Wars & Elections

How conflicts work, how to win them, and what determines war vs election.

War or Election?

When two factions cross each other's influence level, a conflict starts. The type depends on their ethos (social group):

	Criminals	Autocrats	Corporations	Social
Criminals	War	War	War	War
Autocrats	War	Election	War	War
Corporations	War	War	Election	War
Social	War	War	War	Election

Elections happen between factions of the same ethos (except Criminals/anarchies, who always go to war). Civil wars happen when both factions share the same home system.

Timing: Conflicts last 4-7 days. The first side to win 4 days wins the conflict. After 7 days, the side with the most day-wins is declared the winner. Both sides keep their assets if it's inconclusive. There is a 1-day cooldown before another conflict can start.

Wars & Civil Wars

How to win a day

Each day is decided by the side that wins the most Combat Zones (CZs). Combat bonds are only a tie-breaker if both sides win the same number of CZs.

CZ wins are the primary lever, not bonds. Winning 20 Low CZs beats winning 5 High CZs with more bonds. Volume of wins matters most.

Space vs Ground CZs

	Space CZs	Ground CZs
Impact	~4x more impactful	Lower impact per win
Side objectives	Win condition + 2-3 objectives	Win condition only
Bonds earned	Lower per CZ	Higher per CZ
Best for	Winning the war	Fun, asset transfer

Strategy

Uncontested war: Even a single Low CZ win per day can win the war if nobody else fights
Contested war: Switch to spamming Low Space CZs. Get as many people as possible. Teams of 4 clear far more than 4x what solo players can
Pick up "Kill X enemy ships" missions during the war for extra combat influence and credits
Side objectives speed up individual CZs but don't outweigh the raw count of Low CZ wins
Combat bounties and bonds contribute to security influence but do not determine the day winner

Odyssey settlements in war

Settlements are real assets. Fight for the faction you want to own them, once or twice per day per settlement. If fighting for the opposing side to transfer assets, compensate with more space CZs for your own side.

Anarchy factions: Give away all Odyssey settlements immediately. If you own even one, enemies can use it against you. Only keep the controlling station for trade, exploration, and missions.

Elections

How to win a day

Each day is decided by the side that completes the most non-combat election missions.

Combat does NOT count in elections. Do not hand in bounties, bonds, or do any combat activities during elections. They contribute nothing to the day-win.

Dangerous election missions

These missions may not count if you end up in combat or earn a bounty/fine:

Liberate diplomatic bag — DO NOT fire weapons
Liberate political prisoners — DO NOT fire weapons
Poll data retrieval — DO NOT fire weapons

Tie-breakers

If both sides complete the same number of election missions, these activities break the tie:

High-demand, profitable trade (if you own a station)
Exploration data (if your station has Universal Cartographics)
Economic missions: donations, source & return, passenger, trade delivery
Smuggling (if your station has a black market)

After the election

Winner: gets the asset at risk + ~1.5% influence boost
Loser: loses asset at risk + ~1.5% influence drop
Inconclusive: both keep their assets, minimal influence change, likely re-election
All trade, exploration, and economic work on the last day still gets tallied — you can lose the election but end up with more influence than the winner

Conflict mechanics derived from The Complete BGS Guide 2025 v3.0 by Cmdr Purrfect (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).