What does changing faction control in a system actually do?

[Max Steele]

I know there's a mechanic in the game where you can concentrate on helping a faction within a system to eventually take over control of that system, and possibly expand its control into neighboring systems. What I want to know is - what does that actually change in the game?

Example:

John's Mining Company is in control of Alpha system. Missions are given, commodities are trading, etc... Now, players concentrate on Bob's Grocery Company and get them to take over the system.

What just changed? What happens in the system with Bob's Grocery Company running the show that didn't happen when John's Mining Company was in control?

 

[Scienti5t]

As I understand it it depends on their parent faction.

If John was a fed but Bob an imp then promoting Bob to local bigwig brings imperial law in.

 

[kurush]

According to the latest newsletter, it makes the Frontier crew very happy I don't think it changles much else though except some labels. May be we can fight slavery in the galaxy by flipping the stations that still allow it, but this still has to be tested.

 

[LtCasey]

According to the latest newsletter, it makes the Frontier crew very happy I don't think it changles much else though except some labels. May be we can fight slavery in the galaxy by flipping the stations that still allow it, but this still has to be tested.

Or bring it back.......

 

[Max Steele]

As I understand it it depends on their parent faction.

If John was a fed but Bob an imp then promoting Bob to local bigwig brings imperial law in.

Ok, that makes sense. If we wanted to grow Imperial space, we could slowly start supporting factions that are members of the Empire.

And if we wanted to grow inhabitated space, we could go to the border systems and get them to start expanding into un-inhabitated systems.

Actually, I think that's what we should be trying. Now that we know we can flip the control of a system, we should try to take a previously uninhabitated system and get a faction to take control and build a station in it.

 

[kurush]

Or bring it back.......

Actually, this is exactly what I am working on - camping the "deliver slaves" missions while working on other stuff on another computer. We need to bring it all the way to Sol and give those deadbeats a chance to be useful!

 

[Hans]

Actually, I think that's what we should be trying. Now that we know we can flip the control of a system, we should try to take a previously uninhabitated system and get a faction to take control and build a station in it.

What is the general population size of fringe systems at the edge of inhabited space? I'm guessing it's pretty low.

Given that this is true, controlling the expansion into uninhabited systems might be easier than we might think.
See the "Dukes of Mikunn" for promising state changes done by a small number of players:

"Dukes of Mikunn Expansion: A CMDR found a tiny system with a very high controlling influence. Him and a friend were able to raise its influence to 100% to initiate a expansion state. After the Dukes of Mikunn reached 100% influence they expanded to a neighbor system and now have 9% influence there."
Source on Reddit

So it should be easy to expand from fringe systems with tiny populations.

What would be really interesting to try, would be to expand from a fringe system where neighbouring uninhabited systems are either rich on resources or have many easily habitable planets. Would the expanding faction be more likely to expand there given the rich oppotunity?

I'm willing to invest time in finding out.

Who's with me?

 

[FaolGlas]

I thought Bob was a builder, and not a grocer?

All those of you with the Bob the Builder theme tune in your head now can thank me later.