Given the apparent advantage of reinforcement over undermining would it follow that most systems will wind up as Strongholds?
Powerplay kills the fun!
- Thread starter andre3000
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Hmmm... Another example of personal FCs causing skewed situations. It seems those of us who don't use a personal FC would be at a disadvantage here again*.
The more I read about this PP2 system the chances of me giving it a go just wither even more.
* Please don't anyone suggest I go earn credits to finance a personal FC - I run a squadron FC on an alt account and I couldn't be having with juggling two.
It's not even mission timers per se. It's the fact that mission timers continue to expire when I'm not logged in.
If I take a bulk transport mission that would require ten round trips for me to accomplish in my ship, and expires in 60 minutes while logged in, failing that would be on me. I either overestimated my ability to complete ten runs in 60 minutes, underestimated the number obstacles I'd encounter, should've increased the cargo capacity of my ship to complete it in nine runs, or used a different ship.
I consider solving this kind of problem to be fun.
In the case of the status quo, because my play windows are both brief and irregular, I frequently find myself both not taking missions that I would find particularly interesting, or failing missions due to real life issues that have nothing to do with the game. I find this kind of problem to be frustrating, and the only solution is not to have as much fun in this game as I could.
Or playing the game less frequently than I'd prefer.
IIRC, they can't completely remove mission timers for some technical reason relating to BGS or something. The max is 4 weeks. However, they could certainly relax the timers on some of them.
I'm genuinely curious how much player engagement PP2 would still receive if the modules rewards were removed from PP progression.
I know for sure I'd unpledge in an instant, as those modules (as meh as many of them are, and despite being familiar with almost all of them at this stage) are the only reason I bother earning merits. I don't play as part of a squadron, I don't find the PP2 lore/framework 'meaty' enough - or offer sufficient versimilitude - to allow me to RP around it, I don't care for the benefits* most of which are credit/rep bonus based, I don't see the point to change the power in random system ABC from blue to red or green, for it to be changed back afterwards in an endless tug of war.
*the one thing I find tremendously useful are Stronghold Carrier outfitting/shipyard facilities, given I still haven't unlocked ShinDez since I wiped my account last.
I had never paid much attention to the difference between the two, and never realized that there could be some significant difference. But, indeed, "metallic" rings seem to be richer (ironically enough) in more valuable metals than "metal-rich" rings. Certain valuable metals seems to appear only in the former, and overall valuable metals seem more abundant...
On the other hand, these didn't sell for much in the system in question, so only 5k merits for over 2 hours of mining...
Not at all.
There's nothing wrong with the mission system per se. My only major issue is the fact that mission timers expire in when not logged in. That's the only problem I have with the mission system. This one issue creates considerable friction against simply playing the game as frequently as I'd preferred, and having to work around it means I can't always take missions I'd find particularly fun to do. Shorten the mission timers and restrict expiration only when a player is logged in, and that issue goes away. See above.
PowerPlay 2.0 exists to fix the flaws of the Large Scale Politics simulation, AKA PowerPlay, and it does so quite well. While I do have some minor quibbles, especially where undermining is concerned, they are minor and do nothing to lessen my enjoyment. Heck, I've been working on my short-term strategic goals for the last three months, and am quite enjoying myself. I would've quit doing what I'm doing long ago otherwise.
The BGS exists to bring life to systems at the local level, and does so admirably. The fact that the BGS can be used for emergent gameplay, such as what I use it for (a simulation of system-level politics), and what others use it for (a proxy for territorial gameplay) does not obviate it's primary purpose. Personally, I have some minor quibbles with how Frontier implemented BGS 2.0, in particular how they removed the more nuanced effect certain types of missions had on faction states, but that does little to lessen my enjoyment of the game in general, and messing with local politics in particular.
As for the mission system, I consider it one of the stars of the show. Aside from the real-time expiration of mission timers I mentioned above, my only other minor quibble is how Frontier removed the more nuanced effects missions had on faction states. I much preferred the notion of trading influence to affect faction states over the current influence grind we have today.
I do think Frontier missed the boat by not fully integrating the mission system into PowerPlay 2.0. You can leverage some types of missions to earn a decent amount of merits, I'll be hitting Rank 100 before the Thursday Tick mostly by taking advantage of what synergy there is between the two, but there's a lot more Frontier could do in this department.
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Maybe you need to copy that table I posted earlier.
I think you have not caught on to the nomenclature of the rings judging by your "ironically enough" comment.
Yes, and "eventually" isn't all that far away necessarily.
Recent weeks have shown an estimated surplus of effective Reinforcement over Undermining of around 70 million control points and this has been pretty consistent for a while.
Assuming current trends continue (including new Acquisitions being relatively slow) - and they are likely to hit diminishing returns in some ways:
- almost all controlled systems will be at least at Fortified strength in about two years
- almost all controlled systems will be at Stronghold strength in less than four years
- the entire current bubble will be Stronghold strength within about seven years
Colonisation will probably add new near-bubble systems faster than Powerplay turns them into Strongholds (it'd only need to add about 35 new systems a week to keep pace with the current rate) so in that sense there'll always be something to do.
