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Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:03 am
by xaero5150
Walter wrote:
xaero5150 wrote:Ok, let's look at this from a reasoned perspective.

A reasoned perspective is only valid if the data on which it is based are sound. There are a number of errors/misconceptions in your argument.

Well from what I have been told(from a particular dev at frontier) is that system influence works on a complicated equation that derives system influence by faction from a numerical per faction number. Each mission adds a specific number of "influence" points to a running total and a specific number of "reputation" points to a commander. The tallies for influence are then worked out as a relative percentage of the total. For example if all of the factions start at 0 and each influence + mission added 1 point, and each influence ++ mission added 3 points, if one faction reaches 100 points and the next faction reaches 50 points and the total is 200 points at the end of the cycle, the first faction would be at 50% (having half of the available points). So if someone were to complete the same number of inf+ missions for all factions, the total points would go up the exact (or close to) same number leaving influence exactly where it was when the player entered the system. The exception to this would be massacre missions because in massacre missions you generate negative influence by destroying the enemy faction's ships while simultaneously generating positive influence for the faction that gave the mission. It is also theoretically possible that specific missions are weighted in such a way as to offer greater influence than would be naturally perceived, but since 99% of all players take the same delivery missions for all factions this is offset. On the other hand when you avoid reputation with a faction(and thus also deprive that faction of the influence points that come with those missions) you are essentially working to increase standing for the other factions. Where this is an issue is in the missions that people actually want to do, namely the unnamed passenger missions. If I am not mistaken, there are 6 factions, and if you do not raise the reputation with one of the factions your percentage of specific unnamed missions going to that one port (180,000ls from the star) are decreased by 1/6th. This means additional board hopping and likely having to leave without filling your ship with passengers, due to the frequency that those missions pop up. That could be the RNGesus just hates me, but typically I fill the last slot with about 50 minutes to go before I start failing missions. Each of the unnamed missions has a low effect on reputation and influence, but even if it did not, by taking missions from all the factions you are at a zero sum game since you are adding the same numbers to each faction. They are essentially asking us to work FOR them to give them additional influence. I have been at this game for a really long time and have a pretty good relationship with many of the DEVs so I am pretty sure they did not lie to me. If I were in the "teabaggers" shoes, I would probably make the same request since I could get a reinforcement to my position without having to work as hard, but that does not change the facts that it does cut you relative income down by about 1/6th since it takes more hops per contract leading to additional time per run up to the point you HAVE to leave or risk failing contracts. I would personally request their assistance in some similar venture for mobius related business in exchange for mobius assistance in their undertaking, since it would only be fair given the loss of income associated with not working for a faction that offers 24 million credit runs on a regular basis.

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:12 am
by Saberius
xaero5150 wrote:Well from what I have been told...


OMG, my eyes!!
Please put in a couple of line feeds or take a breath... or something.. wow. :)

Joking aside, good info, though.
I always knew the BGS math/cause and effect stuff was complex.

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 7:54 am
by Relix Typhon
Well I think begrudging losing 16% of your income (your calcs) while also asking for quid pro quo of a friendly faction is rather selfish and against the spirit of Mobius.
We are a cooperative and help friendly commanders / factions. I remember when there were dozens of us endlessly ferrying travel guides, 10 at a time to commanders 10km from the station so they could take them to Colonia, which wasn't done on a tit for tat basis

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 5:27 am
by xaero5150
Relix Typhon wrote:Well I think begrudging losing 16% of your income (your calcs) while also asking for quid pro quo of a friendly faction is rather selfish and against the spirit of Mobius.
We are a cooperative and help friendly commanders / factions. I remember when there were dozens of us endlessly ferrying travel guides, 10 at a time to commanders 10km from the station so they could take them to Colonia, which wasn't done on a tit for tat basis

Not exactly my point. It was my understanding that there was/is a system mobius wanted to extract from empire control. Reciprocal favors is not exactly unwarranted.

Let's do a little math. Let's assume a 6 hour week from a casual player making runs. Let's also assume a simple 16% reduction (which is not exactly what I said, but it is way easier to calculate) In my hopped up cruise ship anaconda I typically make around about 180,000,000 credits per hour in this system with all factions. This means a 28,800,000 credit per hour reduction (using a basic calculation that is not 100% accurate for reasons I will get into) So over the casual cycle of a week that is a per player/per week reduction of 172,000,000. Let's assume that 1,000 players are both casual (6 hours per week) and agree to work for the TEAbaggers. That is a reduction in income of 172,800,000,000. Or about 172 A-rated, combat fitted, imperial cutters. They are essentially asking a group to forgo billions of credits per week in exchange for what, exactly? I am down for helping people, don't get me wrong, but in this particular case they are literally asking players to give up something for their group. The example you gave was for a community goal, that is players were compensated for their participation in the goal. What this is is the exact opposite, players are being asked to not participate and leave money on the table.

To put it another way. Lets say my friend shows up in this system, he has a few million credits that I gave him when he started a few months back. Using this system he could get to an Anaconda in a few days. Given that things like this are typically short lived before the nerf hammer flies, he would be giving up a large amount of credits over a finite span to assist a player group he is not a member of. I personally do not care one way or the other. I am triple elite, with one of every single ship, all a-rated and engineered, with exception of the Anaconda, Python, clipper, cutter, corvette and fer-de-lance(of which I have 2 each, all A-rated and G5 engineered). With 10 billion in the bank on top. My concern was for the group, and the loss of revenue for those less fortunate. And asking such a large favor without offering assistance in kind does seem to me to be just a little selfish. I tend to stick up for the guys coming up, because I still remember the days when I was using the wrong ship for the job because I couldn't afford the right one.

