EDBackgroundSimulation

This page is about the Background Simulation, commonly abbreviated BGS, in the game Elite Dangerous.

The Background Simulation in Elite Dangerous simulates the political and economical changes that take place in inhabited star systems. The BGS controls everything from security levels, system states, market prices and supply and demand, shipyard and outfitting availability, faction influence, NPC behavior (particularly terrorist and pirate states), and more. Everything you and all the other Commanders do in Elite Dangerous in populated systems affects the BGS.

References

• [1] The Complete BGS Guide by Cmdr Purrfect (Andrew van der Stock). The link points to a site from which the latest version of the guide is available. The research data that is the basis for the guide is located in this GitHub project. At the time of writing this page, the BGS Guide was a draft of the "2025 EDITION V3.0".
• [2] ED Wiki: Factions page
• [3] ED Wiki: Influence page

Glossary

Asset

A spaceport, planetary port, Odyssey settlement, installation or megaship (enumeration may be incomplete). Every asset is controlled by a → Faction, but not every Faction owns assets.

Faction

The ED Wiki [2] distinguishes between → Major Factions (aka → Superpowers) and → Minor Factions. To simplify things, this page follows the BGS Guide and uses the term "Faction" to mean "Minor Faction". There are both NPC factions and factions created and led by players (→ Player Minor Faction). Factions can be affiliated with a → Superpower. A faction that has no such affiliation belongs to the → Independents.

Home system

Every → Faction has a home system. The faction is considered → native to its home system. The faction cannot be retreated from its home system.

Independents

Refers to → Minor Factions that are not aligned with any of the → Superpowers.

Influence

In every star system where a → Faction is present, the faction has an influence rating. The rating is given in %, denoting how influential the faction is within the star system in proportion to the other factions.

Major Faction

The same as a → Superpower.

Minor Faction

A minor power in the game. An organisations that controls dozens of star systems or even only a single station. The BGS Guide, as well as this page, simply uses the term → Faction.

Native

A → Faction is native to its → Home system. Because of its native status, the faction cannot be retreated from its home system.

Player Minor Faction

A → Minor Faction created and led by players.

PMF

Abbreviation for → Player Minor Faction.

Power

Powers are neither → Superpowers nor → Minor Factions. They are exceedingly influential individuals with enormous followings who vie for influence in the Power Play sub-game of Elite Dangerous. Every Power is aligned with either one of the → Superpowers, or with the → Independents. At the time of writing there are 12 of these Powers in the game. Well-known Powers are Aisling Duval, Pranav Antal or Felicia Winters.

Reputation

The player has a reputation within every faction, both → Major Faction and → Minor Faction. Faction reputation is a measure of your trustworthiness to the faction.

Superpower

Political union of → Minor Factions that share a similar, overarching culture and economic ties. There are 3 Superpowers in the game: Empire, Federation, and Alliance. There are also the → Independents, but they are not an acknowledged Superpower.

Squadron

A collection of Commanders, typically supporting one or more factions in-game.

State

A → Faction experiences different states as the game world develops: Boom, Bust, Outbreak, Expansion, etc.. Faction state changes have effects on the game world. A large part of the BGS consists of the manipulation of faction states.

General notes

• Systems can have up to 8 factions.
• Unpopulated and Detention Center systems (e.g. HR 1172) do not take part in the BGS.
• It is easier to change influence in low population systems.
• ED Wiki [3]: When trying to gain influence for a faction, it is most beneficial to split activities between the types of support activity, as doing more than a certain amount of a specific activity is subject to diminishing returns.

Reputation

Reputation levels:

• Hostile
• Unfriendly
• Neutral. This is a player's initial faction reputation.
• Cordial
• Friendly
• Allied

Notes:

• Factions will offer you more types of missions and higher rewards the more reputation you have with them.
• Being hostile to a faction prevents you from getting missions from the faction and stops you from (easily) landing at a faction's stations, settlements, and ports.
• If you are in hostile status, you will recover a little bit of reputation every day until you are unfriendly.

Influence

The "100% sum game"

• A star system contains several factions.
• Each faction has an influence level, expressed as a percentage.
• The total influence of all factions in a star system always is 100%.
• Doing positive actions for a faction increases that faction's influence, while it decreases the influence of the other factions.

Proportional influence re-distribution

According to the ED Wiki [2] when a faction's influence increases, the corresponding decrease of influence of the other factions is proportional to the amount of influence of those factions factions has.

An example as I understand the rule:

• Given a star system with 3 factions: A, B and C.
• Faction A has 60% influence, faction B has 30% influence, faction C has 10% influence.
• Faction C influence increases by 10%. Consequently the influence of faction A and B must, in total, decrease by 10%.
• Because faction A has double the influence of faction B, its influence decrease is double the influence decrease of faction B.
• Faction A's influence is reduced by 2/3 of 10%, i.e. roughly 6.6%.
• Faction B's influence is reduced by 1/3 of 10%, i.e. roughly 3.3%.

Diminishing returns

• The BGS Guide [1] states on page 40 that boosting the influence of a faction with low influence takes much less effort than boosting the influence of a faction with high influence.
• In other words: The more influence a faction has, the more effort it takes to boost its influence even higher.
• Because influence changes are a 100% sum game, this diminishing returns effect can be turned into an advantage when your actual goal is reducing the influence of, say, the system controlling faction.
• It is then most efficient to push the influence of all the other factions in the system, in particular those that have the lowest influence.
• Negative actions against the system controlling faction are still useful, but instead of pouring a lot of effort solely into negative actions, it is more efficient to combine a few negative actions with a moderate amount of influence boosting for the competing factions.

