Powerplay 2.0 Activities

Does anyone know what effect "System Strength Penalty" and "Beyond Frontline Penalty" have? I think they both can get High, Moderate, and Standard.
 
HazRES for Kaine (also no bonus) got me about 800 merits in 15 minutes (and then I ran out of ammunition), which multiplied up is pretty competitive if you ignore rares. That's with no KWS and I'm sure plenty of other space for optimisation.
Disagree, 2400 per hour isn't really 'competitive', as much as it's painfully mediocre just like the majority of tasks

Heck, it's not even competitive with other players reporting their own results from HazRES hunting. Where I frequently see estimates of 4k-6k.
 
Disagree, 2400 per hour isn't really 'competitive', as much as it's painfully mediocre just like the majority of tasks

Heck, it's not even competitive with other players reporting their own results from HazRES hunting. Where I frequently see estimates of 4k-6k.
That sounds quite high for HazRes, maybe it depends on how willing you are to keep relogging to get a big ship, high rank NPC instance. Or maybe those people already have the +100% bounty bonus?

So far for me BH averages out at ~3.6k merits. CZs at ~5.5k.
 
Does anyone know what effect "System Strength Penalty" and "Beyond Frontline Penalty" have? I think they both can get High, Moderate, and Standard.

I'd like to know what the hell these are too. The ratings went up to Very High in at least one system I'm watching.
 
System Strength Penalty I really haven't seen much pattern to, other than:
- Exploited seem to be Standard or Moderate
- Fortified seem to be Moderate or High
- Stronghold seem to be High or Very High
- HQs are "Unassailable" as a special case
(but there are exceptions, and I can't see an obvious cause for those)

Beyond Frontline Penalty seems to only apply to Undermining - I couldn't find a friendly system that wasn't Standard, but that may be because Kaine is very compact compared with other powers - and be related to its distance from your systems (whether from your HQ or from any of your own systems, I'm not sure - the name implies the latter)

It would be interesting to see if players on different sides see the same SSP for different systems, since I'm fairly sure we won't for the BFP measure.

I'm planning to do some experiments using credit donation missions as an easily standardised action this week.
 
System Strength Penalty I really haven't seen much pattern to, other than:
- Exploited seem to be Standard or Moderate
- Fortified seem to be Moderate or High
- Stronghold seem to be High or Very High
- HQs are "Unassailable" as a special case
(but there are exceptions, and I can't see an obvious cause for those)

Beyond Frontline Penalty seems to only apply to Undermining - I couldn't find a friendly system that wasn't Standard, but that may be because Kaine is very compact compared with other powers - and be related to its distance from your systems (whether from your HQ or from any of your own systems, I'm not sure - the name implies the latter)

It would be interesting to see if players on different sides see the same SSP for different systems, since I'm fairly sure we won't for the BFP measure.

I'm planning to do some experiments using credit donation missions as an easily standardised action this week.
Its this sort of thing that I wish FD just told us in the UI what it was.

Shocking I know!
 
System Strength Penalty I really haven't seen much pattern to, other than:
- Exploited seem to be Standard or Moderate
- Fortified seem to be Moderate or High
- Stronghold seem to be High or Very High
- HQs are "Unassailable" as a special case
(but there are exceptions, and I can't see an obvious cause for those)

Beyond Frontline Penalty seems to only apply to Undermining - I couldn't find a friendly system that wasn't Standard, but that may be because Kaine is very compact compared with other powers - and be related to its distance from your systems (whether from your HQ or from any of your own systems, I'm not sure - the name implies the latter)

It would be interesting to see if players on different sides see the same SSP for different systems, since I'm fairly sure we won't for the BFP measure.

I'm planning to do some experiments using credit donation missions as an easily standardised action this week.
They must should add some explanations in the Codex...
 
If they put it in the Codex it would be wrong in the Codex. One thing we've seen over the years is that even fdev don't know how the game works (e.g. when they explained how missions spawned and we had to point out they didn't spawn that way).

Better to work it out for ourselves and 'ask' why it is that way. Which is essentially what all the recent nerfs were about ;)
 
I patched my game and started testing stuff. I seem to be getting 12 merits per ship scan now, 3 scans worth that much each so far. Unsure if it's related to ship size - I'll drop by the orbital station and test more. Btw, that change wasn't documented in the patch notes :confused:
 
Confirmed, ship scans now worth 12 merits each now which is 4x more than the old reward (3 merits). Dropped by a navigation beacon and each ship scanned (regardless of size) gave me that much. If the stronghold SLF's are valued at 14 merits each still in this patch then it's definitely not worth your while - hang out at your navigation beacon or orbital station instead.
 
whistles Ship scans under Kaine give 5 x 4 = 20 merits per scan now.

 
Does this mean you can just jump into PPCZ, cycle through friendlies and relog for the quick merits?
Very often I noticed friendlies were already scanned in multiple places (stations, signal sources, POI) and you only needed to cycle through all targets to get the merits for "scan".
 
Does this mean you can just jump into PPCZ, cycle through friendlies and relog for the quick merits?
Depends if anything else has also been increased by a similar amount. If most things which were slower methods pre-patch have gone up 4x ... well, sure, you could but it'd be very dull and not all that effective. If it's just scans which have gone up that's really strange.
 
Depends if anything else has also been increased by a similar amount. If most things which were slower methods pre-patch have gone up 4x ... well, sure, you could but it'd be very dull and not all that effective. If it's just scans which have gone up that's really strange.

I read in the update thread that PP stuff deliveries were also merit boosted. But the game kicked me out before I could test it 😔
 
TIL I misunderstood the whole thing about ethos.

Is there a spreadsheet that lists down which activities get 50% bonus merits if it aligns with the specific ethos?

Like Kaine gets 5 (20 now) merits for scanning ships in controlled space because her ethos for reinforcing is covert. Other powers get only 3 (12 now) merits.

So that means ship scanning is a covert activity.
 
So that means ship scanning is a covert activity.
It might not be that simple - looking at the list on the front page, Combat Reinforcement ethos also seems to get it listed as a preferred activity.

On the other side, Delaine, ALD and Archer are all Combat Acquisition powers, if I remember rightly, but don't all have the same listed activities.

Kaine is Social for Undermining and Acquisition, and Covert for Reinforcement - but gets Escape Pods listed as a recommended activity for Reinforcement and Undermining, but not Acquisition.
 
FD still forgetting about rewarding crime.

Meanwhile I have PP ships worth nearly 300 merits a go not firing back as I blow them up. The only danger is that they jump out faster than I can kill them.

I can literally drop in and out of SC and autogenerate 3 or more NPCs and repeat.
 
It might not be that simple - looking at the list on the front page, Combat Reinforcement ethos also seems to get it listed as a preferred activity.

On the other side, Delaine, ALD and Archer are all Combat Acquisition powers, if I remember rightly, but don't all have the same listed activities.

Kaine is Social for Undermining and Acquisition, and Covert for Reinforcement - but gets Escape Pods listed as a recommended activity for Reinforcement and Undermining, but not Acquisition.
Ugh, never mind then. I'll put that aside for now.
 
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