Unfair Opposing Community Goals in Lugh

[DaveB]

There's a couple of factors most folks posting here are not considering.

Many CSG folks had been working on this thing for months and carefully observing which pieces moved when which buttons were pressed. This core group, along with occasional participants like myself, had already worked CS up to 90%+ influence in the system and if we hadn't run into bugs with faction influence mechanics (that we helped FD fix) we would have flipped the system long ago.

We were also assisted by the Mercs of Mikunn, also experienced system-flippers and long-term testers of the weirdness that is the background sim.

The leadership of the CSG side in this conflict seemed to have a much more cohesive view of where to prioritize effort for maximum effect, probably because of the available experience I mentioned above. They also had followers that were responsive to their calls for changes in those priorities as the situation developed. From what I could see on the forums here (and I know it was quite possible for the feds to be organizing somewhere else, like the federal navy subreddit, for example) the feds didn't have much in the way of either leadership or organization, they just piled in and went for it.

We were the ones acting like a moderately disciplined military, the fed side seemed to be acting more like a barbarian horde.

On a more facetious note, as an Englishman let me suggest the Federation take note of our hundreds of years of experience just how impossible it is to actually conquer the flippin' Irish!

 

[EAGLE 5]

On a more facetious note, as an Englishman let me suggest the Federation take note of our hundreds of years of experience just how impossible it is to actually conquer the flippin' Irish!

You sir get Rep for honesty.

 

[DaveB]

You sir get Rep for honesty.

My mother would be offended if were to be otherwise, sir. Most of her family trace their roots back to Kerry. When both sides of one's family come from the Liverpool area one tends to be a bit of Heinz -57 varieties.

 

[Xeonyx]

Chronological sequence of the events of Lugh, from the perspective of a relatively active CSG supporter.

- The war starts, 1 combat CG and 1 trade CG are available for both factions. Descriptions clearly states that the combat goals will allow to launch attacks on the enemy stations while the trading goals will impact the capacity of the ground troups to take / defend contested stations. A second Federal capital ship is supposed to arrive in the system in roughly a week.

- CSG divides it's assets between trading and fighting in CZs while Federation supporters only push their combat goal. CSG completes the trading goal relatively quickly, allowing its stations to resist to federal attacks for a bit.

- The Federal combat CG reaches tier 8 while CSG's is roughly at tier 6. This triggers the attack on Seega Port, a CSG-owned station. 2 new CG appear for CSG : a second trade goal, to further reinforce their owned-stations and a "piracy" goal, to steel military intel about the weaknesses of Hartsfield Market's defenses (this is the station that determines the system's ownership).

- CSG pushes the piracy goal and the combat goal, sacrificing Seega Port in the process. Federation's combat CG reaches its 9th and final tier. This combination of events result in the very quick fall of Seega Port.

- CSG's piracy goal reaches tier 2, revealing several weaknesses in the internal defenses of Hartsfield Market. Almost simultaneously, CSG's combat goal reaches tier 8 allowing an attack on Hartsfield Market to begin, and Read Gateway is attacked by the Federal marines. The arrival of the second capital ship is delayed after it accidentally fired on its home station. A new community goal is created to allow it to be repaired.

- CSG supporters push their second trading goal massively while most Federal players seem to either continue fighting in CZs and their own trading goal is still advancing very slowly. As a result, the attack on Read Gateway is a failure and the attack on Hertsfield Market effectively begins, with an edge for CSG forces thanks to the weaknesses previously revealed by the stolen military intel .

- CSG completes it's second trading goal while the Federation's is still advancing slowly. Several Galnet articles hint that the station will fall into CSG's hands if there is not a massive push on said trading goal.

- CSG's piracy goal expires before reaching tier 3. CSG's supporters divide into two groups : those pushing the combat goal towards its final tier and those disrupting the advancement of the Federal trading goal. Hartsfield Market is taken by CSG, who are now in control of the system. CZs change places, the Federal Capital ship is not there anymore, the status "War" is replaced by "Civil war". 4 stations remain under Federal control.

 

[Alpha087]

I like the idea of the trade community goals and would love to play the part of blockade enforcer. But the idea that my efforts may be worthless since I can get bypassed in solo play makes me not bother to participate.

Pretty much this. I was so excited when I read that tier 9 had been reached on the Fed combat goal and that I had a few nice millions waiting for me in rewards. Waited the next day hoping there'd be some sort of outpost assault, or just some other kind of combat goal I could participate in at all... What do I get instead? News reports about how we're losing despite having "a 2:1 advantage", and having, "dominated" the space battle.

Some nameless, faceless CSG have some non-lethal weapons aboard our station and all I can do is float around as they take it over. It's not like we have capital ships to completely cut anyone off from getting near the station. Or couldn't have just vented the air from the lower decks while the supposed CSG freedom fighters were still contained in the lower decks. Nonsense.

 

[krallehund]

Loving all this!

