A Guide to Minor Factions and the Background Sim

Everyone may already be aware of this, but due to a need to prop up a system that was under fire during an expansion, coinciding with a couple of commanders returning from very long expedition, we [really] piled a lot more data than might be normal into the expansion centre. SLightly disappointingly we held level or dropped a bit each tick. However our expansion came in a 27% instead of the normal 9.1 - this came as a shock so I double checked the news for the expansion system (I assumed up till then that I'd managed to miss one)

We've expanded into a System lately and ended up in 2nd place with 30%. Was quite a surprise here too.
 
Is there a list of the advantages/ differences of home factions Vs expansion factions.

In your home System you go to Civil War with other native factions (3% gap difference needed on the 3rd day of the live phase to win / take over new assets from the opposition).

In all other Systems you go to War (5% gap needed on the 3rd day of the live phase for the aforementioned to happen).

The home System provides the security that, even if dropped to 1.0%, you will never be removed from it (this was different in the beginning of the BGS). In all other Systems you have to maintain your presence over 2.5% or else you'll trigger a Retreat (1 day pending, 5 days live if not cut short by a conflict going live in another System beforehand).

You need to stay above the 2.5% threshold on the 5th day (or the day before a conflict goes live) to secure your presence in a System, otherwise you're out. Trying to run missions / passenger missions and pouring in Exploration data will amount in nothing if you're below the 2.5% mark the day before a conflict goes live, since the States always come before the % within the BGS.
 
What happens when civil wars spill over for more than 3 days?

The longer an armed conflict lasts the more the % in the other Systems except the one with the War deteriorate if not worked against with bounty hunting.

Here's a link that is quite helpful on various topics.
 
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Hello again fellow BGS people,

been reading through the last few pages, and something made my eyebrow arch a little.

You've been telling that, during a War, you should hunt the wanted ships of your own MF to raise % in those Systems the War isn't present in. This is baffling, because as we experienced it in our region of space, that does exactly squat for to raise us.

However, if you kill every wanted ship of every MF except the controlling faction (aka us), we see an reduction of the % loss due to the War, or sometimes even a positive change on the next tick. We've been working our Systems this way nicely and can't complain so far.

...

Alright, that's my little tidbit of experience as of late, cheerio folks.

If I am reading this right, I am finding some things different from every recorded experience I have had so far with bounties.

For me, I have never witnessed a situation where just killing the wanted ships (not handing in bounties) ever effected influence.

I frequently visit a haz rez I own in one system, and no matter what wanted target is shot, so long as the bounties or other missions aren't done in that system the influence remains static.

Only through handing in bounties do I see a change for the related parties the bounties are handed in.

So to gain influence for my PMF I only hand in my PMF's bounties.

When I hand in other bounties that effect other MFs the influence gains are more erratic depending on what's handed in.
 
If I am reading this right, I am finding some things different from every recorded experience I have had so far with bounties.

For me, I have never witnessed a situation where just killing the wanted ships (not handing in bounties) ever effected influence.

I frequently visit a haz rez I own in one system, and no matter what wanted target is shot, so long as the bounties or other missions aren't done in that system the influence remains static.

Only through handing in bounties do I see a change for the related parties the bounties are handed in.

So to gain influence for my PMF I only hand in my PMF's bounties.

When I hand in other bounties that effect other MFs the influence gains are more erratic depending on what's handed in.


Sorry if I was unclear, I did mean that you hand in the bounties of the wanted ships of other MF, just not the ones from your own during Wartime. As said, works nicely for us, whilst the other version (hand in the bounties from our own wanted MF ships) does nothing to halt / reverse the decay.

It makes sense though when you think about it, everytime you kill a wanted ship of a MF you first lose Reputation which you should gain back after handing the bounty vouchers in. For some reason this seems to apply to the % as well, don't ask me how though.
 
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Sorry if I was unclear, I did mean that you hand in the bounties of the wanted ships of other MF, just not the ones from your own during Wartime. As said, works nicely for us, whilst the other version (hand in the bounties from our own wanted MF ships) does nothing to halt / reverse the decay.

It makes sense though when you think about it, everytime you kill a wanted ship of a MF you first lose Reputation which you should gain back after handing the bounty vouchers in. Yet in Wartime this seemingly is not the case, at least not around where we're situated.
Well, that's part of my point.

I kill my own PMF's wanted ships - and get no influence shift, despite never handing in bounties in that system.

From my experience, killing a wanted ship on its own never effects influence.

Only the bounties from them does anything, and that can be handed in wherever your faction is.
 
Is it normal for a civil war to be pending for two ticks?

I've been pushing up the Nationals of Gilgamesh in the Gilgamesh system (yes I know, supporting a non-Fed faction in a high traffic system full of Fed factions with a huge population is pretty much as impossible as it gets). I equalised them with Gilgamesh Crimson Central Group on the 3rd of September at which point it showed Civil War for both the factions in pending state. After the tick to 4th of September it still shows pending state Civil War and Nationals of Gilgamesh now have a 0.5% lead in influence.

Both factions are in the Boom state and are not present in any other systems.
 
Is it normal for a civil war to be pending for two ticks?

I've been pushing up the Nationals of Gilgamesh in the Gilgamesh system (yes I know, supporting a non-Fed faction in a high traffic system full of Fed factions with a huge population is pretty much as impossible as it gets). I equalised them with Gilgamesh Crimson Central Group on the 3rd of September at which point it showed Civil War for both the factions in pending state. After the tick to 4th of September it still shows pending state Civil War and Nationals of Gilgamesh now have a 0.5% lead in influence.

