What is it

Advisory panel is a method of faction ownership where ownership is shared equally between multiple characters.

Decisions that are normally performed by the faction owner instead are approved by the panel, and can only be executed once reaching a configurable approval threshold.


There are two very important rules pages that explain concepts here:

Faction Ownership explains how faction ownership is calculated
Advisory Panels explains specifics about how approval works.

Who should read this

You should read this if:

If you own a faction:
e.g. If you are single owner of a faction, or if you are majority stockholder of a faction, or if you are leader of a government faction.
-> If this is you, you are the person that can create an initial faction panel.


You aren't an owner but consider yourself part of your factions high command:
-> You may end up on a panel, you should know what it does.


You aren't a faction owner, or part of faction high command:
-> You probably don't need to read any further.

But I am happy with Single Owner Faction Ownership

Ok. Nothing changes for you. You can use the new Faction Unprotection Requests to reduce hassle in unprotecting assets.
No other changes apply to you.

There may be some features available in the future that require panel ownership to use. A 1 member panel should suffice for these features and is equivalent to your current single owner faction ownership. (We may also convert all ownership over to panels in the future, again, a single member panel should be equivalent to single owner faction ownership).

I want to make a panel for my faction

This is safe to do to try out (it only becomes harder to reverse once you add another member)

The current owner of the faction will make an initial panel for your faction.

- From the "Faction Ownership" page, select "Create Faction Panel"
- You have to pick a name for the panel, use a name like "High Command".
- Click Create Panel.

That's it! You have a faction panel. It's a 1/1 faction panel: It has 1 member, and all the votes require 1 approval.

You will see your panel membership on the Faction Ownership page.

I want to get rid of my panel

- From "Faction Ownership", select "Make Requests"
- Find "Request Change Panel Requirements"
- Remove all members. This causes it to create a Dissolve Panel Request.
- Approve & Execute the request.
- The panel is now deleted, and ownership will revert to whatever it was previously.


(However: if your panel has more than just you as members, you will need to meet hte "Change Panel Settings" approval limit for you to be able to dissolve the panel... Basically, your panel has to agree with you that dissolving it is necessary!)

I want to add people to my panel

Beware: once you add more people to your panel, it may be hard or impossible to go back, since further changes to the panel will require panel approval!
Adding more people to the panel is effectively sharing faction ownership equally with them

- From "Faction Ownership", select "Make Requests"
- Find "Request Change Panel Requirements"
- Add some people
- Change the approval thresholds to be appropriate to the total number of panel members.
- Raise the request, approve it, execute it.
- Boom, you now have friends in your panel, enjoy the bureaucracy!

How big should my panel be

I recommend you pick an odd number of panel members.

E.g. 1 member, 3 members, 5 members.

Downside of larger panels is that you will likely want to set higher approval thresholds, which means more people need to be involved in approving things. This might be ok if changing leader, unprotecting assets and changing panel members is rare.

What should my approval thresholds be

The approval thresholds is how many approvals are required for each type of request to be executed.

The request types are:

- Change Faction Leader

- Unprotect Assets
- Change Panel Settings
- If any new Reqeust Types are added in the future, they will be added with the same approval requirements as the "Change Panel Settings" request type.


There are some ground rules for approval thresholds:

You probably want the minimum approval threshold to be >= 50% of the panel size.

You probably do not want the minimum approval threshold to be 100% of the panel size:

You probably want the "Change Panel Settings" threshold to be no lower than any other value:

If your panel is big enough, you probably want "Change Panel Settings" to be >= 66%.

But these are only guidelines, you can run your faction how you want. Just remember to set the values correctly every time you update the panel. It will warn you if you break these some of these groundrules.

How do NATs work

For this I am going to define NAT as a faction owned by another faction (either via Sole Ownership or via majority stock ownership).

If you create a panel for the parent faction, it will become a defacto panel for the child faction. Panel members from the parent faction will be the ones to receive and approve panel requests for the parent and child factions.

If you then decide to create a panel for the child faction, it will NO LONGER be a NAT, it will be its own thing with its own panel.

I want to hold elections for leaders!

Well, history has shown that's probably not a good idea. But if you still want to hold leader elections, that's great!

The panel system however isn't a tool for elections - it's for approval of changes.

Hold your election on your own website/forum/etc, and use the faction panel to request, approve and execute the final results.

Help my panel stole my faction!

Yes, if your panel can raise a request to change the panel, and if they can meet the approval threshold for changing the panel, they could remove you from the panel.

Your panel could also raise a request to change the leader of the faction, and plunder anything not locked down by asset protection.

Ensure you:
- Trust the people you add to your panel
- Set the approval thresholds appropriately
- Plot to remove or murder anyone on your panel if they do not comply


(Also to be pedantic: once a advisory panel exists, it owns the faction now, not you)

I am on a panel, can I leave my faction?

Yes. Leaving a faction does not remove you from the faction panel.

Can I add people to the panel who are not part of my faction?

Yes.

What happens if you die when on a faction panel?

You are not removed from the panel. You will be marked as inactive 28 days after death.

Can I add dead people to my panel?

Sure, why not. They will be marked as inactive 28 days after death.

Can I add inactive people to my panel?

Sure, why not. They will be marked as inactive after 28 days of inactivity.

Can I remove myself from a panel?

Yes, there is a button on the panel page to remove yourself. (If you are the last member, you must dissolve the panel instead).
Beware, if you remove yourself from a panel, the only way to be re-added is for the panel to approve a change to add you back.

Inactivity and panel membership?!

There is a special rule in the approval thresholds about inactivity:
The maximum approval limit is set to the maximum number of active panel members - This could be "bad" if you have 100% voting requirements

Here's a worked example:


This means that Han could approve things without Luke. (E.g. Han could remove Luke from the panel and effectively take ownership of the Faction).

Help, my entire faction panel is dead/inactive?

This is an exceptionally rare situation. Contact an asim via support ticket.
If this happens to be a recurring issue we will put in a permanent fix.

I would like to create a panel, but nobody owns majority ownership of stocks for my faction?

(E.g. 2 people with 50% ownership each, 3 people with 33% each, etc)

This situation you want a panel, because it will open up faction owner responsibilities to you! (Without any majority owner, faction owner responsibilities are not available to anyone - e.g. you can't unprotect any assets) Contact an asim via support ticket, they can form an appropriate panel for you. (E.g. "2 member, 2 approval required panel").

Won't someone think of the poor stocks?!

Unfortunately we couldn't really use stock holding for this because it would require us to remove/replace/come-up-with-a-solution for stocks, and we couldn't find a good one in time.

If your faction has stocks, and a panel, the panel has precedence for faction ownership. The stocks still give remote faction status viewing and can still be traded.

If the panel is dissolved, the ownership will revert to the majority stockholder, but this is very unlikely to happen.

The asims have stated they will not tolerate anyone using 50% ownership and a panel as basis for an in game scam.