Hey everyone,

so the recent Colonia CG and the "Hand of God" way it was implemented just canceled about 50 Days of BGS work we put into the Game. Without a warning, without FDev even thinking about any player faction in the vicinity.

And it could have been avoided very easily too!

So please, bear with me and let me explain the Situation first.

Quick history of the last 3 Months



I am currently in charge of BGS Operations for Explorers' Nation in Colonia. Our main goal is to raise security in our Systems, so our players and Explorers in general can fly in safely to drop their Data. This means that we don't like Anarchy factions in our Systems. They spawn pirates and drop security levels. Plus, it's an RP thing for us.

For this, we fought the Anarchy faction "the Nameless", which was placed into Colonia at 26/06/3303 and which expanded to Union at 8/7/3303. That was over 3 Months ago.

Since then, we managed to force their Retreat from Union and flipped their Home system, Carcosa so they won't expand again.

This sounds very easy, but fellow BGS groups might know that this meant three months of hard work for several Commanders up here in Colonia. Tracking the BGS each day, forming a strategy and daily Mission running, fighting, etc.

Also, the BGS is very jumpy up here. Mainly because of random Mission running by other commanders not involved with us.

You are very lucky to get a Conflict in a special system with the faction you want to fight. Because random conflicts you don't want keep popping up, which means another week of waiting and preparations.

We took Carcosa's main Station at 06/08/3303, which was a huge success! Still, there was much to do.

When we finally reached our goals...





Much, much later, on 15/10/3303 we (finally!) landed a double hit! The Nameless retreated from Union and we had a pending war for their second Station in Carcosa!

But then...

..the Hand of God appeared

Yesterday, the Nameless were suddenly present in 5(!) new systems! Besides Carcosa, their last system until then, they were now present in Union, Edge Fraternity Landing, Morpheus, Saraswati and...Colonia.

This happened in one tick, without any Expansion state even pending, without any warning. Against all known BGS mechanics. We were confused. So I submitted a

.

I also approached Brett C and he told me that this was propably not intentional.

DID edit NPC factions - for a CG: Guess what happened next: theyedit NPC factions - for a CG: https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/communitygoals







and to make it even worse:





I could live with the fact that we'll have to throw the faction out of our system again...could also live with the fact that Brett C doesn't know what the CG department is doing...

But now our War in Carcosa was CANCELLED! It was active, day 2, only 3 more days to go and we would have gotten another Station. We had a huge lead.

But no, no Assets changed. The war is just over and we'll propably have to wait and try for 50 Days again.

I'm VERY dissapointed! And even more when I think about HOW this played out.

Instead of just placing a faction into Colonia, they propably made it expand over and over until it reached Colonia. All in one tick.

TL-DR



Because FDev wanted to host a CG in Colonia, they made an NPC faction magically expand over and over, until it reached Colonia. Why not hand place it temporally and be done with it?

Our active war with the Faction was cancelled without assets changing, so we were just robbed of a station we fought for. 50 Days of effort over nothing!

They also made the Faction expand to our Home system, after we finally managed to throw them out!

Addendum: a little satire story to calm down - A day at FDev:





Spoiler "Wow! The guys in Colonia are sure peaceful. No big fight for supremacy. Boo! Not Dangerous at all!"



- "Yeah, I know. Don't they know that this game is supposed to be a shooter? Okay, yes, Exploration will finally be fully implemented next year..."



laughter



"Can't believe they really took the 'in a year we'll do all this stuff' statement for real! So easy to please...But what about Colonia now?"



- "I got an idea! Let's make a bounty hunting CG where ppl could support or fight against a pirate faction. That might wake 'em up!"



"Nice! But wait...there is no Anarchy faction in Colonia itself..."



- "Meh, we'll just take a random NPC faction from the vicinity and let it expand over and over until we reach colonia."



"Yeah, good idea! No one might recognise it anyway. I mean, the BGS in Colonia is already broken. Haha..."





This is a huge prove of ignorance towards BGS groups. Devs will just god mod Factions when it fits their storyling. Players trying to change something? We don't care. Blaze your own trail? Yes, but we'll erase is again...And this is not the first incident of this kind! Oh, don't let me get startet about Powerplay and it's effect on BGS playing groups...You might think I'm just ranting because I lost a station and "only" 50 Days of work...But it could hit everybody.I'm sure some other Groups in the Vicinity are not very happy about their new Neighbours. As I heard, CCN was hit blunt by the war too!It's time that BGS groups unite and show that we are many. That we shouldn't be ignored, especially when things in the BGS are changed.Sure, you might not be able to track every Player Faction and their actions. But what's so hard about announcing stuff like this? Or taking a look into EDDB to check for player factions before modding a system?At least in Colonia, where you KNOW that there is a player faction in almost every system.Thanks for reading. Please share this Thread!