Time for BGS 2.0 – Politics, Local Politics

[xywa]

Hello,

Following a significant increase in ED’s revenue (as shown in the FDEV conference recording), partly due to PowerPlay 2.0, I believe it's time for BGS 2.0.

Why?​

The success of PP 2.0 has shown that without modifying the graphics engine, performance, or other technical aspects—just by expanding game content and RPG elements—the game can truly take off.

Suddenly, in order to complete weekly PP 2.0 missions, I had to start doing things I had NEVER done before, even after 800 hours of gameplay. Ground missions, rescuing escape pods, and more—PP 2.0 forced me to engage, and in the process, I discovered new, highly engaging aspects of the game.

BGS is different, but it remains one of the core pillars of ED. Many players focus on BGS as their main activity, treating other gameplay elements as secondary. BGS, like PP 2.0, needs more direct player-system interaction so that player actions have a more visible impact beyond just statistics on INARA.

---

Key changes worth introducing:​

Imagine supporting a faction (let’s call it ABC) in a system. Currently, I can increase its influence from 5% to 80%, dominate the system, and become the top faction. This faction can expand into three new systems… but then what?

After achieving dominance in multiple systems, gameplay starts feeling repetitive. The only noticeable change is that the faction turns green as an ally—and that’s it.

What if we introduced a System Management feature, where the dominant faction (and only that faction) could make key political and economic decisions? These decisions would have a direct impact on the system and surrounding areas.

---

For example:​

• Implement tariffs on goods (e.g. from communist systems) at 25%.
• The more systems a faction controls, the greater its influence on galactic politics (which is currently nonexistent).

Let’s say a player supports a faction, and after a few months, that faction controls five systems. In high-level politics, this would translate to five votes.

To assign these votes, players with the most influence should be promoted to the faction’s governing body.

---

Player Benefits​

There need to be tangible benefits for players who actively contribute to faction growth and system management.

1. VIP Room in the Spaceport​

Players who significantly support a faction could gain access to a VIP Room in the spaceport, where they could:

• See their impact on the faction (e.g., “Your actions contributed 30% of all faction points.”).
• Check their political influence (e.g., “As a board member, you have 55% of the votes and can vote on tariffs and system policies.”).

2. Voting and Policy System​

Let’s say there’s a vote on raising tariffs on food in a system:

• Player A (55% of votes) supports the increase.
• Players B and C (combined 45%) want to lower tariffs.

Player A wins the vote, but to maintain their influence in the future, they would have to complete local BGS missions to further strengthen their position.

This system would naturally motivate players to stay engaged, as the more influence they have over politics, the more rewarding it becomes to continue supporting their faction.

---

This is just an initial concept for discussion, but it shows how BGS 2.0 could greatly enhance gameplay in ED. Let me know if you'd like to refine anything!

 

[Jmanis]

Hello,

Following a significant increase in ED’s revenue (as shown in the FDEV conference recording), partly due to PowerPlay 2.0, I believe it's time for BGS 2.0.

Why?​

The success of PP 2.0 has shown that without modifying the graphics engine, performance, or other technical aspects—just by expanding game content and RPG elements—the game can truly take off.

Suddenly, in order to complete weekly PP 2.0 missions, I had to start doing things I had NEVER done before, even after 800 hours of gameplay. Ground missions, rescuing escape pods, and more—PP 2.0 forced me to engage, and in the process, I discovered new, highly engaging aspects of the game.

BGS is different, but it remains one of the core pillars of ED. Many players focus on BGS as their main activity, treating other gameplay elements as secondary. BGS, like PP 2.0, needs more direct player-system interaction so that player actions have a more visible impact beyond just statistics on INARA.

---

Key changes worth introducing:​

Imagine supporting a faction (let’s call it ABC) in a system. Currently, I can increase its influence from 5% to 80%, dominate the system, and become the top faction. This faction can expand into three new systems… but then what?

After achieving dominance in multiple systems, gameplay starts feeling repetitive. The only noticeable change is that the faction turns green as an ally—and that’s it.

What if we introduced a System Management feature, where the dominant faction (and only that faction) could make key political and economic decisions? These decisions would have a direct impact on the system and surrounding areas.

---

For example:​

• Implement tariffs on goods (e.g. from communist systems) at 25%.
• The more systems a faction controls, the greater its influence on galactic politics (which is currently nonexistent).

Let’s say a player supports a faction, and after a few months, that faction controls five systems. In high-level politics, this would translate to five votes.

To assign these votes, players with the most influence should be promoted to the faction’s governing body.

---

Player Benefits​

There need to be tangible benefits for players who actively contribute to faction growth and system management.

