Expansions in 3.3

_trent_ · Dec 12, 2018

Straight out of the 3.3 box our faction has found itself in expansion. Was always going to happen, we had an ongoing conflict that was blocking the expansion state in the tick before 3.3 dropped.

Anyway, I've read that one of two mechanics are involed:

1) We expand from our 'happiest system' (new mechanic)
2) We expand from the system we were above 75% in. (same as before)

Do we know for sure which of these it is? Thanks.

Schlack · Dec 12, 2018

_trent_ said:
Straight out of the 3.3 box our faction has found itself in expansion. Was always going to happen, we had an ongoing conflict that was blocking the expansion state in the tick before 3.3 dropped.

Anyway, I've read that one of two mechanics are involed:

1) We expand from our 'happiest system' (new mechanic)
2) We expand from the system we were above 75% in. (same as before)

Do we know for sure which of these it is? Thanks.

I'm sure its one of those two!

Ian Doncaster · Dec 12, 2018

With all factions starting at Happy, any initial expansions are likely to fall back to influence levels even if they've got expand-by-happiness working, of course.

Dommarraa · Dec 12, 2018

Schlack said:
I'm sure its one of those two!

Perfectly possible to a be a total horlicks of the 2.

Jmanis · Dec 12, 2018

_trent_ said:
Straight out of the 3.3 box our faction has found itself in expansion. Was always going to happen, we had an ongoing conflict that was blocking the expansion state in the tick before 3.3 dropped.

Anyway, I've read that one of two mechanics are involed:

1) We expand from our 'happiest system' (new mechanic)
2) We expand from the system we were above 75% in. (same as before)

Do we know for sure which of these it is? Thanks.

My understanding was that to get expansion to trigger, you need to have *all* systems to have high influence and happiness (whatever that means)
When the expansion completes, you'll then expand from the happiest system. The Faction Status (perhaps only in Squadron Allegience menu?) does note the happiest system.

Deareim · Dec 13, 2018

Jmanis said:
My understanding was that to get expansion to trigger, you need to have *all* systems to have high influence and happiness (whatever that means)
When the expansion completes, you'll then expand from the happiest system. The Faction Status (perhaps only in Squadron Allegience menu?) does note the happiest system.

It is simply written in the news which system you are expanding from. And you know it beforehand from what the beta has shown.

Jmanis · Dec 13, 2018

Deareim said:
It is simply written in the news which system you are expanding from. And you know it beforehand from what the beta has shown.

Right, but that's not what the mechanic is meant to be, and would contradict everything FD said in the livestream, so if it's just functioning like the old expansion mechanic, it should probably be bugreported.

Also, from the patchnotes:

Added a new 'Happiness' level for each faction, that is a combination of various states and influence. Happiness also plays into the Expansion state

Deareim · Dec 13, 2018

Jmanis said:
Right, but that's not what the mechanic is meant to be, and would contradict everything FD said in the livestream, so if it's just functioning like the old expansion mechanic, it should probably be bugreported.

Also, from the patchnotes:

I agree with you. Just stating how it is working now. I can see it for one of our faction. And it is not the happiest system.

And patch notes is contradicting what Adam said in a stream. Happiness is just Economy + Security. not inf. Proof is that faction that are around 20% in some systems are the happiest. Again, just facts.

fozz33 · Dec 13, 2018

In my case, straight out of the update, my system with the highest influence went into an Expansion state.
Now, it has been said before, all systems were showing as 'Happy' after the patch so maybe that then just reverted to the highest influence to expand from.
In this case also, there will be no expansion targets in range so am curious to see how Investment now works...

Oh, also have two pending wars...

Jmanis · Dec 13, 2018

Deareim said:
I agree with you. Just stating how it is working now. I can see it for one of our faction. And it is not the happiest system.

And patch notes is contradicting what Adam said in a stream. Happiness is just Economy + Security. not inf. Proof is that faction that are around 20% in some systems are the happiest. Again, just facts.

So, you haven't actually seen a faction expand in the livebuild yet?

