Elite Dangerous Galactic Politics Guide
Elite Dangerous Galactic Politics Guide by xhrit
For those of you wondering what the end game goal is in Elite:Dangerous, I have the answer. You should be aspiring for no less then your own personal empire! Find a good federation controlled star system with :
- high tech/extraction or refinery economy
- low population
- multiple stations (or outposts )
- a minor faction that controls at least 1 outpost and has the correct government and allegiance (independent anarchist if you are a pirate lord, imperial corporate if you are an imperialist. ). Bonus points if this minor faction has a cool name.
This minor faction now belongs to you, even thought they don’t know it yet. Do missions for this faction and trade with the faction’s outpost until you are allied with them. Once you are allied, your goal is to make that faction take control of the entire system! To do this you must raise your factions influence levels. Here is a quick rundown of how system influence works.
- Killing a faction’s members will hurt that faction’s influence levels.
- Hurting the faction with the most influence removes some of their influence gives influence to the number 2 position.
- Hurting any other faction removes their influence and gives it to the number 1 position.
- Helping the number 1 faction raises their influence and removes influence from the number 2 faction.
- Helping any other faction raises their influence and removes it from the #1 faction.
- Trading with a faction’s starport/black market or doing missions for a faction will raise their influence.
- Failing or abandoning a mission will hurt the faction that gave it to you.
- Finishing a mission will help the faction that gave it to you.
You must raise your chosen faction to be second in control of the system by running trade to their port and missions for them, then you can then go into a bit more hostilities with the controlling faction and kill them on sight. Once your faction has more influence then the federal faction, the system will enter a state of civil war critical.
In a civil war critical state, there will be a large number of missions that generate civil unrest. These type of missions are weapon smuggling, killing authority ships, etc. It helps if you have a large ship like an asp, because you can fill up your cargo hold with weapons and medical supplies and turn the missions in as they pop up without having to fetch them from another port. After you generate enough civil unrest, the civil war will begin and conflict zones will spawn.
The goal of the civil war is to capture the opposing faction’s starports. Collect missions from your faction that spawn at the station you want to capture; run sorties against the federalists; if you win enough stations in the civil war, system is yours! The systems government will change to your chosen faction’s, and you will have free reign to destroy any and all who oppose you. Once you have control of your own personal star system the fight is not over…. if you raise your faction’s influence levels high enough, you can expand to other star systems, and conquer them as well!
For those of you wondering, this is tested, and it works. The 113th Imperial Expeditionary Fleet successfully blockaded the Wodimui star system for 2 weeks, before liberating it in the Emperor’s name from the clutches of unregulated slavery. When we first started the blockade the controlling slave ring had 55% influence, the imperials 27%, and a 3rd faction of federalists had 16%. The civil war between the Anarchists and Imperialists started when both factions were at 43%, and lasted a whole weekend, and in the end we were victorious. It was quite an achievement for us, considering we are a small guild with few pilots. Highlights of the war were my first pvp kill, which happened at a warzone I had spawned… and my first RP session! Naturally I played in Open mode the whole time – I would transmit a message to any commander I saw in system.
“This system is under Imperial blockade. Any attempt to provide material assistance to the opposition will result in a lethal response.”
Most people would just warp away. A few ignored me, and we had to drive them off. One person, however, replied “Hail the Emperor! How can I help?”
My friend and I are trying to get our faction to win this Civil War and there’s not indicator as to how much progress we’re making. There are no Civil War specific missions in any of the stations we want to capture so the only thing we can do is fight in the Conflict Zones. When we accumulate Combat Bonds, should we turn them in at the station we want to capture or one our faction already controls? It’s all very confusing and the game isn’t very good a showing you what effect you’re having.
Also, thanks for this guide, it really cleared up a lot for me.