Raw data is out for cycle 24 https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=195971
And the two other weeks of speculation from me
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=199173
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=197561
And a link to Martins excellent spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...-xUQaxR8VkYlBT7doOIQ/edit?pli=1#gid=185735328
ALD is back ranked at number 1, lets take a look at what the raw data points to for the week
Total Merits
You can see ALD has expansions again, so is back to their large total number of merits. ALD has the most total merits in each of the 3 individual categories too.
Hudson easily in 2nd place, and Aisling doing the 3rd most work again.
Down the bottom end Sirius has had a large drop in the number of total merits
And there is the same chart without the expansion merits, Hudson and Aisling are very close, 1661 merits are all that separates them.
Effective Merits
So lets see where the real merits were distributed.
After some discussion with a few players, I've changed how I calculated effective preparation, expansion and opposition.
For effective preparation anything not prepared is waste, and any merits over what was needed to maintain its position on the list is waste.
For Expansion, if the expansion fails, its all waste, if it succeeds, only the amount that takes it over the opposition is effective, the rest is waste.
And Opposition is waste if it expands, or of the expansion trigger doesn't even get to 100%, or any amount over what was needed to block the expansion.
For Opposition and Expansion I used the triggers, not just the raw merit numbers.
So what will this change from the charts in the previous 2 weeks?
Effective Preparation numbers will drop a bit.
Effective Expansion numbers will be slashed. This will make the charts not be skewed to ALD and Hudson. If there are actual expansion battles, these will still remain, but one sided expansions will have their effective merits reduced significantly.
Effective Opposition is also reduced, because most expansions succeed.
Here you can see a much nicer distribution of merits with the changes.
ALD still has a large number of merits in expansion, because her expansions were opposed by that much. Thats how many merits she needed to win all the expansions she won.
Aisling still doing the 3rd most effective merits, but there is a new Power in number 4, Archon Delaine.
This isn't skewed because of the changes in the effective expansion merits, Delaine would have a slightly higher number for his expansions with the old method.
But this does highlight the number of merits the players prefer to earn in combat expansions compared to delivery expansions.
Torval has a nice lead over Antal and Patreus, but just like on the Total Merits chart, Sirius is lower than usual, this time taking out last place.
There were only 2 battles for expansion:
ALD at Olelbis, which they won 1842% to 1696%
Delaine at Yuror, which they won 1860% to 1732%
And here is the effective merits without expansions
I don't think there is as much of a need for this chart, because you can make everything out it the other one now, with the expansion merits being calculated differently.
If it wasn't obvious in the other chart, Aisling had the most effective number of fortification merits, and Delaine drops back a few positions without all his expansion merits.
Opposition
So who got attacked in cycle 24?
Winters takes out the top spot, with ALD, Aisling and perhaps some Patreus players targeting her.
Mahone is 2nd with no-one publicly attacking him as usual.
The Imperial war against Delaine continues with the 3rd most opposition.
Hudson, ALD ans Sirius are 4th, 5th and 6th, but there is a steady drop between them, usually there is a big gap between the top 4 attacked powers and the rest.
The other 3 Imperials and Antal received their usual low levels of undermining. Torval received only 990 merits in opposition, and the other 3 had no expansions to oppose.
And the effective opposition
Two things are clear, Winters was hit the hardest by a large margin, and only Mahon was effectively opposed.
Ross 842 was the only expansion that got over the 100% trigger, that was actually stopped.
Sirius failed their expansion at Dhak, but they also didn't get to the 100% trigger, so all opposition was unneeded, thus was a waste.
Antal had 0 of their systems successfully undermined.
Weekly Charts
You can see above, fortification was generally down last cycle
Undermining is generally down too, except on Winters and ALD, who had a large uptick from the previous week.
And above are the total merits earned per week (excluding preparation merits)
All activity is down from the previous week, except expansion, but that was artificially low because ALD has no expansions then, you can see how much lower it is compared to 2 weeks ago.
This may be due to the 1.5 beta (or Fallout 4), or just a general downturn in player participation.
You can also see effective undermining has fallen to the effective fortification levels. This isn't good, because the undermining triggers are all higher than the fortification triggers.
Torval has the worst ratio of triggers, her undermining triggers are about double her fortification.
So looking at the right hand chart above, effective undermining levels are less than half of what they need to be.
