Powerplay 2.0 : what we know from partners' streams

[Mordred115]

It'll be interesting to see if that actually happens:
1) If you're not actually fighting, you can now just push past instead. You need a Fortified system to place further Exploited ones, but the presence of an enemy Stronghold nearby doesn't stop you doing that. The natural player tendency in Elite Dangerous is very strongly "defence before attack".
2) Because each system is fought individually, Powers go from worrying about 50-150 Control systems each to 500-1500 Power systems each. But we know that the bubble is sparsely populated by players, so a lot of those systems will stay sparsely contested. [1] Are there enough players to actually create conflicts that way rather than mostly stable regions? Will enough groups deliberately create conflicts when at least for a while there'll be plenty of uncontested systems to capture and exploited systems to reinforce?

[1] This is where the effect of this bit is really important (and I agree fully with it)

...does the chaos caused by a large number of pledged players flying around just doing stuff create emergent "overheads" for the more purposeful players and groups to have to reinforce against (like a BGS Anarchy) ... or do people tend to pledge to the power already dominant around their home systems (because a lot of the benefits are "home territory" ones), so the "passing traffic" tends to auto-reinforce systems against attack (like any other BGS controller)

(Or shorter: does it being BGS2 mean it inherits the BGS tendency never to pick a fight you aren't certain of winning?)

Obviously Frontier won't know the answer yet either!

Seems like each powers diplomats will be working overtime trying to prevent alliances from falling apart

 

[Alec Turner]

Oh... and Fireytoad has unlocked the Concord Cannon this evening... He'll be testing it out on his stream tomorrow I believe.

Hopefully won’t mind me sharing this …

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

So it's the imperial hammer of the cannons?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Seems like each powers diplomats will be working overtime trying to prevent alliances from falling apart

Except there's now a very sharp limit to how much they can actually promise or deliver here.

Federal Liberal Command can promise not to attack Archer's territory, and probably mean it. How much that promise is worth depends entirely on whether a different organised group pledged to Winters decides that Archer needs a good kicking / is closer than Antal, because FLC can't do much about it if they do.

 

[CMDRHatch]

Nice, can't wait to learn what it is, I'm thinking that it could be a supersonic or hypersonic ballistic cannon using advanced propellants to give you something like a railgun with less power draw from the distributor.

According to what I saw on Toady's stream when he unlocked it... the Concord Cannon is a 2D gimbled cannon described as "A cannon variant that sacrifices damage per shot to achieve a more effective three-round burst".

Stats:
Mass: 4.00T
Integrity: 51
Power Draw: 0.64MW
Damage Per Second: 15.9/S
Distributor Draw: 0.75MW
Armour Piercing: 42
Maximum Range: 3,500M
Shot Speed: 1,300M/S
Rate of Fire: 1.1/S
Burst Rate of Fire: 4.0/S
Ammo Clip Size: 9
Ammo Maximum: 300
Damage Type: Kinetic
Damage Falloff Start: 3,500M

I don't know if the three round burst = 1 ammo in your clip. I'm assuming so... Preview server isn't online yet.
(And usual caveat - these are all preview server numbers and potentially subject to change!)

EDIT: Alec beat me with a screen shot which I'm going to say is cheating... #justsayin'

 

[Wily Rites]

According to what I saw on Toady's stream when he unlocked it... the Concord Cannon is a 2D gimbled cannon described as "A cannon variant that sacrifices damage per shot to achieve a more effective three-round burst".

Stats:
Mass: 4.00T
Integrity: 51
Power Draw: 0.64MW
Damage Per Second: 15.9/S
Distributor Draw: 0.75MW
Armour Piercing: 42
Maximum Range: 3,500M
Shot Speed: 1,300M/S
Rate of Fire: 1.1/S
Burst Rate of Fire: 4.0/S
Ammo Clip Size: 9
Ammo Maximum: 300
Damage Type: Kinetic
Damage Falloff Start: 3,500M

I don't know if the three round burst = 1 ammo in your clip. I'm assuming so... Preview server isn't online yet.
(And usual caveat - these are all preview server numbers and potentially subject to change!)

EDIT: Alec beat me with a screen shot which I'm going to say is cheating... #justsayin'

Ah yes, thank you for the heads up! A parallel post has confirmed this too; A cannon version of the imperial hammer. I'll not be rushing out to scrub feet for these.