Personally, I'm not trusting the Galnet articles at the moment (my faction is expanding, and yes, it has the same article you're referring to). They have major inconsistencies, particularly with multistate/multiconflict statuses... it feels somewhat like they got overlooked (like many things) in the Beta.

I'd personally wait for an expansion to complete before hand-on-heart saying that's how it's working right now.

Jmanis · Dec 13, 2018

fozz33 said:
In my case, straight out of the update, my system with the highest influence went into an Expansion state.
Now, it has been said before, all systems were showing as 'Happy' after the patch so maybe that then just reverted to the highest influence to expand from.
In this case also, there will be no expansion targets in range so am curious to see how Investment now works...

Oh, also have two pending wars...

So yeah, I'm anticipating that article is just plain wrong. But you won't be able to tell until the expansion actually happens.

Deareim · Dec 13, 2018

Jmanis said:
So, you haven't actually seen a faction expand in the livebuild yet?

Personally, I'm not trusting the Galnet articles at the moment (my faction is expanding, and yes, it has the same article you're referring to). They have major inconsistencies, particularly with multistate/multiconflict statuses... it feels somewhat like they got overlooked (like many things) in the Beta.

I'd personally wait for an expansion to complete before hand-on-heart saying that's how it's working right now.

Not so far. Still pending for now. Our happiest system is under CI system control at around 20% inf. It would be a complete screw up if we expand from there.

Schlack · Dec 13, 2018

Regarding expansion, bear in mind that these first expansions may be edge cases relating to the transition from 3.2 to 3.3 and may not be reflective of the 3.3 mechanic.

Also it may not be bloody working

Patau82 · Dec 13, 2018

We had exactly the same system pending expansion as before 3.3, so I'm going for 2 at the moment

floc · Dec 13, 2018

we had "expansion planned from X" before 3.3, now in 3.3 we have "expansion planned from Y" and Y isn't either happiest system (system A yesterday, system B today, changing daily), neither the system with highest influence.

So, its' a total mess for now.

Sierra_Hotel · Dec 13, 2018

Jmanis said:
My understanding was that to get expansion to trigger, you need to have *all* systems to have high influence and happiness (whatever that means)
When the expansion completes, you'll then expand from the happiest system. The Faction Status (perhaps only in Squadron Allegience menu?) does note the happiest system.

First I've heard of this. Hope that's not the case.

Jmanis · Dec 13, 2018

Sierra_Hotel said:
First I've heard of this. Hope that's not the case.

I'll dig out the livestream quote, but not right now, about to go to work.

floc · Dec 14, 2018

that's definetely NOT the case for now. Otherwise we shouldn't expand at all (only 3 system over 75%)

Maybe we should wait next *clean full 3.3 cycle* to catch the real mechanism.

Jmanis · Dec 14, 2018

Sierra_Hotel said:
First I've heard of this. Hope that's not the case.

Watch 44:27 of this video.

Paraphrased, slightly:

"Expansion... had to change. What we've done is introduce expansion as a faction-wide idea, in the background there are numbers counting up, which are based on a combination of your influence across each system, and the happiness of those people in those systems"

46:22, paraphrased again.
"The plan is to make it so that a faction will expand from the happiest system"

They then go on to say something like "Do you try and make the system you want to expand from really happy, or all the faction in other systems really unhappy"

floc said:
that's definetely NOT the case for now. Otherwise we shouldn't expand at all (only 3 system over 75%)

Maybe we should wait next *clean full 3.3 cycle* to catch the real mechanism.

Yup. I would completely disregard any faction that was already in the expansion state when 3.3 went live. These were already in expansion pre-3.3, and it was the only state to carry through. And as said, I would completely disregard the Galnet articles saying "Expansion from X is prepared". They're completely untouched flavour text (kinda like Thargoid Sensors on the commodity market, which can now be sold legally anywhere (as long as they aren't stolen), despite the fact the flavour text says "They're universally illegal")

Jane Turner · Dec 15, 2018

I don't think we will know until a little further in. One thing I have learned is that unless Dav says it, treat any livestream announcements about the BGS as aspirational rather than actual