Another issue is the massive gap between expansions and opposition, but the expansion numbers from the graphs are completely dominated by the numbers from just ALD and Hudson.
On average, expansions don't fail, and its nearly impossible to make any expansion of ALD or Hudson fail.
Above is the breakdown of the weekly expansion merits. The right hand chart excludes ALD and Hudson, so you can actually see what the other 8 powers do.
Delaine has the 3rd most, but this isn't just due to him also having the combat expansion method, this is how many merits he needs to actually win an expansion.
Patreus and Antal (the other powers with the combat expansion method) do less expansion merits more recently, but they also did a large amount more than 12 weeks ago.
Speculation and Commentary
1 ALD 87%
ALD moved back into rank 1 for the first time in a long time.
6 successful expansions brings her total number of systems up to 77, with 1014 exploited systems
It all could have been very different. The control system of Tiburnat was only 391 merits short of being undermined, which would have been enough to push her into Turmoil, and stop all the expansions, and likely pushed her down to 4th place.
Last cycle ALD focused on attacking Winters and has Prepared the system of Mbutsi, which is very close to the Winters capital.
Nearly 60% of all their expansion merits went into LTT 1345, which was the expansion closest to their capital.
It will be interesting to how many expansion merits they can bring to Mbutsi which is so far away.
ALDs expansions were collectively beneficial to her economy, and she has improved her starting CC balance to -274cc.
Hudson is likely to retake the 1st rank from ALD, unless his expansions are stopped, but at this stage it is unclear if Hudson will be the focus of ALD.
2 Hudson 84%
The President dropped one place down to 2nd, they expanded to one new system, but that wasn't enough compared to the 6 expansions ALD was able to do.
Hudson still has a very healthy economy, starting on 731cc every week. This gives him a fair amount of undermining that can be endured before he needs to start fortifying.
Events were subdued compared to the battle of AF L from the previous week, but Hudson did a good job with their preparation list, having so much CC available.
Hudson is currently planning on preparing a system in ALD space.
With 8 systems to expand to this week, retaking the number 1 position is very likely, unless he falls into Turmoil.
3 Mahon 73%
The Prime Minister dropped down one rank to 3rd. Mahon is still secure in a top 3 position, Hudson is likely to move back into 1st place, so if Mahon is to move up, it will need to be at the expense of ALD.
With ALD having 3 expansions and Mahon only 2, this is unlikely unless ALD falls into Turmoil.
Mahons number of merits have been dropping relative to the other powers, but with their massive starting cc balance of 1121 they don't need to put in the same amount of effort to stay out of Turmoil.
With Sirius on the brink of Turmoil, and Winters the new focus of the recent Imperial attacks, its difficult to see Mahon dropping under 3rd, but with ALD having no preparations this week, and Hudson only having one, its possible for a move up in 2 weeks time.
4 Winters 67%
Winters was the main focus of the ALD and Aisling attack last cycle, and received far more effective undermining merits than any other power.
There was also a bit of drama with one of their player groups exploding with some players leaving.
Even with this, they were able to fortify enough, and keep themselves out of turmoil.
They now have an ALD expansion right next to their capital, which will either need to be directly opposed, or ALD will need to be pushed into Turmoil to fail expanding it.
Sirius, Torval and Aisling look too far behind to be able to move ahead of Winters this week, unless Winters is pushed deep into Turmoil.
5 Sirius 53%
Sirius is still ranked in the top 5, but this week highlights their reduced player efforts, with the lowest amount of effective merits.
This is a bad combination for a Power that borders both the Federation and Empire, and has many profitable systems.
With the revelation that Lavignys Legions players have been encouraged to pledge to Sirius, with the blessing of Sirius players, they are beginning to look less and less neutral, and it can only a matter of time before the Federation decide Sirius has too many systems for their players to fortify.
Until this happens, Sirius should be secure in 5th or 6th place.
6 Aisling 52%
Aisling completed the most effective fortification last week, and was able to keep out of Turmoil again.
With a starting balance of -765cc her economy is still the worst in the game, but with one profitable expansion this week (a system she lost to Tumoil a few weeks ago) this will be improved slightly.
With a low amount of cc to spend on preparations this week, only a low income system can be selected, which will cause further problems if it is expanded.
She has a very similar score to Sirius, and with a successful expansion this week, could move back up into 5th position.
