A Lavigny-Duval Cycle Two Target Discussion
- Thread starter fergal
- Start date
TheLoneTrucker
Banned
Okay so RANA is a good system to do some undermining?
I see 4480 for Andonnus
Is there anything important about HIP 43845? That is the only system I see that alters the Ngarawe sphere of influence from the Andonnus sphere. This is so silly. Does anyone have the time to go fly out there and see if they can talk to someone delivering to Andonnus? Figure out what's up?
I'm not posting this in the general thread: if people find it then fine but it has tactical significance.
First off, it's worth explaining the mechanics of fortification and undermining so that everyone has them clear.
A control system has two metrics of note: income and upkeep, both measured in command capital (CC). In a normal situation the upkeep is subtracted from the income and the remaining CC is available to the power to use for expansion in to prepared systems.
If a control system is undermined then the entire income is lost. The upkeep still has to be paid, and is removed from the overall CC budget.
If a control system is fortified then the upkeep is reduced to 0. The overall CC budget is hence increased.
If a control system is neither fortified or undermined, or both fortified and undermined, then the normal situation prevails.
To give you a current example: Amenta has an income of 142CC and an upkeep of 23CC for a profit of 119CC. The possible situations for it are:
There are possibilities for both defensive and offensive actions. A defensive action is to fortify a control system so that the owning power will either spend the default number of CC on upkeep, or 0. An offensive action is to undermine a control system so that the owning power will either spend the default number of CC on upkeep, or lose the entire income *plus* pay the upkeep from their other CC budget.
Because of the way that the mechanics work the best strategy is to fortify early and undermine late. Once a system is fortified the effort involved to undermine it is relatively large for the deduction in CC that it gives us. Conversely, if a system is not fortified then the effort to undermine it can yield great rewards in terms of reducing, possibly severely, the number of systems which can move from preparation in to expansion.
The good news is that as a power we appear to treat fortification with the importance it deserves, resulting in few opposing powers bothering to undermine us. And the even better news is that a number of opposing powers don't seem to care about fortification quite as much. There is much to be said for a Wednesday evening push to undermine systems of our neighbouring powers who have been lax in this regard, as regardless of how much the prepare a system if they don't have the CC to expand in to it then it wont move in to expansion state and they will lose all of the effort they put in to it. I don't think that the benefits of this occurring can be emphasised enough.
One other thing: ALD is in a great position because of the number of high-quality control systems she has we have a surplus of CC and so if a few systems go from fortified to neutral it won't hurt our expansion. A few of our nearest powers aren't in such a fortunate position, and selective undermining of their systems late enough in their cycle could cause them serious damage.
First off, it's worth explaining the mechanics of fortification and undermining so that everyone has them clear.
A control system has two metrics of note: income and upkeep, both measured in command capital (CC). In a normal situation the upkeep is subtracted from the income and the remaining CC is available to the power to use for expansion in to prepared systems.
If a control system is undermined then the entire income is lost. The upkeep still has to be paid, and is removed from the overall CC budget.
If a control system is fortified then the upkeep is reduced to 0. The overall CC budget is hence increased.
If a control system is neither fortified or undermined, or both fortified and undermined, then the normal situation prevails.
To give you a current example: Amenta has an income of 142CC and an upkeep of 23CC for a profit of 119CC. The possible situations for it are:
- Fortified: upkeep goes to 0 so profit goes to 142
- Undermined: income goes to 0 so loss goes to 23 (as the upkeep still has to be paid)
- Neither: income and upkeep unchanged so profit stays at 119
There are possibilities for both defensive and offensive actions. A defensive action is to fortify a control system so that the owning power will either spend the default number of CC on upkeep, or 0. An offensive action is to undermine a control system so that the owning power will either spend the default number of CC on upkeep, or lose the entire income *plus* pay the upkeep from their other CC budget.
Because of the way that the mechanics work the best strategy is to fortify early and undermine late. Once a system is fortified the effort involved to undermine it is relatively large for the deduction in CC that it gives us. Conversely, if a system is not fortified then the effort to undermine it can yield great rewards in terms of reducing, possibly severely, the number of systems which can move from preparation in to expansion.
