Post by Tanith Low on Apr 16, 2016 11:46:17 GMT
As R suggested I've put this here for reference before we lose it in the Discord Chatter.
Souvarine - Today at 8:25 AM
I'll post any important nuggets of info that come from the AMA here, as they happen.
The Brian system is so named because one of the devs thought it was funny
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 8:32 AM
It is.
Souvarine - Today at 8:32 AM
Agreed
'Retreat' is soon to be a faction state. The opposite of Expansion.
There are 75,000 factions
'Boom bucket' is a thing.
Influence directly correlates to population. The % is a representation of an absolute number of simulated inhabitants of the system.
Ie there is a faction that has precisely 17 supporters.
So somewhere in the background, the game knows precisely how many people support IPEC. The % is a representation of that. Not the other way around.
There is a cap to the amount you can change influence per day. The bigger the population, the lower the cap.
Bounty vouchers boost the Influence of the faction that issued them. Not the station owner or system owner.
Triggering 'Boom' is one of the best ways to raise Influence. It doubles the Influence gain of all your actions.
Lockdown decreases the factions Influence.
Souvarine - Today at 9:05 AM
Faction state determines what type of ships spawn in a system. Eg boom = more traders
Expansion becomes available once you reach 75% Influence, as long as you're not in a conflict State.
Triggering Expansion immediately costs you 15% Influence.
Conflict zones only spawn around planets.
The Expansion eligibility radius is around 20 ly
Factions can only Expand to inhabited systems (at present) with less than five factions, unless there aren't any with less than five factions, in which case it kicks the smallest faction out in any of those systems.
You can't Expand if there aren't any eligible systems in range (at present)
Local news is the main in-game outlet for updates regarding local factions. We should read the Seedysticks local news.
[as an aside, they are trying to find a conflict zone in a system in which a civil war is going on, and they can't find any. Haha.]
In the future, Expansions will be possible to uninhabited systems. Eg unscripted pushing the frontier forward.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 9:15 AM
They need that galaxymap improvement coming in 2.1....
Woohoo! Frontier!
Souvarine - Today at 9:18 AM
There is no Influence decay. None. Only player actions affect Influence. We will be suffering from this, because we have fewer missions available for casual players to pick up and no stations for them to buy things from.
Controlling factions have a huge incumbency advantage, as they spawn the most missions and have the most stations, so there are simply more opportunities for players to boost their Influence further.
There a lots of nuggets I'm not writing because they're minor and wordy.
Conflict between factions below 7% influence is not possible.
You need a 3% lead on your opponent in a Civil War or an Election to win. You need a whopping 15% lead on your opponent in a War (expansion attempt) to win.
In Civil Wars and Elections, if you win, you automatically take your opponents asset with the largest population.
This is good.
One day, there will be ways to win assets from other factions without artificially boosting another faction's Influence or lowering your own. The devs do not recommend this.
They're aware of the perversity of lowering your own Influence to win an asset and this will be addressed eventually.
I need to leave the house now and there's 25 mins of video left. I'll finish later.
Souvarine - Today at 10:12 AM
The devs see a clear three-step order for minor factions: first get a station, then get the controlling station, then expand to another system.
I'm back by the way.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 10:14 AM
That was basically the plan for us...
Souvarine - Today at 10:32 AM
Factions can only be in one state at any time. This is well known but little understood. For example, if you can't trigger a Civil War with a faction, it's overwhelmingly likely that it's because they're embroiled in a War elsewhere.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 10:33 AM
Faction-wide ? aaaah.
Souvarine - Today at 10:33 AM
And finally: it is a design decision to keep a lot of the information on the background sim out of sight. This is to make it less overwhelming for new and casual players, but also because it's a background sim, not a foreground sim.
And that's it.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 10:34 AM
Good summary. I'm thinking this could be copypastad to the forum for log term reference
Good live streaming dude
Chat?
Souvarine - Today at 10:37 AM
Good idea to record for reference. Better than having to watch Ed Lewis thank people for 90 minutes again just to refresh our memories!
Can't chat just now sadly - just arriving at a work event. Hate working Saturdays!
Ref faction - states: they can only be in one state, regardless of how many systems they are present in.
