Powerplay A word on 5c, and the state of Powerplay

[Intersection]

And yet, that's not what your people have been using the opportunity to do. The accusations continue unabated, and the mods continue to have to intervene. You say you are bringing evidence of 5C. That's exactly the problem. This conversation right now should not be about evidence. It should be about policy, or it should be shut down. If you consider bringing evidence against us good faith and us debunking said evidence bad faith, then there is no way for us to defend ourselves against false allegations without arguing in bad faith, at least according to your false definition. What is bad faith argument is saying that you will have a civil conversation about how 5C can be stopped and using the opportunity to sling mud at your opponents. The mods have told you to stop already. What is so hard about following the rules of this forum?

Listen - I've made it a point to address every single argument I found against us, hoping to be as transparent as possible about our reasoning and our actions. The purpose of this thread was twofold - to call attention to the 5c Hudson is currently suffering from, and use it as a starting point to discuss its repercussions on Powerplay and how it can be addressed.

I can't simply evacuate the first premise - Hudson has been blanket fortified by 5c for the fourth consecutive week, and I believe it's important we call attention to this situation so long as it continues. I hope I've made it clear, throughout this thread, that 5c is a burden for Powerplay as a whole.

Recognizing this fact alone is not slinging mud, and something I wish we could collectively agree on.

 

[QueensPawn]

So what you are saying is we cannot discuss or have an opinion on the Hudson matter in this thread cause if it is indeed 5C that is going on within Hudson then it makes the Empire look bad?

Don't know what to tell you. All I'll say is that any 5C incident that has occurred with any power does benefit their enemies. With that point of view then, you can go back to my previous point, we shouldn't talk about 5C in general because it can make many powers "look bad".

I'm saying that once the question of guilt has been raised, determining that a crime was committed will naturally incline people toward assuming the accused party is guilty, regardless of actual evidence of guilt.

Listen - I've made it a point to address every single argument I found against us, hoping to be as transparent as possible about our reasoning and our actions. The purpose of this thread was twofold - to call attention to the 5c Hudson is currently suffering from, and use it as a starting point to discuss its repercussions on Powerplay and how it can be addressed.

I can't simply evacuate the first premise - Hudson has been blanket fortified by 5c for the fourth consecutive week, and I believe it's important we call attention to this situation so long as it continues. I hope I've made it clear, throughout this thread, that 5c is a burden for Powerplay as a whole.

Recognizing this fact alone is not slinging mud, and something I wish we could collectively agree on.

The mods have asked you to evacuate the first premise. No more accusations or the thread gets locked.

Literally everyone has been dealing with 5C in one form or another for years and yet you only seem to care about it when you think it's not benefitting you. If you want to make this about the plague of 5C as a whole, then great. But in order to make it about everyone, you have to stop making it about you first. Why not use the LYR 5C prep that happened a few weeks back as an example? Because this isn't about the community. This is about you. If all it was was an example of 5C, you'd be willing to drop it and move on to another example when challenged. It's not like you have a shortage of examples that we can all agree upon.

 

[BaconofDeath]

I'm saying that once the question of guilt has been raised, determining that a crime was committed will naturally incline people toward assuming the accused party is guilty, regardless of actual evidence of guilt.

So like I said, we shouldn't talk about the problems 5C brings to PP in the forums. Any time a power is 5Ced, a person with knowledge in PP can go and assume that the enemy of said power is the one 5Cing them. That is one hell of a rabbit hole.

Literally everyone has been dealing with 5C in one form or another for years and yet you only seem to care about it when you think it's not benefitting you. If you want to make this about the plague of 5C as a whole, then great. But in order to make it about everyone, you have to stop making it about you first. Why not use the LYR 5C prep that happened a few weeks back as an example? Because this isn't about the community. This is about you. If all it was was an example of 5C, you'd be willing to drop it and move on to another example when challenged. It's not like you have a shortage of examples that we can all agree upon.

Right before the previous mod response, it was an Imperial pilot talking about how Federal pilots exploited. From that, I deduced that was what the mod was talking about, not what you are saying now. I could be wrong though.

Again, you are free to contribute to this thread by also adding in other moments where 5C has impacted PP. It makes complete sense that the OP would use the Hudson example to discuss how crippling 5C can be as they know much more about their own power and the hauling patterns within them, than any other powers.

