2 weeks into a powerplays

[Blue Mars]

o7 cmdrs,
im 2 weeks into powerplays . i am almost tier 3 merits. but two systems are in turmoil. no expansions systems available atm.

says bring stuff from main system to help cause...
i bought some expansion items...can these help the systems in turmoil ?

give tips how to powerplay this...
how do i add CC when system is in a deficit?

 

[bangermsuk]

The Elite Dangerous Background Simulation, Factions and Powers Guide - Nova Force

novaforce.com

 

[Half-Lock]

o7 cmdrs,
im 2 weeks into powerplays . i am almost tier 3 merits. but two systems are in turmoil. no expansions systems available atm.

says bring stuff from main system to help cause...
i bought some expansion items...can these help the systems in turmoil ?

give tips how to powerplay this...
how do i add CC when system is in a deficit?

Tons of ways to skin a cat, sorta, but the Remlok guide is pretty thorough.

Lots of folks will also suggest you look up the specific powergroup you’re currently pledged to and, for the most part, you’ll get a list of orders. For example, with my ps4 account, I’ve been pledged to Aisling pretty much from my start and started off just delivering to places on the preparation and fortifications lists, then looked into the Aisling Duvall Power-play groups and trello and discord channels- which will give you a list of systems planned by the larger playgroups’ Powerplay managers; the Aisling group, in particular, also had a specific order of systems to deliver to in the event that you were simply looking to pick up your Prismatics without being particularly interested in Aisling Powerplay as a game-style.

Best advice is find your powers’ Powerplay thread and follow along until you get the gist of it, before either going off on your own or working your way up in the community to get yourself into planning and strategy roles- depending on what you’re angle is

 

[Mr.ziPPeR]

Fortifying control systems with the stuff you pick in HQ will make them give more CCs, which help against turmoil.

Best advice is to join your powers discord to see the full picture !

 

[dciskey]

It sounds like you're pledged to Li Yong-Rui if your power has systems in turmoil. Before you do anything you should get in touch with them. There is a pinned post in this subforum that has links to each power's Discord server. Join up and they'll let you know what to do.

 

[Danieros]

Turmoil isn't always bad. Powerplay is this very weird strategy board in which most systems are actually negative income . LYR's turmoil is like that - the two systems in turmoil are actually negative for LYR and it looks to me he'd be better off without them.

I suggest going to LYR's discord so you can help with whatever their strategy is - just randomly fortifying systems tends to be more harm than good.

 

[antoca]

Don't let anyone on Discord or anywhere dictate you what to do. They pursue their own agenda.

 

[Rubbernuke]

In my opinion, this is perhaps the biggest weakness of Power Play of all: that it is almost impossible to do the "right thing" in an intuitive way that is accessible to solo players and (especially!) beginners without the use of external platforms. But by now, everyone has probably come to terms with the status quo, and so everyone happily refers to Discord if another beginner posts.

The problem will always be that there is only one way to 'win' that relies on delicate maths.

There are ways via design FD could change that, and they then have to shut (or greatly minimise) real 5C first.

 

[Rubbernuke]

With the current mechanics, yes. I would say let's throw those mechanics overboard and start all over again. Power Play has such a beautiful and promising presentation, but desperately needs a completely redesigned (and hopefully better thought out this time) engine under the bonnet. The current state is appallingly uninspired.

Its actually an OK design if Powerplay had become much more popular- it (assumed) you will always work in the best interests of your power and that over a sufficiently large player population those good moves drown out the bad moves. In this context Powerplay would not need centralization with large groups- but as it transpired Powerplay would up going in the other direction with small populations (allowing 5C and random player actions) disproportionate power.

Hopefully™ 2022 might be The Year™.....but then I've said that six years running

 

[Danieros]

Powerplay popularity has nothing to do with the maths. It just doesn't make you rich in credits or mats. Look at CGs - they're basically doing one same thing for one system/starport the entire week.The rating bonuses aren't something you'll go crazy about. The only thing it has going for the mainstream general population are the modules, and we all know how the optimized way to earn modules is "pledge, do nothing for 3 weeks, deliver one cutter load for the 4th week, then leave and go for another power/module".

That said, the design can be refined so it doesn't have the abnormalities that are red-teaming or 5c, the latter which has always been a plague for the existing powerplayers, the first which makes it so uninteresting to attack. And you don't have to discard almost of a decade of process to start it over. That's as disrepectful as saying the BGS should be reset. If overhead/upkeep scaled so small spheres couldn't be negative, and if turmoils had the simplest approach of only looking at lowest base incomes rather than stuff like being fortified/undermined, you could have a much more active dynamic.

