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Post by daveal on May 17, 2018 12:11:50 GMT -5
A good skill to gain is to try and recognize how these Contacts in the negatives got there. Did you notice their Faction losing a lot in Spice Hall rumors? Did they have negative, Influence draining Rumors active in their Quadrant or Zone? Or do their traits, like Spice Addict, show that they have just been wasting turns or Influence doing nothing but run around a Spice Hall? Thanks for the suggestions. I played another merchant game and looked a little more carefully. In the first game I had dozens of contacts which just appeared, at different times, due to the merchant and other crew talents. I had not tried to figure out what affects their influence. I just observed that a number of times in a row, I wanted something from a contact and visited them, but could not figure out how to raise their influence. Your suggestions are good ones, but they involve more research than most players will do, and requires advance notice of what to pay attention to. In the second game, I focused on a small number of contacts. In fact, a tiny set: only those who buy intel and grant trade permits. For this set, the strategy to raise influence is easy. Just wander around spying on anybody, anywhere, and build up a cargo of intel. Then, visit this contact and dump 6-8 intel cargos on them. Bingo, their personal rep and influence is high now. For one contact, I visited the first time; their influence was negative; I did not have to do any missions; after I dumped 6-8 intel cargos I could immediately buy a trade 4 permit from them. I still don't know how to do anything with contacts that don't buy intel. I have done their personal missions to raise their influence, which raised for example from -11 to -10, where I needed +15 to get anything. I did not try finding their specific conflicts but doing so seems much more indirect than other things in the game. There seem to be a number of interesting contact types, but unless they buy intel, I still consider them not very useful. Maybe the simulation changes mentioned by Corey will make influence easier to understand.
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Post by contributor on May 17, 2018 12:30:00 GMT -5
daveal, it shouldn't be too complicated to get involved in a contact's conflicts. The easiest way is just asking them for a mission and then asking for missions that are related to a conflict. Otherwise, just look at their faction, then look at what conflicts that faction is in and help them win through Patrol, Blockade, Spy. All faction conflicts concern all contacts of that faction. Simply patrolling over that contact's planet, if they are in a conflict, should turn up cards that will influence that conflict. Also taking missions that are 6-10 jumps shouldn't be too big of a deal. Ideally you want to chain multiple missions together going the same direction. If you can make a loop and accomplish 3-4 missions at once you'll be able to significantly help their influence. Trade along the way and you'll get loads of cash and xp while you're doing it. Lastly there are some talents I believe that will help increase influence gain from missions. I can't remember exactly what they are, but I believe at least one of them is a Diplomat talent.
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Post by daveal on May 17, 2018 13:26:32 GMT -5
It's disappointing to do a contact's mission and raise influence by only 1 when I need to raise by 25 to use them. I can try finding their faction's conflicts and patrol/block/spy. Will that raise influence faster? Just because the contact's faction is involved in a conflict doesn't immediately tell me that helping their faction's conflict will raise that contact's influence. A particular contact's influence still seems like a black box to me.
It seems that dumping 6-8 random intels, even stale ones unrelated to their faction, raise influence orders of magnitude faster and more reliably.
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Post by Cory Trese on May 18, 2018 10:03:48 GMT -5
I remain curious about the root cause of what is causing your experience to be so different than the average player. I hope we are able to eventually understand the basis for the confusion or the perception regarding Contacts, Conflicts and Influence.
I will continue to monitor the performance of the average player as well as the simulation as a whole for health and consistent behavior within the various states.
I am very sorry you are having so much trouble making Contacts work for you. I hope that we are able to find out why you are having this experience.
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Post by daveal on May 18, 2018 10:59:22 GMT -5
Will your simulation change reduce the number of contacts with negative influence? Will sending my save game help?
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Post by Cory Trese on May 18, 2018 11:08:33 GMT -5
Will your simulation change reduce the number of contacts with negative influence? Will sending my save game help? For some games, the change will rebalance the number of Contacts who start with a larger base Influence pool. It shouldn't have a very large change on the overall Influence economy, measured across the players. Sending the saved game might help. I'm happy to look at it.
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Post by daveal on May 18, 2018 19:13:13 GMT -5
I have just sent a save game to andrew@tresebrothers.com. For the saved captain "DaveSM" (sorry several with similar names) there are 8 contacts with negative influence and most of the rest have influence less than 15. The ones I did missions for have a nonzero personal rep, so their influence is raised by me by selling intelligence to them. That is a huge boost but 2/3 of contacts don't buy intel. So I can only raise their influence one point at a time, and most things to buy need influence 15.
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Post by Cory Trese on May 18, 2018 19:27:42 GMT -5
I will be sure to take a look at the saved game to see if I can find any particularly helpful tips to share.
We will continue to monitor the game's performance, and always looks for ways to improve.
Based on our extra simulator testing, live gameplay monitoring and player feedback I think the game is performing really well.
I will do my best to find out why your perception and the average experience are so hugely different. Maybe this saved game will help.
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Post by LordofSyn on May 18, 2018 22:27:33 GMT -5
davealI noticed one thing you never mentioned regarding Contacts. Introductions. They are the **Easiest** way to gain Contacts and have them already set with (usually) higher Personal Rep , Influence, and Faction Rep. Have you tried working your Contacts for their Introductions? Sometimes you may have to gain a few people you do not really want to gain that Contact that has services you do like.
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Post by daveal on May 19, 2018 0:13:03 GMT -5
Thanks for the suggestion! I have tried some introductions. Usually there are 1-2 factions I am friendly with and some of those contacts do introductions. Unfortunately, I have found that most often, the proposed new contact is in the same faction I am already friendly with. So, if my goal is to build up rep with one of the other factions, these introductions don't help.
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Post by LordofSyn on May 19, 2018 0:40:46 GMT -5
Thanks for the suggestion! I have tried some introductions. Usually there are 1-2 factions I am friendly with and some of those contacts do introductions. Unfortunately, I have found that most often, the proposed new contact is in the same faction I am already friendly with. So, if my goal is to build up rep with one of the other factions, these introductions don't help. Building Rep can be done in so many ways, it is ridiculous. You can, for example, take a Conflict mission (the center "lane" missions) but work for the other side. Patrol/Blockade/Spy/Explore/Trade during Conflicts over a low Rep world to gain access to Conflict cards without even having to be in a mission. Also pay attention to Connected Missions (far right lane of missions screen). Many Contacts will also allow you to help out their connected contacts via missions. Do this enough, and you can easily gain that Contact with all of their added Rep/P.Rep/Influence you have helped build for them. There is no wrong way to play this game, but it is very deep and can take a few games to really get a feel for the many layers of mechanics working simultaneously. There are videos with Tips n Tricks available to view. Finally, I leave you with this: Every choice you make has weight and may not always be felt immediately. You need to play slower, maybe take notes (I do and I have put in almost 800 hours into this game. I still take notes); and take your time. 98% of the "bad" events that can happen to you are due to your choices. Do not make snap decisions, take your time and look through everything to help. Use the Consult button on screens if you need to. Play on Basic to get a better feeling and eventually you can move closer to Hard or higher...where your choices can easily end your career. Regardless, thank you for supporting TB and glad to have you around. Should you need help, keep asking here...but know that the Discord is usually the fastest way to get advice.
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Post by daveal on May 19, 2018 1:18:25 GMT -5
Thanks!
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