More relevant would be the 15% discount in LYR systems or the black markets in Delaine systems.
Except that's hardly a motivation in a world where the economy hemorrhages credits... maybe if FD spent some time fixing that instead of adding new features, a 15% LYR discount would mean something. Black market trade is almost always not worth the effort because things like basic gold runs (which aren't even the best trades) are ubiquitous, more effective and less risky.
Maybe when Delaine's black markets offer a 100% markup on all goods sold, or Torval forces non-imperials to pony up minerals at 10% of galactic average price, then it might be motivating enough... but powers really ought to be shaping the galaxy in dramatic ways.
Though I think - as always - the scale of the bubble is so small that it's hard to make even very large changes to system status into a motivator. Boosted passive effects for Torval could generate massive mining profits, but even Torval already has over four hundred systems, so there's no real need to expand Torval further to do that, even if an Archer system next door would also be suitable, because there are 50 other Torval systems already which would already work.
Same way that sure, you could spend a week or two setting up a system for a few days of converged high power BGS states for trading or mining ... or you could rely on there being 20,000 systems so aggregate player action will generate a few at any time purely through random chance.
I think that's somewhat the point though... (and why tbh, the pledge system kinda needs to go, but that's a whole other story), as there's two perspectives at play here:
- As someone not playing Powerplay, I want to seek out those opportunities in order to exploit them.
- As a Powerplay supporter, I want to position my Power's key territories to create opportunities which, through people exploiting them, strengthen my Power.
If there's multiple such hubs around the place which i want to jump on Inara to chase down, suddenly
I care about where the Powers are situated, and the area they influence. But maybe that Delaine hub is 200Ly from the place I called home... well now I'm a nobody who suddenly wants to work out how the heck I get Delaine in power closer to my home.
The whole thing still lends itself more to the somewhat inane pledging system, where you can undertake the same activities that would otherwise support or undermine a power, but "Oh, you weren't wearing a purple scarf, so it doesn't count". A power's strength should derive from the people who come to take advantage of the benefits that power offers to that region... but if the people in the area
don't like that, pledged or no, then the absence of that support, or indeed incentivised counter-activity derived from the Power's weaknesses, ensures their rein isn't for long.
But maybe all that turmoil and short-term effects isn't your Jam. Well, the regional influences over systems which was more of a PP1 thing have got you covered by generally incentivising to a lower level... or maybe you want even more stable, in which case just find a system with no influence from Powers....
My point would still be: If the systems the Power's call their strongholds aren't drawing people in for the benefits, then they have no influence and aren't really doing the job of a Power.
[1] All depends on antagonistic BGS actions actually becoming incentivised.
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