Office of Galactic Statistics - Minor Faction Summary Report

Sapyx

Sapyx
Five "likes" to my post a few days ago saying I should update it.. I guess I should write the next update, then... ;)

Here's the latest stats, as of today. As usual, I'm using EDDB as my search engine because EDSM has finite (5000 LY) range on its Controlled Systems search.

Factions 6/2/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTALPercentage
Democracy447031285053965412.5
Confederacy195001669526613.5
Corporate60673710243135772359730.6
Patronage0297417038335274.6
Dictatorship01416121102261176315.3
Feudal057769350041465.4
Communist0035237624113.1
Cooperative0060343434944.5
Prison colony04701391860.2
Theocracy11061441610.2
Anarchy161839156191569220.4
TOTAL1251487458875514677292
Percentage16.211.31.171.3
Faction changes 6/2/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTAL
Democracy301711
Confederacy30249
Corporate11912344
Patronage0301114
Dictatorship01023
Feudal02035
Communist00112
Cooperative0021315
Prison colony00000
Theocracy00033
Anarchy100910
TOTAL1815776116

Nothing new or unexpected here. As usual, factions are never deleted, and there were no re-classifications of faction groups. The bias towards Indie PMFs is even stronger than last quarter, with nearly three-quarters of new factions being Indie.

Now, for the Controlled Systems stats:

Systems - 6/2/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTALPercentage
Democracy152402201623336716.4
Confederacy59604775313966.8
Corporate213411195552309611729.7
Patronage0227861290262912.8
Dictatorship05684396915807.7
Feudal0463575712256.0
Communist0038132413626.6
Cooperative00103167017738.6
Prison colony03073760.4
Theocracy220122532871.4
Anarchy624166456913.4
Uncertain760.4
TOTAL428244551100106667620579
Percentage20.821.65.351.8

System changes - 6/2/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTAL
Democracy-44036221
Confederacy-470429-14
Corporate-39-691428-66
Patronage0-3-810-1
Dictatorship0-25-4-8-37
Feudal014-2-93
Communist0045357
Cooperative0058489
Prison colony0-190-2-21
Theocracy00-11312
Anarchy-11-3-48-51
Uncertain18
TOTAL-131-101122121810

Observations
In general, the "usual" trends have continued - the Federation shrinks muchly, the Empire shrinks almost-as-muchly, the Alliance grows slightly, and the Indies go gangbusters. Ten new star systems were added to the galaxy.

In the ever-shrinking Federation domain, Corporates took the least hammering for a change; they now slightly out-number the two Social government types combined (Democracy plus Confederacy = 2120). The remnant of the Federation is becoming less democratic.

In the Imperial remnant, we see Feudals bucking the trend and making considerable gains, though Patronages are only down slightly. Imperial Corporates continue to fall, bringing the Empire back towards its traditional Authoritarian base. The collapse in Prison Colony rule, from 22 systems down to 3, is the most striking statistic in this report, and bespeaks a systematic effort to expunge them from the galaxy. Imperial Democracies remain at zero, despite the Marlinist Rebellion.

Growth in the Alliance is dominated by expansion of their Corporate and Social factions, at the expense of Authoritarianism. Precisely one-half of the Alliance is now under Corporate control.

Indies overall continue to surge, though growth numbers across the board are not as high as the previous quarter. This quarter, Cooperatives showed the biiggest growth, outpacing the usual leaders Democracies. Indie Dictatorships and Feudals continue to buck the trend and decline. The Communist Sphere continues to expand, with a growth rate 4.4 times higher than the Alliance. Prison Colonies take a step backwards, with still no new entrants and 2 systems lost. And Anarchies remain the Indie whipping-boys, though their decline is smaller this quarter. I suspect the "endangered species effect" is starting to come into play, as it gets harder and harder to find an Anarchy-controlled system.
 
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Sapyx

Sapyx
OK, it's that time of year again, for another quarterly update report.Thanks again to my fanbase (well, there's only one of you, but you know who you are) for the prompting.