Specific influence effects

• Influence under 2.5% will cause a non-native faction to enter the Retreat state, causing it to leave the star system if no action is taken.
• Influence above 75% will cause a faction to enter the Expansion state, potentially letting it expand to a nearby star system.

Faction control

Notes:

• Every asset (station, settlement, etc.) is controlled by a single faction. To find the Asset Controlling Faction:
  • Open the System Map.
  • Select the "Factions" symbol to display a list of all factions present in the star system.
  • Select a faction, then scroll down until you see a list of assets. These are the assets that the faction controls. If you see the asset you're looking for in the list, you know that the selected faction is the one that controls the asset.
  • If you didn't see the asset, repeat the process for each faction until you found the asset.
• Every star system is controlled by a single faction. To find the System Controlling Faction:
  • Open the System Map.
  • Select the "Factions" symbol to display a list of all factions present in the star system.
  • The faction at the top of the list is the System Controlling Faction.
  • BGS Guide page 11: "The controlling faction usually has the most influence, but there are circumstances where this is not the case, such as during a coup or a conflict for control." (see Conflicts)
• Every star system also has a controlling station. To find the System Controlling Station:
  • The ED Wiki [3] states that this "is usually the biggest in the system".
  • The BGS Guide states that this is usualy "the closest and largest spaceport to the main A star. Without spaceports, the first planetary port will be the controlling asset."
  • The BGS Guide also states: "Until you initiate a conflict to control a system, there is no way of telling which asset is the controlling asset."
• BGS Guide: The System Controlling Station is always controlled by the System Controlling Faction

Star system attributes and states

• The Controlling Station determines the system's economy state
  • TODO: Example states
• TODO: It is currently not known how the system's economy type is determined.
• The Controlling Faction determines the system's government type
  • TODO: Example types
• The Controlling Faction controls the System Authority vessels in places with no specific associated faction
  • TODO: Which are these places? Hazres? Beacons?
  • Personal observation: At facilities owned by a faction, I see ships labeled "Federal Security Service", and those ships are controlled by the faction that controls the facility.

Faction attributes and states

Game UI

Information about a faction's attributes and states is exposed in the game UI:

• Call up the "Internal Panel" (the one on the right-hand side).
• Select the tab "Status".
• Select the page "System Factions".
• Select a faction to view its details.

Economy and Security

Overview

• A faction has both an Economy and a Security value for a given star system.
• The BGS Guide calls these "sliders" because of their representation in the game UI. I prefer to use the term "attributes".
• For both Economy and Security, there is a minimum and a maximum value.
• In the absence of any action, both Economy and Security values will gradually move back towards an equilibrium between the minimum and maximum value.
• In some sections (at least on page 42ff), the BGS Guide talks about "economic influence" and "security influence". I assume this refers to the faction's Economy and Security values.

Economy

• Minimum value = Bust.
• Maximum value = Boom.
• Economy is a measure of the economic health of the faction. The higher the slider, the more beneficial trade and exploration are. If the faction enters Bust, this can create related event states such as Famine, Blight, and Drought. TODO: Is the term "event state" relevant?

Security

• Minimum value = Civil Unrest.
• Maximum value = Civil Liberty.
• Security represents a faction's ability to maintain law and order in a system. Security is influenced by violent actions.
• Dropping combat bounties and doing combat-related missions increases Security.
• Murders and illegal missions that target Security (e.g. kill skimmers) lower Security.
• Anarchy factions have their Security value locked in the center. They therefore cannot experience Civil Liberty, Civil Unrest, or Lockdown states.

Happiness

TODO

States

ED Wiki:

• According to the ED Wiki [2], a faction usually has the same state across all star systems in which it is present. The ED Wiki [2] confusingly states: "For states like war which can only apply to one system all other systems will have no active state."
• In conflict to the above, the ED Wiki [3] states that "a minor faction can experience multiple different states simultaneously in a system where it has a presence."

BGS Guide [1]

• A faction can be in multiple states at once. Examples: Expansion, None.

System states

General system state notes

BGS Guide[1]: At the time of writing there are three main types of system state:

• Local state
  • The system controlling faction's state is the system state, but it can be a secondary faction's state in some circumstances.
• Global state
  • An older state type, of which Expansion is the last remaining global state.
• AX state
  • A newer system state type, of Alert, Invasion, Control, and Recovery.
• TODO: Find out whether these state types are independent, or whether some states of a given state type are possible only in combination with states of another state type. Example 1: Is the global state Expansion possible together all local states? Example 2: Is the AX state Invasion possible with all local states?

The Bucket Model

The BGS Guide [1] explains this starting from page 36.