Its the single shot and massive damage from that single shot, that I love about the cannon; Of course, having 3 cannons fire at the same time is also an option worth considering, a la krait mkii or similar.

 

[CMDRHatch]

Are there enough players to actually create conflicts...

One thing to remember is that the Power's scores when trying to take control of a system DO NOT get reset at the end of each weekly cycle if the minimum threshold is not reached - and continues until a Power establishes control.

So even if there is a light amount of activity in some areas, this may build over time and have Powers gaining systems and/or triggering conflict... we'll have to see how it works out!

I suspect Fortified systems are going to be where the strategy lies! I don't know if it's come up... but I can't see the range of influence explicitly stated in the help, but it looks to my (admittedly old man eyeballs) as ~30ly. "Exploited systems that are outside the control range of a friendly Fortified or Stronghold system will become uncontrolled at the end of the active weekly cycle."

 

[Mordred115]

That also confirms that LYR is safe... he has the 15% outfitting decrease still, wonder if the same system bonuses apply to all the other powers still.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

One thing to remember is that the Power's scores when trying to take control of a system DO NOT get reset at the end of each weekly cycle if the minimum threshold is not reached - and continues until a Power establishes control.

And similarly an attack (or strengthening) of a system could be carried out over multiple weeks too, by the looks of things?

I suspect Fortified systems are going to be where the strategy lies! I don't know if it's come up... but I can't see the range of influence explicitly stated in the help, but it looks to my (admittedly old man eyeballs) as ~30ly. "Exploited systems that are outside the control range of a friendly Fortified or Stronghold system will become uncontrolled at the end of the active weekly cycle."

Is that 30 LY radius or 30 LY diameter?

Yes, I think that will certainly be interesting - and at least to start with, the ultra-sparse structures cultivated by the more organised powers will be more vulnerable to attack than the ones messed up in PP1 by adding overlapping controls.

 

[Mordred115]

If so Torvals mined/extraction commodity bonus is closer to 66% (10% + 45%)*1.2 which is kinda op considering you can already make over 100m/h trading cryolite

 

[Mordred115]

Except there's now a very sharp limit to how much they can actually promise or deliver here.

Federal Liberal Command can promise not to attack Archer's territory, and probably mean it. How much that promise is worth depends entirely on whether a different organised group pledged to Winters decides that Archer needs a good kicking / is closer than Antal, because FLC can't do much about it if they do.

If people are united against a common enemy then things will probably stay stable... once that ends though people will definitely start poking at the very least.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If people are united against a common enemy then things will probably stay stable

Yes - though again, that relies on the "organised groups" being able to direct a substantial super-majority of their power's pledges [1], to have a common enemy to unite against.

The default enemy of a v2 Powerplayer appears to be "whatever Power controls the system they're in" [2], so defining a common enemy (especially a common enemy who doesn't have a significant border with you!) could be tricky.

[1] Not a chance in terms of headcount, but could be true in terms of effectiveness of activity, which is the more important measure.
[2] You really don't want a CG dropped on your favourite Stronghold, do you... (assuming CGs continue to exist in PPv2, of course)

 

[Tifu]

...does the chaos caused by a large number of pledged players flying around just doing stuff create emergent "overheads" for the more purposeful players and groups to have to reinforce against (like a BGS Anarchy) ... or do people tend to pledge to the power already dominant around their home systems (because a lot of the benefits are "home territory" ones), so the "passing traffic" tends to auto-reinforce systems against attack (like any other BGS controller)

(Or shorter: does it being BGS2 mean it inherits the BGS tendency never to pick a fight you aren't certain of winning?)

I think that PP 2.0 is indeed going to be more dynamic & more chaotic than PP 1.0 and the more flexible groups used to improvisation (whether Powers or BGS oriented) will do a lot better in PP2 than those more rigid in character & tactics. But we'll see

 

[CMDRHatch]

And similarly an attack (or strengthening) of a system could be carried out over multiple weeks too, by the looks of things?

I'm not sure about reinforcing or undermining. This isn't clear from the help text. I don't know if the "control points" get reset weekly, or if the system changes state or not reset at all.

Is that 30 LY radius or 30 LY diameter?

