Minor factions, system states, and charity missions

[Tifu]

More info on the future plans of FD for the BGS here :


https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthrea ... ost3406782

Btw, the Azrael system just went through a BUST cycle. Charity missions appeared at Rafferty's station AND at Exioce just two days ago. Checking on it again tonight, just have to deliver some fortification stuff for the Blue-haired one first

[StaticRadion]

You have summed up what I could quite articulate myself The tables listed though only seem to apply to when that state has been reached or have I misunderstood (a total possibility!)?

I didn't go into it but the original article does. Basically all the states are competing with each other to see which can be achieved first. When something live civil unrest is procked all other pools are reset to 0 and the cycle restarts, but with the current status being given a handicap via its "cool down". This does not matter much if you are trying to decrease a factions control because civil unrest and lock down can follow each other back to back.

Something worth noting is that a factions influence is increased by 2 points when you turn a bounty in but decreased by 7 when you murder a member of the faction. IE working at the same speed you need 7 people doing positive work to counterbalance 2 people working against you.

[H.M. Serenus]

Btw, the Azrael system just went through a BUST cycle. Charity missions appeared at Rafferty's station AND at Exioce just two days ago. Checking on it again tonight, just have to deliver some fortification stuff for the Blue-haired one first

The last BUST cycle is some time ago.
7.12-21.12 Boom
22.12-26.12 None
26.12-01.01 Boom
02.01- 11.01 None (pending Boom)

Those charity missions seem more or less random to me.

[Walter]

Something worth noting is that a factions influence is increased by 2 points when you turn a bounty in but decreased by 7 when you murder a member of the faction.

Not quite. Those numbers refer to the number of points that are put into a pool that is used to generate States. The Influence changes for the day are calculated and then moderated before being added to the start point for the day: "There is a cap on the amount a Faction can change in influence per day, which is determined by: the size of population (the bigger the harder), the faction state, the amount of player activity that day, and any Power influence on that system." It certainly isn't possible to do 10 murders and have the published Influence drop by 50%.

IE working at the same speed you need 7 people doing positive work to counterbalance 2 people working against you.

Have one group of players gaining positive points and another groups raising the same number of negative points should result in stasis when applied to the same faction.

Should, but this is the BGS.

Remember that there isn't always a one-to-one correspondence between actions and results. If you take out a ship of the pirate faction it's quite likely that you will receive benefit from all the other factions in the system when you cash in your vouchers (and from the major Factions - you are using a KWS, aren't you?). Each affected minor faction will gain some Influence shift for the day.

[StaticRadion]

Not quite. Those numbers refer to the number of points that are put into a pool that is used to generate States. The Influence changes for the day are calculated and then moderated before being added to the start point for the day: "There is a cap on the amount a Faction can change in influence per day, which is determined by: the size of population (the bigger the harder), the faction state, the amount of player activity that day, and any Power influence on that system." It certainly isn't possible to do 10 murders and have the published Influence drop by 50%.

I am trying to see if we are on the same page because maybe I missed something, but I was under the impression that it shows both the number of points added to or removed from a States pool and the Influence generated. As in going to a RES and collecting a bounty has the combined effect of removing 2 points from the "Civil Unrest" pool, one point from the "Lockdown" pool, and rewarding 2 influence to presumably the faction in control of the station where you collect you reward. I have not been able to keep up with the original forums post so please link to a page or post where this is stated as wrong if possible.

Have one group of players gaining positive points and another groups raising the same number of negative points should result in stasis when applied to the same faction.

I was mostly commenting on the rate at which a group could reach the total amount of points in a pool per day. That is if the pools are equal in size one would fill faster than the other not weather or not stasis would or could be achieved. As you stated things such as that vary based on system population etcetera and we don't even know how large the polls are to begin with.

It also makes sense that murder would have more impact that anything else because of how the BGS works. IE the faction in control of a station is rewarded for every bounty turned in, by 2 points influence, while reducing there power requires hunting and eliminating just there faction to remove 7 influence. And again not knowing the side of the pool for say total influence, as the % in game are a representation of a hidden number, makes it hard to judge just how many bounties or murders would have to be committed to change the influence even a single %.

That being said I never intended this post to be about flipping or changing a single factions influence as much as how to reach as many negative States as possible within a system at the same time so as to bring about a huge number of charity missions. That is, killing all non wanted targets at a nav beacon.

[Walter]

OK - I'm now confused. Let me try and explain it so that I understand (I've been trying to do this ever since I first read it and quite happy to be shown I'm wrong - I often am). FD's explanations often throw up more questions than answers and different readers draw different conclusions.

The left hand part of the table concerns Actions and States. Each State has a pool of points. When the total number of point in a pool reaches a specified total that state enters a countdown phase and all other pools are emptied or halved depending on the triggering State. Each faction has its own set of pools, but any Action only applies to a single faction. I think we're agreed on this.

Coinciding with the result from an Action is an entirely separate result (shown in the rightmost column) on Influence. I can find no statement as to whether this is the same faction to which the Action was applied: it may be the same or it may be the station's controlling faction (and the two might be one and the same). It's not at all clear who benefits from illegal trading (or why both legal and illegal trading should be beneficial) but to assume that it's the station owner is probably a reasonable working hypothesis. (Conflating charts containing two methodologies does not clarify the situation, but that's not our fault.)

So, ignoring the left-hand section and dealing solely with the Influence column. For each murder the leading faction loses 5 percentage points of Influence because - presumably - murders are counted when they happen (or are they only counted when a mission is completed? And what happens to murders that are not mission sanctioned?). The bounty hunter has to claim three ships killed to top each murder. (Or is it three bulk claims? No matter how much exploration data you bring back, selling the lot in one bulk claim gains only 2 percentage points - sell it in several smaller parcels to gain the biggest advantage for a faction.)

So yes, numerically, the bounty hunter has to kill three times as many ships to counteract and surpass the assassin, but there is normally a greater number of Wanted ships in a system than civilians or cops and there are no immediate repercussions for killing a criminal. (Not sure how you get your figures.)

I'm still not sure.

Not sure about charity missions either. They were initially designed to be an indicator of how well a faction was doing, but on several occasions I've seen charity missions for factions that have ratings higher than 75% and no current States. Still not sure if doing them has as beneficial effect as it is supposed to have. Has the bug been fixed?

[Cmdr Kharma]

This discussion actually came up in game the day before yesterday......

If we were actually helping the order by bounty hunting at the nav......

The conclusion was.....

Even Einstein would take one look at the BGS system and say fuck that...I can't understand it.....

So we decided just to shoot the shite outta baddies anyway.....



On a serious note......It really should be sorted out....Seems no one knows what's actually happening....Kinda caught FD by surprise me thinks....

[Walter]

This discussion actually came up in game the day before yesterday......

If we were actually helping the order by bounty hunting at the nav......

The conclusion was.....

Even Einstein would take one look at the BGS system and say fuck that...I can't understand it.....

So we decided just to shoot the shite outta baddies anyway.....



On a serious note......It really should be sorted out....Seems no one knows what's actually happening....Kinda caught FD by surprise me thinks....

Claiming bounties in your home system is still not a good idea - the wrong factions are benefitting: even the enigmatic chart may not be worth the screen it's printed on.

Did some bounty hunting in one of my home systems last night just to check and didn't do my faction any good at all.

[Cmdr Kharma]

Thank you for the attempt at clarity there Walter........

Now when did the shouting through the letterbox actually stop and exactly WHO let you back in the room.....

[pargyrak]

Well kicking the Exioce Crimson into oblivion obviously helps so let's get a move on...Shall we?