I'm confused about a recent expansion

[Retropolitan]

In a system where we were suppressing an unattractive expansion the faction's influence yesterday was under 53%, with one civil war in the system. The expansion seemed poised to fail, since (we thought) it should have been impossible for the expanding faction to reach 75% again within a single day. That's a whopping 22% increase.

But this morning, the expansion has succeeded; the civil war is still ongoing; and those factions who aren't fighting have seen negligible changes in influence. The expanding faction has seen a net decrease of .1% from yesterday.

The thing is, in order for the faction to have expanded it had to add about 22% influence in one tick. Although I know that gain would have evaporated when they expanded I can't see how they could have had an increase of that size when they were already over 50%.

Have I misunderstood the influence caps? I thought the most they could increase in a single day would be around 9.3%.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

You only need 75% influence to start an expansion. After that it will complete regardless of what happens to the influence afterwards.

 

[Retropolitan]

Well, I knew I'd misunderstood something . I thought that expansion and retreat worked the same way.

 

[Sapyx]

It's our understanding (and I believe this is still valid) that once an Expansion begins, subsequent influence rises or falls will determine the amount of influence the expanded faction will have in its new system. But once an Expansion goes pending, nothing* can stop it. You have to either prevent them from getting to 75% in the first place, or hit them hard in their new system to force them to Retreat.

* - Edit: I believe forcing them into a War will stop it, but in most circumstances, forcing a War while an Expansion is pending is a tough ask.

 

[FrogsFriend]

It's our understanding (and I believe this is still valid) that once an Expansion begins, subsequent influence rises or falls will determine the amount of influence the expanded faction will have in its new system. But once an Expansion goes pending, nothing* can stop it. You have to either prevent them from getting to 75% in the first place, or hit them hard in their new system to force them to Retreat.

* - Edit: I believe forcing them into a War will stop it, but in most circumstances, forcing a War while an Expansion is pending is a tough ask.

Now we have multiple states (1 each in categories: conflict/economic/movement/special/?) per faction, per system, war and expansion can coexist.