 

[QueensPawn]

So like I said, we shouldn't talk about the problems 5C brings to PP in the forums. Any time a power is 5Ced, a person with knowledge in PP can go and assume that the enemy of said power is the one 5Cing them. That is one hell of a rabbit hole.

Who are these dedicated enemies of LYR that you're referring to? As far as I know, they kinda do their own thing and everyone leaves them alone. I have no clue who did that to them or why. We could speculate but we don't have to, and no accusations have yet been made. So the topic would be neutral. No one forced to play defense in order to protect their reputations. Honestly, it's the perfect example and you should be okay with making it the prime example that this thread is built around. The fact that you seem reluctant says volumes about your motives here.

 

[Intersection]

I'm saying that once the question of guilt has been raised, determining that a crime was committed will naturally incline people toward assuming the accused party is guilty, regardless of actual evidence of guilt.

The mods have asked you to evacuate the first premise. No more accusations or the thread gets locked.

Literally everyone has been dealing with 5C in one form or another for years and yet you only seem to care about it when you think it's not benefitting you. If you want to make this about the plague of 5C as a whole, then great. But in order to make it about everyone, you have to stop making it about you first. Why not use the LYR 5C prep that happened a few weeks back as an example? Because this isn't about the community. This is about you. If all it was was an example of 5C, you'd be willing to drop it and move on to another example when challenged. It's not like you have a shortage of examples that we can all agree upon.

Simply stating that Hudson is suffering from intentional 5c does not accuse anyone. It does, however, shine a spotlight on the damage 5c causes, especially at this scale - which was always the intention.

If you'd like to bring up the LYR situation, it was certainly a topic of internal discussion with LYR leadership at the time. I thought it polite not to drag them into this thread.
If you're worried we're too self-centered in our concerns about 5c, you'll be happy to hear I mentioned AD's situation several times here as a clear example of it.

You mentioned arguments made in bad faith - with all due respect, this was one of them.

 

[QueensPawn]

Simply stating that Hudson is suffering from intentional 5c does not accuse anyone.

You didn't simply state anything. In your paragraph about "intentional 5C", you also included statements about how our undermining strategy wouldn't make sense without 5C, which implies our guilt. That is an accusation. Stop trying to dress up a donkey and call it a stallion. If you can't even be honest about what you've said in front of all of us, then why should anyone believe what you have to say about your stats that you can't show us, but give undeniable proof (but all the snippets shared seem to not prove much of anything for some reason)

 

[Fezix93]

The mods have asked you to evacuate the first premise. No more accusations or the thread gets locked.

The Mods would have considered this when they reopened the thread; the original post has not been changed since they reviewed it, and Intersection has clearly not been asked to change it since they reopened everything for comment, including Hudson stating that it had been 5C'd. I believe (I could be wrong) the recent requests have referred to people making accusations against the opposing powers/people in those powers in their comments, where it starts to get into naming/shaming/flaming issues, as opposed to a request to retroactively change one of the topics that the forum was reopened to discuss (that Hudson was 5C'd). My understanding of the situation (based on the DMs I have seen from the mods) is that the original topics were valid to discuss, so long as things did not devolve into a flame war in the comments. Perhaps a clarification on this is in order?

Literally everyone has been dealing with 5C in one form or another for years and yet you only seem to care about it when you think it's not benefitting you. If you want to make this about the plague of 5C as a whole, then great. But in order to make it about everyone, you have to stop making it about you first. Why not use the LYR 5C prep that happened a few weeks back as an example? Because this isn't about the community. This is about you. If all it was was an example of 5C, you'd be willing to drop it and move on to another example when challenged. It's not like you have a shortage of examples that we can all agree upon.

This is valid. It may reduce heat a bit to take some time to discuss similar issues that other powers have gone through, other than the one that is currently plaguing Hudson and Winters. As others have said while I was writing this, Hudson obviously knows it's own power best, so it makes sense that they would start from their own point of view and experiences. But yes, more examples of obvious 5C actions in powerplay are welcome from those who wish to share them-- so long as they are well intended.