Bucket Model Summary

• The game has buckets for a large variety of things.
• Doing actions fill or empty those buckets. Once a bucket is full, or empty, a trigger is reached, and something happens (e.g. the next economic state is reached), then the bucket is emptied, or filled, and the process starts over.
• A diminishing returns mechanic makes it ineffective to only invest time in a single activity that fills or empties just one bucket. The avoid (or at least reduce) the diminishing returns effect, the most effective use of your game time is to do different things that affect multiple buckets. The BGS Guide has a number of important-looking formulas on page 39 - these are not replicated here because they go far beyond the detail level that I'm willing to learn.
• During conflicts (Wars and Elections) the diminishing returns effect does not apply. You simply have to do more of the required activity for the faction that you support than someone else does for the faction that you oppose.
• As stated elsewhere on this page, large population star systems require more effort to achieve a given effect than low population star systems. On page 40 the BGS guide shows a formula that expresses the effort is on a logarithmic scale, roughly resulting in a 100% increase of the base effort for every multiple of 10 in population. Concrete example: If the base effort is for a 1000 population system (10^3), then for a 1 billion population system (10^9) the effort is 6 times the base effort.

Simplified Bucket Model

To simplify things, you can think of a model consisting of only a few buckets, that roughly correspond to some of the main activities you can do in the game. The following table gives an overview of how you can positively or negatively affect each of these bucket.

Simplified bucket model and actions that affect each bucket

Bucket	Positive actions	Negative actions	Notes
Trade	Trade profit, within demand	Trade loss, Trade exceeding demand
Exploration / Black Markets	Exploration	Black Markets, Smuggling
Combat	Bounty vouchers, Winning wars for your faction	Murder, Winning wars for opposing faction
Missions	Mission completion	Mission fails, Taking missions against a faction
Scenarios	Scenario completion	Scenario fails, Scenario completion for the opposing faction

Conflicts

General notes on conflicts

• To be eligible for a conflict, a faction needs to have influence% of 7% or more.
• TODO: Vague/not 100% clear
  • BGS Guide [1]: A faction will bump into other factions with similar influence levels. If one or both factions have assets, a conflict will result, and the game will lock the two factions together. TODO: Specify what "similar" means. Specify whether "bump into" simply means "get into conflict".
  • ED Wiki [3]: If a faction gains the same amount of influence as another faction within a system and the formerly-higher influence faction has control over any stations, settlements or installations, they will initiate a conflict. At the end of a conflict, the victor takes control over the highest valued asset the loser has, if any.
• Conflicts are either Wars or Elections, depending on the involved factions' Ethos (which is determined by their government types). See the next section for details.
• When a faction that is not the system controlling faction raises their influence% above 60%, that faction triggers a Coup conflict, which as usual results in a War or Elections with the system controlling faction.

Government types and Ethos

To determine whether a conflict will result in a War or in an Election, the conflicting factions' Ethos needs to be compared. A faction's government type usually determines its Ethos, although there are exceptions.

List of government types for each Ethos

Ethos types
Criminal	Autocrat	Corporation	Social
Anarchy	Dictatorship	Corporate	Communist
	Feudal		Confederacy
	Patronage		Cooperative
	Prison Colony		Democracy
	Theocracy (see notes)		Theocracy (see notes)

Notes:

• For Theocracy, the Ethos depends on whether it's an NPC faction or a faction created and led by players.
• The Ethos discussed here is not the same as the Ethos in Power Play.
• In some cases factions have an Ethos that does not match their government type - this is particularly true for factions placed by Frontier. It may be possible to get hints about a faction's Ethos by observing secondary indicators: Criminal factions offer far more illegal missions; Social and Criminal factions tend to open black markets, while Autocrats and Corporations tend to close them.

The following table shows which state - War or Elections - will result from a conflict between two factions with the given Ethos.

Conflict table

	Criminal	Autocrat	Corporation	Social
Criminal	War	War	War	War
Autocrat	War	Elections	War	War
Corporation	War	War	Elections	War
Social	War	War	War	Elections

Notes:

• When the two factions involved share the same home system, the resulting state is Civil War. For all practical purposes, a Civil War is the same as a War.

War

Basic rules:

• A War lasts 4-7 days.
• A War ends as soon as one of the factions wins 4 days. That faction wins the conflict.
• If no side wins 4 days, the War ends after 7 days, and the faction who won more days wins the conflict.
• A War has no conclusive outcome if neither faction wins 4 days, and after 7 days both factions have won the same number of days.

How to win a day

• A day is won by the side that won the key lever of most Combat Zones (CZs) and objectives completed.
  • TODO: What does "and objectives completed" mean?
• It is not simply the raw number of CZs won - different types of CZs are worth more than others (see page 58 of the BGS Guide). Roughly:
  • Space CZs are four times as effective as ground CZs of the same difficulty level.
  • 2 low difficulty space CZs beats a single high difficulty space CZ.
  • 5 low difficulty space CZs beats three high difficulty space CZs.
  • The ratio for medium difficulty space CZs is not mentioned.
  • Side objectives are mostly irrelevant.
• If both sides have won the same number of CZs, then to break the tie all combat related activities that have been handed in are tallied up to determine the winner. "Combat related activities" are at least bounty vouchers, combat bonds, and combat-related missions - it's unclear whether there are more. More specifically, the BGS Guide names the following:
  • "Kill X enemy ships" missions
  • Combat bonds and bounty vouchers
  • Any combat related mission, such as assassination missions
  • Installation immediate scenarios with a combat focus
  • If you take a war-time mission (war time salvage and strategic courier jobs) you have to do some form of combat, otherwise the mission is unlikely to count
• Note that tie-breaking combat related activities still increase/decrease the affected faction's Security, as they ordinarily do. The exception is the last day of the War - see below under "Conflict outcome".

