Patch Notes Update Powerplay Update 1.3.06 - incoming

[Athan]

We need someone else to confirm what Merits they had last night, and what they've had brought across this morning? Because if it's the same, IMHO, it's busted!

I didn't do anything in cycle 1, so zero merits. I earned 40 merits in Cycle 2. At the start of Cycle 3 I had 40 merits carried and 0 earned. By the end of that cycle I had earned another 80 merits, so total before the cycle ended showed as 120. Now we're in the 5th cycle and I'm showing 100 merits carried over, and 0 earned.

That 100 makes sense as 40/2 + 80. i.e. the first week that merits from THAT week carry over they're at 100%, the next week THOSE merits are considered they count for 50%. Presumably for next cycle they'll count as 25%, i.e. 10 (and the 80 from cycle 2 will then count as 40).

So, yes, the phrasing:

Your merit total from the previous cycle is halved then added to your current cycle value. After two cycles, its value is halved again before being added. After three cycles, the value is halved once more. After four cycles the value is no longer added.

is using 'merit total from the precious cycle' to mean the total merits earned during that cycle, not the total amount you had at the end of that cycle.

But there's still an off by one error with them carrying across at 100% the first time, rather than 50%.

It should state what Merits you ended last week with, and then 50% the values etc, and then tell you what you're bringing forwards for this week.

I'm just wondering if maybe I had more Merits than I thought and it has done what you suggest? eg: Maybe I have 500merits from the previous weeks, and say earned 1400 or so this week, so it 50%'d the 500, added the 1400 (from this week) unmolested, hence me bringing across 1663.

Next week the 1663 will be 50%'d and anything I earn this week will go across unmolested.

^^ Surely this has to be the case?

Almost. It'll be tracking it cycle by cycle with regards to how much you earned during that cycle not the total merits shown at the end of that cycle.

Give me 2 more cycles and I'll have the data to be 100% certain of this, assuming FD don't change anything in the meantime.

 

[Nicodemus]

Merits last night about 1700. Merits this morning 1060. So it seems that bit is working.

 

[wash washburne]

- Promote people when they complete a rank up mission

All right!! Now I can start playing again... Good job

- - - Updated - - -

 

[Nestor555]

20t cap Anyone???

 

[Zlorfski]

And it still stutters...

 

[Tarman]

this is the answer i was looking for why cant people be like you?

zac is the head of community management.

Maybe it's because it says what his position is right under his name. >______>

 

[Crash1099]

Where's the option to disable head bob?

They are not going to do it. Wish they would since it gives me motion sickness. I just take breaks if it happens.

 

[Adept]

Nice one. What is the state of repair costs?

Hmm? They seemed just fine to me.

 

[Samosa]

Thanks for the OS X fixes in this patch, particularly the longstanding one with the trackpad "scroll wheel" in the Galaxy map. I look forward to giving this a try tonight to see if I can finally use that map in a reasonable way again.

That's pretty exciting. The OS X scrolly stuff has been awful.

I'd really like this explained, though:

"- Add skill for major factions in modify reputation detail"

 

[L@neWolf]

The last two patches give me validate error data.ovx (on both my PC's), for 1.3.05 I was able to download the file from the support site manually and continue. Unfortunately FD didn't seem to see it necessary for 1.3.06. Can anyone either PM me, then arrange to email the file (1.8mb) or post somewhere that I can download. Thanks, as taking FD's default advice is to de-install E-D and re-download and re-install in its entirety is just plain bad advice.
P.S. The file can be found in the Win32 directory of your E-D Install

As no response, I tried de-installing and re-installing, same error. Support Ticket tells me I could be waiting 72+ hrs for assistance. Not nearly good enough response to a game breaker FD.

 

[Eldur]

- Promote people when they complete a rank up mission

Awesome, this comes just in time for me

 

[RingoD123]

Do any of the Devs actually know how the merit decay is supposed to work?
3rd time merit decay has happened and they still cant get it to happen as the powerplay manual states it should.
Is the manual wrong? is the in game formulae still wrong?
why wont you confirm these things? it has been 3 weeks.

Don't Worry Devs, We'll wait..................We've been playing with a largely broken PP for 3 weeks now anyway...

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I didn't do anything in cycle 1, so zero merits. I earned 40 merits in Cycle 2. At the start of Cycle 3 I had 40 merits carried and 0 earned. By the end of that cycle I had earned another 80 merits, so total before the cycle ended showed as 120. Now we're in the 5th cycle and I'm showing 100 merits carried over, and 0 earned.

That 100 makes sense as 40/2 + 80. i.e. the first week that merits from THAT week carry over they're at 100%, the next week THOSE merits are considered they count for 50%. Presumably for next cycle they'll count as 25%, i.e. 10 (and the 80 from cycle 2 will then count as 40).