Factions 20/5/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTALPercentage
Democracy448331295064967912.5
Confederacy195201670126693.4
Corporate60763723246135962364130.5
Patronage0298117038635374.6
Dictatorship01419121102271176715.2
Feudal057969350241505.4
Communist0035238424193.1
Cooperative0061345635174.5
Prison colony04701391860.2
Theocracy11061461630.2
Anarchy161839156251569820.3
TOTAL1253887708925522677426
Percentage16.211.31.271.3

Faction changes 20/5/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTAL
Democracy13011125
Confederacy20068
Corporate91331944
Patronage070310
Dictatorship03014
Feudal02024
Communist00088
Cooperative0012223
Prison colony00000
Theocracy00022
Anarchy00066
TOTAL2425580134

Factions analysis: not really much different from last time: 134 new factions have been added to the game, over half of which are Independent. I'm starting to wonder whether FD ought to be incentivizing joining a Superpower, or at least de-incentivize being Indie, to begin to address the imbalance. Because "Being part of something greater" doesn't seem to be cutting it. This quarter, the new Federation and Imperial arrivals are much more evenly matched, with the Imps coming just ahead by 1 faction.

There has been a surge in uptake of Federation Democracies, outweighing the Corporates for the quarter; in all other alignments, Corporations still dominate the new arrivals, presumably for PowerPlay reasons.

Systems - 20/5/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTALPercentage
Democracy143902231676333816.2
Confederacy55305177013746.7
Corporate203911005832370609229.6
Patronage0226455293261212.7
Dictatorship05244198715527.5
Feudal0455476112205.9
Communist0038136314016.8
Cooperative00101177218739.1
Prison colony0220791010.5
Theocracy230122693041.5
Anarchy721146106523.2
Uncertain650.3
TOTAL406143861122109506520584
Percentage19.721.35.553.2

System changes - 20/5/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTAL
Democracy-850353-29
Confederacy-430417-22
Corporate-95-192861-25
Patronage0-14-63-17
Dictatorship0-44-218-28
Feudal0-8-14-5
Communist0003939
Cooperative00-2102100
Prison colony0190625
Theocracy1001617
Anarchy1-3-2-35-39
Uncertain-11
TOTAL-221-6922284-115

Systems analysis: also not really much different from last time: 5 new star systems have been added to the game; gain, nowhere near enough new systems to accommodate the new player faction numbers.

Once again, the Federation is the biggest loser, shrinking considerably faster than the Empire this quarter. Imperial prison colonies have precisely made up for their losses in the previous quarter - which makes me think that must have been some kind of statistical glitch. The Alliance has seen a nice tidy growth again for this quarter, though as usual the Indies have slurped up most of the Federation and Empire's losses.

Anarchies continue their slide towards extinction; ironically, the only Anarchy alignment to see a tiny increase were the Federalists, while they were the only Indie government type to see a decline this quarter.

The collapse in Federation Democracies sees Democracies overall in decline, for the first time in over a year. But it's been another good quarter for the Socialists, with both Communism and Co-operativism seeing strong growth.
 

goemon

goemon
Sapyx said:
Anarchies continue their slide towards extinction;
Click to expand...
i'd somewhat expected after the bounty "balancing" the rate of anarchies decline to even speed up, but it doesn't look as if? (probably need to weigh the loss vs. remaining systems for this?)
 

KKomrade Sylas

KKomrade Sylas
goemon said:
i'd somewhat expected after the bounty "balancing" the rate of anarchies decline to even speed up, but it doesn't look as if? (probably need to weigh the loss vs. remaining systems for this?)
Click to expand...

I think the difference might be that, as fewer anarchies remain, the ones that do remain tend to be PMF's or player-supported, thus not necessarily dying out to background traffic. It's the NPC anarchies the one that will slowly erode into oblivion due to passerbys taking missions against them, with no players supporting them at all.
 

