Not always. I personally wish the capital ship showed up more often. I usually get something boring like the spec. ops and correspondents. That's not even a good band name.
What counts what in war
- Thread starter El-bizor
- Start date
Ok, I'll just have to try more of them to see if I can trigger a different scenario. Capital ships are cool and all, but it felt really scripted to see the exact same thing happen twice in a row.
Do we ever get TWO capital ships (one from each side) to show up? THAT would be epic, especially if they engaged each other with heavy weapons!
Yes... and while yes it is cool to see, it's just pretty... you still have to take out the heat relays to chase them off... they can't be destroyed from 0% hull.
Also note this can only happen in an imperial vs federation conflict. Alliance and independent factions don't get capital spawns in support, and imp vs imp or fed vs fed won't spawn capitals at all.
I like pretty. I'm very much enjoying the newly improved CZs because it feels like a proper battle of two fleets. The visuals and immersion of being part of this battle is great. I'll never go back to a RES for my combat, as RES 'fishing' just feels too gimmicky. Wars and assassination missions FTW!
Megaship/installation scenarios can be pretty good too.
You've got the "scenario" and visuals and voice comms of a CZ-style battle, but the NPCs are pirate-spec rather than military-spec ships, so you don't need quite as good a ship: I've done a couple now in my multirole survey Phantom because they just happened when I visited the site, which wouldn't really be suited to a CZ-intensity battle.
(No idea how good they are for BGS manipulation, but that's not why I do stuff)
Somewhere between not really useful and not useful at all. First of all you never know whether scenarios will be triggered and most of the time those aren't, no matter what and how long you try.
Second: those affect 3 factions (station controller, system controller - these might be the same - and an attacker) and you never know in advance which the 3rd faction will be.
Independent v Imperial conflicts have them too (on the Imp side obviously). Only in High Intensity ones though.
Only the Imperial side would get the capital ship spawn.... my post was specifically referring to dual-capital spawns, where the capships can fight against each other. That's only possible in Fed vs Imp conflicts.
EDIT:
Unless there's something in that. Personally I've never seen that happen, except for some (possibly no longer in the game) USS spawns (which are a whole other bag)
Experiment
To find the effect of combat bonds on the outcome of conflict.
Method
In a system with few visitors, fight one battle to win per day for the duration of the conflict. No combat bonds will be claimed until the conflict is concluded.
Results
15/08 Combat bonds claimed: 1,172,867cr
Conclusion
Four influence points exchanged - within normal parameters - after the shortest possible conflict with no conflict bonds redeemed. Rewards from conflicts (this one, at least) are a bonus for the commander and have no influence on the outcome.
To find the effect of combat bonds on the outcome of conflict.
Method
In a system with few visitors, fight one battle to win per day for the duration of the conflict. No combat bonds will be claimed until the conflict is concluded.
Results
| 10/08 | 11/08 | 12/08 | 13/08 | 14/08 | 15/08 | |
| Faction A | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 11.3 |
| State | None | War | War | War | War | None |
| Faction B | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 3.4 |
| State | None | War | War | War | War | None |
15/08 Combat bonds claimed: 1,172,867cr
Conclusion
Four influence points exchanged - within normal parameters - after the shortest possible conflict with no conflict bonds redeemed. Rewards from conflicts (this one, at least) are a bonus for the commander and have no influence on the outcome.
I have fought for many Anarchies over the years and have seen both Imperial and Farragut "Pirate" Capital ships but not for a long time. I have assumed they were patched out at one point.
Yes, I'm probably misremembering some old conflict as more recent.
Walter, I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. As you didn't hand in the Bonds until after the war was over they couldn't have affected the outcome in any way.
War Day1 11/08-12/08 Win one CZ battle for Faction A, no bonds handed in
War Day2 12/08-13/08 Win one CZ battle for Faction A, no bonds handed in
War Day3 13/08-14/08 Win one CZ battle for Faction A, no bonds handed in
War Day4 14/08-15/08 Win one CZ battle for Faction A, no bonds handed in - War has been won by Faction A
Day5 15/08-16/08 Faction A +4 Influence, Faction B -4 Influence. Hand in Combat Bonds for Faction A.
Day6 16/08-17/08 ????
As I understand it, handing in Bonds is one action towards winning that day for the Faction.
For example, if you'd handed in the Bonds on War Day4, instead of fighting in a CZ, Faction A would still have won the war by 4-0 on that day.
That was the point of the exercise: by not handing in the bonds, each day's victory had to be down to winning each battle and not to any other factor.
