Unilaterally ending civil wars are weird

[Shadowdancer]

When visiting the Ho Hsi system for a milk run, I noticed that two factions, Ho Hsi Corp. and Jet Comms Limited, were conveniently having a viscous ("viscious" as it says in the state description doesn't seem to be a word, and I find my interpretation funnier) civil war, so I accepted a combat mission to take out 6 "warzone" targets. After entering a conflict zone, I picked the side of the Ho Hsi Corp., because damn those fed, killed five targets that were federal navy due to alignment and got out of there because I had two Pythons and a Cobra looking at my innards. After some repairs and rearming, I went back to the combat zone, only to find that I could only join the Jets anymore against a HUGE number of system authority vessels. I tried all conflict zones, and eventually left the system to do some more missions I had on the list.

Upon returning to Ho Hsi, all conflict zones are now gone, and looking at the system status, it turns out that only Jet Comms is still at civil war. Ho Hsi have the war as "pending".

 

[Ceolon]

Grats. You found a typo.

 

[thewzdoc]

Upon returning to Ho Hsi, all conflict zones are now gone, and looking at the system status, it turns out that only Jet Comms is still at civil war. Ho Hsi have the war as "pending".

I picture the press in Ho Hsi saying things like "Our government might not know we are at war but Jet Comms sure does"

 

[Ytheleus]

No it's much more than just a typo. This will be a key game mechanic, but it's not finished yet I think.
What is really missing here, something that is in the design archive as part of the background simulation, is local Galnet news articles offering a narrative, explaining what's at stake, and outlining how players might want to interact with the simulation to affect outcomes.

It seems like the bulk of the simulation is in place and running, after a fashion, but without the necessary level of feedback originally designed it leaves players as largely helpless observers. Generic descriptions of viscious civil wars aren't specific enough to fully involve players in the emergent narratives yet.

So having been thus negative, I do want to say that I have every confidence it can improve quickly and it will be special. But what's missing is feedback at the UI.

 

[Yanaran]

Ho Hsi has been at war for weeks, it's a player-driven event. If what you say is right then it seems it might be coming to an end... Usually states only "flip" around midnight, and if it turns out Jet Comms has won then that will be quite an achievement for the players involved imo. Just because you happened to stumble upon it in the 11th hour doesn't mean it's broken.

It does sound a little weird that Ho Hsi would drop out of the war first though, unless this is an indication of their defeat. I suspect it's just an UI bug and the war has been decided finally.

 

[Shadowdancer]

When I last checked, it was 50:48 Hso vs. Jets with no other single faction apparently able to hold an entire percent.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Just because you happened to stumble upon it in the 11th hour doesn't mean it's broken.

I didn't say "broken", just "weird" in its visible behaviour. It's weird (and maybe broken) that one faction can be at war all on its own, and a bit nasty to get hung up with a dangling mission like that without much notification. To me, the situation at first just looked like the mission/warzone mechanic was broken by not letting me to choose my initial faction anymore after leaving an instance, and it requires a bit of checking around to actually see that the background for the conflict zones just packed up and vanished.

 

[Ronnie Raygun]

It's also broken. I did stuff for Jet, became Allied and saw blue arrows. Couple days ago something flipped, and doing exactly the same stuff now reduced my rep to Friendly, and I see red arrows.

Same bug in Sorbago, I became Friendly with the Empire by killing Empire ships.