This is part of a series of proposals to improve PowerPlay in various ways. The goal is to make PowerPlay a more interesting, dynamic, and rewarding experience, without needing to scrap the whole thing and rebuild from the ground up - evolution rather than revolution. Each proposal is intended to be relatively straightforward to implement (though of course we have no special insight into the specifics of the Elite codebase), and most of them (except where mentioned) stand alone and do not need a lot of other changes to make them work.
Please limit discussions to the specific topic at hand - pros, cons, tweaks, etc. If you have alternative proposals, by all means make a separate topic! The parent thread for this series is here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...out-incrementally-improving-powerplay.551571/ Although the authors are Winters/FLC commanders, these proposals have been made and discussed by pilots from many Powers.
And now, the one we've all been waiting for...
Make PowerPlay Open-Only
Any merits or PowerPlay cargo in a ship that is not in Open (i.e. when the Commander logs in to Solo or a Private Group) will be either discarded, or converted to a form that earns the player merits if delivered or turned in, but those merits will not affect the Power.
Discussion:
Too much of PowerPlay happens in Solo or Private Groups, removing the ability for powers to fight effectively against enemies and bad actors such as 5th Columnists. PowerPlay is a fundamentally social and heavily combat-focused activity, and all PowerPlay activities should be conducted in Open, allowing Commanders to interdict each other. If Commanders wish to remain in Solo, then PowerPlay is not for them, and there are many other activities in Elite they can participate in.
Forcing people to play PowerPlay in Open will promote larger ship battles and allow the focus to shift from pure strategy towards lower-level tactics. PowerPlay has already produced some of these exciting and immersive battles, but despite many Powers pledging to play only in Open, they remain rare occurrences rather than happening every week at contested points in the galaxy.
This proposal still allows Commanders to earn personal merits and rating while in Solo or PG, but those merits will ONLY count towards the commander’s personal progression in rating, not towards the Power's status. Thus while this route can be used to earn the Rating 5 bonuses and salary, and to shop for the Power-specific modules, they will not count towards the Power in any way - they will not affect fortification, undermining, preparation or expansion.
Open question: should merits and PowerPlay cargo simply vanish if the commander enters Solo or a Private Group? This is a simpler implementation, and would achieve the same goals in its effect on PowerPlay. However it would annoy those who are "module shopping” and simply earning merits to buy the Power-specific modules, or collect the salary, rather than wishing to take part in the wider PowerPlay.
Open question: throw up a warning if a commander tries to log into Solo or a Private Group while carrying merit-bearing cargo or bounties? Maybe change the text on the login screen, e.g. “Solo - WARNING PowerPlay merits or cargo currently held.”
Open question: require BGS to also be in Open? This is likely to be unpopular, and probably unnecessary. In addition, BGS is usually so distributed around the galaxy that even if it were forced into Open, interdictions would be rare and small-scale.
Open question: pad blocking by enemy commanders is a significant problem and a barrier to Open Only gameplay. At the moment the solution is to switch to Solo to dock, but in this proposal that makes the merits vanish. A better solution is to remove the concept of pad blocking altogether - once docked, a ship cannot remain on the surface, it automatically enters the hanger, and is then removed from the instance, freeing the pad. See the separate proposal here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ander-from-instance-as-soon-as-landed.555316/
Open question: how does blocking a Commander interact with this? This is handled in this separate proposal: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...-blocks-communications-not-instancing.556823/
Please limit discussions to the specific topic at hand - pros, cons, tweaks, etc. If you have alternative proposals, by all means make a separate topic! The parent thread for this series is here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...out-incrementally-improving-powerplay.551571/ Although the authors are Winters/FLC commanders, these proposals have been made and discussed by pilots from many Powers.
And now, the one we've all been waiting for...
Make PowerPlay Open-Only
Any merits or PowerPlay cargo in a ship that is not in Open (i.e. when the Commander logs in to Solo or a Private Group) will be either discarded, or converted to a form that earns the player merits if delivered or turned in, but those merits will not affect the Power.
Discussion:
Too much of PowerPlay happens in Solo or Private Groups, removing the ability for powers to fight effectively against enemies and bad actors such as 5th Columnists. PowerPlay is a fundamentally social and heavily combat-focused activity, and all PowerPlay activities should be conducted in Open, allowing Commanders to interdict each other. If Commanders wish to remain in Solo, then PowerPlay is not for them, and there are many other activities in Elite they can participate in.
Forcing people to play PowerPlay in Open will promote larger ship battles and allow the focus to shift from pure strategy towards lower-level tactics. PowerPlay has already produced some of these exciting and immersive battles, but despite many Powers pledging to play only in Open, they remain rare occurrences rather than happening every week at contested points in the galaxy.
This proposal still allows Commanders to earn personal merits and rating while in Solo or PG, but those merits will ONLY count towards the commander’s personal progression in rating, not towards the Power's status. Thus while this route can be used to earn the Rating 5 bonuses and salary, and to shop for the Power-specific modules, they will not count towards the Power in any way - they will not affect fortification, undermining, preparation or expansion.
Open question: should merits and PowerPlay cargo simply vanish if the commander enters Solo or a Private Group? This is a simpler implementation, and would achieve the same goals in its effect on PowerPlay. However it would annoy those who are "module shopping” and simply earning merits to buy the Power-specific modules, or collect the salary, rather than wishing to take part in the wider PowerPlay.
Open question: throw up a warning if a commander tries to log into Solo or a Private Group while carrying merit-bearing cargo or bounties? Maybe change the text on the login screen, e.g. “Solo - WARNING PowerPlay merits or cargo currently held.”
Open question: require BGS to also be in Open? This is likely to be unpopular, and probably unnecessary. In addition, BGS is usually so distributed around the galaxy that even if it were forced into Open, interdictions would be rare and small-scale.
Open question: pad blocking by enemy commanders is a significant problem and a barrier to Open Only gameplay. At the moment the solution is to switch to Solo to dock, but in this proposal that makes the merits vanish. A better solution is to remove the concept of pad blocking altogether - once docked, a ship cannot remain on the surface, it automatically enters the hanger, and is then removed from the instance, freeing the pad. See the separate proposal here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ander-from-instance-as-soon-as-landed.555316/
Open question: how does blocking a Commander interact with this? This is handled in this separate proposal: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...-blocks-communications-not-instancing.556823/
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I would totally agree with this if the game was running on server side instead of P2P and locked multiplayer on consoles while sharing the same galaxy.