Transactions: BGS Guide Best Current Thinking

[GralAntilles]

I have another question. Regarding Aisling Duval powerplay bonuses. Does anyone have an idea which transactions are applied to?

Is it only for Mission Influence rewards?
All transactions?

 

[drty]

Missions

Outwards per ++++ accepted on completion, inwards +[?]

"Outwards" and "inwards" - what does this actually mean?

 

[Jane Turner]

We found that take a mission from A to B and accept the influence award, then the number of plusses you accept are given to the issuing faction in A, but just one to the receiving faction in B

 

[drty]

We found that take a mission from A to B and accept the influence award, then the number of plusses you accept are given to the issuing faction in A, but just one to the receiving faction in B

Ohh. Meaning, it is always just 1 plus for faction B? No matter how much it gives to the mission issuer. Correct?

 

[Jane Turner]

yes - that was what we found in 3.2.

 

[drty]

I'm trying to figure out what is the most effective way of (ab)using trade mechanics for raising faction's influence. According to this:

Trade

A profit making sale of any volume over a low threshold profit per visit per source (system) location of goods. 1000/cr per ton appears to be the threshold.

+1

1) it doesn't matter how many items i'm selling - which means selling just 1 unit of particular goods should be enough in order to earn +1 transaction point (which basically equals to 4 mission plusses).
2) every sold item must be unique item brought from the unique system.
3) all goods can be sold at once - you don't need to re-visit the system after each sell.

So, if above is correct, all that I have to do is to buy X unique goods giving profit of at least 1000 cr per unit (each of which must be purchased in a separate system), bring them to the station controlled by my faction, and sell all of this at once. This should give +X transaction points to the given faction.

Am I right?

 

[Jmanis]

I'm trying to figure out what is the most effective way of (ab)using trade mechanics for raising faction's influence. According to this:

Trade

A profit making sale of any volume over a low threshold profit per visit per source (system) location of goods. 1000/cr per ton appears to be the threshold.

+1

1) it doesn't matter how many items i'm selling - which means selling just 1 unit of particular goods should be enough in order to earn +1 transaction point (which basically equals to 4 mission plusses).
2) every sold item must be unique item brought from the unique system.
3) all goods can be sold at once - you don't need to re-visit the system after each sell.

So, if above is correct, all that I have to do is to buy X unique goods giving profit of at least 1000 cr per unit (each of which must be purchased in a separate system), bring them to the station controlled by my faction, and sell all of this at once. This should give +X transaction points to the given faction.

Am I right?

Very short version; no.

You're better off reading this to get a better handle of trade and it's effects: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/bgs-trading-for-influence.357715/
(Note: that's a little dated as well)
1t trading got fixed a while back, unless jane wants to confirm it's functional again?

 

[drty]

Very short version; no.

Which basically means, that the line from OP that I quoted above is also incorrect/outdated, or I didn't get it right?

You're better off reading this to get a better handle of trade and it's effects: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/bgs-trading-for-influence.357715/
(Note: that's a little dated as well)
1t trading got fixed a while back, unless jane wants to confirm it's functional again?

Thanks for the link. I read this already. This topic is really informative, with lots of details, but it doesn't give you an answer about "most effective way".

 

[Jmanis]

Which basically means, that the line from OP that I quoted above is also incorrect/outdated, or I didn't get it right?

[/QUOTE]
You didn't get it right.

If I'm reading what Jane wrote correctly, being:

A profit making sale of any volume over a low threshold profit per visit per source (system) location of goods. 1000/cr per ton appears to be the threshold.

Then in a single visit to a station, you can only get as many "points" as you have source systems for your cargo, provided that cargo sells for over 1,000cr profit.

Here's a few examples... happy for Jane to come in and correct me though. Assume Gold and Palladium each sell for over 1,000cr/t profit each, and Bauxite sells for 950cr/t profit.
Example 1 - In System A, you buy 50t of Palladium. You sell all 50t in System B and earn "+1".
Example 2 - In System A, you buy 50t of Gold and 50t of Palladium. You sell 50t of gold and 50t of Palladium in System B, which is "+1" i.e the same as Example 1. This is because both Gold and Palladium are from the same system, and both goods are sourced from the same system.
Example 3 - In System A, you buy 250t of Bauxite. In system B, bauxite sells for only 950cr/t profit. You sell all 250t, but influence will not change (as it doesn't meet the 1000cr/t threshold)
Example 4. You buy 50t of Gold from System A, and 50t of Palladium In System B. You travel to System C and sell both Gold and Palladium, this earns +2, as the cargoes are from two different source systems.
Example 5. You buy 25t of Gold from System A. You go to System B and sell 25t. You leave the (system? Station?), come back, sell another 25t. In total, you get +2, as the transaction occurred over two visits.

If it functioned the way you supposed originally, this would mean the return of 1t trading, which would be a pretty bad thing.

EDIT: Goemon's guide was probably a bum-steer before, I was rushing on my phone.

Jane: Just curious for your opinion... does this mean the best approach for trading is to, say, buy Gold from one system, Palladium from another, Narcotics in another, Battle Weapons somewhere else... then just bounce from system to system (probably a Colony-economy, with the most demand) selling 1t of each at a time (nabbing +4 each visit)?

On an aside... I'm not quite convinced about the "per source system" bit... how does salvage/other non-purchased stuff work? Say, I picked up two Thargoid Sensors, one each in different Systems? Also seems somewhat contrived that Gold and Palladium bought from the same station would only be +1, but gold and palladium from different systems would be +2... and if so... why different system and not station?

 

[drty]

Well, I mentioned almost the same thing you described in 4th example, with the only difference that every type of goods I traded this way was only 1 ton. And Jane specified "sale of any volume", which as far as I understand means 1t sale should be fine.

