Elections: BGS Guide-Best Current Thinking

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
Collected Wisdom of the BGS community on the Election state

Elections are a bit like wars, but without all the death and destruction!

  • Who: Election trigger between factions from the same >>Social Group<<. Otherwise wars are triggered and Anarchies are incapable of settling any disagreement without resorting to violence.
  • How to trigger?: There are two ways to trigger an election. (i) Equalisation: If the influence of two factions are the same and above 7%* and neither faction has a War, civil war or election active pending or in cooldown in any of their other systems. There is no need to finesse the influence levels to get an exact match. If the influence of the two factions would have crossed, they "catch" at the cross-over point. (ii) Bloodless Coups: If a faction is not in control of a system, an election is triggered if they reach greater than 60%* and the and neither faction has a War, civil war or election active pending or in cooldown in any of their other systems.
  • Timings Following the "catch" or reaching the coup level, election will show as a pending state in the system that it has triggered. It will not show as a pending state in other systems controlled by either faction apart from in the faction summaries. Elections show as pending for 3 days before they become active. The outcome of conflicts can be decided from on the 3rd day. If one side has a 3%* lead then victory in the election will be claimed and any assets involved will change hands. If there is no winning margin, the election may be declared on the 4th day. There will be a further day of vote counting but the result is already decided. Unlike Wars, Elections are always of fixed duration.
  • Cooldown There is a 48 hour cooldown period before another election or war/civil war can initiate for either of the factions involved. For all other states the cooldown is 24 hours.
  • Asset Transfer The highest value asset owned by the losing faction will be transferred to the winning faction. The highest value asset is predicatble, but there are rare exceptions. Space ports are rated higher than surface ports, surface ports with landing pads are rated higher than those without, Large pad space ports are rated higher than outposts, outposts with facilities are rated ahead of those without. It appears that a hidden value (population) may be the deciding factor between large space stations. Indirectly this can be assessed by the volume of biowaste in the Commodity Market.
  • System-Wide effects: Whilst a election is active, only non-combat activities will contribute to the influence of the faction in all systems. See the link to transactions.
    Influence: ?????? This is a guess/feeling not solid fact.....When an election is active, influence is transfered between the warring factions. If the non-warring factions receive positive transactions, the combined pool of the polling factions will fall. If one faction is reduced to 1%, then the leading faction can take infliuence form the other factions in the system, pro-rata to their starting influence.

*Influence figures that show in the game may be rounded up. The figure to 3 decimal places can be located in EDSM.

Back to >>STATES<<
Back to >>START<<
Back to >>TRANSACTIONS<<



As ever if there is anything to add/remove/improve - please shout!
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
You can get elections running to 5 days (4+1) if the result on the start of day 4 doesn't have sufficient margin - e.g. Galcop versus Free Farmers in Hamlet's Harmony 1 April to 5 April at https://cdb.sotl.org.uk/systems/68/history

(That election still had no winning margin on the 5th day, so that's presumably the maximum length)

Similar elections starting 19 April and 23 March demonstrate the standard 3+1 pattern.
 

Misaniovent

Misaniovent
I was checking a prior thread (asset transfers) and recalled that we have seen elections end with asset transfers despite not having a 3% victory.
 

Johnny Cyclops

Johnny Cyclops
Jane Turner said:
Influence: ?????? This is a guess/feeling not solid fact.....When an election is active, influence is transfered between the warring factions. If the non-warring factions receive positive transactions, the combined pool of the polling factions will fall. If one faction is reduced to 1%, then the leading faction can take infliuence form the other factions in the system, pro-rata to their starting influence.
Click to expand...

That one is kind of easy to check. Just sum the two MF's INF across the four or five days of a election and see if they remain constant. In the half-a-dozen most recent Elections I've tracked, the combined summed INF nearly always changes day-by-day. In only a couple of days did the total INF stay the same. I think there might be an element of a zero-sum game going on here, but those MFs are also gaining (or losing) INF to other non-election MFs. In a system with only two MFs in an election with each other then the zero sum theory would hold true.
 