1. VIP Room in the Spaceport​

Players who significantly support a faction could gain access to a VIP Room in the spaceport, where they could:

• See their impact on the faction (e.g., “Your actions contributed 30% of all faction points.”).
• Check their political influence (e.g., “As a board member, you have 55% of the votes and can vote on tariffs and system policies.”).

2. Voting and Policy System​

Let’s say there’s a vote on raising tariffs on food in a system:

• Player A (55% of votes) supports the increase.
• Players B and C (combined 45%) want to lower tariffs.

Player A wins the vote, but to maintain their influence in the future, they would have to complete local BGS missions to further strengthen their position.

This system would naturally motivate players to stay engaged, as the more influence they have over politics, the more rewarding it becomes to continue supporting their faction.

---

This is just an initial concept for discussion, but it shows how BGS 2.0 could greatly enhance gameplay in ED. Let me know if you'd like to refine anything!

Players don't hold positions of power within or have representation of factions.... most of this would belong in PP, not the BGS.

That'd be like getting a private contracting company to authorize government policy... it wouldn't make any sense.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

To assign these votes, players with the most influence should be promoted to the faction’s governing body.

How would you see this working in terms of determining who those players were? "Most influence" is a fairly vague term.
- most raw transaction value or most INF value resulting from those transactions (i.e. after the various diminishing returns have been applied)?
- most in one system (so each faction-system pair has its own governing body) or in all systems the faction is present in? (both have weird side-effects)
- how many factions can you be on the governing body of at once? (if I run a bunch of missions out on the fringes of the bubble I expect I'd get onto tens of governing bodies by default)
- would you need to align yourself with a faction for it to count, or would it be passive like the rest of the BGS and it's your actions which matter?
- would you see there being any minimum contribution requirement? (if so, how)
- with a lot of BGS players not seeing "our faction has really high INF across the board" as a desirable situation (see all the complaints when the Powerplay introduction caused other players to do exactly that in many cases), is a metric of "how much +INF you caused" going to cause problems intrinsically? [1]


On the other side, what would you see the various things like "tariffs" as doing to make it worth the effort? A 25% price change is barely noticeable compared with the effects of all the BGS states you'll trigger getting the votes required to apply the tariff, for example.


[1] I particularly see an issue here for the "galactic votes" stage. Grinding high-efficiency +INF actions on a faction which already has 200 systems is far more effective far more quickly than spending a minimum of seven years to get an existing smaller faction up to that size, or doing the same influence gaining across twenty 10-system factions.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Sees votes and has PTSD from Powerplay 1s Consolidation voting system

Personally though, PP2 is the new action layer of the BGS. The BGS could certainly use some tricks from PP2 (expansions and faction territorial visualizations) but beyond that its as complete a system as you can get without becoming PP2 (and thus duplicating it).

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Sees votes and has PTSD from Powerplay 1s Consolidation voting system

Personally though, PP2 is the new action layer of the BGS. The BGS could certainly use some tricks from PP2 (expansions and faction territorial visualizations) but beyond that its as complete a system as you can get without becoming PP2 (and thus duplicating it).

Harken! And heed the Gibbous one!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Suddenly, in order to complete weekly PP 2.0 missions, I had to start doing things I had NEVER done before

You don't HAVE to do the weekly's. They are there as an option, and sometimes they can even done accidentally or incidentally while you do other stuff.

They do provide a nice bit of direction for players wondering what to do and to gain a bit extra merits. That's it.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Harken! And heed the Gibbous one!

But seriously, voting is bad. Don't ever base a system on it. PP2 has shown that decentralized systems (based on the BGS) are much more robust. Making players in charge of things adds a lot of drama, especially if people fall out or leave.

A better system would be something that players build towards- in the past I suggested an upper layer for superpowers, and that more aligned systems provides a mild boost. Something similar could be done here, where gov type has a mild perk that gets magnified the more happy systems you have. That way, no votes, players are engaged and its all in game terms.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

But seriously, voting is bad. Don't ever base a system on it. PP2 has shown that decentralized systems (based on the BGS) are much more robust. Making players in charge of things adds a lot of drama, especially if people fall out or leave.

A better system would be something that players build towards- in the past I suggested an upper layer for superpowers, and that more aligned systems provides a mild boost. Something similar could be done here, where gov type has a mild perk that gets magnified the more happy systems you have. That way, no votes, players are engaged and its all in game terms.

Can't trust people to vote... all sorts of stupid things happen.

 

[Tifu]

But seriously, voting is bad. Don't ever base a system on it. PP2 has shown that decentralized systems (based on the BGS) are much more robust. Making players in charge of things adds a lot of drama, especially if people fall out or leave.

Yup, it was the voting mechanism that made 5c such a nightmare in PP 1.0 - so glad it's gone!

 

[metatheurgist]

That'd be like getting a private contracting company to authorize government policy... it wouldn't make any sense.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Can't trust people to vote... all sorts of stupid things happen.