Great work Tom. As always thank you to Ronan for providing the comic foil to the enterprise.
Souvarine - Today at 8:25 AM
I'll post any important nuggets of info that come from the AMA here, as they happen.
The Brian system is so named because one of the devs thought it was funny
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 8:32 AM
It is.
Souvarine - Today at 8:32 AM
Agreed
'Retreat' is soon to be a faction state. The opposite of Expansion.
There are 75,000 factions
'Boom bucket' is a thing.
Influence directly correlates to population. The % is a representation of an absolute number of simulated inhabitants of the system.
Ie there is a faction that has precisely 17 supporters.
So somewhere in the background, the game knows precisely how many people support IPEC. The % is a representation of that. Not the other way around.
There is a cap to the amount you can change influence per day. The bigger the population, the lower the cap.
Bounty vouchers boost the Influence of the faction that issued them. Not the station owner or system owner.
Triggering 'Boom' is one of the best ways to raise Influence. It doubles the Influence gain of all your actions.
Lockdown decreases the factions Influence.
Souvarine - Today at 9:05 AM
Faction state determines what type of ships spawn in a system. Eg boom = more traders
Expansion becomes available once you reach 75% Influence, as long as you're not in a conflict State.
Triggering Expansion immediately costs you 15% Influence.
Conflict zones only spawn around planets.
The Expansion eligibility radius is around 20 ly
Factions can only Expand to inhabited systems (at present) with less than five factions, unless there aren't any with less than five factions, in which case it kicks the smallest faction out in any of those systems.
You can't Expand if there aren't any eligible systems in range (at present)
Local news is the main in-game outlet for updates regarding local factions. We should read the Seedysticks local news.
[as an aside, they are trying to find a conflict zone in a system in which a civil war is going on, and they can't find any. Haha.]
In the future, Expansions will be possible to uninhabited systems. Eg unscripted pushing the frontier forward.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 9:15 AM
They need that galaxymap improvement coming in 2.1....
Woohoo! Frontier!
Souvarine - Today at 9:18 AM
There is no Influence decay. None. Only player actions affect Influence. We will be suffering from this, because we have fewer missions available for casual players to pick up and no stations for them to buy things from.
Controlling factions have a huge incumbency advantage, as they spawn the most missions and have the most stations, so there are simply more opportunities for players to boost their Influence further.
There a lots of nuggets I'm not writing because they're minor and wordy.
Conflict between factions below 7% influence is not possible.
You need a 3% lead on your opponent in a Civil War or an Election to win. You need a whopping 15% lead on your opponent in a War (expansion attempt) to win.
In Civil Wars and Elections, if you win, you automatically take your opponents asset with the largest population.
This is good.
One day, there will be ways to win assets from other factions without artificially boosting another faction's Influence or lowering your own. The devs do not recommend this.
They're aware of the perversity of lowering your own Influence to win an asset and this will be addressed eventually.
I need to leave the house now and there's 25 mins of video left. I'll finish later.
Souvarine - Today at 10:12 AM
The devs see a clear three-step order for minor factions: first get a station, then get the controlling station, then expand to another system.
I'm back by the way.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 10:14 AM
That was basically the plan for us...
Souvarine - Today at 10:32 AM
Factions can only be in one state at any time. This is well known but little understood. For example, if you can't trigger a Civil War with a faction, it's overwhelmingly likely that it's because they're embroiled in a War elsewhere.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 10:33 AM
Faction-wide ? aaaah.
Souvarine - Today at 10:33 AM
And finally: it is a design decision to keep a lot of the information on the background sim out of sight. This is to make it less overwhelming for new and casual players, but also because it's a background sim, not a foreground sim.
And that's it.
Ronnie Kane [9thLegion] - Today at 10:34 AM
Good summary. I'm thinking this could be copypastad to the forum for log term reference
Good live streaming dude
Chat?
Souvarine - Today at 10:37 AM
Good idea to record for reference. Better than having to watch Ed Lewis thank people for 90 minutes again just to refresh our memories!
Can't chat just now sadly - just arriving at a work event. Hate working Saturdays!
Ref faction - states: they can only be in one state, regardless of how many systems they are present in.
Great work Tom. As always thank you to Ronan for providing the comic foil to the enterprise.