 

[Malfahri]

Pretty much this. I was so excited when I read that tier 9 had been reached on the Fed combat goal and that I had a few nice millions waiting for me in rewards. Waited the next day hoping there'd be some sort of outpost assault, or just some other kind of combat goal I could participate in at all... What do I get instead? News reports about how we're losing despite having "a 2:1 advantage", and having, "dominated" the space battle.

Some nameless, faceless CSG have some non-lethal weapons aboard our station and all I can do is float around as they take it over. It's not like we have capital ships to completely cut anyone off from getting near the station. Or couldn't have just vented the air from the lower decks while the supposed CSG freedom fighters were still contained in the lower decks. Nonsense.

The last time I checked there were 8,700 commanders who had contributed to the Fed combat goal in Lugh. It seems that we should have just ignored it and traded weapons and intel instead.

 

[Ironik]

The last time I checked there were 8,700 commanders who had contributed to the Fed combat goal in Lugh. It seems that we should have just ignored it and traded weapons and intel instead.

Yeah, but trading is boring and not paying much.

 

[Jeeves]

There's a couple of factors most folks posting here are not considering.

Many CSG folks had been working on this thing for months and carefully observing which pieces moved when which buttons were pressed. This core group, along with occasional participants like myself, had already worked CS up to 90%+ influence in the system and if we hadn't run into bugs with faction influence mechanics (that we helped FD fix) we would have flipped the system long ago.

We were also assisted by the Mercs of Mikunn, also experienced system-flippers and long-term testers of the weirdness that is the background sim.

The leadership of the CSG side in this conflict seemed to have a much more cohesive view of where to prioritize effort for maximum effect, probably because of the available experience I mentioned above. They also had followers that were responsive to their calls for changes in those priorities as the situation developed. From what I could see on the forums here (and I know it was quite possible for the feds to be organizing somewhere else, like the federal navy subreddit, for example) the feds didn't have much in the way of either leadership or organization, they just piled in and went for it.

We were the ones acting like a moderately disciplined military, the fed side seemed to be acting more like a barbarian horde.

On a more facetious note, as an Englishman let me suggest the Federation take note of our hundreds of years of experience just how impossible it is to actually conquer the flippin' Irish!

This is ludicrous. Air superiority ensures that infiltration is impossible. The moment the Feds won the military fight, this war should have been over.

You guys picked the wrong political group to support. Establishing a Corporate government over a Democracy? Of course you were going to get fought. So what's the next step Fed supporters? I think we're going to have to blockade the Hartsfield market. Just shoot all the commanders and ships who attempt to land or leave. Who is with me?

 

[Malfahri]

Yeah, but trading is boring and not paying much.

Not quite sure of your intent with that comment, but I like trading and can make more money at it than anything else. But when the Federation called to squash the Crimson Scum Gang I sold my Type 7 to buy an old Drop Ship from mothball and headed to Lugh. But, some people do dislike trading which is why we saw so many doing the combat goal and in my opinion why the Federation campaign would have been better off without it.

 

[Jeeves]

Fed players, so there is a very good solution to this problem.

We all need to get ourselves to Hartsfield market with some Vipers, Asps, or something with a lot of hardpoints. Once we're inside the station, any commanders that are sitting out and are CSG supporters, we fire dumbfire missiles at them until they die. If we're piloting Cobras or Vipers, our repair costs will be lower than theirs, and we can respawn inside the station to continue the griefing. Once we've drained all their money, then we just easily re-take the station. The math works out very nicely.

In any case though, I'm not going to have my hard work ruined by a group who put so little thought into which government they were attempting to establish. Had they supported a democracy? Sure, that's fine, I would have even helped them. But they were completely unsupported by the player community as a whole, and as such they don't deserve to see their hard work come to fruition.

 

[Walt Kerman]

But they were completely unsupported by the player community as a whole....

Do you even forum, bro?

Also how will you know which players are CSG or fed. You will all just be shooting each other as the station finishes you off. Its not like we hang out in hartsfield. Your money will be wasted not ours.... I probably shouldn't have told you this and just let it happen.

 

[Mohrgan]

The Fed Trade CG: "Preparing for Deployment" has 6 days left to it. The Goal is to bring weapons to Khaka/Qureshi. Acceptable weapons include: Battle Weapons, Non-Lethal Weapons, Personal Weapons and Reactive Armour. Only Non-Lethal Weapons, and Reactive Armour are legal in the system, stick to those. I am currently picking RA up at Kunggi/Marshburn and it looks like there is a fair supply here now. The SC from the central star is a little long, but it's all for a goof cause.
.
Let's see what kind of Fed backlash we can bring about.

 

[DaveB]

This is ludicrous. Air superiority ensures that infiltration is impossible. The moment the Feds won the military fight, this war should have been over.

You guys picked the wrong political group to support. Establishing a Corporate government over a Democracy? Of course you were going to get fought. So what's the next step Fed supporters? I think we're going to have to blockade the Hartsfield market. Just shoot all the commanders and ships who attempt to land or leave. Who is with me?

