BGS Sub-Factions(more than 6-8 factions per system)

[DemiserofD]

With the massive number of new settlements added by Odyssey, I see no reason why systems should be limited by the old 8 faction cap.

On top of this, the number of systems that are currently 'full' is rapidly increasing. It's high time more space were added.

With this in mind, I'd like to propose 'sub-factions'. All of them would have less than 1% influence in the system, and would start with control over a single odyssey settlement. Completing missions at that settlement would gradually increase their influence from 0% to 1%, culminating with a war with the current lowest-influence BGS faction for the right to have their presence visible on stations as one of the 8 listed factions. Win the war, and the lowest-influence faction will be demoted to a sub-faction, and the victorious sub-faction gets promoted to the BGS faction list, with the right to campaign to take over stations and outposts.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I like the idea of making extra BGS room by adding more "space" within systems, because the rest of the game really doesn't need another 10,000 generic systems scattering around the edge of the bubble, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it - not that I've thought of a workable one either.

and the lowest-influence faction will be demoted to a sub-faction

Could this affect a non-native faction? So it'd be a faction in some systems and a sub-faction in others? Either way seems to give oddities:
- if yes, you can fight the equivalent of an invasion war, but the losing non-native doesn't retreat, and either can't be retreated (it's now locally a subfaction) or automatically retreats (it's below 2.5% influence and is going to stay there for a while). You could easily also end up with a system that had seven native factions and therefore couldn't be expanded to afterwards even by invasion, which would just make the "full" problem much worse.
- if no, even leaving aside edge cases where a system only has one native faction so it's constantly being attacked by 1% sub-factions, this gives the slightly odd balancing that a faction can be more vulnerable in its home system than in its conquests.

If a faction is demoted to a sub-faction and already owns multiple assets in the system, what happens to those assets it doesn't lose during the war? Is it reduced to a single Odyssey base with its other assets going to the promoting subfaction/system controller? (What happens if it doesn't own any Odyssey bases?) Or does it get to keep those assets but now can't be challenged for them by conventional means until it's re-promoted?

If a defending faction wins against the sub-faction, presumably it doesn't get the Odyssey settlement controlled by the sub-faction?

On top of this, the number of systems that are currently 'full' is rapidly increasing. It's high time more space were added.

I'm not sure this solves the "fullness" problem, though - if anything it just gives more sources for a system to end up with 8 [1] factions even if it's not getting them through inbound expansion, clogging things up further. Sure, there can be more factions total in the game, but a lot of the existing ones aren't doing very much as it is.

It's also got an Anarchy-killer problem: at the moment it's not a big deal for Anarchy factions to be mostly stuck permanently on 1% influence - the game largely just requires them to be present, not actually doing anything. If an Anarchy on 1% is going to get crushed to sub-faction status (and thereby lose most of its bases), that's going to break quite a bit of stuff.


[1] 7 is the maximum stable, so even pushing more to that would make them "full" except to invasions, which is most of the current problem.

 

[DemiserofD]

I like the idea of making extra BGS room by adding more "space" within systems, because the rest of the game really doesn't need another 10,000 generic systems scattering around the edge of the bubble, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it - not that I've thought of a workable one either.


Could this affect a non-native faction? So it'd be a faction in some systems and a sub-faction in others? Either way seems to give oddities:
- if yes, you can fight the equivalent of an invasion war, but the losing non-native doesn't retreat, and either can't be retreated (it's now locally a subfaction) or automatically retreats (it's below 2.5% influence and is going to stay there for a while). You could easily also end up with a system that had seven native factions and therefore couldn't be expanded to afterwards even by invasion, which would just make the "full" problem much worse.
- if no, even leaving aside edge cases where a system only has one native faction so it's constantly being attacked by 1% sub-factions, this gives the slightly odd balancing that a faction can be more vulnerable in its home system than in its conquests.

If a faction is demoted to a sub-faction and already owns multiple assets in the system, what happens to those assets it doesn't lose during the war? Is it reduced to a single Odyssey base with its other assets going to the promoting subfaction/system controller? (What happens if it doesn't own any Odyssey bases?) Or does it get to keep those assets but now can't be challenged for them by conventional means until it's re-promoted?

If a defending faction wins against the sub-faction, presumably it doesn't get the Odyssey settlement controlled by the sub-faction?


I'm not sure this solves the "fullness" problem, though - if anything it just gives more sources for a system to end up with 8 [1] factions even if it's not getting them through inbound expansion, clogging things up further. Sure, there can be more factions total in the game, but a lot of the existing ones aren't doing very much as it is.

It's also got an Anarchy-killer problem: at the moment it's not a big deal for Anarchy factions to be mostly stuck permanently on 1% influence - the game largely just requires them to be present, not actually doing anything. If an Anarchy on 1% is going to get crushed to sub-faction status (and thereby lose most of its bases), that's going to break quite a bit of stuff.


[1] 7 is the maximum stable, so even pushing more to that would make them "full" except to invasions, which is most of the current problem.

All great points, really gave me stuff to think about I didn't consider before. I'll probably have to come back and re-read this again to really respond properly, but as an initial response...

It would probably be best if only local factions could be retreated to sub-factions. Non-locals would just retreat like normal. Ideally, local factions would all have at least one installation at all times, and so could always retreat to it; in the odd occasion that it has no installation, as odd as it would be, the only solution I can think of is a trade taking place. The losing faction gains a single installation, the winner loses it and gains the station.

The case of a 1% faction having multiple possessions isn't one I had considered, and is a weird result of a system that relies on the dominant faction LOWERING their INF to gain more influence in the system. Perhaps that's something that should be changed at the same time.

Crushing Anarchy factions even more would be an interesting case; on the one hand, yes, they wouldn't appear in the main bases as much, but on the flipside, they would almost always have at least a local installation...maybe anarchy factions need to be rethought entirely.

I'll think through the idea some more.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

in the odd occasion that it has no installation, as odd as it would be

Not that odd - there are quite a few factions out my way that already own no assets. Some systems don't have that many to start with. Giving all local factions an extra Odyssey base locked to their faction would be a possible move in most systems (obviously the ones with no suitable landable planets would be out of luck, but that's not many of them)

The case of a 1% faction having multiple possessions isn't one I had considered, and is a weird result of a system that relies on the dominant faction LOWERING their INF to gain more influence in the system.

Not the only way it can happen, either:
- Odyssey installations can change hands in both directions as a result of a war, so a losing faction can end up low on influence with plenty of Odyssey bases even if it loses everything else, especially in the systems with 50+ bases
- a faction under heavy attack can end up on low influence while not actually losing assets, by its enemies timing its crossovers with the next faction down while that faction is locked in its own conflicts.
- a formerly dominant faction probably has several non-Odyssey assets in a bigger system, and can't lose them all to conflicts on the way down if it falls fast enough
- in systems with no Anarchy faction present, the controller not aiming for expansion, and a reasonable amount of passing traffic, even the lowest faction can be stably above the 7% conflict threshold so the assets get swapped about all the time.