Actions Quick Reference

What each action affects — a cheat sheet for BGS operatives.

Actions & Effects

Each action affects one or more BGS dimensions. Up = positive for the controlling faction, Down = negative.

Action	Economic	Security	Influence	Conflict / Other
Trade (legal, profitable)	Up	-	Up	Election
Trade food	Up	-	Up	Election
Trade medicines	Up	-	Up	Election. Outbreak down
Trade weapons	Up	Up	Up	Election. Pirate attack down
Smuggle	Down	-	Down	Election. Pirate attack up
Smuggle food	Down	-	Down	Election
Smuggle medicines	Down	-	Down	Election. Outbreak down
Smuggle weapons	Down	Down	Down	Election
Redeem bounties	-	Up	Up	War / Civil War. Pirate attack down
Redeem combat bonds	-	Up	-	War / Civil War. Pirate attack / Outbreak up
Sell exploration data	Up	-	Up	Election. Outbreak down
Search & Rescue	-	Up	Up	Election
Violent crimes / murder	-	Down	Down	War / Civil War
Missions	Varies	Varies	Varies	Varies by mission type

Not comprehensive. For the full list of known action-to-effect mappings, see the Colonia Census mission database.

Ethos / Social Groups

A faction's ethos determines black market availability and conflict types.

	Criminals	Autocrats	Corporations	Social
Black markets	Open	Closed	Closed	Open
Illegal missions	Many	Average	Average	Average
Same-ethos conflict	War	Election	Election	Election

Reducing Influence

Murder (Clean Kills)

The most impactful negative action. Find clean (non-wanted) ships or NPCs of the target faction and destroy them.

Best source: Odyssey settlements (no ATR response)
Industrial settlements: 3-4 ships, up to 8
Military settlements: 3-4 ships (tougher)
Tourist/Mining settlements: 1-2 if lucky
Also: nav beacons, famine distribution centers, stations, installations
Jump to supercruise and drop back in to respawn ships

Unprofitable Trade

Selling goods at a loss to a station controlled by the target faction reduces their economic slider and influence.

Smuggling

Selling illegal or stolen goods at a black market reduces the station owner's economic slider and influence. Exception: anarchies benefit from stolen goods (boosts their economy slider).

Failing Missions

Deliberately failing missions hurts the issuing faction. This is generally less effective than other methods.

Reputation Tips

Exobiology is portable reputation

Exobiology data has no BGS influence effect but restores reputation extremely fast. Drop 60-90 mCr of exobiology data at a controlling faction's station for instant allied status.

Recovering from hostile:

Go to a hazardous resource site in a system they control. Earn 5-10 mCr of combat bounties.
Hand the bounties in at a station in a system where they're present but don't control. This gets you out of hostile.
Go to their station with Vista Genomics. Drop 60-90 mCr of exobiology data. Instant allied.

Fleet Carrier Rules

Action	BGS Effect	Notes
Sell to carrier market	None
Buy from carrier market	Diminished	Some reputation and economy slider effect
Transfer via carrier hold, sell at station	Full	Retains original buy price
Transfer stolen goods via carrier, sell at black market	Full	Works for smuggling too
Fill mission from carrier supplies	Full	Influence from mission completion, not trade
Sell mined goods at station	None	No trade influence, no economy slider. Use as mission commodity instead

Daily Tick

Every day, the BGS processes a "tick" in three phases:

Conflict resolution — CZ wins tallied, day winners decided, concluded conflicts pay out
State resolution — states introduced or concluded. Expansion tax applied. Retreats processed.
Influence distribution — all accumulated influence from player actions is applied

The tick spreads through the galaxy at various times. Hand in all trade, exploration data, and missions before the tick for them to count on that day.

There is also a weekly server maintenance tick (Thursdays) which handles colonization asset incorporation and other server-level changes.

Action effects derived from The Complete BGS Guide 2025 v3.0 by Cmdr Purrfect (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) and the Colonia Census.