Conflict outcome

• If there is a winner
  • The defeated faction's asset at risk is assigned to the winning faction.
  • The winning faction's influence% will go up by about 1.5% and the losing faction's influence% will go down by 1.5%.
  • On the last day of the War (could be any day between 4-7), tie-breaking combat related activities that would ordinarily increase/decrease the affected faction's Security, instead increase/decrease "security influence". You can lose the war and still go up above the winning faction if you do more tie-breaker work than the winning faction.
    • TODO: What does "security influence" mean? The BGS Guide again uses this term, as it does in other places, without ever specifying what "security influence" means.
• If there is no winner
  • Each asset at risk remains with each faction.
  • There is only minimal movement in influence% between the two factions.
• Regardless of who wins the war
  • The faction that won the most times at each Odyssey settlement (other than any staked in the conflict itself) is assigned as the new owner of the settlement.
  • There is a one day cool down period before another conflict is possible. This period can be used to change influence% on either side to either guarantee another War, or evade one.
  • Combat bonds not handed in can be kept for the next War.

Elections

Elections have exactly the same mechanics in place as Wars (see the previous section), the difference being the activities that you can undertake to win the Election.

Notes:

• Things that count towards elections
  • Non-combat missions
  • Trade
  • Smuggling
• These activities must be done (missions handed in, commodities sold at a market, smuggled goods sold at a black market) at a station owned by your faction.
  • This is implied by the BGS Guide stating on page 61 the condition "if you own a station" for tie breakers for various activities.
  • TODO: The BGS confusingly states for tie breakers "Smuggling (yes, smuggling!) – if you own a station that has a black market", but then one paragraph later "You can use smuggling to reduce a controlling faction’s economy slider." This seems to be contradicting - do you have to sell smuggled goods to a black market at your own station, or at an opposing station?
• If you take non-combat missions and you end up in combat, or are earning a bounty or fine, the mission is unlikely to count towards the win state for a day.

How to change a faction's attribute values (influence, etc.)

ED Wiki

How to change faction influence ratings, according to ED Wiki [3]:

• Increase influence
  • Completing missions for the faction.
  • Trading with stations or outposts owned by that faction.
  • Turning in bounty vouchers from the faction.
  • Selling exploration data to stations owned by that faction.
• Decrease influence
  • Commit crimes in the system, if the faction currently controls it.
  • Destroy the faction's ships and kill inhabitants of their settlements.
• Neutral activities
  • Abandoning, timing out, or failing missions does not affect any faction's influence.

BGS Guide overview

BGS Guide [1]

• A station's controlling (owning) faction gets influence from trade, universal cartographics (if available), combat bonds, and missions.
• Non-controlling factions can only offer missions and combat bounties as influence levers.
• Installations (i.e. where you can't dock): Doing positive or negative actions at the installation, such as completing a scenario or attacking skimmers, will affect the installation's owner.
• Non-Dockable Megaships
  • These Megaships are owned by the system controlling faction. When they move between systems, the may change the owning faction.
  • These Megaships provide scenarios – immediate missions – which you can complete to boost the controlling faction, or deliberately fail to reduce the controlling faction.
  • You can also "attack" the megaship by hacking the comms array or stealing the cargo with hatch breaker limpets. The BGS guide [1] does not say what the consequences are, but it is implied that they will hurt the controlling faction.
  • Often, there is loose cargo around the megaship. If it says, "Legal salvage" you can collect it without hurting the controlling faction. If it says "Illegal salvage" collecting it will incur a small fine and reduce the controlling faction's security slider. Illegal salvage is considered stolen, and you can sell it to black markets.
• Dockable Megaships
  • Some player-owned Megaships exist, such as Dionysus in HIP 17044 - which does not move and acts like a regular system station, or Cannon’s The Gnosis - which does move but does not act like a regular system station – it does not introduce Cannon's faction to an unpopulated system.
  • Whichever faction provides the system authority ships protecting the megaship is the owner for BGS purposes.
  • Dockable Megaships never have scenarios.