It's not that significant, really, at least not at the moment.
- bulk flooding is horribly inefficient in all cases
- rares trading is disabled
- mining disallows the use of a carrier
- profitable trade allows a carrier but since in most cases this will be doable with one-jump hops anyway it's hard to see that the carrier really saves time (and if you choose to exploit 1t trades your ratio of station time to flight time makes the carrier even less relevant)
- powerplay commodities are provided at a sufficiently slow rate even at max rank that the carrier doesn't help much
- all of the other tasks don't involve a cargo hold so someone else's carrier or an NPC station works just as well
My own carrier is still hanging out near Colonia and I've never felt the lack of it to be a problem for Powerplay. The most I'd ever use it for would be the occasional ship transfer.
Ok... i do think i get what you're saying now... i guess i funny share some of your more favourable opinions/ assessments here.
So I'd stick by everything i said before... summed up as PP2 being an elaborate reward overlay on otherwise regular activities that one could've already done...but it'd descend way too off topic to delve further into that. So probably enough said there.
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Say what?
If it finishes refining while docked (because you've freed up cargo space), it then flags that unit and any stuff of the same time in your cargo as not mined? Or just the 1t refined when docked?
If its just the 1t, it doesn't really matter. If that last refined ton taints the whole load, that could be nasty.
One mining session of about 1 hour to fill 192t of capacity usually gets me about 4 ranks on handing in.
I keep anything above 40k, although i generally won't throw silver out unless at the end i find a nice rock with a higher value good and have a few limpets to get that. Generally though i'll only target a silver rock if there is something of higher value in there as well.
Certainly the 1t doesn't count.
I've heard that it will also taint any other cargo of the same type still in your hold (it won't taint other cargo types, I've tested that)
So if you sell the one you've got a refinery backlog of first you should be fine, too. Though if you're only in it for merits and not credits you might as well dump it anyway.
I'll keep an eye out for it now. One time i dumped a load and got way less merits than i normally got. This might have been the reason.
There's a lot that stops making sense if you don't expire missions in a reasonable time. We already see it with restoration missions in Odyssey, and saw it with Thargoid missions during the war. But that's getting super OT...
TBH I'm doing it mainly to try out some of the modules. I have very little understanding of how powers ebb and flow and no real motivation to gain any. I restrict myself to reinforcement activities, not undermining, and don't do anything on foot. I know this might be annoying to people who play PP "properly" but it's how FD have set things up. I guess too that without module incentives and stronghold perks, PP would be much less popular.
I have an FC and haven't felt even slightly tempted to use it for PP2 stuff over the last 3+ weeks.
This would be a pretty horrific facepalm if it's true.
I don't think that tainting happens. Once I had a load of tritium in my carrier; some mined and some bought. A CG came up for it, and I found that some got credited and some didn't, in about the proportions I guessed.
There are not enough facepalms in the universe. Pointlessly convoluted game system is pointless.
I didn't have time to read all the pages of the post.
I have been reluctant to join a pledge because I like to go everywhere and have ally status with all powers, kinda makes me feel like an ambassador.
Three nights ago there was a stronghold carrier offering some good prices that i wanted to take advantage of, at the time i was in trading mode and cruising around in a type 9. I decided why not give PP a try. (lol at PP, immature i know) I pledged, landed, loaded up, went to a station that was in a state of reinforcement for the pledged power, unloaded the goods and got over 10k merits. I didn't know what I was doing, I just wanted to do some trading. I haven't focused on the five weekly assignment, two of them completed though. The deciding factor to join that takes alot of pressure off the decision is that if I don't like it, I can just unpledge, no bad consequences. I should say, that I wasn't tempted by the dangling carrot of awesome gear, it is good stuff though. I just really like feeling like an ambassador, everybody greets with a smile. I guess to the op, I don't think with or without PP it's a very big deal, the way the concept is applied is very benign.
I have been reluctant to join a pledge because I like to go everywhere and have ally status with all powers, kinda makes me feel like an ambassador.
Three nights ago there was a stronghold carrier offering some good prices that i wanted to take advantage of, at the time i was in trading mode and cruising around in a type 9. I decided why not give PP a try. (lol at PP, immature i know) I pledged, landed, loaded up, went to a station that was in a state of reinforcement for the pledged power, unloaded the goods and got over 10k merits. I didn't know what I was doing, I just wanted to do some trading. I haven't focused on the five weekly assignment, two of them completed though. The deciding factor to join that takes alot of pressure off the decision is that if I don't like it, I can just unpledge, no bad consequences. I should say, that I wasn't tempted by the dangling carrot of awesome gear, it is good stuff though. I just really like feeling like an ambassador, everybody greets with a smile. I guess to the op, I don't think with or without PP it's a very big deal, the way the concept is applied is very benign.