Control systems need to be 30LY or less away from a Fortified... so.. "radius". (30 is from eyeballing the galaxy map). Fortified systems can maintain exploited systems in a sphere - there's a strategic view that shows this sphere quite clearly and shows lines connecting systems to their fortified partners.

Yes, I think that will certainly be interesting - and at least to start with, the ultra-sparse structures cultivated by the more organised powers will be more vulnerable to attack than the ones messed up in PP1 by adding overlapping controls.

I can see systems dropping out of control are going to be jumped on in future! Could be exciting!

 

[Rubbernuke]

It'll be interesting to see if that actually happens:
1) If you're not actually fighting, you can now just push past instead. You need a Fortified system to place further Exploited ones, but the presence of an enemy Stronghold nearby doesn't stop you doing that. The natural player tendency in Elite Dangerous is very strongly "defence before attack".
2) Because each system is fought individually, Powers go from worrying about 50-150 Control systems each to 500-1500 Power systems each. But we know that the bubble is sparsely populated by players, so a lot of those systems will stay sparsely contested. [1] Are there enough players to actually create conflicts that way rather than mostly stable regions? Will enough groups deliberately create conflicts when at least for a while there'll be plenty of uncontested systems to capture and exploited systems to reinforce?

[1] This is where the effect of this bit is really important (and I agree fully with it)

...does the chaos caused by a large number of pledged players flying around just doing stuff create emergent "overheads" for the more purposeful players and groups to have to reinforce against (like a BGS Anarchy) ... or do people tend to pledge to the power already dominant around their home systems (because a lot of the benefits are "home territory" ones), so the "passing traffic" tends to auto-reinforce systems against attack (like any other BGS controller)

(Or shorter: does it being BGS2 mean it inherits the BGS tendency never to pick a fight you aren't certain of winning?)

Obviously Frontier won't know the answer yet either!

It really will be interesting too see how it develops, given the scope- PP2 is very much going back to PP1s unguided majority concept and I wonder if its even possible for groups as they are to effectively guide a power like they did.

The only hard and fast objectives will be attacking high value strongholds and systems- maybe it will be groups focusing on these and randoms creating small fiefdoms?

In any case FD seem to have hit the sweet spot between PP, Goids and BGS gameplay- exciting times!

On top of that the 'new feature' might dovetail into PP2 as well

 

[Mordred115]

It'll be interesting to see if that actually happens:
1) If you're not actually fighting, you can now just push past instead. You need a Fortified system to place further Exploited ones, but the presence of an enemy Stronghold nearby doesn't stop you doing that. The natural player tendency in Elite Dangerous is very strongly "defence before attack".
2) Because each system is fought individually, Powers go from worrying about 50-150 Control systems each to 500-1500 Power systems each. But we know that the bubble is sparsely populated by players, so a lot of those systems will stay sparsely contested. [1] Are there enough players to actually create conflicts that way rather than mostly stable regions? Will enough groups deliberately create conflicts when at least for a while there'll be plenty of uncontested systems to capture and exploited systems to reinforce?

[2] Phew... guess that means torvals safe then, shes almost small enough to have a player per exploited system XD

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Control systems need to be 30LY or less away from a Fortified... so.. "radius". (30 is from eyeballing the galaxy map). Fortified systems can maintain exploited systems in a sphere - there's a strategic view that shows this sphere quite clearly and shows lines connecting systems to their fortified partners.

Interesting - so double the PPv1 radius, which means control systems placed ideally in PPv1 to just avoid overlap might also just be close enough to support each other.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The tactical part will be attacking fortified systems in good time to drop exploited systems (and stop power growth), and erode strongholds where possible. Its going to be a pain untangling overlapping strongholds otherwise.

Do we know what systems are locked out of PP2- Shin Dhez, Sol? Imagine Imps and Feds fighting for control of Sol

 

[Ian Doncaster]

According to eralm_237's spreadsheet from yesterday, Sol is an Archer Stronghold system, so looks like fair game.

 

[Rubbernuke]

According to eralm_237's spreadsheet from yesterday, Sol is an Archer Stronghold system, so looks like fair game.

Ironically you might now get more 'showboating' expansion pushes like Utopia did of old with Maia, Peregrina, Jaques Station and Sothis.

Is there any route out to Colonia?