Its easier to just eat them. After all, Soylent Green was what it was through popular vote.

 

[aRJay]

I think part of the attraction to people about manipulating the BGS is because it feels slightly illicit after all it is supposed to be in the Background. So I am not sure exposing it even more would be a good thing.

 

[xywa]

How would you see this working in terms of determining who those players were? "Most influence" is a fairly vague term.
- most raw transaction value or most INF value resulting from those transactions (i.e. after the various diminishing returns have been applied)?
- most in one system (so each faction-system pair has its own governing body) or in all systems the faction is present in? (both have weird side-effects)
- how many factions can you be on the governing body of at once? (if I run a bunch of missions out on the fringes of the bubble I expect I'd get onto tens of governing bodies by default)
- would you need to align yourself with a faction for it to count, or would it be passive like the rest of the BGS and it's your actions which matter?
- would you see there being any minimum contribution requirement? (if so, how)
- with a lot of BGS players not seeing "our faction has really high INF across the board" as a desirable situation (see all the complaints when the Powerplay introduction caused other players to do exactly that in many cases), is a metric of "how much +INF you caused" going to cause problems intrinsically? [1]


On the other side, what would you see the various things like "tariffs" as doing to make it worth the effort? A 25% price change is barely noticeable compared with the effects of all the BGS states you'll trigger getting the votes required to apply the tariff, for example.


[1] I particularly see an issue here for the "galactic votes" stage. Grinding high-efficiency +INF actions on a faction which already has 200 systems is far more effective far more quickly than spending a minimum of seven years to get an existing smaller faction up to that size, or doing the same influence gaining across twenty 10-system factions.

Only the percentage would count—because that's the only thing that matters in BGS. If one player's actions over a certain period brought +7% to the faction, while another player's actions brought 5%, then the matter is clear. If one player, during a boom period, trades using leverage and generates 7% for the faction, why should they be doing pirate hunting at that time to get 4% same time? To make things a bit easier for the current situation, the "average % per player" over the last, say, 3 months would be considered.

Players don't hold positions of power within or have representation of factions.... most of this would belong in PP, not the BGS.

That'd be like getting a private contracting company to authorize government policy... it wouldn't make any sense.

Why not? If, in everyday global politics, private individuals or groups support a faction (in various ways) and that faction wins, then the government of such wining faction later grants them different contracts or honors. The same applies here—if a player's actions IMPACT who rules and who doesn’t, why wouldn’t such a player have at least symbolic influence on the new government? Let’s assume he wants to decide on the color of the seats at a space station because he noticed they differ slightly in shade.

 

[Jmanis]

Why not? If, in everyday global politics, private individuals or groups support a faction (in various ways) and that faction wins, then the government of such wining faction later grants them different contracts or honors. The same applies here—if a player's actions IMPACT who rules and who doesn’t, why wouldn’t such a player have at least symbolic influence on the new government? Let’s assume he wants to decide on the color of the seats at a space station because he noticed they differ slightly in shade.

Sure, we support them. But we're not part of them, nor do we hold authority within them. That's how it works in the game... many of the systems of play only work because we are dissociated from and not part of a faction.

The only group players belong to is the Pilot's Federation, and they're held in the highest regard for all the wrong reasons.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Only the percentage would count—because that's the only thing that matters in BGS.

The various diminishing returns curves (being global) give interestingly exploitable consequences to that:
1) The same action will give you a lot more points performed in a system no-one cares about compared with a system where 100 people are acting on the same faction (and therefore the +5% end-of-day result is being split 100 ways)
2) The same action will give you a lot more points performed in a system where the faction currently has low influence
3) The same action will give you a lot more points performed in a low-population system

There'll be a lot of heavily-expanded factions where bouncing around their fringe systems alternating pushing them and pushing a rival (so they don't get their own INF too high to be efficient) each day could get hundreds of +INF every tick (especially if you also want points with the rival!), while being essentially entirely neutral to the faction's position in the long term, and not resembling how anyone (even expansionist groups!) currently "plays" the BGS.

 

[mkizub]

BGS 2.0 should follow PP 2.0 - controlled expansion, determinded by pilot's offensive or support actions. Most of mechanics from PP 2.0 may be directly translated to BGS 2.0

Finally, minor factions should have a chance to become major faction (power), as well as great powers loosing their domination may degradate to minor faction. And (player's?) minor factions that loose their control over all systems and dropped theier influence in the native system - must be eventually removed.

For example, EG Pilots (squadron) supports EG Union (minor faction) and found Yuri Grom Power or Lavigny's Legion (squadron and minor faction) and have Arissa Lavigny-Duval power. So Celestial Light Brigade (squadron and minor faction), as one of most powerful squadrons (by controlled systems and population) should be able to found their own Power (or swear allegiance to Aisling Duval).

