So I'm wondering - is there any way to control which direction a faction expands in? I'd like to get an Alliance democracy faction into my home system/region, but in order to do that it would require several aimed expansions to get one over from Aliiance space. Is this possible or realistically practical?
Controlling Expansions?
- Thread starter Starsong
- Start date
Expansion targets are selected on the day of the expansion, according to the following criteria:
1) Closest system with fewer than 7 factions that the faction hasn't been in before
2) If none available, then the closest system with fewer than 7 factions that the faction has been in before (and Retreated from)
3) If none available, the faction will start an invasion war in the system with 7 factions that has the non-native faction with the lowest influence out of all nearby systems (and that you haven't retreated from).
4) If none available, the same as 3) but with systems that the faction has previously retreated from.
5) If all that fails, the expansion fails but the next one can target systems that are further away (cube of 20LY radius -> cube of 40LY radius)
Unless the area you're in is very busy and crowded, you probably only need to worry about 1) and 2). And of course, you can't expand to a system if you're already in it.
Expansions can be directed by deprioritising unfavourable systems, those that go in the wrong direction. If your target system is 15LY away with 6 factions, then ensuring that all closer systems have 7 factions, or that you have been there before, will cause the expansion to go to the target. Inara's system view has a useful list of nearby systems, filtered by distance, that can be used to plan this.
Checking if your faction has been somewhere in the past can be annoying, but EliteBGS.app can be used to view historical data for a faction.
Summary:
Make sure your target system is high-priority. (<7 factions)
Fill up closer undesirable systems to 7 factions.
If you can't fill up the closer systems, or it'd be more effort than it's worth, just keep expanding your chosen faction to work your way down the list.
Repeat from the target system until you eventually reach wherever you're going. How easy or quick this is will depend entirely on the region.
1) Closest system with fewer than 7 factions that the faction hasn't been in before
2) If none available, then the closest system with fewer than 7 factions that the faction has been in before (and Retreated from)
3) If none available, the faction will start an invasion war in the system with 7 factions that has the non-native faction with the lowest influence out of all nearby systems (and that you haven't retreated from).
4) If none available, the same as 3) but with systems that the faction has previously retreated from.
5) If all that fails, the expansion fails but the next one can target systems that are further away (cube of 20LY radius -> cube of 40LY radius)
Unless the area you're in is very busy and crowded, you probably only need to worry about 1) and 2). And of course, you can't expand to a system if you're already in it.
Expansions can be directed by deprioritising unfavourable systems, those that go in the wrong direction. If your target system is 15LY away with 6 factions, then ensuring that all closer systems have 7 factions, or that you have been there before, will cause the expansion to go to the target. Inara's system view has a useful list of nearby systems, filtered by distance, that can be used to plan this.
Checking if your faction has been somewhere in the past can be annoying, but EliteBGS.app can be used to view historical data for a faction.
Summary:
Make sure your target system is high-priority. (<7 factions)
Fill up closer undesirable systems to 7 factions.
If you can't fill up the closer systems, or it'd be more effort than it's worth, just keep expanding your chosen faction to work your way down the list.
Repeat from the target system until you eventually reach wherever you're going. How easy or quick this is will depend entirely on the region.
This is slightly outdated - there was some change post-3.3 to invasion. Most accurate now I think is:
1) Closest system with fewer than 7 factions that the faction hasn't been in before
2) If none available, then the closest system with fewer than 7 factions that the faction has been in before (and Retreated from)
3) If none available, the faction will start an invasion war in the system with 7 factions that has the non-native faction with the lowest influence out of all nearby systems (excluding controlling factions, factions already pending/active/recovering a conflict in that system)
4) If all that fails, the expansion fails but the next one can target systems that are further away (cube of 20LY radius -> cube of 30LY radius)
Changes are:
- invasions no longer care about previous retreats, but can't target controlling factions any more
- extended cube is only 30 LY (it was probably always only 30 LY but you have to fill up a lot of space to get the data to prove it!)