Tabular details

Activity		Affected faction	Attribute effects					Notes
Type	Specialty		Influence	Economy	Security	Happiness	Other
Trade activities
Buy comodities from market		Station controlling faction		+				More supply according to the three-bar-signal (*3) is better.
Sell comodities to market	Sell with profit	Station controlling faction		+				More demand according to the three-bar-signal (*3) is better. More profit is better, but the three-bar-signal is more important. Avoid the bulk sales tax (*5). On page 47 the BGS Guide states that "intra-system trade loops give more influence, especially if you control both stations, than system-to-system trade loops." - no explanation for this is given. When transferring a commodity to the carrier hold, the commodity "remembers" its original buy price, thus guaranteeing you that you will achieve the same BGS effect as if you had made the trade directly. Selling to a carrier market has no BGS effect. See (*4) for comments when selling commodities that were bought from a carrier market.
Sell comodities to market	Sell with loss	Station controlling faction		-				More demand according to the three-bar-signal (*3) is better (i.e. gives a higher decrease). More loss is better. Unconfirmed, but it would make sense that the bulk sales tax (*5) would be desirable here since it further reduces the sell price. Highly priced commodities can be found e.g. in Boom or Civil Liberty systems, low buy prices exist in e.g. Infrastructure Failure systems.
Sell comodities to market with zero demand		Station controlling faction		-
Sell illegal goods (*6)	Station controlling faction is not Anarchy	Station controlling faction	-	(-)	(-)			Typically sold at a Black Market, but in rare cases there might be demand in the regular market which means you can also sell there. The nature of the commodity sold determines whether Economy decreases (most commodities, e.g. Imperial Slaves) or Security decreases (only some, e.g. Battle Weapons). Information taken from the "Reducing influence" section of the BGS Guide. There is related information in the "Boosting influence" section of the guide, but it is very ambiguous. Page 52: Higher value commodities have greater impact.
Sell stolen goods (*6)	Station controlling faction is not Anarchy	Station controlling faction		(-)	(-)			The BGS Guide's wording on page 50f implies that - in contrast to illegal goods - stolen goods can only be sold at a Black Market. The nature of the commodity sold determines whether Economy decreases (most commodities) or Security decreases (only some). Information taken from the "Reducing influence" section of the BGS Guide. There is related information in the "Boosting influence" section of the guide, but it is very ambiguous. Page 52: Higher value commodities have greater impact.
Sell stolen or illegal goods	Station controlling faction is Anarchy	Station controlling faction		+				This is more or less the reverse of the previous two entries. TODO: Can Security be increased in an Anarchy?
Sell mined goods								The BGS Guide states that "[...] sales of mined commodities do not affect trade influence or the economy slider through sales or smuggling, unless you use mined goods as a mission commodity."
Exploration / Black Markets activities
Hand in exploration data		TODO (Assumption: station controlling faction)		+				Universal Cartographics must be present at a station. TODO: BGS Guide p. 43 mentions a daily cap - find out whether there is a hard cap or whether this merely refers to the diminishing returns mechanic when filling buckets.
Hand in Exobiology data		TODO (Assumption: station controling faction)						Only raises reputation. Exobiology has no BGS-relevant effect.
Combat activities. See EDCombat.
Hand in bounty vouchers (*1)	In system where bounty issuer (*2) is present	Bounty issuer (*2)			+			Using a Kill Warrant Scanner is not advisable when playing the BGS, because it can reveal bounties issued by factions that you don't want to support. See (*1) for a hint how to get rid of unwanted bounty vouchers.
Hand in bounty vouchers (*1)	In system where bounty issuer (*2) is not present	Bounty issuer (*2)						Only raises your reputation with the bounty issuer faction. When the bounty issuer faction is not present in a system, the bounty voucher can only be reeemed at an Interstellar Factor.
Kill unwanted ships, NPCs or players	Anywhere	Faction the ship, NPC or player belongs to	?	?	?	?	?	Aka "murders", "clean kills". Very effective, but also very dangerous: You rack up a huge bounty very fast that may prove to be unpayable. Also NPC ships called Advanced Tactical Response (ATR) will attack you at some point (depends on the system security, e.g. in a High Security system they will attack after 4 murders), and almost certainly destroy you. Read the BGS Guide for a description of the dangers. TODO: The BGS Guide does not say in what way the faction is negatively affected. Educated guess: Security?
Mission to wipe out Odyssey settlement		Settlement controlling faction			- (?)			The BGS Guide on page 51 does not state what kind of negative effect this kind of mission has. Educated guess: Security. Killing scavenger NPCs helps the settlement controlling faction.
Mission activities
Completing a positive mission	In-ship mission (Horizons)	Mission giver		+	+			The mission details specify whether it affects Economy or Security. The highest value is 5.
Completing a positive mission	On-foot mission (Odyssey)	Mission giver		+	+			The mission details specify whether it affects Economy or Security. The highest value is 4. NPCs can give 4 value missions, terminals only give at maximum 3 value missions.
Completing a negative mission		Mission target						These are typically Illegal missions. TODO Find out how you will know the attribute affected by the mission.
Failing a mission		Mission giver		(-)	(-)			Abandoning a mission does not fail it. To fail a mission, you have to wait until the mission expires. For passenger missions, leave the station then hit the station until the ship is destroyed. Self-destruct may also work. Failing missions also loses you reputation. The negative effect of a failed missions is thought to be the smallest reward choice, but the advice is to count only on getting a single point reduction even if the smallest reward would be two points.
Scenario activities

Notes:

• (*1) Bounty vouchers can be redeemed in any star system where the bounty issuer faction is present. Redeeming a voucher raises the security of the bounty issuer faction in the system where the voucher is handed in, i.e. not in the system where the bounty was earned. It also does not matter which faction controls the station where you redeem the voucher. Note: You can also redeem a bounty voucher in a system where the bounty issuer faction is not present, but this requires an Interstellar Factor. If the bounty issuer faction is not present in the system, then it will not get any influence, but your reputation with the faction will increase. This can be used to get rid of bounty vouchers issued by factions that you don't want to support.
• (*2) The bounty voucher for WANTED ships always is the current jurisdiction, which is equal to the System Controlling Faction, regardless of where you are in a given star system. It also does does not matter which faction the the WANTED ship belongs to. For bounties revealed by a Kill Warrant Scanner, you cannot know in advance which bounties these will be.
• (*3) The three-bar-signal in a buying or selling market, shown next to a commodity's supply or demand number, indicates how large the commodity's supply or demand is:
  • Three green bars: High supply, or high demand.
  • No bars: Medium supply, or medium demand.
  • Three red hollow bars: Low supply, or low demand.
  • TODO: It is unknown what the signal shows when there is zero demand. A station where a commodity is listed with zero demand will accept an infinite amount of the commodity.
  • TODO: It is unknown what the signal shows when there is zero supply. For BGS this has no relevancy, though, since a station with zero supply of a commodity will simply not let you buy that commodity.
• (*4) When selling a commodity to a carrier market, page 45 of the BGS Guide is contradictory:

