I was quite methodical in my approach last week and yielded no results.
My process:
- I went to the galmap, then selected powerplay, then zemina torval, and then set the filter to show only fortified and stronghold systems.
- Then I clicked on such a system near the edges of her territory, and used the right side column of icons to select powerplay options for that system.
- Then I picked "strategic view," which brings up a set of radiating lines and a bounding circle surrounding the system in question. There would always be plenty of Unoccupied and Contested (white circle) systems connected to these radiating lines. My understanding is that this is the definition of an Acquisition System: it must be unoccupied and it must be within a certain range of a Fortified or Stronghold system.
- Next, I oriented the galmap in a top-down view with the Fortified system at the center. I used one of my old hyperjump dotted lines for orienteering, and set it up such that the bounding circle was like the face of a clock, and my hyperspace line was the 12:00 hand.
- Then, I methodically clicked on each of the white circle systems and brought up the panel for that system.
- Then I opened the system map if it was available, and checked the points of interest list looking for megaships. If I found none (which was always), I backed out into the Galmap again and went through the multi step process of setting up the same view of the same Fortified system.
(sidenote: It would be GREAT if, upon opening the Galmap, it defaulted to the same viewpoint, highlighted system, and filter/info panel configuration as when we last left it. There are a lot of repeated fussy steps here)
- To continue: I'd click on another white circle and repeat the process. I worked my way around the "clock face" to ensure I didn't miss anything and didn't keep repeating myself. Sometimes I didn't have the system data, and so if it was not available for purchase, I would jump there and dock at a station.
- Later, I learned that on the galmap, when you are in PowerPlay view, there is a list of powerplay-relavent activities which is not (as I had assumed) a generic catch-all list, but rather is specific to the tasks available in that particular system.
- This improved my workflow. Instead of opening the system map for each Unoccupied system, I would scroll down looking for a line item called "scan datalinks" or something like that.
- I found no such line item in ANY of the unoccupied systems I looked at over the course of easily 3 or more hours of doing this, spread out across multiple play sessions.
Zemina Torval territory is not huge. I spent some time on this and made sure to set up "clock faces" in several regions of her space so that I would get good coverage of the candidate systems. Nothing.
I am not saying that this weekly task is ALWAYS impossible for everybody, but the game is very clearly
indifferent to whether or not such a task would be possible to complete when it hands it to you. My particular case was close enough to impossible as to be, for the purposes of an activity in an entertainment product, functionally impossible.
I think I was patient enough with the game and tried to engage with it on its own terms but this was ultimately an exercise in frustration and yet another experience where gameplay feels more like troubleshooting. This is NOT a quality experience in its current state. I found the whole process mildly interesting for about 45 minutes of fruitless search, but after that it becomes more of an insult to my attention and time.
Thank you
@Ian Doncaster for the tip: I will at least take a peak at the mission boards in Fortification/Stronghold systems next time and see if that yields any actionable clues.
The issue I anticipate with your strategy is that it would likely send me to non-Acquisition systems, which might have scannable Megaships and might even get me merits for scanning them, but would NOT count towards the weekly PowerPlay mission requirements. Indeed I DID scan a number of megaships in occupied systems, in fortified systems, in stronghold systems, because as I was jumping around a lot and noticed megaships in many of the systems I passed through; but none of them turned out to be in Acquisition systems and none of them counted towards my mission.
Thankyou, all who read this.
If there's a flaw in my method, or my assumptions about how this works - please share. If there's a quick and easy way to find the right systems for "Scan Megaships in Acquisition Systems," please share. If this is DOABLE AT ALL, and you know how to do it - please share what you did.
