The Powerplay discussion thread.

IceFire122

IceFire122
jgm said:
Okay let's take Antal as our test case, purely because he has the fewest systems.
The default upkeep CC for his systems (if none are fortified or undermined) is 179.
This could of course change if some of his currently fortified systems are undermined.
His status screen shows upkeep as 141 and his overheads as 6.
So... where on earth do these status screen numbers come from?
Click to expand...

Okay, I will try (as far as I understand).
179 CC standard upkeep: correct
141 CC upkeep of this cycle: 6 CC overhead + 20 CC HQ + 115 CC Control systems (add current upkeep = unsuccessfully fortified last cycle)
6 CC overhead: No idea about the formula except, that it climbs rapidly with a lot systems.

Calculating income is more tricky, as I do not know, when/how new systems are counted.
 

jgm

jgm
IceFire122 said:
Okay, I will try (as far as I understand).
179 CC standard upkeep: correct
141 CC upkeep of this cycle: 6 CC overhead + 20 CC HQ + 115 CC Control systems (add current upkeep = unsuccessfully fortified last cycle)
6 CC overhead: No idea about the formula except, that it climbs rapidly with a lot systems.
Click to expand...

But... your upkeep numbers aren't the numbers in-game.

IceFire122 said:
Calculating income is more tricky, as I do not know, when/how new systems are counted.
Click to expand...

I suspect that each system has a number of metrics used to calculate upkeep. Population and economy are the obvious ones; outside of that there are any number of other variables (number and state of minor factions? Number and type of stations?) I also don't know if it's static or dynamic. But that's a whole different ball game.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Doing a quick plot of the overhead numbers at the end of last cycle versus the numbers of controlled and exploited systems, overhead is extremely close to being exactly proportional to the number of exploited systems (or possibly the number of controlled plus exploited systems) cubed.

Spreadsheet-best-fit lines suggest that the power is 3.02 (ex) or 3.06 (ex+co) rather than exactly 3 ... but I suspect actually what's happening is that the power relationship is a perfect cube and there may be some additional factors other than just raw system numbers which have minor additional effects.

If you want a very rough approximation: "total systems, cubed, then divided by 100,000" is not perfect but not far off.

So ... as a power gets bigger, it gets even more crucial for its preparation to be focused on top systems. All those people super-opposing Hudson and Winters expansion are probably actually doing them a favour - an accidental minus-fifth column, if you like - because Hudson especially is at the stage where much further expansion will cause really serious overhead problems.

I'll add this cycle's numbers in to the plot this evening or tomorrow and see if that confirms or refutes this theory.
 
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lovely lovely

L
Has the Powerplay thingy doen its cycle?

Feels about 7 days since the last one and there's no one complaining that x faction didn't get this system etc. is every one ok? :)
 
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Mephane

Mephane
Powerplay lore contradicting system ownership

GalNet said:
As leader of the Alliance of Independent Systems, Prime Minister Mahon is no stranger to bureaucratic red tape.

Unlike the other major galactic powers, the Alliance is not a single entity governed by a shared set of rules and values. It is a collective of independent systems grouped together for mutual protection and economic benefit. Mahon has said he sees his role as a trusted guide whose job it is to keep the systems united. While this relaxed approach to leadership has seen Mahon maintain his position as Prime Minister for the better part of a decade, it isn’t without its pitfalls. Despite enjoying a massive amount of support among Alliance civilians, Edmund often finds it a struggle to focus his supporters on a single objective. Most recently this caused the Alliance to lose a significant amount of influence in both Dahan and Zeta Trianguli, where in both cases the Alliance lost ground to Shadow President Winters and her more focused Federal campaign.

Fortunately, the Alliance boasts highly skilled diplomats, resulting in a steady stream of worlds joining the Alliance. So despite Mahon’s lack of focus, the taste of freedom is enough to ensure that the Alliance will remain relevant in galactic politics for a long time to come.
Click to expand...

(Source)

This article makes it appear as if Mahon's faction is the Alliance. And while there is no rival power within the Alliance, this may be right and make sense from a story perspective, the gameplay does not support this at all currently. Mahon may expand his power onto a system, that doesn't turn it into an Alliance system, with an actual Alliance jurisdiction etc. The same is true for other situation, like Liaedin, an Imperial enclave in the middle of the Federation, under influence of a Federation power. Following the quoted GalNet article, one could claim that this now were a Federation system.

This is a point I always found a bit irritating, and I regarded the powers as a separate, more covert layer of political influence, yet here we have the official ingame news talking how a "steady stream of worlds" join the Alliance - so where are all these systems that changed ownership from Independent, Federation or Empire to Alliance?

(Of course maybe I just missed a massive surge of new systems that did actually become Alliance members, so please do correct me if I am wrong.)

Now the thing is, obviously it is not meant to be that a major faction power expands and the system just flips, that would make the (imho much more interesting) influence system, war and civil war etc. mostly irrelevant. But thinking from a roleplaying perspective, if my character were asked about a particular system that is a Federation member yet under Mahon's control - what would my character even say who this system belongs to?
 
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Sugarat

Sugarat
I'm a little confused. I reached rank 4 but only received 1000cr (?). Also all my merits from last cycle have carried over. Is this a bug?
 

CMDR Beltane

CMDR Beltane
Sugarat said:
I'm a little confused. I reached rank 4 but only received 1000cr (?). Also all my merits from last cycle have carried over. Is this a bug?
Click to expand...