 

[BaconofDeath]

Who are these dedicated enemies of LYR that you're referring to? As far as I know, they kinda do their own thing and everyone leaves them alone. I have no clue who did that to them or why. We could speculate but we don't have to, and no accusations have yet been made. So the topic would be neutral. No one forced to play defense in order to protect their reputations. Honestly, it's the perfect example and you should be okay with making it the prime example that this thread is built around. The fact that you seem reluctant says volumes about your motives here.

Theoretically, anyone can be an enemy of LYR. For all we know, some random pilot or group of pilots that is aligned with the Feds, Imps, Alliance, or another independent power could have decided they want to 5C LYR. Going to right now, for all we know, it could be a group of pilots that have Antal sympathies that are the ones 5Cing Hudson. A thread shouldn't be locked cause of feelings of being "implicated", but instead if direct accusations are being made.

So with that, I don't see any recent posts with any direct accusations. As I stated in my previous post, it makes sense for the OP to use this example as OP is a leader within Hudson's main organizational arm; OP knows Hudson's hauling patterns. I would prefer a leader from LYR come in here and talk about their own power compared to a Hudson leader talking about it, as they should know more about their own power.

 

[QueensPawn]

The Mods would have considered this when they reopened the thread; the original post has not been changed since they reviewed it, and Intersection has clearly not been asked to change it since they reopened everything for comment, including Hudson stating that it had been 5C'd. I believe (I could be wrong) the recent requests have referred to people making accusations against the opposing powers/people in those powers in their comments, where it starts to get into naming/shaming/flaming issues, as opposed to a request to retroactively change one of the topics that the forum was reopened to discuss (that Hudson was 5C'd). My understanding of the situation (based on the DMs I have seen from the mods) is that the original topics were valid to discuss, so long as things did not devolve into a flame war in the comments. Perhaps a clarification on this is in order?

I would like a clarification, yes. Because if the clarification is that feds are allowed to accuse imperials but not the other way around, I want no part in this forum.

 

[QueensPawn]

Theoretically, anyone can be an enemy of LYR. For all we know, some random pilot or group of pilots that is aligned with the Feds, Imps, Alliance, or another independent power could have decided they want to 5C LYR. Going to right now, for all we know, it could be a group of pilots that have Antal sympathies that are the ones 5Cing Hudson. A thread shouldn't be locked cause of feelings of being "implicated", but instead if direct accusations are being made.

Hudson was heavily and openly undermined from the very beginning, a plan that defies logic unless our opposition could guarantee Hudson would not be able to control their turmoil.

We openly have stated that we undermined Hudson, but not fortified. This sentence is accusing (not by name) the people that undermined Hudson of also fortifying him. The fact that you didn't specifically name who you think that is is a distinction without a difference. This is naming names with extra steps.

So with that, I don't see any recent posts with any direct accusations.

This is some slippery language here. Really qualifying your words so y'all can get away with as much as possible without implicating yourselves. Way to move those goalposts.

 

[Fezix93]

We openly have stated that we undermined Hudson, but not fortified. This sentence is accusing (not by name) the people that undermined Hudson of also fortifying him. The fact that you didn't specifically name who you think that is is a distinction without a difference. This is naming names with extra steps.

I disagree. By your own defense, the Imps would have been able to 'guarantee Hudson would not be able to control their turmoil' through the means of the bait-forting discussed earlier (as it was argued earlier). To clarify, there are undoubtedly many many people who have legitimately undermined the Federation systems without being involved with 5C at all; not everyone that undermined us was implicit or had knowledge of 5C. Again, no one is accusing you or your group.

That being said, the Federation should be able to discuss the 5C that it has been experiencing, which shouldn't be in any doubt because again, every power experiences 5C. And again, Federation Leadership can plainly see obvious 5C events occurring during the Turmoil because of their access to the comprehensive record (specifics and examples have been given all throughout this thread). It is entirely reasonable to have undermined the Federation and triggered bait-forting with partial undermines/etc without being involved or even aware of the 5C activities we are seeing.

 

[QueensPawn]

By your own defense, the Imps would have been able to 'guarantee Hudson would not be able to control their turmoil' through the means of the bait-forting discussed earlier (as it was argued earlier).