Turmoil is always a possibility for her though, and this would keep her in the bottom 5.
7 Torval 47%
Torval has been receiving very low amounts of undermining, and has also been improving their number of merits, which has secured their position out of the bottom 3.
If Aisling or Sirius fall into Turmoil, it is very likely she will move above them, so its possible she could be in 5th place, if things work her way.
She gained another "good" system last week, but with the massive increases to her overheads as she inches towards 55 control systems, her economy has been worsened to -252cc.
This makes it easier than ever for her to be pushed into Turmoil, if an attack on her is organised.
With one expansion for this week, she will need to do a lot of fortification to ensure it can be afforded, and may very well be at her maximum number of systems.
8 Delaine 33%
The Pegasi war continued, with Delaine conquering an Imperial System, and Patreus losing one to Turmoil.
This moved the Pirate King up to 8th position.
Patreus will again be the main focus of attack, to ensure he loses another system, and remains ranked under Delaine.
Should Delaines expansions fail, and Patreus fortifies enough, its conceivable that Archon Delaine could be back into 10th position.
9 Antal 30%
The Utopians returned from their controlled Turmoil with a large amount of fortification (although it wasn't very effective for a change) and have 665cc to spend on preparation.
With only 2 more control system than Delaine, whichever one of them secures the most preparations and expansions will be the one ranked higher.
Having no expansions this week, Antals position will be determined more on what happens to Delains and Patreus, not what they do themselves this week.
They will want to ensure the new systems they prepare are profitable, and don't just replace the bad systems they lost to Turmoil, will all new bad systems.
At the moment their preparation list is looking good, and quite aggressive. With so many expansions available for next week, a return to 9th or 8th is very likely in 2 weeks time.
10 Patreus 24%
The senator tumbled down two positions with the loss of Utgaroar, which was a relatively low income system.
This has improved his economy, but Patreus was unable to pull himself out of Turmoil, and the High Profit system of 47 Ceti is now in Turmoil.
All efforts this week should be on fortification, to ensure this system is not lost, and more systems do not fall into Turmoil.
With a commanding lead in his number of systems over Delaine and Antal, Patreus should return to his ranking of 8th, when he is able to fortify out of Turmoil, until then, 10th is where he will remain.
And the two other weeks of speculation from me
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=199173
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=197561
And a link to Martins excellent spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...-xUQaxR8VkYlBT7doOIQ/edit?pli=1#gid=185735328
ALD is back ranked at number 1, lets take a look at what the raw data points to for the week
Total Merits
You can see ALD has expansions again, so is back to their large total number of merits. ALD has the most total merits in each of the 3 individual categories too.
Hudson easily in 2nd place, and Aisling doing the 3rd most work again.
Down the bottom end Sirius has had a large drop in the number of total merits
And there is the same chart without the expansion merits, Hudson and Aisling are very close, 1661 merits are all that separates them.
Effective Merits
So lets see where the real merits were distributed.
After some discussion with a few players, I've changed how I calculated effective preparation, expansion and opposition.
For effective preparation anything not prepared is waste, and any merits over what was needed to maintain its position on the list is waste.
For Expansion, if the expansion fails, its all waste, if it succeeds, only the amount that takes it over the opposition is effective, the rest is waste.
And Opposition is waste if it expands, or of the expansion trigger doesn't even get to 100%, or any amount over what was needed to block the expansion.
For Opposition and Expansion I used the triggers, not just the raw merit numbers.
So what will this change from the charts in the previous 2 weeks?
Effective Preparation numbers will drop a bit.
Effective Expansion numbers will be slashed. This will make the charts not be skewed to ALD and Hudson. If there are actual expansion battles, these will still remain, but one sided expansions will have their effective merits reduced significantly.
Effective Opposition is also reduced, because most expansions succeed.
Here you can see a much nicer distribution of merits with the changes.
ALD still has a large number of merits in expansion, because her expansions were opposed by that much. Thats how many merits she needed to win all the expansions she won.
Aisling still doing the 3rd most effective merits, but there is a new Power in number 4, Archon Delaine.
This isn't skewed because of the changes in the effective expansion merits, Delaine would have a slightly higher number for his expansions with the old method.
But this does highlight the number of merits the players prefer to earn in combat expansions compared to delivery expansions.
Torval has a nice lead over Antal and Patreus, but just like on the Total Merits chart, Sirius is lower than usual, this time taking out last place.
