- Factions can be in a single state at any given time, galaxy wide, regardless of if it's global (expansion) or local (war).
- States have a phase cycle of pending-active-cooldown, and have a natural active period, but can also terminate early. States also do have a precedence over other states (e.g war has precedence over famine)
- Influence is a measure of that faction's power in that system. 50% influence means literally 50% of the population in that system support that faction
- There's two flavours of buckets for state changes: Economic bucket changes up and down, Influence bucket up and down. There's other sub-things (I lost the plot a bit here) but ultimately it's those two flavours
- Limit to how fast things change based on system population and number of commanders doing things.
- Influence cap. Limited amount change within a system, not commander linked/faction gain. More people doing things = larger cap.
- Background sim is a background sim, not a foreground sim. Designed to allow players to meaningfully affect galaxy, but also to simulate a changing galaxy.
- Coming for 2.1: Retreat state (opposite of expansion), removes a faction from a system it expanded to, back to it's home.
- Effects of trading and some other actions (not exhaustive). Basically, Trading improves influence, increases boom, decreases bust, food decreases famine, medicines decrease outbreak. Smuggling does opposite boom/bust effects. Others were as expected.
- Each system has a set of statistics, some visible e.g population, some not e.g tech/wealth level
- Boom increases wealth level, boosts trade,helps increase faction influence. Good way to rapidly increase influence
- Bust reverses boom effects.
- Lockdown increases security level, decreases wealth, influence much harder to move. Probably changing in 2.1
- Civil unrest - decreases security and standard of living, reduces influence, increases combat effects.
- 2.1 State system will influence mission availability heavily. Will impact ship spawns/traffic too.
- Civil war/war balancing in 2.1 (? not sure what this means)
- Best way to influence a warlike conflict right now is to hand in combat bonds.
- Expansion available when a faction reaches 75% and not currently fighting or warming up in any system. Trigger costs 15% influence, acts as a "Release Valve" for influence.
- Once Expansion active, faction searches approximate 20LY radius sphere for other inhabited systems, can be +-20. Can only expand to system with other factions. Find system with less than 5, gets presence and 10% influence. if expanding can only find systems with 5 or more, kicks out smallest other faction. Basically, they swap. Expansions can fail if no options succeed.
- Is expansion process 100% predictable? Yes, but order of events matters.
- Influence decay; not really possible, except if other factions are interacted with "more"
- Effects and frequency of boom should be reduced in future.
- 60% influence, no control, automatically causes war.
- Influence threshold to trigger a conflict. 7%.
- Factions have a hidden "Grouping" which dictates whether they do elections or war. Pirates always war, and this grouping is why communist factions have elections.
- Elections/civil war 3% gap for victory, war 15%
- No winner: no change.
- Winner: takes ownership of asset. If major station, control system.
- No way to influence where your faction expands to.
- No way to completely remove a faction from the game; this is by design
- Things in stock can change via outfitting/shipyard, subtly only.
- Galaxy map updates: Should reflect changes in a few hours now.
- What helps win an election: Anything that normally gains Influence.
- Tick approx once every 24h. Roughly...