I refer you to the cold-war joke that I posted in this thread earlier:

There's an old cold-war era joke about two Russian generals relaxing at a bistro in Paris, which has just become the capital of the newest soviet republic...

"By the way..." The Armor general asked the Infantry general "Who won the air war?"

If what you say is true, why was that joke or variants of it being told at West Point, at Sandhurst, at the Pentagon and at the British MOD.

Air power is capable of disrupting forces on the ground, however it can neither take nor hold territory.

Now, it's true that Elite is closer to a Naval environment than to either ground or air combat, and not a modern one at that. For an example of how that works I refer you to the British domination of Naval power from the Napoleonic era to American Independence. There was no more powerful navy in the world, largely due to the huge force-multiplier given by the fact that their sailors didnt get scurvy on extended voyages - (ever wondered why they called us limeys? Grog - a mix of rum and lime-juice. The lime juice for vitamin c was the key, the best way to ensure your sailors drink it? mix it with a free daily booze ration) but a navy needs ports and needs supplies. No European nation could take on the british navy at sea. A more distant former colony - America - was much more effective in opposing them, as soon as one of Britain's old naval adversaries, France, started helping out.

You've got a 3-deck ship of the line (capital ship) five cruisers, a dozen frigates and numerous sloops-of-war. I've got two frigates, a couple of dozen armed merchantmen and a huge number of small civilian craft. You think you can keep stuff I want to transport from making it to port on even a small island? Go for it Commodore, then guess again. It's a big sea.

 

[Kowboat]

Sounds like y'all should have actually supported your troops, instead of just AFK farming bonds off the capital ship. Just sayin'.

 

[Rall]

I refer you to the cold-war joke that I posted in this thread earlier:



If what you say is true, why was that joke or variants of it being told at West Point, at Sandhurst, at the Pentagon and at the British MOD.

Air power is capable of disrupting forces on the ground, however it can neither take nor hold territory.

Now, it's true that Elite is closer to a Naval environment than to either ground or air combat, and not a modern one at that. For an example of how that works I refer you to the British domination of Naval power from the Napoleonic era to American Independence. There was no more powerful navy in the world, largely due to the huge force-multiplier given by the fact that their sailors didnt get scurvy on extended voyages - (ever wondered why they called us limeys? Grog - a mix of rum and lime-juice. The lime juice for vitamin c was the key, the best way to ensure your sailors drink it? mix it with a free daily booze ration) but a navy needs ports and needs supplies. No European nation could take on the british navy at sea. A more distant former colony - America - was much more effective in opposing them, as soon as one of Britain's old naval adversaries, France, started helping out.

You've got a 3-deck ship of the line (capital ship) five cruisers, a dozen frigates and numerous sloops-of-war. I've got two frigates, a couple of dozen armed merchantmen and a huge number of small civilian craft. You think you can keep stuff I want to transport from making it to port on even a small island? Go for it Commodore, then guess again. It's a big sea.

A powerful modern Navy can completely cut of a nation from supply - the US Navy did exactly that during the Pacific War in WWII.

We can argue that Federal navy did achieve this sort of dominance in Lugh, CSG should have been forced into smuggling and blockade running – the Ho Chi Minh trail or the Lugh conflict. But we didn't need to it was just business a usual, a milk run.

Now the Fed players in open didn't organise any sort of blockade, and trade in open was unhindered. But this is only a small part of it – as solo continues unaffected.

But the game mechanics don't really allow for blockades and supply interdiction in solo/group modes currently, and I do think this need to change in future conflicts.

Disclosure - I supported and fought with the Crimson State.

 

[ShadowWolf Kell]

Yeah, but trading is boring and not paying much.

Well it was a choice between leaving behind the cap ship shenanigans, or building up a potent logistics supply chain. Obviously the Feds chose the former. It'll likely cost them the system.

I made a lot smuggling weapons into Balandin. Not just weapons, but Personal and Battle Weapons. To add insult to injury, they were procured from a Federal station (which turned independant later on) so that the CSG is fighting the Feds with their own weapons.

As for combat missions go, the Feds had it easy. Most Fed ships have turrets and it gets really annoying after awhile. Most of the CSG ships don't, and the ones that do are mostly MCs and Frag Cannons.

 

[Daffan]

2 words

scripted event

 

[internal.memory]

I noticed after Hartsfield Station was captured, the Capital ship and all conflicts around Lugh 11 ended. Why didn't the Capital ship or why didn't ANY battles around Hartsfield Station start? If I was Admiral I would have directed those spare forces to attack and reclaim or embargo the station. What is there game now? What are they doing?

 

[lefty1117]

I think they already have this war mapped out. Note that the results don't even take into account the system faction influence ratings, which last I checked had Federation well in control. After seeing that the other day and then reading the Galnet postings, I took the combat payout, sold my vulture and am heading out on another exploration trip. It's very frustrating to become invested in something that is so opaque it appears to be broken.