTE: This caused me to raise my rank to friendly with the bums! Means I must have done some other missions that helped them somehow...or this one was real rewarding.

Note2: If I was already 'Friendly' with the Federal group, this might be a personalized result. Those not aligned might not affect the local faction numbers. Can someone do a trade run that is certain they are not affiliated with Federal and verify the outcome?

 

[CMDR Charybdis]

Some additional sources of information about factions that you might have missed:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=83114

Would be interesting to see what that says about Lugh.

 

[Roybe]

Some additional sources of information about factions that you might have missed:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=83114

Would be interesting to see what that says about Lugh.

That is interesting as the %'s are smaller and they have a successful war moving. One of the things we have to look at. What is the trigger mechanism. How close do the %'s have to be to trigger a Civil War?

 

[Roybe]

The devs listed outcomes to these modifiers to the defined states, (*my expectation on what these are currently called) (these are testable for verification purposes):

Economy (Positive) (*Econmic Boom)– there has been an upsurge in the economy

Has a positive effect on Standard of Living, Production and Wealth

Economy (Negative) (*Economic Bust)– there is a downturn in the economy

Has a negative effect on Production, Standard of Living and Wealth

Unrest (*Civil Unrest) – this state indicates internal conflict with no other named entity involvement

Has a negative effect on Standard of Living, Security and Wealth

Civil war – this state indicates internal civil war without an external named entity (note that civil war with named entities is simply a war)

Has a negative effect on Standard of Living, Security and Wealth
Development level is frozen while in civil war.

Threat of War – Entities prepare for a possible conflict with other entities

Markets require weapons and medical items even if not normally stocked

War – the entity is at war with another entity

Has a negative effect on Standard of Living, Security and Wealth
Markets require weapons and medical items even if not normally stocked

War (Losing) – Entity is losing a war against another entity

Has a negative effect on Standard of Living, Security, Population, Development Level and Wealth
Markets require weapons and medical items even if not normally stocked

War (Winning) – The entity is winning a war against another entity.

Has a negative effect on Security and Wealth
Markets require weapons and medical items even if not normally stocked

Famine – The entity is not able to support its own population through normal means – typically only affects agricultural worlds, although other worlds that are not importing enough food can slip into this state

All food production is removed
Market requirements for food increased
Has a negative effect on Standard of Living, Wealth and Population

Drought – The entity is not able to support its own population through normal means – typically only affects desert worlds, although other worlds that are not importing enough food can slip into this state

All water production is removed
Market requirements for water increased
Has a negative effect on Standard of Living, Wealth and Population

Outbreak (Minor) – A minor pandemic has broken out in the entity’s environment.

Markets cannot export food or medical items (except machinery if applicable)
Has a negative influence on Standard of Living and Wealth.

Outbreak (Major) – major and lethal pandemic breaks out in the entity’s location.

Markets cannot export food or medical items (except machinery if applicable)
Markets demand for medical items increased
Has a negative influence on Standard of Living, Population and Wealth.
Development level is frozen
Entity will be quarantined

Outbreak (Apocalyptic) – extremely lethal and contagious disease widespread in entity’s location.

Markets cannot export anything
Markets demand for medical items increased
Has a negative influence on Standard of Living, Population, Development Level and Wealth.
Development level is frozen

Weather (Severe) – Severe weather (includes earthquakes, stellar flare events and other natural disasters)

Has a negative influence on Standard of Living and Wealth.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Population

The population size of a planet is used to measure the effects of changes or player activities. It is also used to modify the availability of items in associated markets.
Population size can be affected by events.

Development Level

This a broad indicator for how advanced the colony is. It provides modifiers for the various variables of the entity. In a broad sense it is an indicator of how well the entity can absorb change, shortfalls and so forth. It also represents the entities ability to support itself through contact via other entities.

Standard of Living (SOL)

The standard of living variable indicates how good life is for the average member of the entity’s population. A high standard of living requires adequate essentials (such as food) as well as luxury items. This will also affect the availability (and demand) for such items in the markets.
A low SOL indicates a poor standard of living for the population, in situations with low stocks of essentials like food this indicates an event like a famine.
Manipulation of the markets either directly through trade or indirectly by blockade will change the SOL appropriately.