Johnny Cyclops

Johnny Cyclops
Jane Turner said:
If its like wars the joint total changes wrt to the actions of other factions.
Click to expand...

Got it. I re-read your OP, and now see you weren't suggesting a clean zero-sum game between to Election state MFs, but that INF moves from non-Election state MFs will also move the Electioneers INF around too.
 

Ryan Murdoc

Ryan Murdoc
Jane Turner said:
Cooldown There is a 48 hour cooldown period before another election or war/civil war can initiate for either of the factions involved. For all other states the cooldown is 24 hours.
Click to expand...


I know I'll sound like a broken record on this but since I've came across many people lately who still have a misconception of what the Cooldown actually means here's the rundown (I'll use the current days as examples).

19th: Election State disappears and is replaced by None State. Election is officially over.

20th (24h later): Nothing can be triggered by any of the two previously engaged (P)MF. Certain States that went pending before the Election went live can go active at this stage though.

21st (48h later): On this very tick, Equalisation with other open (P)MF is possible again.

Conclusion:

After an Election has ceased to be (State goes to None), you only need to wait after the next tick is through (24h) before you can start to work towards another Equalisation. Many read the 48h Cooldown timer that only after that time has passed you can equalise again - so essentially on the 3rd tick (72h) which is wrong.


Wars / Civil Wars:

19th: War / Civil War State disappears and is replaced by None State. War / Civil War is officially over.

20th (24h later): On this very tick, Equalisation with other open (P)MF is possible again.

Conclusion:

Right after the War / Civil War has ended (State goes to None), you can instantly work towards another Equalisation. Many read the 24h Cooldown timer that only after that time has passed you can equalise again - so essentially on the 2nd tick (48h) which is wrong.
 
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Markus Omni

M
Hey, so kindof new to the BGS. I got my system into an Election, and it’s currently pending. However, despite it being a 5 million system, I can’t seem to raise and more influence. The current state is boom, and I’ve been doing a whole lot of solo wing missions and other stuff for 5 points of influence, which originally worked wonders for my faction, since there’s only a five million population in Nagnatae. Is there a lock on influence or something? Because not one faction since the pending stuff started as gained or lost influence!
 

Ryan Murdoc

Ryan Murdoc
Markus Omni said:
Hey, so kindof new to the BGS. I got my system into an Election, and it’s currently pending. However, despite it being a 5 million system, I can’t seem to raise and more influence. The current state is boom, and I’ve been doing a whole lot of solo wing missions and other stuff for 5 points of influence, which originally worked wonders for my faction, since there’s only a five million population in Nagnatae. Is there a lock on influence or something? Because not one faction since the pending stuff started as gained or lost influence!
Click to expand...

The BGS has sometimes hiccups, meaning even if you worked your rear off a System can stay absolutely frozen. It happens much rarer then in the past, but still is a possibility. Keep on pushing to get that durned cart out of the mud!
 

Markus Omni

M
It must’ve been a late tick or something. It was definitely over 24 hours. I logged on today and it had shot up to 34 percent influence my favor, and 32 the opposing side. Woo! Thanks guys! I’ll be using this site muuuuuuuch more often!
 

Lee Ti

L
Misaniovent said:
I was checking a prior thread (asset transfers) and recalled that we have seen elections end with asset transfers despite not having a 3% victory.
Click to expand...

Has this been checked?
I was under the impression that Elections could fail if the required 3% difference hasn't been achieved by either faction, and no assets or system control is transferred, is this not the case?
 

Jane Turner

Volunteer Moderator
Jane Turner
Lee Ti said:
Has this been checked?
I was under the impression that Elections could fail if the required 3% difference hasn't been achieved by either faction, and no assets or system control is transferred, is this not the case?
Click to expand...

We have a 2.9 one in its 4th day so we will find out
 

Gusty

Gusty
Did the tick time change ? As i see the new data now at about 1900 and half year ago it was about 1300
Edit:
Ok, fount the tick post.
 
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