• First it says "Trade from the carrier market has a diminished influence effect on BGS. [...] Trade profit with demand will raise influence.".
• The BGS Guide then describes how trading via transfers to/from the carrier hold retain the commodity's original buy price, but says "If the goods are sold to the carrier market or bought from the carrier market, this does not work. Only transfers work.", thus implying that commodities sold to the carrier market do not retain the original buy price.
• Then the BGS Guide states "Since the trade update, using your fleet carrier to re-price goods, such as selling gold or silver at 5% of galactic average, to sell at a nearby station for incredible on paper profits, no longer works." - in my mind, the only way how this can be prevented is that the commodity retains its original buy price.
• All this seems very confusing.

• (*5) The bulk sales tax (aka "Cutter Tax", because of the Cutter's large cargo capacity) applies when the amount of a commodity you sell exceeds 4 times the demand for that commodity. The "tax" manifests in that the sell price is reduced by approximately 25%. A lower sell price results in a smaller profit, therefore reducing the effect on Economy the sale has.
• (*6) Obtaining and selling illegal or stolen goods
  • Obtaining illegal goods is easy - just find a selling market where they're not illegal.
  • Obtaining stolen goods is also not too hard: Accept a delivery mission and then abandon the mission (your reputation will be reduced). Alternatives for stolen goods are 1) obviously do pirating; 2) steal cargo from megaships with hatchbreaker limpets.
  • Bulk stolen goods: Find a team mission for delivering a large quantity of a commodity, preferably high value (e.g. Palladium). Set up a secure warehouse at your carrier. Buy the commodities e.g. from an Extraction market, then sell them to the warehouse. Abandon the mission to mark the commodities as stolen. Your reputation will drop, but because it's a team mission you will get no fine.
  • When carrying illegal or stolen goods, try to avoid being scanned when you approach a station. If you do get scanned, you will get a fine. Get into the station - it will have only a reduced menu, but you should be able to pay off the fine at one of the contacts. Once done you can sell your cargo as planned.

How to change a system's state

Page 53 of the BGS Guide talks about "inducing negative states":

• When Economy and Security reach low values, a negative state may be triggered on the next tick.
• A negative state may bring with them a daily influence drop.
• A low Security value may lead to the system entering the Lockdown state. This slows down negative actions.

Expansion

Basics

• When a faction increases its influence% above 75% in any of the systems where it is present, it goes into Expansion state and tries to expand into a neighbouring star system where it is not yet present. Note The faction must stay above 75% for at least one day for the Expansion to start.
• In case the faction goes above 75% in multiple star systems, the game automatically selects one of those star systems as the source system. See the "Expansion source star system selection" section below for details.
• The game also automatically selects the target star system where the faction tries to expand to. See the "Expansion target star system selection" section below for details.
• The Expansion does not take place instantaneously, it spans across several days. See the "Expansion timetable" section below for details.
• The effects of a successful Expansion are detailed in the "Expansion effects" section below.

Note: If the neighbouring star system is already occupied by other players, it is considered good policy to contact them and establish whether your faction is welcome.

Expansion source star system selection

• The Expansion state is a global state for the faction, i.e. at any given time it can only expand from a single source star system.
• As a consequence, if a faction increases its influence% above 75% in multiple star systems, one of these star systems needs to be selected as the source star system from which the Expansion originates.
• The BGS Guide has conflicting information about the selection criteria:
  • In section "Which system will be the expansion system?" on page 64 it states that "According to the game, expansions happen from systems that are happiest." and then on page 65 "However, in practice, the choice of which system to expand seems to be random."
  • In section "Expansion Timetable" on page 65 it states that "the one with the most influence will be the source system."
• In case the selection criteria is Happiness, the BGS Guide lists the following actions as increasing Happiness. Note that the list may not be complete.
  • Delivering high-demand trade
  • Doing influential expansion missions
  • Dropping exploration data
• TODO Say something where the selected source star system is visible in the game. BGS Guide page 65: "it will be shown in station news wherever the faction is present."

Expansion target star system selection

To select the Expansion's target star system, the game first determines the range in which to look for eligible star systems.

• The range is a cube of which the source star system is the center.
• The cube side length is determined as follows:
  • For the first expansion attempt, the cube side length is 34 ly.
  • If no eligible target star system can be found, the first expansion attempt fails.
  • After some time has elapsed (see section "Expansion timetable") a second Expansion attempt is made where the cube's side length is extended to 52 ly.
  • If no eligible target star system can be found, the second expansion attempt fails.
  • From now on, no Expansions can take place anymore from the source star system.

The following are eligible target star systems:

• Those where less than 8 factions are present, and where the expanding faction currently has no presence.
• The star system is not permit-locked.
• The star system has no other special rules that make it impossible to expand into (e.g. Sol, Shinrarta Dezhra).

From among those, the target star system is selected according to the following priority rules:

1. The target star system has less than 7 factions and the faction has never had any presence in the star system.
   • TODO: It is currently not know what the tie breaker is if there are several matching target star systems.
2. The target star system has exactly seven factions and a suitable target faction is present with which the expanding faction can wage an Invasion War. See the "Invasion War rules" section below for details.
   • If multiple target star system candidates exists that fulfill the criteria, the winner is the star system where the target faction picked for the Invasion War has the lowest influence%.
3. The target star system has less than 7 factions and the faction has had a presence in the star system before, but has been retreated.
   • TODO: It is currently not know what the tie breaker is if there are several matching target star systems.

