Powerplay - Really? - aka: The Fascinating Quest for Prismatic Shields

[Phazon Xenomorph]

For every faction that isn't Archon Delaine, just wait 3 weeks in Powerplay, then search for Archon Delaine systems, (not just the ones with Icons on the map tho those help too), once it's in his territory, has a couple million in population, and a station you can dock at if you need to repair or re-arm, just fly to that system, make sure it's anarchy or for some reason bounty hunters will attack you for killing non-wanted-but-still-pirate-ships, then just interdict and blast EVERY Kumo-Crew ship you find. In addition sometimes you'll see them come right at you and turn around (left ship hud icon) in supercruise, this means they want to interdict you, just let it happen, easier work.

Grind out 750, return to your powerplay controlled systems, turn in, done. On rollover boom, prismatic shields or whatever module you want.

 

[Minonian]

What's powerplay anyway?

 

[Zeeman]

For every faction that isn't Archon Delaine, just wait 3 weeks in Powerplay, then search for Archon Delaine systems, (not just the ones with Icons on the map tho those help too), once it's in his territory, has a couple million in population, and a station you can dock at if you need to repair or re-arm, just fly to that system, make sure it's anarchy or for some reason bounty hunters will attack you for killing non-wanted-but-still-pirate-ships, then just interdict and blast EVERY Kumo-Crew ship you find. In addition sometimes you'll see them come right at you and turn around (left ship hud icon) in supercruise, this means they want to interdict you, just let it happen, easier work.

Grind out 750, return to your powerplay controlled systems, turn in, done. On rollover boom, prismatic shields or whatever module you want.

Thanks for the tip. I've been wanting Advanced PA's for a while, but just too much grind...

Z...

 

[sb413197]

Yep. Powerplay is yet another conceptually cool thing that was slapped into the game in alpha stage and subsequently abandoned. Here's hoping it gets revamped in the core gameplay update.

In the meantime, go to the nearest anarchy control system, drop in the nav beacon, and fly about 25 k out. Log out, in, and all the spawns will be powerplay ships / kill them for 90-210 merits. Log out, back in, repeat. Congrats, a few hours later you have 10k merits.

 

[Tarman]

Im gonna get into it hard. So much so, that I'm working to get a cutter and outfit it only with imperial powerplay items. Should be savage. Prismatic shields, hammers and advanced plasma accelerators. Dont want mining lance. Then go back full time with arissa. Honestly, power play players control elite. They shape the galaxy. I wanna be part of that.

Actually I'm gonna be in the latest crime sweep making sweet merits.

PowerPlay shapes those colourey blobs on the Galmap when you accidentally press the wrong selection button. That's the only appreciable effect it's really had on my gaming in the years since it was created. My daughter has a lava lamp that does the same thing only faster.

 

[Straker]

Slightly off-topic but Prismatic Shields aren't necessarily what they used to be, as these days the most important aspect of shields are their resistances (ie thermal, kinetic, explosive). I have owned and tested Prismatic Shields on all my ships (up to the Anaconda) and since the release of the Engineers I end up swapping them every time for Bi-Weaves and spend time resistance balancing and then boosting them. Prismatics are too much of a power drain and I would debate their overall effectiveness.

I would still encourage you to get them though, so you can judge their effectiveness for yourself. Just remember, resistances is where it's at.

 

[CMDR Ellegon]

Slightly off-topic but Prismatic Shields aren't necessarily what they used to be, as these days the most important aspect of shields are their resistances (ie thermal, kinetic, explosive). I have owned and tested Prismatic Shields on all my ships (up to the Anaconda) and since the release of the Engineers I end up swapping them every time for Bi-Weaves and spend time resistance balancing and then boosting them. Prismatics are too much of a power drain and I would debate their overall effectiveness.

I would still encourage you to get them though, so you can judge their effectiveness for yourself. Just remember, resistances is where it's at.

That has been discussed many times. In essence, it depends on your play style and ship size what is more beneficial. So there is no blanket answer to the Prismatic vs Bi-Weave question.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The lead designer responsible for Powerplay must have been a sadist, enjoying the agony

I can neither confirm nor deny i had relations with Sandro!

 

[timbero]

I probably should point out that I know just as much as any Newbie about Powerplay, as I really don't care much about this aspect of the game. However, those prismatic shields really look sexy and the benefit of using a one class smaller slot for the same shield power is really attractive (so 6A prismatic would equal 7A regular).