There were only 2 battles for expansion:
ALD at Olelbis, which they won 1842% to 1696%
Delaine at Yuror, which they won 1860% to 1732%
And here is the effective merits without expansions
I don't think there is as much of a need for this chart, because you can make everything out it the other one now, with the expansion merits being calculated differently.
If it wasn't obvious in the other chart, Aisling had the most effective number of fortification merits, and Delaine drops back a few positions without all his expansion merits.
Opposition
So who got attacked in cycle 24?
Winters takes out the top spot, with ALD, Aisling and perhaps some Patreus players targeting her.
Mahone is 2nd with no-one publicly attacking him as usual.
The Imperial war against Delaine continues with the 3rd most opposition.
Hudson, ALD ans Sirius are 4th, 5th and 6th, but there is a steady drop between them, usually there is a big gap between the top 4 attacked powers and the rest.
The other 3 Imperials and Antal received their usual low levels of undermining. Torval received only 990 merits in opposition, and the other 3 had no expansions to oppose.
And the effective opposition
Two things are clear, Winters was hit the hardest by a large margin, and only Mahon was effectively opposed.
Ross 842 was the only expansion that got over the 100% trigger, that was actually stopped.
Sirius failed their expansion at Dhak, but they also didn't get to the 100% trigger, so all opposition was unneeded, thus was a waste.
Antal had 0 of their systems successfully undermined.
Weekly Charts
You can see above, fortification was generally down last cycle
Undermining is generally down too, except on Winters and ALD, who had a large uptick from the previous week.
And above are the total merits earned per week (excluding preparation merits)
All activity is down from the previous week, except expansion, but that was artificially low because ALD has no expansions then, you can see how much lower it is compared to 2 weeks ago.
This may be due to the 1.5 beta (or Fallout 4), or just a general downturn in player participation.
You can also see effective undermining has fallen to the effective fortification levels. This isn't good, because the undermining triggers are all higher than the fortification triggers.
Torval has the worst ratio of triggers, her undermining triggers are about double her fortification.
So looking at the right hand chart above, effective undermining levels are less than half of what they need to be.
Another issue is the massive gap between expansions and opposition, but the expansion numbers from the graphs are completely dominated by the numbers from just ALD and Hudson.
On average, expansions don't fail, and its nearly impossible to make any expansion of ALD or Hudson fail.
Above is the breakdown of the weekly expansion merits. The right hand chart excludes ALD and Hudson, so you can actually see what the other 8 powers do.
Delaine has the 3rd most, but this isn't just due to him also having the combat expansion method, this is how many merits he needs to actually win an expansion.
Patreus and Antal (the other powers with the combat expansion method) do less expansion merits more recently, but they also did a large amount more than 12 weeks ago.
Speculation and Commentary
1 ALD 87%
ALD moved back into rank 1 for the first time in a long time.
6 successful expansions brings her total number of systems up to 77, with 1014 exploited systems
It all could have been very different. The control system of Tiburnat was only 391 merits short of being undermined, which would have been enough to push her into Turmoil, and stop all the expansions, and likely pushed her down to 4th place.
Last cycle ALD focused on attacking Winters and has Prepared the system of Mbutsi, which is very close to the Winters capital.
Nearly 60% of all their expansion merits went into LTT 1345, which was the expansion closest to their capital.
It will be interesting to how many expansion merits they can bring to Mbutsi which is so far away.
ALDs expansions were collectively beneficial to her economy, and she has improved her starting CC balance to -274cc.
Hudson is likely to retake the 1st rank from ALD, unless his expansions are stopped, but at this stage it is unclear if Hudson will be the focus of ALD.
2 Hudson 84%
The President dropped one place down to 2nd, they expanded to one new system, but that wasn't enough compared to the 6 expansions ALD was able to do.
Hudson still has a very healthy economy, starting on 731cc every week. This gives him a fair amount of undermining that can be endured before he needs to start fortifying.
Events were subdued compared to the battle of AF L from the previous week, but Hudson did a good job with their preparation list, having so much CC available.
Hudson is currently planning on preparing a system in ALD space.
With 8 systems to expand to this week, retaking the number 1 position is very likely, unless he falls into Turmoil.
3 Mahon 73%
The Prime Minister dropped down one rank to 3rd. Mahon is still secure in a top 3 position, Hudson is likely to move back into 1st place, so if Mahon is to move up, it will need to be at the expense of ALD.