First off, I assume you mean fort-baiting, not bait-forting. Second, I never said we could guarantee anything. There was significant doubt going into this operation, with multiple fallback options should our first plan fail. We were in a desperate position. Our economy had gone negative for the first time since Shattered Prism. The assumption was that Shattered Prism 2 was looming (operations that similarly would not have and could not succeed without lossmakers being forted, I would note) so we took a chance on making a big play to turn the tide rather than accept our fate.

Again, no one is accusing you or your group.

Can I take this as an official statement from FUC that you as a group do not consider us (the ZYADA pact members and Alliance allies who undermined you) to be responsible for the forting of your lossmakers and weapon spheres?

That being said, the Federation should be able to discuss the 5C that it has been experiencing, which shouldn't be in any doubt because again, every power experiences 5C. And again, Federation Leadership can plainly see obvious 5C events occurring during the Turmoil because of their access to the comprehensive record (specifics and examples have been given all throughout this thread). It is entirely reasonable to have undermined the Federation and triggered bait-forting with partial undermines/etc without being involved or even aware of the 5C activities we are seeing.

You can discuss your current situation, but in the context of a thread that's supposed to be about what to do about 5C in general, it is unhelpful to throw around accusations, even if those accusations don't include names. My problem is that you're using a thin veneer of generality as an excuse to complain about your own grievances. Don't think I haven't noticed that none of you seem to want to talk about the idea I mentioned for a general improvement to help stop 5C by increasing in-game communication within powerplay powers.

 

[Garek]

So just stating an opinion or arguing that the fortifying patterns going on within Hudson seem to be 5C is accusatory or propaganda? If that's the case, then I guess we shouldn't talk about the 5C problem at all in PP.

"Talking about it" =/= "j'accuse"

 

[Garek]

I disagree. By your own defense, the Imps would have been able to 'guarantee Hudson would not be able to control their turmoil' through the means of the bait-forting discussed earlier (as it was argued earlier). To clarify, there are undoubtedly many many people who have legitimately undermined the Federation systems without being involved with 5C at all; not everyone that undermined us was implicit or had knowledge of 5C. Again, no one is accusing you or your group.

That being said, the Federation should be able to discuss the 5C that it has been experiencing, which shouldn't be in any doubt because again, every power experiences 5C. And again, Federation Leadership can plainly see obvious 5C events occurring during the Turmoil because of their access to the comprehensive record (specifics and examples have been given all throughout this thread). It is entirely reasonable to have undermined the Federation and triggered bait-forting with partial undermines/etc without being involved or even aware of the 5C activities we are seeing.

No, they're appealing to "comprehensive records" which may or may not actually exist. They're an interested party, accusing another party of behavior that (in their own words) nearly destroyed PP back during the early cycles. More than that, they're accusing another party of an attack that the supposed attackers are also suffering from: they've granted that AD gets consistent and serious 5C attacks on a weekly basis, and that other non-Federal powers have suffered from those kinds of attacks as well.

(Edit: And that's not even getting into everything that happened to poor Yuri Grom and his people.)

Any reasonable outsider would wonder if this is projection. They'd wonder if the Feds weren't uncomfortably aware that their own activities were being noticed and might well be called out, so they've taken the opportunity to get the accusation out first. PP is supposed to be a political simulation, and these kinds of "accusing your opponent of your own crimes" tricks are a standard underhanded election technique that goes back to Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. They certainly wouldn't believe it without overwhelming proof.

But whether or not the feds are playing these kinds of shady political games, it is patently obvious that they can't be trusted as honest and unbiased witnesses regarding some kind of underhanded shenanigans by AD. Especially since AD is a faction that almost never expands, since their HQ is in the ass end of the bubble, so they have the least territory or CC to gain by playing these kinds of games. ALD might benefit, theoretically, but the feds here are pointedly not mentioning or accusing them, except when they try to merge four factions into one by accusing "the Empire" of whatever it is they're supposed to be guilty of.

It's clear what's going on. AD's people noticed that Hudson has a lot of rando players that will fort anything in sight, and that the Hudson leadership doesn't have control over those randos and doesn't understand them as well as they thought. So they triggered the randos using the in-game UI to flag a bunch of systems as "under attack", and when the randos bit down hard, they responded in kind, to teach an expansionist and aggressive faction that maybe it's time to click on the "vote consolidate" button for once in their lives.