If no target star system can be found that fulfills any of the priority rules above, the Expansion attempt fails. As explained above in the "range" section, if it was the first Expansion attempt with a smaller range, then a second Expansion attempt with an extended range is possible. If that second Expansion attempt also fails, then the source star system is permanently blocked from all future Expansion attempts by any faction!

Invasion War rules

The game picks a target faction with which the expanding faction can wage an Invasion War, according to the following priority rules:

1. The target faction is in retreat.
   • If multiple target factions are in retreat, the one with the lowest influence% is selected.
2. The target faction is non-native (i.e. it can be retreated) and it is not in a conflict or a conflict cool down period.
   • If multiple target factions fullfill the criteria, the one with the lowest influence% is selected.

Invasion War rules

• An Invasion War is a War. See the section "War" above on this page.
• This is the case even if the two factions would normally have an Election because of their Ethos. See the section "Government types and Ethos" above on this page.
• While the Invasion War is ongoing, there are temporarily 8 factions present in the target star system: The 7 pre-existing factions (among which is the defending target faction) plus the expanding (= invading) faction.
• The winning faction stays in the system, while the losing faction will instantly retreat at the end of the War cooldown (which is 1 day).

Expansion timetable

Once an Expansion has started, it cannot be stopped.

Expansions take place over a period of 10-14 days.

• First there is a 3 day warm up.
  • TODO: Once the ambiguities in the BGS Guide have been cleared up, say something about when the source star system is selected. See the "[[#TODO|TODO]" section.
• After the warm up period, the Expansion becomes Active.
• The Active Expansion goes on for 5-10 days.
  • The BGS Guide states that it may be possible to extend short Expansion durations by doing Expansion related missions and handing in exploration data, although not beyond 10 days. But there appear to be no clear rules.
• After the Active period, the Expansion becomes Completed.
  • At this point, the expanding faction will either expand to the target star system, or remain in their source star system, depending on whether the Expansion succeeded or failed.
• After the Expansion is Completed, there is a final Cool Down period of 2 days.

Expansion effects

Faction State

• During the Warm Up and Active periods of the Expansion, the faction can have no other state besides "Expansion".
• TODO: Say something about the Cool Down period once the ambiguities in the BGS Guide are cleared up.

System State

• During the Warm Up and Active periods of the Expansion, all systems that the expanding faction controls have the state "Expansion". The reason for this is that "Expansion" is a global state, i.e. it affects the entire set of star systems a faction controls.
• TODO: Say something about the Cool Down period once the ambiguities in the BGS Guide are cleared up.

Faction Influence%

• The expanding faction's Influence% in the source star system is reduced by 15%.
  • TODO: Say something whether this happens always, or only if the Expansion was successful.
• TODO: Say something about the expanding faction's Influence% in the target star system.

Faction assets

• TODO: Say something about the expanding faction's assets in the target star system.

Retreat

TODO

• Page 67 mentions that if a faction drops below 2.5% influence, it goes into Retreat.
• Page 68ff has a section dedicated to Retreat

TODO

Some sections still need to be written. The BGS Guide has a lot of valuable information for these which I skipped for the moment. In other places the BGS Guide is ambiguous or not clear in the usage of terms.

• The BGS Guide frequently uses the terms "economical influence" or "security influence". It practically never mentions that "influence" (without an addendum) is increased or decreased, thus raising the question whether influence% is merely a combination of the Economy and Security values. However, on page 50 the guide suddenly states this: "Negative trade induces a loss in economic (most illegal goods, like imperial slaves) or security (e.g., prohibited weapons) sliders and reduces influence." Sloppy use of terms? Page 52 also has bullet points that explicitly mention "influence" and "sliders", implying these are two different things.
• The BGS Guide states "[...] sales of mined commodities do not affect trade influence or the economy slider through sales or smuggling, unless you use mined goods as a mission commodity." This sentence uses the terms "trade influence" as if it were something different than the "economy slider". Is this just sloppy term use, or does it have any meaning? The BGS Guide often also uses the terms "economy influence" and "security influence", which so far I understood to refer to the "economy slider" and "security slider", respectively.
• How is the "asset at risk" in a Conflict (War or Elections) determined?
• How to interpret the various reports available under "Station News" when you are docked at a station.
• Ticks: Daily tick and its phases, weekly server maintenance tick
• Describe Happiness. It's exposed in the game UI, but not as a slider as Economy and Security are. Based on a screenshot in the BGS Guide on page 33, it looks as if Inara renders this as a slider.
• Write something about "Shortening event states with relevant trade commodities", a section that starts on page 47 of the BGS Guide.
• When does a Theocracy have the Ethos "Social" and when "Autocrats"? The BGS Guide says "it depends if an NPC or PMF", but does not state when it's which.
• The BGS Guide describes in section "Taking over a system, slowly" on page 66f that when factions are in conflict their influence is locked, implying that during the conflict period a faction's influence cannot change. This is not described anywhere else in the guide.
  • Is this true?
  • If yes: Does the lock also extend into the 1 day cool down?

