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Add moving fleets on the map to every faction "wow, hold up! 350 factions, each with fleets! Even NASA couldn't run that!" That is why these 'fleets' are actually just an item that has: Coordinates of which 'cluster' it is in (more on that later) Which faction it belongs to A 'Fleet Power' point system: When a player enters a system with a 'fleet', 'Fleet Power' decides how many and how large the ships are. A fleet of 10 power will have 10 system slots worth of ships. With weights to create a semi-balanced fleet of large and small vessels. So for 10 fleet power, it could be three 2-slot ships and one 4-slot ship (10 total). The next step is to add 'Clusters': Effectively getting the whole map and dividing it into 'clusters'. Each cluster would have a 'Defensive Power' and a 'Cluster Capital' (a system that spawns with shipyards, HQs, repair docks...). Each cluster also spawns a fleet. Every so often fleets are ordered to: Merge with another cluster's offensive fleet (if that cluster has no enemy clusters bordering it, a cluster fleet cannot merge if there are no enemy clusters near neighbouring allied/own clusters) or attack a nearby enemy cluster system-capital. When this happens, add up the attacking fleets power and pit it against the clusters defensive power and fleet power (if it has a fleet). Then add a splice of RNG and have it slowly reduce each others power over the course of an hour or so. (This way, players could arrive at the System-capital and assist either side) Should the attacking fleet succeed, the Clusters capital becomes theirs and over the next hour, that cluster will convert to the victor's faction. Faction balancing: You may be thinking, "So, what? One faction gets the upper hand and starts gobbling the whole galaxy?" That is where 'Cluster Caps' come in, all factions have a cluster cap, if they are over this cluster cap, their offensive fleets get weaker by a flat %. This % increases slowly to a max % the more clusters they own, this is so a massive faction doesn't suddenly receive 99% smaller fleets for being 1 cluster over their max. If they are under this cap, the fleet size is unaffected (to ensure a faction with only 1 cluster will remain very weak unless the players ally them and ask them to attack a cluster, and helps them manually (more on that later)). Fleet power and defensive power are calculated by these factors: Distance from cores, player presence (if a player has several trading/shipyards... stations in a system and has positive relations with the faction present, that cluster gains a buff), faction perks (aggressive factions would have stronger offensive fleets) and nearby pirate clusters (more on them later). Player influence: Players can influence a clusters defensive and offensive strengths by: Positive: Trading Attacking pirates or aliens Building stations (more impact if in an alliance with the faction) Negative (most effective in cluster capital-systems): Raiding systems Destroying stations Smuggling Engaging fleet ships Alliance Options: When you are in an alliance with a faction, you can ask them to attack another cluster. This will bring up a menu where you can 'donate' resources to ~~bribe them to~~ attack a nearby cluster with their fleet. This cost is decided by: Relations with the target faction and their perks. An aggressive faction would be far cheaper to ~~bribe~~ get help from. Additionally, when you destroy a clusters fleet and all stations in its system capital, you get the option to claim the capital for yourself. You can then gift it to a nearby faction for money and relations. If you do not do something with the system, it will be turned into a pirate-capital after you leave the cluster and some time passes (more on that later). This could (but unlikely) be expanded to allow the player to create their own faction. A buy option costing multiple millions after taking a system-capital. You then get a menu where you name your faction, choose its color, and its ship/station designs. This could simply be a 'this design can spawn as a ship yes/no' or a 'this design can spawn as a ship yes/no and can only be between X slots and Y slots' to allow players to design certain ships that only spawn at certain sizes (with sizes that have no designs spawning randomly generated ships/stations). Pirates and You: Empty clusters will each have a pirate-capital somewhere within them. These do very little on the grand scale and factions will not attack them. All they do is: Reduce defensive and offensive fleet powers of nearby faction clusters. Spawn fleets that only target players if they are nearby. The closer to a pirate-capital the player is, the stronger the fleet. Fleet strength is also decided by distance to the core and the amount of nearby pirate-clusters owned by the same pirate faction. Event frequency judges the spawn rate of new pirate fleets. If you destroy a pirate-capital ships and stations, a new pirate-capital will generate in that cluster after a certain amount of time unless you claim it (or gift it). This means clearing out pirate bases can, potentially with claiming, almost completely delete pirates from the galaxy (events will have a small % of spawning pirates regardless of distance to pirate-capitals). Enemy Factions and You: If you enter an enemy cluster and begin attacking ships/stations. 'Fleet Power' ships will begin spawning to attack you. The amount of 'Fleet Power' donated to attack you is based on: How many slots total your combined forces have in that system, some RNG and your relations with the faction (the more hated, the more ships sent to attack you). The max amount of ships that can be deployed to attack you is: Total slots of your forces in a system X 3 (with a config allowing this to be increased). This means raiding a small outpost in a cluster to then start attracting and killing the clusters offensive fleet could be a strategy to weaken the amount of ships in the clusters system-capital (where fleets stay when not on a mission). If a fleet is below a % of strength, they will not send any more ships and become inactive until they regain most of their % back. If you are in an enemy cluster and you are near an allied cluster, allied offensive ships may spawn to assist you. This is based mostly on their perks. Other ship limits from above apply (max ships for example).