Elite Dangerous Horizons Legacy system factions and ideals

[JustKneller]

I'm at a point where I'm ready to set down roots for a while in a particular system to make some credits and fiddle with the BGS a bit. I'm trying to learn a little something about the factions in the systems to figure out who I want to support. However, all I really found was the following details in my terminal:

Spoiler: factions

I mean, not that we're actually going to see their ideals in action, but still. Is there a source to learn what these minor powers are all about? Does it even matter outside of their faction allegiance? Aside from generally preferring government X over government Y, is there any reason to support an underdog instead of riding the winner's coattails? Or really, might as well just work for anyone and just follow the money, right? Is there something I'm missing? Thanks!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I mean, not that we're actually going to see their ideals in action, but still. Is there a source to learn what these minor powers are all about? Does it even matter outside of their faction allegiance? Aside from generally preferring government X over government Y, is there any reason to support an underdog instead of riding the winner's coattails? Or really, might as well just work for anyone and just follow the money, right? Is there something I'm missing? Thanks!

There's really not a lot of mechanical difference between the various faction types, so it does mostly come down to "pick one with a name you like" / "just work for everyone and get paid for it" as you choose.

In terms of what differences there are:
- Anarchy factions are the toughest option: bounties are very difficult to obtain (not completely impossible), and their mission selection is generally different (and harder), plus they get targeted a lot more by missions from other factions. In a higher-traffic area keeping an Anarchy faction off the bottom of the list can be a lot of work. But you do guarantee Interstellar Factor presence, which can be handy.
- other than Anarchy factions, each faction will have a different set of factions it has peaceful(ish) elections with rather than wars if it comes into conflict with them (Anarchy factions always fight wars, which can be advantageous if you like those)
- some factions open black markets at their stations (which also guarantees access to a normal commodity market) while others close them (which makes them less vulnerable to attack by that route)
- different government types have different lists of legal or illegal goods
- superpower allegiance doesn't make a massive difference but it can do a bit

The advantage to picking an underdog is that getting them into control of their first system teaches you basically everything you need to know, whereas if you start with one which is already spread across a bunch of systems and has lots of good stations, you can use a bunch of shortcuts that you might not realise are shortcuts and run into trouble later when they don't work. On the other hand, it is a lot easier to get things going when you have those shortcuts available, so that's the advantage of picking an established winner.

Other than the big choice of "Anarchy or not" most of that is not all that important - especially in Legacy where systems will be generally quieter - and you can just pick whoever you want really.

 

[JustKneller]

The advantage to picking an underdog is that getting them into control of their first system teaches you basically everything you need to know, whereas if you start with one which is already spread across a bunch of systems and has lots of good stations, you can use a bunch of shortcuts that you might not realise are shortcuts and run into trouble later when they don't work. On the other hand, it is a lot easier to get things going when you have those shortcuts available, so that's the advantage of picking an established winner.

Can you give me an example of these shortcuts? It seems the choice is still pretty arbitrary, though.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Sure - for example, if you don't control a system yet, you don't have easy access to bounties (you can KWS some, but then you have to be disciplined about where you hand all the unwanted ones in).

If you do control a system with good bounty hunting opportunities, you can hunt there (without a KWS) to get lots of bounties for your faction, then turn them in to the system you want to influence.