PaulPower4

P
This is a fascinating thread!
Factions analysis: not really much different from last time: 134 new factions have been added to the game, over half of which are Independent. I'm starting to wonder whether FD ought to be incentivizing joining a Superpower, or at least de-incentivize being Indie, to begin to address the imbalance. Because "Being part of something greater" doesn't seem to be cutting it.
Click to expand...
Well, here's the thing: an awful lot of new PMFs, as you've noted, want to be either Co-operative or Communist for roleplay reasons, and you straight up can't be either of those government types under the Feds or the Imps. The Alliance are more receptive to them and, fair play to the Alliance, of the three superpowers they generally seem to be the "least bad" option, but a lot of people who'd want to be co-ops or commies are probably skeeved out by an organisation that, again as you've noted, is increasingly corp-controlled (not to mention all the dictatorships that are also under the Alliance banner). Democracies are in a similar boat - they do also have the option of joining the Federation, but many people just aren't that impressed by the Federation's particular brand of democracy.

On a more mechanical point, it's possible that these PMFs just want to mess around with pushing the BGS and don't want to deal with the weird world that is Powerplay.

Certainly I wouldn't want to de-incentivise being Indie, this game already does far too much nerfing of overpowered stuff instead of buffing underpowered stuff (even if in this case the "power" is roleplay fluff), but the Alliance in particular needs to go on a major charm offensive to attract players who want to make a PMF in the social group of governments.
 
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Sapyx

Sapyx
Okay, folks, here we go for another quarter. And some interesting stats are popping up, as we might expect if we've been following Galnet.

First up, the raw stats, in their usual order. Here's the Factions count, and the changes table.

Factions 14/9/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTAL
Democracy4475312950819688
Confederacy19510167112678
Corporate607837282471360823661
Patronage029881703883546
Dictatorship014221211022911772
Feudal05807035024152
Communist003523862421
Cooperative006134673528
Prison colony0470139186
Theocracy1206147165
Anarchy1618391562515698
TOTAL1253287868945528377495
Percentage16.211.31.271.3

Faction changes 14/9/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTAL
Democracy-800179
Confederacy-100109
Corporate2511220
Patronage07029
Dictatorship03025
Feudal01102
Communist00022
Cooperative0001111
Prison colony00000
Theocracy10012
Anarchy00000
TOTAL-61625769

So, first off, you'll notice the change-numbers in red. That's because, for the first time in a long, long time, FD have edited factions to change their alignment. Specifically, there's been that whole "Factions defecting from the Federation" Galnet series, with accompanying CGs. The resut is, for the first time ever, a net loss in factions loyal to the Federation. I haven't been following the news closely enough to count the number of factions that actually defected, but the net loss (once new Fed-aligned factions are added) is six. Apart from this, there's not much to report - Empire and Alliance growth remains small, compared to the number of new Indie factions. And there's a net growth of 69 new factions added to the galaxy.

I will note that word about the trashing of Anarchies seems to have got around - for the first time since records began, there were no new Anarchy factions added in the last quarter.

So now, we have actual control of systems. First the numbers, then the table of changes.

Systems - 14/9/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTALPercentage
Democracy133812471781336716.4
Confederacy54905179013906.8
Corporate200010716122388607129.5
Patronage0225451295260012.6
Dictatorship050741101915677.6
Feudal0448476012125.9
Communist0035135613916.8
Cooperative00102188719899.7
Prison colony0240831070.5
Theocracy230132853211.6
Anarchy31874895172.5
Uncertain520.3
TOTAL391343231163111335220584
Percentage19.021.05.754.1

System changes - 14/9/21
FederationEmpireAllianceIndependentTOTAL
Democracy-10112410529
Confederacy-4002016
Corporate-39-292918-21
Patronage0-10-42-12
Dictatorship0-1703215
Feudal0-70-1-8
Communist00-3-7-10
Cooperative001115116
Prison colony02046
Theocracy0011617
Anarchy-4-3-7-121-135
Uncertain-13
TOTAL-148-6341183-130

Okay, let's see what we've got. First up, we see that the obliteration of Anarchies is no myth - they are down across the board, regardless of alignment. 20% of Indie Anarchies have disappeared, and an entire half of Alliance Anarchies.

