Systems and people in contact with one another will affect each other. Those influences may be constructive trading relationships or violent antagonism, but these interactions shape the lives and politics of both worlds. In the Cluster 2d6 OGL Rules, system influence is used to identify the worlds most important to any system. Populous, high technology worlds will tend to have excessive influence on those around them, while small, low tech systems will hardly be a blip on anyone's radar.
The most dominant local system is the leader of their own 'pocket empire', but other nearby worlds may have nearly as much influence in a given system. Influence may also change as population, government policies, or tech levels in the world change. Influence may take several forms, whether it be idiom, fashion, trade, or any of a thousand other factors. Consider Germany, for example. France, England, and the United States are major allies that have a lot of influence on Germany, but Russia has also shaped the psyche of the German people. The Cluster concept of influence is a quick numeric summary of all the different ways one system affects another.
Influence in the Cluster is calculated according to the following base formula:
where population is the 4th digit of the UWP and TL is the last digit in the UWP after the dash. Gov is 5 for balkanized or captive worlds which are inherently restricted in how others view them and 0 for all other government forms. Low population low technology systems simply don't matter much to the neighbors. Each of these terms have a minimum value of 0, so that a high population world can exert some influence on its neighbors despite a low technology, or a very high tech, low population world can influence those around it based on technological superiority. The highest base influence a world can have under the Cluster rules would be population A (10)-4, for 6*3=18 + TL F (15)-8 =7, for a total influence of 25.
This base influence is modified by several other factors. Distance is a major consideration, as systems that are far away will have less actual affect than nearby neighbors. Influence declines by 2 points per parsec. Law level (6th digiit of the UWP) also affects influence, where similar law levels allow easier cooperation and can actually INCREASE the effective influence of similar worlds. The modifier is 2 minus the absolute value of the difference in law levels. Government type (5th digit of the UWP) also can have a profound effect upon influence. Balkanized systems or captive governments will have very little influence due to their internal problems, while some political systems (unloved dictatorships vs direct democracies, for example) also have built in conflicts. These influences based on government are given in the table below.
Influence calculations can be done automatically for the M317 Cluster and other clusters generated using the Cluster Setting Generator. To calculate the influence between any two worlds, go here.