So, as a noob in Powerplay, I looked at what I needed to do to get them:

1. Pledge to the blue-haired princess - OK
2. Wait three weeks - well, WTH, whatever
3. Gain 750 merits after the third cycle of PowerPlay to gain rank 3, allowing me to get my paws on those prismatic shields after week 4.

So three weeks have passed, I can finally do something (that helps with the shields)!

Options available:

• Prepare - deliver "Aisling materials" to certain systems
• Fortify - same as above
• Undermine - destroy enemy faction ships in Undermined systems

Prepare and Fortify

• What the heck were they thinking regarding "Aisling materials"? In the year 3,303 we are really distributing paper (plastic?) pamphlets by the metric tonne? 750 tonnes to be exact, to reach rank 3. Even more than 1,000 years earlier, almost all propaganda happened over electronic media. Cannot say that this does much for immersion.
• Prepare and Fortify are exactly the same, not really intriguing gameplay
• You get only 10 tonnes of that Aisling stuff free every 30 minutes - and I thought rares were bad with the 10 minute wait. Graciously, Miss Aisling allows me to buy additional propaganda packs of 10 units for a measly 100,000 CR each. To do this, exactly four clicks are needed. Then you do it again, for a total of 164 clicks to fill the hold of my Cutter. Watching paint dry is fascinating by comparison.
• Now you fly to a destination system in the right state ("Fortify"). Most Aisling Systems are over-fortified several 100% with zero points on undermining from an opposing faction. Your contribution feels really special here.

Undermine

• Well, interesting option, if it was actually available. The powerplay map did not reveal a single Aisling system currently being undermined by somebody. A look at the forum section for Duval confirmed this: nothing is happening, it is as quiet as a graveyard for Aislings followers

So only option was to haul 750 tonnes of pamphlets, yeah! Everything else I did in game so far has been white-knuckle intense and riveting by comparison to my hour of Powerplay. I have no inkling how anybody could stand this grind up to level 5 and I do not want to imagine.

Good things is: next Thursday I can buy my Prismatic Shields, in any size and with spares - and happily unpledge, trying hard to forget about Powerplay as soon as I can.


Conclusions:

• The lead designer responsible for Powerplay must have been a sadist, enjoying the agony of players being tortured to death by boredom and arthritis in their mouse-finger
• How FDev ever thought that this adds anything to the game is beyond me
• I cannot imagine a real newbie to the game being drawn in by this "dramatic" game play element, much more likely it would cause somebody to give up on Elite before giving it a real chance (which would be a pity, considering all the game elements that work and are fun)
• At least Duval's power play faction appears to be almost dead, except for shield grabbers like me. Nothing happening, nothing going on. Some expansion candidates have been "prepared" to the tune of 23,697 tonnes of pamphlets (out of 50 needed), but will not be targeted for expansion as they are money-losing propositions. This indicates that either Aisling supporters are extremely bored or these pamphlet deliveries are made exclusively by guys that want the Prismatics and don't give a hoot about Powerplay otherwise. Same for the non-undermined systems with several hundred percent fortification.

Powerplay seems to me like something that is more likely to scare off new players than anything else. It either needs to be put out of its misery or reworked from the ground up.

Again, these are my observations as an experienced player (1000 hours+) trying Powerplay for the very first time. I may, of course, have missed something. But if that is the case, I suppose that any real newbie would miss it as well.

[video=youtube;YC9axIsAoVw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC9axIsAoVw[/video]

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Power Play was rushed out to give players "something to do", unfortunately the quality of that something was experimental at best. This is one area that absolutely needs to be looked at in the refresh of core gameplay.

 

[Rubbernuke]

As always with these threads, the OP and everyone on it forgets that its a team effort, and its the organised groups that make it worth playing. For a single player its baffling and seems pointless, but with others its fantastic.

Instead of shouting at a wall, why did no-one look at the power threads and then go to the groups who run said powers? You would have found all the answers you need there. Powerplay has a minimal presence on these forums, but Reddit, Discord and Inara are much better.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

That has been discussed many times. In essence, it depends on your play style and ship size what is more beneficial. So there is no blanket answer to the Prismatic vs Bi-Weave question.

IMO there is. For PvE it's very clear. Any ship that you want to use to bounty hunt or fight in CZ or expect to be interdicted often in rapid succession for whatever reason: high class highly resistant Biweave. For any ship that will only have to fight once in a while or will rather run from any encounter: Prismatics for the ability to downsize and the additional protection. It's regular shields that have almost no place in the game anymore.