The hemorrhaging of the Federation and Empire continues, and in the Federation's case was no doubt exacerbated by the whole Defection scenario. Quite why FD allowed this particular story to propagate, at a time when the Federation was already the galaxy's whipping boy superpower, baffles me. I can only assume the story writers were unaware that the Federation was already rapidly collapsing and didn't need any extra help. The only question seems to be: which will disappear first, the Federation, or the Anarchies?

So, what else has been happening? One interesting teeny tiny point: the Quiviran Imperial Democracy has retaken their home system, putting Imp Dems back on the chart. You might think we'd see a plethora of Imp Dems popping up or Imp factions defecting with the Marlinist storyline, but no, still nothing.

The biggest surprise for me, as I have heard no complaints from the Red Corner (compared to the loud and long complaints from the Black Flaggers), is the slight shrinkage of the Communist Sphere. Net-losing 3 Alliance and 7 Indie systems doesn't sound like much and their empire is still considerably bigger than the entire Alliance, but it's the first backwards slide for the Reds since Feb 2019. Is Odyssey bad for Communists too, or have they simply suffered more than other groups from the Odyssey rage-quitters?

Oh, and I will add one other thing: there were 20,584 inhabited systems in the galaxy, according to EDDB. That's a net gain of zero. None. Zilch. No new colonies founded in the last three months.
 
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Lee Taylor

Lee Taylor
Yes, Odyssey has impacted CI's BGS work. The preponderance of Odyssey settlements has triggered significantly more protection conflicts, wherein factions which previously had no assets to fight over now have them. Consequently conflicts trigger more often between a communist faction in the #2 slot and tertiary factions present. Winning these conflicts takes precedence over flipping new systems. Since CI doesn't manage all the communist systems in the galaxy, some will inevitably get lost to the expansion of managed factions whilst this goes on.

Odyssey opens up interesting new mechanics for BGS work, namely that it is possibly to seize multiple settlements during wars, and it is now much easier to work protection elections since secondary factions now control landable assets.

The majority of settlements still remain unknown to the EDDN, and are subject having extremely out of data information. Consequently the gains made to communist factions on the frontier in terms of assets may not become apparent in statistics for a long time.
 

Fake Newts

F
Sapyx said:
First up, we see that the obliteration of Anarchies is no myth - they are down across the board, regardless of alignment. 20% of Indie Anarchies have disappeared, and an entire half of Imperial Anarchies.
Click to expand...

It has been a brutal few months. It's still incredible to me that nobody on the dev team considered the BGS fallout of a) Odyssey progression clearly funnelling players towards ransacking anarchy settlements (both via the carrot of missions and the stick of C&P) and b) the long-term effects of more action happening in local rather than system-wide jurisdictions (previously a shield against bounty transactions for anarchy controllers).

We were told settlements would be "full of BGS levers" but weren't told they would be overwhelmingly negative, and an incredible burden for anarchy groups in particular. It became immediately apparent where things were headed when the patch dropped (10 wars in the last week of May alone, 40+ since), Fdev's response time was far too slow, then far too timid when it came. A couple of large, organised groups have found ways to survive despite the surge of negative influence, a couple of out-of-the-way groups with low traffic have dodged the worst of it... but most anarchy squadrons are now in their death throes.

Even if Fdev came in with some phenominal balancing moves at this stage it's too late for many. Players have watched years of BGS progress undone in a matter of weeks, turning people away in large numbers. There were active 'save the anarchies' threads that have now largely dried up because most people who cared have given up in disgust. The BGS has always giveth'd and taketh'd away but on this scale and with this level of bias I don't think anyone would pretend it's intentional behaviour.

Hey, maybe one day they will throw us a bone, who knows!
 
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Sapyx

Sapyx
What does surprise me is that "no new colonies" statistic. It means there's no such thing as an "Odyssey-only" star system.

Which is odd. When Horizons launched, dozens of new inhabited star systems with planetary ports only throughout the bubble were added to the game. Most of those systems are still "Horizons-only" systems (though with the amalgamation, it's somewhat of a moot point), and the original Colonia Road settlements (Amundsen, Gigarin/Gagarin, etc) and much of Colonia itself were planted as Horizons-only as well. I fully expected the same to happen again.
 