It should also get designed away from "wasted" actions like overfortifying or overundermining a system. Either going over 100% would do something, or after reaching 100% then you shouldn't be able to earn more merits for that system.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I can only disagree with that, not a good design. Imagine that for a game like chess, the basics of which any first-grader can learn, you would have to join a special Discord group and a team of mathematicians. And yet chess is a game that easily surpasses Power Play in complexity by a hundredfold. Every game design should at least try to take chess as a paragon, at least in its fundamental orientation: easy to learn, but difficult to master.

Such a self-test would be grandly missed by Power Play in its present form.

If only it didn't also leave the intuitive impression of being something similar to the game RISK. Which would already be a considerable step forward, but unfortunately does not correspond to reality in the slightest.

Here is another litmus test for successful game design. Although I am just a mediocre chess player, I can by and large understand grandmaster games when replaying them. Can you claim or recreate something like that for PP? I think, if anything, PP is the exact reverse of this process in which beginners are tempted to harm their power when they believe in good faith that they are being helpful. No beginner can grasp this intuitively.

However, I do understand that it is not an easy task to graft basic board game principles onto a game that is still primarily about flying a spaceship. It would certainly be much less fun for me if I had to fly somewhere with my ship every time I made a chess move in order to deliver any "merits", just as it would be no fun for me to be a piece in chess.

But perhaps PP's fundamental problem is that it is still undecided what it actually wants to be. That would be a painful decision, because from that point on, FDev would have to take responsibility for it.

By 'good' I mean it makes sense on paper- ED never was about you being special just a small cog in a large machine. Powerplay would have operated in the same way, where (assuming you knew how it worked, which it communicates badly) hundreds of players would have focused on good moves (which would have become less over time).

The bonuses and modules fed into that, so no one group could control everything. The nearest power to do Powerplay like this was Aisling who had a lot of competing groups who wanted to do the right thing each week.

The issue with comparing to chess is that chess is a one player game, while Powerplay is everyone deciding via voting which piece to move each week via majority vote.

Now, if you take BGS expansions and use those instead (making each expansion worthless outside it being a new conquest) then you go back to that root concept with little drawbacks. Another route is what I took here:

Powerplay Proposal (strong anti 5C, mode specific, plus other tweaks)

This is a Powerplay overhaul proposal that uses all of Sandros ideas plus a few more based on the 3.x BGS rework to enhance the feature, and employ strong anti 5C measures. Sandro Sammarcos proposal changes are included as they were originally. Problem Powerplay does not function well across...

forums.frontier.co.uk

The anti 5C part plus guiding players to 'good' moves.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Powerplay popularity has nothing to do with the maths.

?

My observation is that Powerplay works in a very exact way, that can be upset by random noise since player populations are low. You have to obey the maths, otherwise your power will expand and turmoil randomly.

 

[Rubbernuke]

But you do realise that this comes very close to declaring MMOs bankrupt?

Well, how else can you break down Powerplay? Just like nearly everything in ED the design leans on per commander actions working in isolation- the issue for PP is that each move has value (and thus has value being screwed up too) and that player actions are not capped (in that effort is 1:1 outcome).

Its why I compare it to the BGS expansions, because expansions in the BGS are valueless beyond controlling one extra system.

 

[Rubbernuke]

To be quite honest, I am not particularly interested in either. Maybe I should just stay out of this:
Things that don't affect my daily existence in EDO in the slightest deserve to be completely ignored.
FDev meanwhile seem to agree with me on this point.

Thats great, but since FD need ED to function and retain players, having a large scale exciting gang fighting sim would help it out. If it had been given love over the six years people might have had different views of it.

 

[Danieros]

?

My observation is that Powerplay works in a very exact way, that can be upset by random noise since player populations are low. You have to obey the maths, otherwise your power will expand and turmoil randomly.

Oh that bit was more aimed at Frillop. But if Frontier simply makes PP suddenly more popular by throwing goodies there's the risk these new players will do bad actions instead of joining the existing communities which do coordinate around math.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Sure. However, they would have had to put a lot more effort into it than they have so far, such as a really useful communication infrastructure within the game. They won't get far with the current lazy and lean game design strategy.

You won't get any arguments from me on that front. But FD assumed (wrongly in this case) a design philosophy that did not depend on explicit communication, and I'm not sure if they will stray from that- one of the reasons why they are taking so long now is they realise PP needs six years of love and small fixes alone won't be enough.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Oh that bit was more aimed at Frillop. But if Frontier simply makes PP suddenly more popular by throwing goodies there's the risk these new players will do bad actions instead of joining the existing communities which do coordinate around math.

Thats very true, its why certain Powers had (and still do) have issues stemming from the things they offer.