With ALD having 3 expansions and Mahon only 2, this is unlikely unless ALD falls into Turmoil.
Mahons number of merits have been dropping relative to the other powers, but with their massive starting cc balance of 1121 they don't need to put in the same amount of effort to stay out of Turmoil.
With Sirius on the brink of Turmoil, and Winters the new focus of the recent Imperial attacks, its difficult to see Mahon dropping under 3rd, but with ALD having no preparations this week, and Hudson only having one, its possible for a move up in 2 weeks time.
4 Winters 67%
Winters was the main focus of the ALD and Aisling attack last cycle, and received far more effective undermining merits than any other power.
There was also a bit of drama with one of their player groups exploding with some players leaving.
Even with this, they were able to fortify enough, and keep themselves out of turmoil.
They now have an ALD expansion right next to their capital, which will either need to be directly opposed, or ALD will need to be pushed into Turmoil to fail expanding it.
Sirius, Torval and Aisling look too far behind to be able to move ahead of Winters this week, unless Winters is pushed deep into Turmoil.
5 Sirius 53%
Sirius is still ranked in the top 5, but this week highlights their reduced player efforts, with the lowest amount of effective merits.
This is a bad combination for a Power that borders both the Federation and Empire, and has many profitable systems.
With the revelation that Lavignys Legions players have been encouraged to pledge to Sirius, with the blessing of Sirius players, they are beginning to look less and less neutral, and it can only a matter of time before the Federation decide Sirius has too many systems for their players to fortify.
Until this happens, Sirius should be secure in 5th or 6th place.
6 Aisling 52%
Aisling completed the most effective fortification last week, and was able to keep out of Turmoil again.
With a starting balance of -765cc her economy is still the worst in the game, but with one profitable expansion this week (a system she lost to Tumoil a few weeks ago) this will be improved slightly.
With a low amount of cc to spend on preparations this week, only a low income system can be selected, which will cause further problems if it is expanded.
She has a very similar score to Sirius, and with a successful expansion this week, could move back up into 5th position.
Turmoil is always a possibility for her though, and this would keep her in the bottom 5.
7 Torval 47%
Torval has been receiving very low amounts of undermining, and has also been improving their number of merits, which has secured their position out of the bottom 3.
If Aisling or Sirius fall into Turmoil, it is very likely she will move above them, so its possible she could be in 5th place, if things work her way.
She gained another "good" system last week, but with the massive increases to her overheads as she inches towards 55 control systems, her economy has been worsened to -252cc.
This makes it easier than ever for her to be pushed into Turmoil, if an attack on her is organised.
With one expansion for this week, she will need to do a lot of fortification to ensure it can be afforded, and may very well be at her maximum number of systems.
8 Delaine 33%
The Pegasi war continued, with Delaine conquering an Imperial System, and Patreus losing one to Turmoil.
This moved the Pirate King up to 8th position.
Patreus will again be the main focus of attack, to ensure he loses another system, and remains ranked under Delaine.
Should Delaines expansions fail, and Patreus fortifies enough, its conceivable that Archon Delaine could be back into 10th position.
9 Antal 30%
The Utopians returned from their controlled Turmoil with a large amount of fortification (although it wasn't very effective for a change) and have 665cc to spend on preparation.
With only 2 more control system than Delaine, whichever one of them secures the most preparations and expansions will be the one ranked higher.
Having no expansions this week, Antals position will be determined more on what happens to Delains and Patreus, not what they do themselves this week.
They will want to ensure the new systems they prepare are profitable, and don't just replace the bad systems they lost to Turmoil, will all new bad systems.
At the moment their preparation list is looking good, and quite aggressive. With so many expansions available for next week, a return to 9th or 8th is very likely in 2 weeks time.
10 Patreus 24%
The senator tumbled down two positions with the loss of Utgaroar, which was a relatively low income system.
This has improved his economy, but Patreus was unable to pull himself out of Turmoil, and the High Profit system of 47 Ceti is now in Turmoil.
All efforts this week should be on fortification, to ensure this system is not lost, and more systems do not fall into Turmoil.
With a commanding lead in his number of systems over Delaine and Antal, Patreus should return to his ranking of 8th, when he is able to fortify out of Turmoil, until then, 10th is where he will remain.
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