Government, Economy, Security and State - What effect do these all have on gameplay? What do we know?
So I've started looking into this recently as part of a personal project compiling up to date information on various aspects of Elite so I actually understand how all the mechanics work (things often seem to get changed, and there is a distinct lack of a central source of up to date information).
Essentially, from what I can tell, the answer seems to be either vague, or just a plain 'we don't know'. Bear in mind here that I'm not talking about their effects on influence, minor factions and the BGS, that is well documented already by various player groups.
What I'm trying to uncover is their effects on the actual gameplay.
Do any of these types effect what missions are available? We know states spawn certain missions, and I've personally found certain missions tend to come from certain governments or economies, but there doesn't seem to have been an effort to document this anywhere.
We know economy type effects what commodities will be present and their price, but we don't seem to know exactly what those commodities will be, or what the price differences (or even a range) will be.
We know government effects what is legal or illegal, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus on what each type does, and even if they consistently have the same effect.
Security we know effects the number of pirates in a system, and also possibly the number/difficulty of RES. But does it also effect bounty values?
As for states, some of their effects have been documented by the BGS groups, such as 'seeking weapons' or 'checkpoint' events and so on, but do they have any other effects on number of pirates in a system, level of security, prices, etc?
And if so, this is the key question: What are those effects exactly?
What effect do they have on prices (black market or otherwise)?
What effect do they have on missions?
What effect do they have on bounties/pirates?
I'll be doing some recording of my own findings, but anyone willing to report their own findings here or confirm other's findings would be welcome. I'll try and test each finding myself so we have at least two pieces of evidence for each.
As an aside, Powerplay has it's own effects that are fairly well documented, so I'm leaving that out of this particular study, but it is worth bearing in mind when comparing outcomes in different systems.
EDIT
List of effects that need checking/confirming
Missions
Civil unrest - Obliterate terrorist leader, Put down pirates, Firebrand op, Counter insurgency surface scan
Corporation - wetwork
Dictatorship - wetwork
Government
tobacco is illegal in federal cooperations.
state
famine will make the prices for food going up
boom reduces purchase prices for the commodities produced by the market
Boom and investment raise tech (outfitting availability)
security
personal weapons sell for a higher price at low security systems
So I've started looking into this recently as part of a personal project compiling up to date information on various aspects of Elite so I actually understand how all the mechanics work (things often seem to get changed, and there is a distinct lack of a central source of up to date information).
Essentially, from what I can tell, the answer seems to be either vague, or just a plain 'we don't know'. Bear in mind here that I'm not talking about their effects on influence, minor factions and the BGS, that is well documented already by various player groups.
What I'm trying to uncover is their effects on the actual gameplay.
Do any of these types effect what missions are available? We know states spawn certain missions, and I've personally found certain missions tend to come from certain governments or economies, but there doesn't seem to have been an effort to document this anywhere.
We know economy type effects what commodities will be present and their price, but we don't seem to know exactly what those commodities will be, or what the price differences (or even a range) will be.
We know government effects what is legal or illegal, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus on what each type does, and even if they consistently have the same effect.
Security we know effects the number of pirates in a system, and also possibly the number/difficulty of RES. But does it also effect bounty values?
As for states, some of their effects have been documented by the BGS groups, such as 'seeking weapons' or 'checkpoint' events and so on, but do they have any other effects on number of pirates in a system, level of security, prices, etc?
And if so, this is the key question: What are those effects exactly?
What effect do they have on prices (black market or otherwise)?
What effect do they have on missions?
What effect do they have on bounties/pirates?
I'll be doing some recording of my own findings, but anyone willing to report their own findings here or confirm other's findings would be welcome. I'll try and test each finding myself so we have at least two pieces of evidence for each.
As an aside, Powerplay has it's own effects that are fairly well documented, so I'm leaving that out of this particular study, but it is worth bearing in mind when comparing outcomes in different systems.
EDIT
List of effects that need checking/confirming
Missions
Civil unrest - Obliterate terrorist leader, Put down pirates, Firebrand op, Counter insurgency surface scan
Corporation - wetwork
Dictatorship - wetwork
Government
tobacco is illegal in federal cooperations.
state
famine will make the prices for food going up
boom reduces purchase prices for the commodities produced by the market
Boom and investment raise tech (outfitting availability)
security
personal weapons sell for a higher price at low security systems
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I'll try and check some of these and add them to the op for others to confirm