Questions about development level and the BGS

[CMDR Poet Starwind]

So there are loads of posts about trading and combat and the BGS, but what about system tech/development level. To me, this has been a vague and most enigmatic aspect of the game. Is development level fixed, like population and wealth? Is it variable? Do courier missions count as "development" missions, establishing new NPC trading paths or contributing to the tech level of a system?

Why did the wealth and population description in the commodities market disappear, and why is there no indiction of a system's tech level except population size?

Sorry, more questions than answers from me :S

 

[the100thmonkey]

So there are loads of posts about trading and combat and the BGS, but what about system tech/development level. To me, this has been a vague and most enigmatic aspect of the game. Is development level fixed, like population and wealth? Is it variable? Do courier missions count as "development" missions, establishing new NPC trading paths or contributing to the tech level of a system?

Why did the wealth and population description in the commodities market disappear, and why is there no indiction of a system's tech level except population size?

Sorry, more questions than answers from me :S

I really wish I could at least attempt to answer these, but yeah... You've hit upon what are really the remaining mysteries with the BGS.

 

[Jmanis]

So there are loads of posts about trading and combat and the BGS, but what about system tech/development level. To me, this has been a vague and most enigmatic aspect of the game. Is development level fixed, like population and wealth? Is it variable? Do courier missions count as "development" missions, establishing new NPC trading paths or contributing to the tech level of a system?

Why did the wealth and population description in the commodities market disappear, and why is there no indiction of a system's tech level except population size?

Sorry, more questions than answers from me :S

Personally, I've never seen system characteristics like security, population, wealth etc. change based on player interactions. Others may have different opinions, and YMMV. States such as boom, lockdown, bust etc. definitely have an impact on interactions in the system e.g available mission types, daily influence adjustments and profit margins on the market, but again, seem to have no effect on actual system characteristics.

That said, while I can't be 100% sure what wealth and security status have on a system, higher population definitely correlates to reduced influence effects of activities like doing missions, trading etc..

On an aside, I'm not sure what's exactly meant when people say "tech level", but besides population, which does seem to have some bearing on the availability of module types, the only other thing to impact that is the economy, specifically if it's high tech or not.

 

[the100thmonkey]

On an aside, I'm not sure what's exactly meant when people say "tech level", but besides population, which does seem to have some bearing on the availability of module types, the only other thing to impact that is the economy, specifically if it's high tech or not.

"Tech Level" featured in a patch note from season 1. The patch note intimated that this affected at least the availability of ships in a shipyard. The patch in question ensured that there were three ships (IIRC) available in the shipyards in Phekda, whereas previously there were none.

It seems to be a hidden value in the BGS. We know for a fact that the number of ships available in shipyards can change - when we first started working Manite, there were 8 ships available; now there are 10. It also seems that there are bands or ranks of shipyards as we've worked really hard on Manite to push it over ten ships but have failed to do so. Other communist industrials have more ships, however, up to 14 in my favourite system.

 

[VR Golgot]

Is development level fixed, like population and wealth?

All I can do is add more confusion. Apparently population may be variable in the future...

Trade Q&A

[Paraphrased]

• ...In the long term we're looking at if it starts trading really well we could look at increasing the population. So small outposts could become a bigger hub. [56:50]

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Would be good to know though for sure. And you'd hope doing missions for a science outpost would up it...