The good news is that as a power we appear to treat fortification with the importance it deserves, resulting in few opposing powers bothering to undermine us. And the even better news is that a number of opposing powers don't seem to care about fortification quite as much. There is much to be said for a Wednesday evening push to undermine systems of our neighbouring powers who have been lax in this regard, as regardless of how much the prepare a system if they don't have the CC to expand in to it then it wont move in to expansion state and they will lose all of the effort they put in to it. I don't think that the benefits of this occurring can be emphasised enough.
One other thing: ALD is in a great position because of the number of high-quality control systems she has we have a surplus of CC and so if a few systems go from fortified to neutral it won't hurt our expansion. A few of our nearest powers aren't in such a fortunate position, and selective undermining of their systems late enough in their cycle could cause them serious damage.
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I appreciate seeing this clearly stated. It seems that the normal gameplay metric isn't meant to concern itself with Fortification and Undermine. No one is hurt too badly if all the system nullify. Where it matters is if, for some reason, there are un-fortified systems.
So just as I've been starting to think, it probably makes the most sense to focus undermining efforts on expansions, and not control systems. Of course, you are most likely to run into opposing Commanders in these systems, and the winner is the most contributing.
Expansions are for direct competition, and Control for stability. Of course if one Power loses all of its followers, then fortification, or lack there of, becomes a bigger issue.
Don't go rebel rousing, Commander! We are all Imperials, and we all bask in his greatness equally, some of us are more inclined to alter that to 'her greatness' soon enough. The issue here is that any undermining of our Imperial allies needs to remain secretive, as the Senator, Her Royal Highness, needs to have total deniability. Hell, I'm not even saying I endorse it. If I see a Wanted ship, I will likely engage it sooner or later, as that's how the law is upheld. Also, when ALD followers commit crimes, we get double the fines. Though, I wonder, is that when we're in our systems, or anywhere? Or does it apply to anyone in our systems, and not outside of them?
I was looking slightly further afield at a certain federation president. He has a fair few systems which have yet to be fortified and if undermined could be very costly to his expansion plans...
TheLoneTrucker
Banned
just got to wat yu to start there. It's currently at 47%
I think I need to use the edit button lol
TheLoneTrucker
Banned
Okay, I'm thoroughly confused. What am i supposed to kill at wat yu for this undermining? I went to a checkpoint but the ships aren't enemy or lawless, I went to a seeking goods and the ships there aren't hostile or lawless either. Sorry for being such a noob at this but what do I shoot?
Dear FERGAL,
First let me salute you for the great effort you are putting in to organize our forces. IMO this will be the key to Arissa's, ours and the Empires success. I'm ready to help in any way i can. I agree that dropping ADONNUS out of top ten is sound tactics.
Is HIP 21778 still the alternative #1? If so i can deliver 800 t of reports within the hour.
Yours truly
Prince Mike McDaniel
First let me salute you for the great effort you are putting in to organize our forces. IMO this will be the key to Arissa's, ours and the Empires success. I'm ready to help in any way i can. I agree that dropping ADONNUS out of top ten is sound tactics.
Is HIP 21778 still the alternative #1? If so i can deliver 800 t of reports within the hour.
Yours truly
Prince Mike McDaniel
Yeah, my bad, it's Torval. Like I said, it looks to me like a grab they shouldn't be making, location wise. We are going to get boxed in, and I don't get why Arissa supporters are ok with that.
Since it's space, we are going to get 'boxed in' in the sense that we are going to have to travel silly distances to expand, through other powers' territory, and that will make it much, much harder to support, since it will be so far away from our HQ. That's also partly why I don't support the "Key" operation. I hope they have enough people to keep that fortified every week.
Look in Hudson's (or whoever you're targeting's) page and it'll tell you what to do to undermine. You may have to interdict ships and destroy them or you may have to fight in a special combat zone.
At Wat Yu you need to go in to Supercruise and look for Federal Agent or Federal Logistics ships. Pull them out of supercruise and shoot them for 15 merits a piece. You need to bring the merits back to one of our control systems and cash them in with the power contact for them to count.
Well thankyou, but its certainly not me alone, and I just want us to have a common focus.
Everyone should be able to make any recommendations they want.
Not letting the group know what is going on leads to problems.
Delivering to HIP 21778 is still fine. We now need to push out the -14 CC system.
TheLoneTrucker
Banned