Security

The security value represents the security situation for the entity. The higher the value, the more secure the population feels and vice versa.
The security value can be modified by direct player action, acts of piracy will lower the security while bounty hunting will increase it.

Wealth

The wealth variable indicates the accumulated wealth of the entity. The entity can use its wealth to generate events to boost its other values and as such acts as a cushion for negative changes. It also indicates the strength of the economy and feeds into prices.
Note the while SOL and wealth are connected, they are not the same thing.
Players can influence wealth in a number of ways, generous trading will increase wealth, while reducing profit margins for the locals will reduce wealth. Destroying entity assets will impact on wealth, and influencing security and SOL will also have a knock on effect.

 

[Roybe]

Whew...wall of text..but it is in a place where we can digest it and discuss it.

What does it all mean you ask?

Let's look at the idea of Civil War as defined.

1. It is not between named entities, but is defined as an internal affair, that decreases Security, the Standard of Living, and the populations Wealth.

2. Decreasing security increases the sense of instability to the region...increasing piracy does this also. Double whammy.

3. Decreasing Wealth-Makes missions harder to find..possibly limits the number of entity ships in the field, also feeds into market prices.

4. Decreasing Standard of Living-lower essential and luxury items being provided to the population..can be counteracted by 'generous trading'

 

[JamesonJones]

Experiments and conclusions:

*[Alliance Expansion in progress](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=84770&page=7)
Currently an [organized group of CMDRS](http://elitediplomats.com/) are trying to increase Alliance control from federation in [78 Ursae Majoris](http://www.elitedangerouscentral.com/systems?q=78 Ursae Majoris&type=system). 78UM has a population of 10 billion . They moved to supporting alliance in both [Tiethay](http://www.elitedangerouscentral.com/systems?q=Tiethay&type=system) and 78UM. There was no progress except Tiethay's main faction lost influence but did not give the Alliance faction any influence. They found that while,they could cause the main factions reputation to drop, without a proper station foothold hey couldn't choose which faction to give rep to. With those results they decided to focus all efforts on 78UM. By working with Alioth independents in 78UM they helped the faction gain strength in Alioth. Alioth independents gained 10% influence in Alioth when all the CMDRS were working for them in 78UM.

*[Dukes of Mikunn Expansion](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=84770)
A CMDR found a tiny system with a very high controlling influence. Him and a friend were able to raise its influence to 100% to initiate a expansion state. After the Dukes of Mikunn reached 100% influence they expanded to a neighbor system and now have 9% influence there.

Conclusions from these two experiments:

- It seems that every faction is assigned a home system. Before a faction can raise influence in a neighboring system it must first have 100% influence at home and/or,be in a state of expansion even if it already had a foothold in the target system (as evidenced Alioth an 78UM and the Mikunn expansion.) If you see a faction that is at say 80% at home and 5% in the new system and you,go,to,the new system and work missions for it the influence gain will go towards the home system until it reaches 100% then it will start growing outward.

- learned was that by killing ships you can take influence from a given faction, but,it will be given to the next largest faction. The only way to directly increase a factions influence is through missions or trading at stations controlled by that faction.

- am A single CMDR can tip the balance for a state change. Might not be able to completely reverse a system on his own, but he can tip the balance if a system is already on the edge of a state change.

 

[donpost]

Wow, nice work on getting that list!

.​

I've been working on a small system with two stations owned by the main faction. Before the server patch that reduced AI trading their influence was growing by 0.1% - 0.3% per day. After the patch, influence has been stuck on 57.5% despite my efforts. So I think trading must have a big effect, and AI trading is/was a big part of that. It would be interesting to see if you could ever increase the influence of a faction that owns no stations to the point they become the main faction.

.​

The list seems to suggest that population, wealth, security etc are faction specific, but I can only get readings on population and security system-wide in the system map, not for each faction.