From what I observed recently from my PMF's Expansions this year the influence on the last day of Expansion from in range systems is what the Expansion goes off of. Expansion does not care about the Influence on the day of Expansion state ending. So for example Expansions normally last 6 days active with the 7th day being the day the state ends so the influence on the 6th day is what the Expansion uses not the influence on the 7th day.
state effects/changes/... are applied at the beginning of tick, before influence calculation.
so yes - all systems >75% at the tick after influence calculation before an expansion goes pending can expand.
similar: a faction being below 2,5% after influence calculations at the fith tick of active retreat will leave the system at the 7th.
Retreat actually does not care about the influence on the day of Retreat state end. If it's the last day of Retreat's active state and the faction is below 2.5% no matter what happens the faction will Retreat. I have had this tested 3 times where a faction was at 2.4% on the last day and the faction was supported heavily but still Retreated.
So Expansion & Retreat uses the influences on the last day of active state not the influences on the day of active state end. Further more I have noticed Cooldowns for states are broken. My PMF have forced ourselves into war with the same faction the very next day after a conflict ended twice recently. Conflict cooldowns are suppose to be 2 days. Also have noticed factions expanding then the next day pending expansion again.
Yes - the underlying mechanism seems to be that state changes and effects are processed before influence changes during the tick.
This does mean that some on-day changes can be included in the calculation, if they're caused by state effects - but not reliably, as it depends on whether the potential target system is processed before or after the expansion source system. Most of this would be too subtle to be relevant in most circumstances, but the obvious exception is that another faction can beat you to an expansion location if it expands earlier in the same tick - or a retreating faction can free up an unexpected place if it retreats earlier in the same tick.
And currently the BGS is so messed up that crazy things happen. This pass week we expanded into a system and pended a War. Ok that's normal but then suddenly 2 hours later the war is active? So the double tick goofed and skipped the pending stage. lol
I miss having ONE tick a day and being able to reliably adjust Expansion lengths. I miss doing 5 day expansions.
I miss having ONE tick a day and being able to reliably adjust Expansion lengths. I miss doing 5 day expansions.
to make my points more clear:
1. expansion does not care about influence levels on its last active tick. if an expansion goes pending there is nothing to stop it (outside a purely academic eventual case nobody has seen in the real, which would include invading an expanding faction)
2. for expansion the influence level after influence calculation the last tick of expansion cooldown counts. faction needs to be over 75% at start of calculations of tick expansion goes pending.
3. retreats have 6 active ticks. if a faction is at <2,5% at the start of the 6th tick, before influence calculations, which means at <2,5 after influence calculatioms of the 5th active tick it will retreat.
i have not tested or seen an exampel of 4,4% after the fifth ticks calculation, so can't say whether <2,5 % applies to pre- or post-state effect of -2% of retreat.
i have recently written a condensed structure for directed expansions, last post of a long-winding thread:
Directed Expansion in 3.6 (pre-Fleetcarrier-Update) to 9.x (Post-odyssey-world) - A Case Study
"Done seen some [bleep] within my lifetime, my light shine bright/ Protect your energy from poison when the python strike" (Cordae, The Parables) This is the first post in a series covering a recent directed expansion we played over the last 9 months or so. i will update the links for the...
in your case you eventually want to check into several factions as options, and adjust that structure to your needs.
Expansions can be canceled if the faction gets into a conflict in the system that the expansion is from.
you have an exampel of that?
I may have an example in 2-3 days. My PMF is rapidly approaching a controlling faction that is in expansion, we're using the daily drain to boost up faster, and we're about 30% away from them so if we do met them before the expansion naturally ends I'll keep you posted.
Having seen controlling factions get into a conflict in the expansion source system before my bet is:
- expansion goes ahead
- but the expansion tax being paid mid-conflict will still look really impressive when it separates the two parties quite substantially
If that doesn't happen it's a recent change.
- expansion goes ahead
- but the expansion tax being paid mid-conflict will still look really impressive when it separates the two parties quite substantially
If that doesn't happen it's a recent change.
This also doesn't seem to be a thing any more - the equivalent influence cost to the daily drain of a 5-day expansion just gets paid all at once at the end.
Just gonna leave the Inara graph here of the system my PMF is working. So we're yellow of course and the blue guys are today on the 5th day of expansion and at our current rate we may very way catch them on their 6th day of expansion.
So confirmed entering conflict in the expanding system doesn't kill expansion.
Nice. Next tick should be pretty fun, then.