As for the topic: I felt the OP's pain tenfold, because I've gone and got me all powerplay modules there are. Almost a year of effort and then some more to get back at the prismatics to store some more that I coudn't afford the first time. I've written up what powerplay could have been here.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The problem with Powerplay is that it has selfish rewards for what should be an altruistic strategy layer. A lot of players don't care for the Power, simply its modules. Aisling and LYR suffer in this way because selfish players just do random acts to get the goodies and don't actually think about their actions.

 

[Thetele]

As always with these threads, the OP and everyone on it forgets that its a team effort, and its the organised groups that make it worth playing. For a single player its baffling and seems pointless, but with others its fantastic.

Instead of shouting at a wall, why did no-one look at the power threads and then go to the groups who run said powers? You would have found all the answers you need there. Powerplay has a minimal presence on these forums, but Reddit, Discord and Inara are much better.

Well if player needs to do that then it just other point how the PP is badly done. Remember this game has 0 support for groups of players playing together. This is not explanations or defense for pp its one more fail for the pp design and reasons why its badly done and majority of players don't like it.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Well if player needs to do that then it just other point how the PP is badly done. Remember this game has 0 support for groups of players playing together. This is not explanations or defense for pp its one more fail for the pp design and reasons why its badly done and majority of players don't like it.

The only thing lacking in Powerplay is an in game area to co-ordinate with others. Other than that (with bugs aside), you have all the information you need. Having co-ordinated a power for over 2 years, Discord, Reddit and Inara are about the best platforms for doing this. If FD integrated them into the game that would be fantastic, but it would still only replicate what already works and exists.

I won't excuse Powerplay totally as it has many well documented flaws and problems, but unless you engage with it (and other people that do as well) and put effort in it will always be seen as rubbish. At face value its shallow, but dig deeper you have politics, intrigue, massive fights all player driven. Its the only part of the game that justifies big ships, and the only part that compelled me to get up at 4am to help in a convoy outprepping other powers.

 

[Tataboj]

If people actually try to engage in the communities behind PowerPlay, it can be suck you in the game for many hundreds of hours, even when you don't really want to play other parts of the game.

 

[mikekim]

the level three grind is a cakewalk..
5 mins of clicking to fill up a 760t trader cutter and then 1 trip to a close by system to offload.

try getting to level 5.. thats 4.5 - 5 hrs of the above, you're looking at 14 trips to hit the 10,000..... [zZzZz]

 

[Rubbernuke]

the level three grind is a cakewalk..
5 mins of clicking to fill up a 760t trader cutter and then 1 trip to a close by system to offload.

try getting to level 5.. thats 4.5 - 5 hrs of the above, you're looking at 14 trips to hit the 10,000..... [zZzZz]

Not pointing fingers, but this is the problem that really screws up Powerplay for those who play it long term. Its not wrong to be selfish wanting the power module, its not selfish only doing 750 merits for week 4, but its the belligerence and ignorance that hurt the game.

Did you even ask the power in question what would help while you are pledged?

 

[Darkfyre99]

Not pointing fingers, but this is the problem that really screws up Powerplay for those who play it long term. Its not wrong to be selfish wanting the power module, its not selfish only doing 750 merits for week 4, but its the belligerence and ignorance that hurt the game.

Did you even ask the power in question what would help while you are pledged?

IIRC, in the typical game, about 5% of the player base is active in the forums, and about 10% lurk. Granted, the type of player that may be heavily involved in PowerPlay tends to be in that rare group, but for your typical player trying out Powerplay for the first time, they're going to rely in the game itself.

There really needs to be in-game bulliten boards for the various powers, mirrored to Frontier's in-game (all but dead) PowerPlay subforum, so that core players can communicate with more casual players.

 

[timbero]

Not pointing fingers, but this is the problem that really screws up Powerplay for those who play it long term. Its not wrong to be selfish wanting the power module, its not selfish only doing 750 merits for week 4, but its the belligerence and ignorance that hurt the game.

Did you even ask the power in question what would help while you are pledged?

Hey, that's me!

Sure, I ask that sometimes.

It would entail an even bigger grind, little to no reward, no way to organize in game, crappy pp feedback, more enduring of the programmers UI.. yadda yadda yadda yadda.

I then continue my shortest possible route to the goal.