Agent points = faction points? That seems odd. Are you sure about that?

I guess it makes more sense than settlement points.

But what are explorer's guild agents? Ships? If I fail to take a settlement that the expolrer's guild asks me to take I lose 30 points per ship? That's a lot of points.

I say this not being sure why it would be all that great to have a lot of Explorer's guild points to begin with. Presumably it gets you the wordwide headquarters. If it's not already built somewhere else. But I'm not sure what the wordwide explorer's guild HQ gets you.