BGS is for squadrons. PP is for alliances.
Player's minor factions must be controlled by squads (expansion of the faction), by squad officers or by leader of the squadron or by voting or by most wealthy pilots of the squad (depending on their type - democracy, dictatorship, corporate, etc). Ideally, there should be ability to declare wars and alliances between factions, so that killing enemy ships will not expose bad notoriety, landing enemy ships on stations should be only anonymouse and so on. Becoming ally of minor faction should be as difficult as for ranking for Power and so on.

PS Unfortunately, current rules of PP 2.0 has broken BGS gameplay. Pilot actions used to support their Power made controlled expansion impossible (with outdated rules of BGS).

 

[Marcus Bronco]

Absolutely, BGS needs to be connected with Powerplay more than it is.
BGS needs to be taken into account.
BGS 2.0 is an improvement of Powerplay 2.0 itself.

Power play needs to keep into account the occupation of systems.
If a system is under a faction that is pledged to a different power this must be part of the facilitation or difficulty or neutrality in taking it.
Residents are happy? Unhappy with the new power?
What about the rebellions?
Taxes, the government styles and views. (Lore... of course a democratic or democratic aligned type of government will not fit well into a Power play that has very different views.

Democracies had slaves, (Athens had more slaves than citizens, but also the Spartan Oligarchies had... anyway some said that Atens fleet was so large and exaggerated that ... they should have not had right to vote, since they were just virtual, in the end their power was not rooted into the people who had to take very important decisions... some advocated to remove their rights to vote...)

Anyway there are tons of easy connectable lore and meanings that can justify additional mecahnics that who expands a SUPER POWER needs to take into account. However not right now.

Being Power play heavily oppressing BGS (actions in Powerplay reduce influence heavily), the game needs a rebalance where Power play does have to take into account BGS unless it want to go dictatorial mode on and impose , despite the costs, on a population a disliked power and government and economy macro structures.

However I heard that BGS was never taken seriously from Fdev being only something to keep the galaxy alive, not aimed to be taken seriously.The reality is that players has taken it seriously throughout the years...
So.. if they are true on the "we wanna let players now decide and write things" then they need to take care of BGS.

BGS need to inform Super power play and viceversa and so on...
This has the power to create ton of content.
Powers also need to be able to cooperate (the ones of the same allegiance.. I will never accept the aspect that we are bound to divide .. it makes no sense).

 

[mkizub]

However I heard that BGS was never taken seriously from Fdev being only something to keep the galaxy alive, not aimed to be taken seriously.The reality is that players has taken it seriously throughout the years...
So.. if they are true on the "we wanna let players now decide and write things" then they need to take care of BGS.

Actually, BGS is the only thing that makes squadrons meaningful. You don't need to coordinate your gameplay for any activity, but BGS. Well, PP also needs some coordination, but with 10000 pilots per Power - squadrons are not a good way to organize peoples. So, if FDev will keep BGS broken and not taken seriously - squadrons will degradate and eventually die. And peoples will leave this game. Honestly, after one have tried each kind of activity (exploration, mining, bounty hunting, etc) - what else can keep us to play the game (and make servers alive)? Only common goals with squadron pilots. PP is depersonalized, it does not helps to find friends in the game. Only small groups of players (5-20-100 players) produce new friends, this is a squadron level of communication. And BGS is the only (currently) activity that fits squadron scale. That's the reason why pilots took BGS seriously.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Actually, BGS is the only thing that makes squadrons meaningful. You don't need to coordinate your gameplay for any activity, but BGS. Well, PP also needs some coordination, but with 10000 pilots per Power - squadrons are not a good way to organize peoples. So, if FDev will keep BGS broken and not taken seriously - squadrons will degradate and eventually die. And peoples will leave this game. Honestly, after one have tried each kind of activity (exploration, mining, bounty hunting, etc) - what else can keep us to play the game (and make servers alive)? Only common goals with squadron pilots. PP is depersonalized, it does not helps to find friends in the game. Only small groups of players (5-20-100 players) produce new friends, this is a squadron level of communication. And BGS is the only (currently) activity that fits squadron scale. That's the reason why pilots took BGS seriously.

People tend to use platforms such as Discord for organising themselves with powerplay or even just squadron stuff in general. FDev aren't going to be able to create something that rivals that and be able to put it in game.

 

[mkizub]

People tend to use platforms such as Discord for organising themselves with powerplay or even just squadron stuff in general. FDev aren't going to be able to create something that rivals that and be able to put it in game.

Where did I wrote about replacing Discord? I wrote that FDev should keep gameplay, game activities for squadrons. PP is not for squadrons - there are ~10 Powers, and ~1000 squadrons (more or less active). Minor factions (thus BGS) match squadron scale.