Edit: also, buddy, undermining isn't 5C, fortification is. What the feds are saying is that Hudson players would never hop in a T9 and rush to a system's defense unless they clicked on some barely-readable GDoc. Which, dang, doesn't say anything good about Hudson players.

 

[Garek]

Listen - I've made it a point to address every single argument I found against us, hoping to be as transparent as possible about our reasoning and our actions. The purpose of this thread was twofold - to call attention to the 5c Hudson is currently suffering from, and use it as a starting point to discuss its repercussions on Powerplay and how it can be addressed.

I can't simply evacuate the first premise - Hudson has been blanket fortified by 5c for the fourth consecutive week, and I believe it's important we call attention to this situation so long as it continues. I hope I've made it clear, throughout this thread, that 5c is a burden for Powerplay as a whole.

Recognizing this fact alone is not slinging mud, and something I wish we could collectively agree on.

You're conflating two things, one trivially obvious and one contentious.

What's trivially obvious: you're getting mass fortification. That's not in doubt. It's obvious to anybody who clicks on Hudson's control tab. Randos are getting the "HELP HUDSON" and are trying to help Hudson. They aren't reading your GDoc, because of course they aren't going to read a GDoc, it's a GDoc.

What's contentious: that mass fortification is due to 5C. You're claiming it is, but you obviously would claim that it is. Why wouldn't you? It's to your benefit, and relieves you of all those uncomfortable questions as to why AD keeps getting so many questionable preps of worthless systems. I mean, let's face it: it ain't LYR behind that one.

These aren't the same thing. If you were just talking about the former, then this thread would be fine, and even useful, though FDev seems to be fine with 5C. If you'd framed it that way, you might have even built up some trust, and possibly convinced AD's people to relent. But you didn't. You decided to double down and double down on the accusations. So here we are, in a thread that should have been locked three pages ago.

 

[Fezix93]

Wow.

 

[Intersection]

Wow indeed.

 

[BaconofDeath]

What's trivially obvious: you're getting mass fortification. That's not in doubt. It's obvious to anybody who clicks on Hudson's control tab. Randos are getting the "HELP HUDSON" and are trying to help Hudson. They aren't reading your GDoc, because of course they aren't going to read a GDoc, it's a GDoc.

What you're completely ignoring is that there was no "HELP HUDSON" in the first week of mass fortifying... so I would like to know how you explain that? Cause this point would be a lot more plausible if those warnings were a thing the first week.

 

[Darrack]

Wow.

yep i know

O7

 

[Curious Student]

Back to productive topics though, I just had a thought that could be immensely helpful against 5C if implemented. A dedicated in-game message board built into the powerplay screen for pledges only. Organizers could use it to post orders in a place where randoms would be able to see them without having to join an external community, and if you have anyone posting contradictory orders in order to sow confusion would have to do so under their own CMDR name, so they couldn't flood the board to confuse the randoms without revealing their usernames, and flooding this message board with contradictory orders could be as frowned upon as 5C is now. This does nothing to stop intentional 5C, but it could do a lot to reduce unintentional fortification or preparation of the wrong systems and highlight where intentional 5C is in use, which would help greatly with both reducing false accusations and with people using randoms as cover for intentional 5C, effectively helping resolve the issue that spawned this thread regardless of who is correct in their accusations.

Thinking about how this might be implemented, how would the game determine who can post on these boards? If the order of systems was system profitability, this is something the game can calculate to populate the board itself. Instead of a separate board, perhaps a simple change to the existing control system list. It could be ordered by the most to least profitable system still requiring fortification as guide for random players. As you say, this may help random players would not address intentional 5C. It does not fundamentally address the ability of any player to cause harm to the power they are pledged to, whether intentional or not. This would still remain a key point to be addressed.

As it stands, everyone has the potential to harm the power they are pledged to, for whatever reason. If you remove this ability, the reason behind it becomes irrelevant so you no longer need to distinguish between intentional 5C and random players. There have been suggestions of how to do this in this thread, although there may also be others. If the developer addresses this fundamental issue and removes the potential for pledges to damage their own power, that also removes the ability to harm another power through 5C. There would be no differences in interpretation or random players versus 5C or accusations, perceived, implied, false or otherwise.