Possibly true: Dav's recent broadcast suggests that handing in bonds has a lesser influence on the outcome than winning the battles, but the experiment showed that bonds aren't necessary to win the war. But it was just a trial - I can't imagine a scenario where you wouldn't claim the bonds at some time or other. There was some recent concern that it might become impossible to claim bonds and win a war against the controlling faction if you were hostile to that faction and couldn't land on a base. The worry may have turned out to have been unwarranted, but this trial shows you don't have to make claims to win.
[Edit: I would imagine that if the day's outcome was a draw, the combat bonds would tip the balance one way or another, but that's another experiment.]
I've got another conflict coming to the boil, so this time I'm going to jump out of the conflicts before they end and see if battles/wars can be won on bonds alone. It should be possible to tell if this is possible after the first day.
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As one of those people with that concern, I think it's still highly warranted; my original concerns were not related to whether there was any other way to win war or not.. Pre-3.3 when combat bonds were the only thing that counted, Hostile rep was a game-breaking issue in that regard.
Now, when completion of zones, scenarios and missions all count, it's no longer game-breaking, but simply makes no sense at all. Especially note, I have no problems with the inaccessibility of missions if hostile; it makes sense that you can't base operations out of the holdings of an enemy.
I get the sentiment from Dav in the livestream that Combat Bonds are designed as an "Every player wins a prize" caveat, but the effect of combat bonds being applied by handing them in is entirely the wrong trigger. It's completely irrational that, for two factions in a conflict, if:
- Faction A has a high conflict zone cleared, and has 20 enemy ships killed in the process; competes with
- Faction B has a high conflict zone cleared, and has 20 enemy ships killed in the process, and a mercenary gets paid for it
... that Faction B is the winner, and that it's not a draw. Whether a person redeems their bonds should have no bearing on the outcome of the war; it's of total personal impact only. If any action needs to count in that "Every player wins a prize" outcome, it should be the kill, not whether they receive payment for it. Whether you get paid for an action or not has no bearing on whether that action happened or not, and it's impact on relevant factions.
(Tangentially; My more extreme opinion on this is that redeeming combat bonds should hurt the faction who you claim it from; likewise if you claim bounties, and that the game should feature a "withdraw claim" option. This would bring it inline with how missions work; Take the full reward for lower influence, or sacrifice a good portion of that reward for higher influence)
I asked something similar a week ago, and i concluded it is purely transactional after my experience.
I fought in one Low CZ, didn't win the battle but pulled out after having 4 NPCs attack me. Cashed in the bonds of just over 200k. Win the day. 1-0
Next day i did the same, pulled out before the battle was won, cashed in 175k, then went and fought another Low CZ, pulled out again and cashed in 120k. Win the day. 2-0
I think all that winning the battles does is increases/dercreases Rep with the backed/non backed factions as per your choice.
My general opinion about the BGS is, it was always just a transactional counter, and remains so. Value has little or no relevance other than what is in the bank for you..
I fought in one Low CZ, didn't win the battle but pulled out after having 4 NPCs attack me. Cashed in the bonds of just over 200k. Win the day. 1-0
Next day i did the same, pulled out before the battle was won, cashed in 175k, then went and fought another Low CZ, pulled out again and cashed in 120k. Win the day. 2-0
I think all that winning the battles does is increases/dercreases Rep with the backed/non backed factions as per your choice.
My general opinion about the BGS is, it was always just a transactional counter, and remains so. Value has little or no relevance other than what is in the bank for you..
Winning the battle also counts towards winning the day, regardless of whether you hand in the bonds afterwards. They are two discrete transactions.
And, as has been suggested, winning the battle scores maybe 2-3 times more than a single bond hand-in.
EDIT - of course, doing both will benefit you more if the war is opposed
This is kinda weird. At first I assumed this is because what happens in a player-generated instance (like a CZ) is not tracked by the server whereas the various station services (handing in missions, bonds, bounties, and cargo) is. But then I realized that the servers must track our kills, otherwise we wouldn't progress in combat rank. AFAIK, combat rank does not depend on handing in bonds / bounties. And if I shoot an innocent ship, the server instantly tags me has wanted, so there is a constant update to the server regarding who and what I'm shooting, yes?
Speaking of, it's the handing in of bounties rather than the killing of pirates that improves system security, correct? It seems the BGS is tightly integrated with the station services screen rather than live gameplay. Though if I were to go killing civilians and system authorities, I suspect system security would drop, no station visit required...
Now I'm confused!!!
Correct. If it wasn't tied to the bounty you hand in, then the only logical alternative would be to increase the security of all other factions in the system. That would be way too powerful an action compared to others, so it's the only rational option.
Security drops not because you kill civilians and system authorities, but because you commit violent crime, thus the discussions in other threads about killing ships in lawless areas having (apparently) no effect. Thus, if no crime is committed, no effects occur.