Now, as to the bad calculations and why 16% is not a fair number. Let's say you are allied with 5/6 factions and there is a consistent drop rate of 1 mission per board hop at a random faction that is one of the 6. You take a mission from one of the 5 allowed factions with a time limit of 2 hours. Then, you hop and the mission that you would take is locked behind an allied system rep with the disallowed faction. So you hop and hop and hop, wasting 30 minutes or more, but the RNGesus really wants you to take a mission with the neutral faction but will not spawn missions from other factions for whatever reason. I have hopped for an hour and a half with a passenger manifest that was half full, leaving about 30 minutes before the first missions begin to fail from time limits. In those cases the reduction in earnings is the percentage of your ship that goes unused so that you can complete the missions that you did get. In one recent case I had to make a run at only 30% capacity because the missions just wouldn't drop. Removing 1/6th of the available missions would severely exasperate the issue.

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 5:57 am
by xaero5150
Saberius wrote:
xaero5150 wrote:Well from what I have been told...


OMG, my eyes!!
Please put in a couple of line feeds or take a breath... or something.. wow. :)

Joking aside, good info, though.
I always knew the BGS math/cause and effect stuff was complex.



Sorry, one thought, lol. And a soulless, dry examination of mathematics to boot. Essentially, the TL-DR version is this: System rep and Inf work pretty much the same as combat ranking. You get allocated points based on specific factors, for example a deadly commander that only attacks harmless ships will never make elite, whereas a harmless commander that only attacks elite ships will make elite very quickly. The difference is the total required for influence is derived from the total allocation of points, and is a moving target.

My understanding is based on specific communications with the DEVs about reputation, but I cannot imagine that there would be 2 discrete systems in place for rep and influence since it would be easier just to have 2 running tallies and have the general mechanics work the same. One dev did hint that rep does affect influence, sort of how federation/imperial rank affects rep. That is, someone of high federation rank doing missions for a federally aligned minor faction gains rep faster the higher their rank is. I have noticed this since reaching Admiral/King ranking. But again, if reputation with a faction increases at allied and you are allied with all factions then the total points awarded for influence will remain relatively constant. If I add 1000 points to all factions then each faction is exactly where they started before I added any points, just with a higher total.

I theorize this is the mechanic that is causing all the civil wars. Pulling a system out of civil war would require one faction to pull away and gain a decisive lead in the faction rankings. Easy to do, if there are 6 factions and each has 1,000 points, where a single inf++ mission might award 3 points. Do 100 inf++ missions for a particular faction and they now have 1300 points, clearly ahead of the other factions. But when each faction has 100,000 points, the same control would require 10,000 inf++ missions. This means that the difference between the top faction and it's "rival" is always either at or slightly below the threshold for war, triggering the war state. For that reason I understand the request, but I also understand that many people are not sitting on billions of credits and a full fleet of engineered, a-rated ships. Those people might like to make a few extra credits before the nerf hammer falls.

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 7:30 am
by Relix Typhon
Your barking up the wrong tree pal. I play to have fun not max credits per hour.
So tbh your board extra hoping generates no sympathy from me but rather a little pity at your obsession with doing something insanely boring for pretend money.
But blaze your own trail, right... ;)

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 12:45 pm
by xaero5150
Relix Typhon wrote:Your barking up the wrong tree pal. I play to have fun not max credits per hour.
So tbh your board extra hoping generates no sympathy from me but rather a little pity at your obsession with doing something insanely boring for pretend money.
But blaze your own trail, right... ;)

Once again, I personally do not care. I have over 10 billion now and probably won't be on the grind any time soon(unless the new ships are insanely expensive) My concern was for members of the group that don't have one of everything with triple elite, king and admiral rank, every single ship (most of the big/fun ones I have 2 so I can deploy them to multiple systems and bounce using my insane range anaconda) Those people might just like to get a ton of credits so they can do whatever they want in whatever ship they like and not fear the rebuy screen. Every last one of us did something insanely boring to get rich enough to do what we want. I personally got rich doing smuggling runs at ceos/sothis. My buddy got rich in quince. Some people on this very board may want that shiny corvette and the rebuy to actually run it properly, and they ain't gonna get it running normal missions at a few hundred thousand a mission, not any time soon anyway.

Plus it would be nice for a group asking for players to give up actual gains toward their dream ships and loadouts to offer a hand in some reciprocal goal, it just seems fair. But hey, I could just take one of my A-rated G5 engineered vettes to one of the conflict zones in the system and massacre ships for the next few days. Combat is fun, right?

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 1:18 pm
by Walter
Precisely so. It's a non-terminal game, so unlike real life where, as everyone knows, the one who dies with the most money is the winner.

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 2:59 pm
by Relix Typhon
xaero5150 wrote: Every last one of us did something insanely boring to get rich enough to do what we want.

I didn't.

Re: A request from a player faction regarding Upsilon Aquarii passenger missions.

Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 3:15 pm
by SeppiMontana
Sorry if I interrupt your descussion. Just wanted to give some details about the alternative to Upsylon Aquarii: LTT 2684 -> Namorodo
I was there and it worked pretty well (already without ranking up the factions). The Supercruise to the target is roughly 20Minutes for the ~500,000Ls. You can get between 40 and 70millions per run and with Boardhopping time I think 2 runs per hour can be archived. So I would say up to 140mil/h

On Upsylon Aquarii I made 170mil in 1h but RNGesus hates me. 170 was the best I had so far with 25min Boardhopping. Usually I get 80mil (half hour hopping boards) and I am allied with all factions there... Few friends got already a few runs with 240/250mil but they did 45min hopping boards... So here again ~120mil/h
Just to give you a comparison.
Bye folks