Tools to help plan expansions?

[Tolmir]

I'm presuming there's not but I thought I would ask, are there any tools out there that help you to plan expansions, for example say I wanted to expand from system A to system B and it's 50-100ly away, is there any tool that would help me plan what systems I would need to expand from and into, how long it would take and things like that?

I have obviously looked myself and I can't find anything, I'm guessing we just have to do it the harder way.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'm presuming there's not but I thought I would ask, are there any tools out there that help you to plan expansions, for example say I wanted to expand from system A to system B and it's 50-100ly away, is there any tool that would help me plan what systems I would need to expand from and into, how long it would take and things like that?

I have obviously looked myself and I can't find anything, I'm guessing we just have to do it the harder way.

I have an expansion calculator on CensusBot for Colonia, and it's open source if anyone wants to have a go at extending it, but there would be difficulties in the main bubble:
- it's a lot bigger and generally denser in inhabited systems, so the calculations are going to be more complex
- the EDDN data it uses to monitor system faction lists is rarely more than a day old in Colonia (and quick to refresh if necessary) but can be a week or more old for some bubble systems

For a 50LY journey you'd need a minimum of two expansions, and probably quite a few more, during which time the situation would change quite a bit anyway, so you're probably only ever going to be planning one hop at a time and just trying to keep going the right way. I expect a few BGS groups may well have internal tools to help with that, but for competitive reasons won't share them openly.

 

[Jane Turner]

I have always done this "Long Hand" using Inara.

Set current location as the place you want to go to and open the system you are expanding from. Work your way down the nearest systems list and establish which ones are closer to the target (you can skip a few by eye in the system map that are clearly the wrong way) . Its worth going on further than the first in the right direction just in case there is a better one still. Or you need an alternate route

Hopefully there will be a suitable candifdate in the right direction. Once you have picked your 1st waypoint defined, repeat the process. In 3.2 we used to allow 14 days per expansion and an additional 20 days to flip a system and get it ready for expansion. In 3.2 there was a great deal of value in avoiding unwanted expansions in order to save accidental conflicts which would really slow you down. It was worth blocking the most unwanted ones by raising the number of factions in there. If 3.3 stays how it is and you can get your expansion centre high in influence, it now makes more sense to spam expansions till you get in the system you want.

We've travelled 81 LY like this.

 

[Tolmir]

Thanks for the help, I will try doing that.

 

[VVI_RU52]

Dear friend!

I have questions:
- why do you need to expand the squadron faction? What is the benefit?
- you can detail how to make the expansion plan and what you need to do for the faction ?