You get the credits according to your last circles rating, which was most probably 1. You will get the rank 4 salary at the end of the current cycle.
 

smiths121

S
I see it as the same position as some countries and Europe, friendly first, trading relations next, finally join.

It is the same with flipping the control of a system at the faction influence level. If you change the controlling faction of a system from independent to Federation, allegiance changes on the system overview in the system map, but the allegiance does not change (or colour of the planet with the right view) in the galactic map. So I figured the system may be controlled by a Federation power, but it is not part of the Federation.

Confusing!

Simon
 

Cryptonomica

Cryptonomica
[dead_horse]
...and this is why Powerplay should have been designed to integrate with the background sim from day 1, rather than just being a separate layer bolted on top...
[/dead_horse]
 
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Snarfbuckle

S
At this moment if feels more like a political shadow war where we take political control over a system behind the scenes, not really subverting it completely.

More like replacing a political governor with someone from another party.

If this was a "real" powerplay we would not be hunting a few federal agents and taking care of corrupt cops but have a full blown civil war.

This is behind the scenes political maneuvering.

- - - Updated - - -

smiths121 said:
So I figured the system may be controlled by a Federation power, but it is not part of the Federation.

Confusing!

Simon
Click to expand...

Basically I would say that there are different political levels of control.

Allegiance to say Empire
The political system used to govern the system is an Alliance (alliance of planets, traders, corps etc) but they are IMPERIAL citizens.

Technically all Imperial systems should be Feudal in nature with all their ranks otherwise.

So one part is their ALLEGIANCE and the other is the GOVERNING MECHANICS of said system.
 

drew

drew
Snarfbuckle said:
At this moment if feels more like a political shadow war where we take political control over a system behind the scenes, not really subverting it completely.

More like replacing a political governor with someone from another party.

If this was a "real" powerplay we would not be hunting a few federal agents and taking care of corrupt cops but have a full blown civil war.

This is behind the scenes political maneuvering.
Click to expand...

Give that the movements are portrayed on a map that is visible to (presumably) billions if not trillions of people across the known universe, it's not exactly "behind the scenes". ;)

Cheers,

Drew.
 

TheDude1972

TheDude1972
Casual Player Powerplay Experience

So today I left my faction after trying powerplay from it's release onward. Every time I played I made sure to do a few runs for my faction but...

For me personally I feel (and experienced) that powerplay has to few perks to justify being part of it any longer. Last week I simply did not have much time to play like most casual players do and you just loose to much merrits as a result of this, it's basically punishment for not playing (I know this has been said a lot and defended a lot, this is just my personal opinion!). I got to rank 2 by week 2 and that's about it, was just about to drop back into rank one when I quit.

I know Frontier loves powerplay and a lot of others do too, for me it looks great yes but simply is to much work for the few hours I play. I really hope this is just a first iteration and that it will be more fleshed out (weekly faction update overview would be nice) so that every player feels it's worth it.

I also hope future features will also remember that this game once was sold as a "single player" game too which caused a lot of casual players to sign up and back it like I did. I really don't care for the solo vs open discussion as seperating them would be fine by me. But things like powerplay are just to focused on players who can play daily. Again this is just my opinion so please keep the comments clean. :)

So frontier, I do hope that you'll improve and not just head the way of well basically Xbox type stuff... Casual players inject money too into your company, simply do not forget about us :)

Again, I urge you to read this post as one mans opinion and not as a reason to just scream at each other, discussion is fine, but no need to try and forcefully change my mind as it's already made up anyway. I still love Elite in it's current form, I'll just forget that powerplay is in there for now. ;)

Remember it's just meant as feedback, no facts stated here ;)
 

Cmdr Proton

C
A better poll would maybe have been "Do you care about politics? (in a game)", "yes" or "no". Personally, I couldn't give a toss in or out of a game so PPlay isn't gonna work for me and I imagine a very large portion of the game.
 

Sabier

Sabier
PowerPlay Merits Decay Calculator (google sheets)

I have seen some confusion around the forum with the merits decay system over the weeks for Power Play, so I thought I make a little excel sheet in google docs to help people do the maths.

The explanation for how merits decay can be found on the manual for PP (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=152185) pages 10 and 11.

You will find the calculator in the following link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WJvRBmtVR6xOAs9FXB_CIvt4g7hqJj5Ii_qeyonh7wo/edit?usp=sharing

I think it's pretty self explanatory. Please don't change the format, and in general, don't troll :)

Since it is done in google docs only one person will be able to use it at a time, unless you copy the cells to an excel file or similar. I don't know how to make this into an online app, but if people are keen I may look into it.

Have fun!

Update: have added a second calculator with merits based on an earned decay model, which seems to give the right results.
 
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Snarfbuckle

S
drew said:
Give that the movements are portrayed on a map that is visible to (presumably) billions if not trillions of people across the known universe, it's not exactly "behind the scenes". ;)

Cheers,

Drew.
Click to expand...

I blame that facebook girl - she has no business being in politics.
 

Mephane

Mephane
As I said I found the whole situation irritating all along, but this latest GalNet article made it worse, because it sounds that even from a in-character perspective, "Mahon expands" is equivalent to "systems join the Alliance". Before that, we could at least attempt to imagine it is merely some more or less vague political and economic influence, without any notion at all of actual membership.
 
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