Danieros

D
Sapyx said:
What does surprise me is that "no new colonies" statistic. It means there's no such thing as an "Odyssey-only" star system.

Which is odd. When Horizons launched, dozens of new inhabited star systems with planetary ports only throughout the bubble were added to the game. Most of those systems are still "Horizons-only" systems (though with the amalgamation, it's somewhat of a moot point), and the original Colonia Road settlements (Amundsen, Gigarin/Gagarin, etc) and much of Colonia itself were planted as Horizons-only as well. I fully expected the same to happen again.
Click to expand...
This surprised me a lot aswell. However, Odyssey settlement systems, in the way they currently work, would be a bit weird because of two reasons:

1. They have no power contact. This would make them effectively impossible to deliver materials for Powerplay preparations.
2. They become conflict zones during wars. If this involves all the settlements, this would make it impossible to hand in combat bonds.
 

Lee Taylor

Lee Taylor
The real surprising thing is that Odyssey settlements didn't spawn in the Horizons systems. I think this was an oversight, but I think I know why they didn't spawn in Horizons systems; it's because Horizons systems have no native factions. I have noticed a Horizons system that happened to be a named star (some are) that had a player faction injected into it before Odyssey launched that gained settlements, which makes me think that they were only injected into systems with native factions; it's possible though that it was because it was a named star (53 Nu Serpentis).
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Danieros said:
This surprised me a lot aswell. However, Odyssey settlement systems, in the way they currently work, would be a bit weird because of two reasons:

1. They have no power contact. This would make them effectively impossible to deliver materials for Powerplay preparations.
2. They become conflict zones during wars. If this involves all the settlements, this would make it impossible to hand in combat bonds.
Click to expand...
Single-faction mission boards, too, which would have weird effects once consolidated.

Lee Taylor said:
The real surprising thing is that Odyssey settlements didn't spawn in the Horizons systems. I think this was an oversight, but I think I know why they didn't spawn in Horizons systems; it's because Horizons systems have no native factions. I have noticed a Horizons system that happened to be a named star (some are) that had a player faction injected into it before Odyssey launched that gained settlements, which makes me think that they were only injected into systems with native factions; it's possible though that it was because it was a named star (53 Nu Serpentis).
Click to expand...
Colonia has a few systems without Odyssey settlements. The one without any native factions doesn't have any Odyssey settlements - and that seems to explain why only very specific Coalsack and Witch Head systems have them, too - so that definitely seems to be one way it can happen.

On the other hand there are also a few other Colonia systems with no Odyssey settlements which do have at least one native faction, and have landable planets, so that doesn't seem to be the only reason they might not have any...
 

Lee Taylor

Lee Taylor
The predominant factor is whether there are any planets which can host settlements. Sometimes, the proc-gen just skips over systems with suitable planets, since there's a pseudo-random element to it.
 

Ivy Augustine Hall

Ivy Augustine Hall
Sapyx said:
What does surprise me is that "no new colonies" statistic. It means there's no such thing as an "Odyssey-only" star system.

Which is odd. When Horizons launched, dozens of new inhabited star systems with planetary ports only throughout the bubble were added to the game. Most of those systems are still "Horizons-only" systems (though with the amalgamation, it's somewhat of a moot point), and the original Colonia Road settlements (Amundsen, Gigarin/Gagarin, etc) and much of Colonia itself were planted as Horizons-only as well. I fully expected the same to happen again.
Click to expand...

This surprised me quite a bit as well, because while I saw entire new ground ports being added to atmospheric planets in already-populated systems, I did not see this behavior at all in previously-unpopulated systems. I'd really hoped the frontier would once again see some filling, but alas.
 

Fozz40

Fozz40
ivys0re said:
This surprised me quite a bit as well, because while I saw entire new ground ports being added to atmospheric planets in already-populated systems, I did not see this behavior at all in previously-unpopulated systems. I'd really hoped the frontier would once again see some filling, but alas.
Click to expand...
It also surprised me!
 
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