So, yes, the phrasing:

Your merit total from the previous cycle is halved then added to your current cycle value. After two cycles, its value is halved again before being added. After three cycles, the value is halved once more. After four cycles the value is no longer added.

is using 'merit total from the precious cycle' to mean the total merits earned during that cycle, not the total amount you had at the end of that cycle.

But there's still an off by one error with them carrying across at 100% the first time, rather than 50%.

Thanks for the information.

That last part is very significant. From my rough calculations, it means that given a steady and unfixed number of merits earned, then instead of 5334 merits to maintain a rating 5 position, as was bandied about previously, the number is closer to 3480 merits if the number of weeks counted involved four full weeks of merit decay plus the 100% from the immediate cycle passed, totalling five weeks carried over,



or about 3640 merits if it's three full weeks of cycle contribution decay only plus the 100% value, totalling four full cycles' worth of merit contributions being carried over.



(Note these figures imply merits are rounded up: for safety, one would best earn slightly more than stated.)

That your situation excludes the first cycle's anomaly of the cycle ending sooner than expected, leading to an altered calculation for the first week, means your situation is ideal for figuring out what is going on. See what happens next week and it may give us a clearer picture.

EDIT: Reading the manual documentation again, it may imply that only three rounds of halving are involved, so the second table is probably correct, and so giving a mean maintenance value of about 3640 merits, or 243 undermining kills. If all of the rest is correct, then this final piece of ambiguity needs to be confirmed.

EDIT AGAIN: I really should read my tables properly. If there are three degrees of halving, as described clearly in the manual, then the figures are halved three times, not four. If that's the case, 3480 should be the correct figure.

 

[dejadrew]

So this means 5 times more grind to fortify/undermine?
Sigh.....

The work was already getting done well over the triggers, this just balances it to the number of people participating.

 

[knowles2]

Didn't relies the wake scanner thing was a bug. whole.

Nice selection of fixes.

Is the promote mission fix being back dated or do we have to redo missions?

 

[Patrick_68000]

who is this zac.

He presents himself ---- https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=160042

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the update. Any chance of getting it re-written in plain clear English?

in French would be better

 

[NeilF]

Thanks for the information.

That last part is very significant. From my rough calculations, it means that given a steady and unfixed number of merits earned, then instead of 5334 merits to maintain a rating 5 position, as was bandied about previously, the number is closer to 3480 merits if the number of weeks counted involved four full weeks of merit decay plus the 100% from the immediate cycle passed, totalling five weeks carried over,

View attachment 46823

Thanks for that... So I if can redo your example trying to also show what's being shown on the screen in ED?

                                         Wk1          Wk2          Wk3          Wk4          Wk5          Wk6
"Merits carried forwards"                  0         3480         5220         6090         6525         6525
"Merits earned this week"               3480         3480         3480         3480         3480         3480
[B]End of week Salary/Modules based on        -         3480(wk1)    7680(wk2)    9060(wk3)    9930(wk4)   10005(wk5)
[/B]

Is that right? What I'm trying to understand is when/how the Salary/Modules are determined? ie: End of Wk6, we finally get the tier 5 stuff because of what we did in Wk5.

 

[SgtLennin]

ED improved a lot over half a year. Didn't play it for months after losing a lot of money because of bugs, picked it up again last week. There is much more depth now.

Unfortunately the interdiction madness of the early days seems back since today's update, including annoying interdictions near space stations setting you back several light seconds, and multiple interdictions in a row. Space is a big place, it's a bit suspicious to be interdicted out of nowhere wherever you are. The 'haha I got you now'-like lines are a bit childish in my opinion.

Another thing I noticed since last week is that there are a lot of random NPC's who are happy they have found me because I'm hard to find. It makes me feel paranoid.

 

[cherbert]

I see the community site is being neglected already.

https://community.elitedangerous.com/patch-notes

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Thanks for that... So I if can redo your example trying to also show what's being shown on the screen in ED?

                                         Wk1          Wk2          Wk3          Wk4          Wk5          Wk6
"Merits carried forwards"                  0         3840         5220         6090         6525         6525
"Merits earned this week"               3840         3840         3840         3840         3840         3840
End of week Salary/Modules based on        -         3840(wk1)    6960(wk2)    8700(wk3)    9570(wk4)   10005(wk5)

Is that right? What I'm trying to understand is when/how the Salary/Modules are determined? ie: End of Wk6, we finally get the tier 5 stuff because of what we did in Wk5.

I think so, but it's 3480, not 3840.

However, I think the actual figure we need for rating 5 maintenance is the second figure of 3640 merits, as I suspect only three degrees of halved contributions (plus the full last contribution) count, instead of four plus the full last contribution. Then again, the manual is ambiguous and can be interpreted either way.