TODOs related to Expansion:

• What is the selection criteria for the source star system? The BGS Guide has conflicting statements for this:
  • In section "Which system will be the expansion system?" on page 64 it states that "According to the game, expansions happen from systems that are happiest." and then on page 65 "However, in practice, the choice of which system to expand seems to be random."
  • In section "Expansion Timetable" on page 65 it states that "the one with the most influence will be the source system."

• When is the source star system determined? The BGS Guide has two conflicting statements for this:
  • In section "Which system will be the expansion system?" on page 64 it states "The game will choose one of these two expansion systems on the last day of expansion."
  • In section "Expansion Timetable" on page 65 it states "the day that decides which is the source system is the first day of the pending expansion, and it will be shown in station news wherever the faction is present."

• How much influence does the faction have when it enters a system?
  • In case of an Invasion War: Is it correct to assume that the expanding (= invading) faction takes over the influence of the defending faction when it retreats?
  • In other cases: What is the rule? Because of the 100% sum rule, any influence the expanding faction initially has will have to be taken away from the other factions. Is it correct to assume that the reduction to the other factions will be proportianal to their current influence?

• What assets (stations, settlements, etc.) does the faction control when it enters a system?
  • In case of an Invasion War: Is it correct to assume that the expanding (= invading) faction takes over all assets of the defending faction when it retreats?
  • In other cases: What is the rule?

• What is the tie breaker when multiple star systems fulfill the same target star system priority rule? The BGS Guide only state the tie breaker for the "Invasion War" rule. Specifically, what if there are several target star system candidates where 1) the faction has never been before and that have less than 7 factions; or 2) the faction has been before and that have less than 7 factions?
  • Option 1: Distance to the source star system (smaller distance wins)?
  • Option 2: Random winner selection?
  • Option 3: Some other criteria?

• If a faction is still above 75% after the expansion completes, will it start another Expansion? The BGS Guide implies no, because it states that the faction needs to "go above 75%", which would mean the crossing of the 75% threshold is the trigger, which in turn would mean the faction first has to go below 75% first before it can start another expansion.

• If there are two source systems to choose from, will the faction go into Expansion again after the first Expansion completes, this time for the second source star system? Or is the trigger "go above 75%" gone?

• When is the Expansion target star system decided? The BGS Guide states on page 66 "At the end of the expansion, the faction will expand (or not) to the system shown in the station news".
  • This implies that the target system is announced only when the end of the Expansion is reached, i.e. when the Expansion completes after 10-14 days and the Expansion outcome is known.
  • This does not make sense, though, given that there might be an Invasion War in which the participants have to know that they need to fight.

• If an Expansion fails due to no target star systems being eligible, does the Expansion still last 10-14 days?

• If an Expansion attempt in the extended range succeeds, will the next Expansion attempt from the same source star system be again in the normal range, or will it continue in the extended range? It would make sense if the next attempt will be again in the normal range, given that the situation might have changed and there might now be eligible target systems in the normal range.

• What happens if an Invasion War ends in a draw? Is it correct to assume that the Expansion will fail?

• An Invasion War is a War, i.e. it lasts 4-7 days, plus 1 day cool down. It is reasonable to assume that this War period is part of the 7-10 day Expansion period. Correct?

• In an Invasion War, what happens to the assets (stations, settlements, etc.) of the defending faction?
  • If the defending faction loses: Is it correct to assume that the expanding (= invading) faction takes over all assets of the defending faction when it retreats?
  • If the defending faction wins: Is it correct to assume that the defending faction keeps all of their assets?
  • If there is a draw: ?

• In a regular War, the "asset at risk" changes side if there is a winner, and Odyssey Settlements can change sides regardless of who wins - even if there is a draw. In an Invasion War, the expanding (= invading) faction has no assets in the star system that is the target of the Expansion attempt. So can the expanding faction lose anything if they lose the Invasion War?

• The BGS Guide states in section "Expansion Timetable" on page 66: "Other states, such as boom can still exist during the expansion cool down." The implications are ambiguous:
  • Because the guide says "other states", does this mean that the faction state can be simultaneously "Expansion" and "Boom" during Expansion cool down?
  • Does the statement imply that during the Expansion's warm up and active periods, the faction can have no other states than "Expansion"?
  • How do the answers to the previous two bullet points reflect on the state of the star systems controlled by the expanding faction?

• The BGS Guide states in section "Expansion Timetable" on page 66 that a "15% expansion 'tax' will be applied". The way the paragraph is worded, it could mean that this "tax" is also applied if the Expansion failed. Which is true: The "tax" is applied only when the Expansion succeeds, or it is always applied?

• In the case of an Invasion War, the BGS Guide does distinguish between a target faction being in retreat or not, thus implying that an Invasion War takes place even the target faction is in retreat. Is this correct?
  • Yes: What happens if the retreating target faction wins the Invasion War, or if the Invasion War ends in a draw?
  • No: Is it correct to assume that the expanding (= invading) faction automatically takes over the influence and assets of the retreating faction?

• The BGS Guide states in section "Rules of Invasion" on page 66: "Even if the controlling faction is non-native, it is not possible to directly attack them with an invasion." What does this mean, exactly?
  • What would be an "indirect" way to attack them with an invasion?
  • Or does this simply mean that the System Controlling Faction can never be the target of an Invasion War? In other words: You first have to establish a presence in the star system, and then you can get into a War or Election (= "attack") with them?