Both factions are in the Boom state and are not present in any other systems.


3 days does a War pend for.
 
(3 days of fighting I think?).

Yes. On the fourth day the state will still be in place, but (if applicable) whatever asset is being contested (potentially the system controlling one if you're fighting the system controller) will have changed hands provided a victory condition is reached.
 
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Apologies if this has been discussed before and I know I am quite a busy bee regarding my quest to rule the universe :) but........

Is it usual to be preparing for ELECTION and at the same time preparing for EXPANSION?

We are in our third day for preparing for expansion and last night I decided to increase our influence in another system purely to keep it within the catchment range of the controlling system.

This morning I was strolling through all my estates when I happened to notice... TWO preparation states!

Is this normal and if it is, has anyone had more than two?? (A challenge if ever there was one)

I am NOT complaining as at least I can plan my future but how will this play regarding the dropping of influence when not in Boom?
 
Apologies if this has been discussed before and I know I am quite a busy bee regarding my quest to rule the universe :) but........

Is it usual to be preparing for ELECTION and at the same time preparing for EXPANSION?

We are in our third day for preparing for expansion and last night I decided to increase our influence in another system purely to keep it within the catchment range of the controlling system.

This morning I was strolling through all my estates when I happened to notice... TWO preparation states!

Is this normal and if it is, has anyone had more than two?? (A challenge if ever there was one)

I am NOT complaining as at least I can plan my future but how will this play regarding the dropping of influence when not in Boom?

it is actually good practice to cut a pending expansion short by a timed conflict.

i think someone posted a screenshot with 6+ pending states some time ago; there are only limitations for hierachy of states (an expansion can't go pending, when a conflict is pending, but a conflict can go pending when expansion is pending; a conflict can't go pending when another conflict is pending etc.)
 
it is actually good practice to cut a pending expansion short by a timed conflict.

i think someone posted a screenshot with 6+ pending states some time ago; there are only limitations for hierachy of states (an expansion can't go pending, when a conflict is pending, but a conflict can go pending when expansion is pending; a conflict can't go pending when another conflict is pending etc.)
Our states were: pending Expansion', 'Pending Election'

BUT....... I now look at the states and it very conveniently only shows the one, 'Pending Expansion'

Thankfully I took a screenshot so I am not going mad.... Will we get that Election as soon as we have expanded, OR .... will it be tough ?? :) (cheeky smile)
 
Our states were: pending Expansion', 'Pending Election'

BUT....... I now look at the states and it very conveniently only shows the one, 'Pending Expansion'

Thankfully I took a screenshot so I am not going mad.... Will we get that Election as soon as we have expanded, OR .... will it be tough ?? :) (cheeky smile)

pending election shows as any conflict only in source system in right hand panel, but the faction news in any station your faction is present should still note preparing for an election.
 
This morning I was strolling through all my estates when I happened to notice... TWO preparation states!

Is this normal and if it is, has anyone had more than two?? (A challenge if ever there was one)
I've seen four states in a pending list, but that was Jaques in Colonia so probably doesn't count. There could have even have been a fifth state just pending pending.
 
pending election shows as any conflict only in source system in right hand panel, but the faction news in any station your faction is present should still note preparing for an election.
Yup, As per usual Goemon, you are spot on.

Both states are only seen in the second placed location :) Does this mean what the packet suggests? We wait our five days for pending expansion, (that was our first to show) then wait for this expansion which will again usually take five pesky days.

Will there then be just that 24hr cool down period before we immediately go into election?
 
Yup, As per usual Goemon, you are spot on.

Both states are only seen in the second placed location :) Does this mean what the packet suggests? We wait our five days for pending expansion, (that was our first to show) then wait for this expansion which will again usually take five pesky days.

Will there then be just that 24hr cool down period before we immediately go into election?

no, the election will break the expansion.

if the expansion goes active first, the election will end it and you will expand ("cutting it short")

if the election goes active first, the expansion will stay pending and not tick on, till the election ended.

if election and expansion would go active on the same tick, the election will happen and the expansion will disappear (fdev claims, that's a feature, not a bug).
 
Hoping people can look over my maths and tell me if I'm right or wrong...

The theory of influence changes as I understand it is something like this.
- A system has a certain number of "points" in it's bucket, spread proportionally amongst factions.
- Positive actions add points to those factions buckets.
- At the tick, the points are tallied, normalised to the system norm, and then influences calculated based off this.

So lets assume an easy maths scenario where 1% = 1 point.

You've got 5 factions with influence:
2% (=2 points), 18% (=18 points), 20% (=20 points), 25% (=25 points), 35% (=35 points)
Total: 100% (100 points)

Now, lets say someone does 1 "point" for each faction, e.g lets say someone does 1 courier mission for each faction for inf+.

We get :
3, 19, 21, 26, 36 (total 105); and normalising to influence %s we get:
2.9%, 18.1%, 20% (exactly), 24.8%, 34.3% =~ 100% (not exactly, but read on)

This is why we have things like:
- Diminishing returns (equal effort put in, but the biggest faction "lost" and the smallest faction "won")
- The old "influence decay" concept which is a byproduct of the resultant total not quite being 100%
- etc.

None of this is new... but I just wanted to get some verification that my maths and understanding is right, especially regarding the equal effort causing inequal results.
 
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