Anyway... if 1t trading is not working anymore - then there is some specific volume threshold that must be exceeded in order to get +1 transaction. You mentioned 25t in your example, is 25t enough?

 

[Jmanis]

Well, I mentioned almost the same thing you described in 4th example, with the only difference that every type of goods I traded this way was only 1 ton. And Jane specified "sale of any volume", which as far as I understand means 1t sale should be fine.

Yep... I probably misread this bit: (each of which must be purchased in a separate system), as being that you were buying each different type from the same system. Truth be told, I didn't really understand Jane's entry about trade until I read it two or three times.

The specific issue with 1t trading was that each "Trade" was a transaction according to the BGS. If what Jane is saying is correct, trading just 1t should work, as transactions are now per-visit, rather than per trade.

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

Example 5. You buy 5t of Gold from System A.

Slight typo, that would be worth correcting, I feel. Should be "buy 25t" to make sense of the rest of the example.

Other than that, I'm very grateful to see the examples so clearly laid out. I'd not previously appreciated the 'mixed origin system' factor.

One (or two) further iteration, if you might be so kind as to consider them.

1. In System A buy 100t of Gold and 100t of Cobalt. Sell both at same time in System B, Gold for 1200cr profit and Cobalt for 600cr profit. The average profit for the 200t is therefore 900cr. Would I expect to receive BGS transaction benefit because the Gold portion was above 1000cr profit, or not because the entire cargo manifest was below 1000cr?

2. Similiar to the example above, but the Gold and Cobalt are bought in two different systems. Then in the selling system, each commodity type will be treated independently for BGS transactions purposes, and there will be a BGS benefit for the Gold at 1200cr profit but not also for the Cobalt at 600cr profit?

3. And for a third wrinkle, under the first example, if I were to sell only the Gold at 1200cr profit, then log out and back in again and sell the Cobalt at 600cr profit, is that then two separate transactions for BGS?

EDIT 31 May - I now understand from Jane's subsequent posts that the OPTIMAL profit is 1000cr+ but that ANY profit will have a positive BGS impact.

 

[Jane Turner]

Jane: Just curious for your opinion... does this mean the best approach for trading is to, say, buy Gold from one system, Palladium from another, Narcotics in another, Battle Weapons somewhere else... then just bounce from system to system (probably a Colony-economy, with the most demand) selling 1t of each at a time (nabbing +4 each visit)?

Yes.... but only so you remember.... gold from 4 diff systems would achieve the same

 

[Jane Turner]

Logging out makes no difference - the only way to start a new transaction at the sales location is to sell all goods from the location you bought them in [last tested in 3.2 tm]

 

[Jane Turner]

So for trade, best guess is x is 1000Cr/per ton and Y is 1 - but I've not tested it for about a month and then trade was the only BGS activity still at its 3.2 level for y (x was 400) I'd not bet against a reduction in Y too.

To establish profit per ton I recommend selling all but 1 ton - then sell the last one - saves on the maths. Where profit in less than 1000, expect the BGS value to be profit/1000*Y

If you are trading under the threshold x, it makes a load of sense to get different commodities from different system to make it easier to work out what you did, if that matters to you

 

[Jmanis]

Unsure where else to post this, but don't want to create a new thread.

VERY interesting comment by Dom here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/how-does-mission-rep-scale.513792/post-7833433

 

[Jane Turner]

It's possible that we've not hit the mission type that is not the number of ++++ it says on the tin, since we've only just started analysing results again - but so far we are getting a close to perfect correlation between +++ and outcome. This is the effect back calculated into the number of BGS points that would have been required to get the same outcome in 3.2 - so it's normalised for starting influence and population across different systems. Any errors in our original "black box" deconstruction should at least produce consistent errors here and it's always reassuring to see a log or exponential relationship in an FD "black box"

Out of interest note the very rapid diminishing returns here, confirming the impression given by many that missions are spectacularly over nerfed. In 3.2 one + was worth one BGS point and there was no diminishing returns until you hit the cap.


As an illustration, to get half the available gain in 3.2 you only needed to do one 5 plus rated mission. With the value nerf, you now would need to do 4 5 plus rated missions, which is probably realistic BUT with the diminishing returns factor it's around 600 missions rated 5+ to get half the possible gain. 3.3 in blue, 3.2 in red not the 100 point 3.3 data point is calculated not measured

 

[Jane Turner]

PS if anyone wants to add to this data set, I only need starting influence, ending influence, population and number of +++++ done. Keep a note of the type of mission completed in case we start getting anomalies. Post here or DM me.

 

[GralAntilles]

As an illustration, to get half the available gain in 3.2 you only needed to do one 5 plus rated mission. With the value nerf, you now would need to do 4 5 plus rated missions, which is probably realistic BUT with the diminishing returns factor it's around 600 missions rated 5+ to get half the possible gain. 3.3 in blue, 3.2 in red not the 100 point 3.3 data point is calculated not measured
View attachment 134009

Hat off to this amazing analisys.

One question is this System-Tick or System-Faction-Tick?

In other words, according to your chat

5+ mission pts = 1.1 Transaction pts.
10+ mission pts = 1.62 Transaction pts.
15+ mission pts = 1.85 Transaction pts.

If in a particular system it is made

• 5 mission pts to faction A and
• 10 mission pts to faction B

Would faction A would get 1.85/3 transaction pts and B 1.85 * 2 / 3 Transactions pts
or fact. A would get 1.1 transaction pts and B would get 1.62 transaction pts?

 

[Jane Turner]

That would depend on their relative starting influence and the population.

If A was on 40 and B on 30

in a 10K system A would gain 0.1 and B 5.5

In a 10 million A would be too low to measure and B 3.3 gain

and in that same 10 million system, if A was on 2% to start it would gain 4.3%