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

[Rubbernuke]

This was posted by Fed CMDR during our Asurasairu prep - definite proof of 5c action by the Feds.

Thats a test in gullibility and misinformation, considering that unlike actual 5C its just a random message and can be easily countered by groups on Trello, Discord, Reddit and whoever was flying who took those caps then going "check [platform] for actual instructions, that guys not us". Rando players would wonder 'who' IHC was (since its something known within Imperial Power circles) and be meaningless to them.

I mean, was that person pledged to an Imperial Power? Or was it someone who was Winters / Hudson pledged? If it was the latter, would you take a Fed seriously talking about Imperial Powerplay orders? If it was the former, then you have a proper grievance where someone is intentionally impersonating an Imperial.

Actual 5C is someone intentionally pledging to someone else and wrecking them from the inside doing things that have a material impact (like crap preps, fortifying while in turmoil, expanding bad systems). This also highlights cross mode chat issues, because if you were in different modes you'd never see the other person. Those messages are the equivalent of telling someone to jump off a cliff, because you told them to.

Not referring to specific cases, like the one being discussed here, but would "open-only" powerplay help to prevent 5C happening?

In some cases yes, but its also about robust, exploit proof design.

 

[Rubbernuke]

It's been what 6 years since Sandro's last post about powerplay and I get the feeling that fdev don't want to touch it. It's probably because there's no-one left at fdev who understand the inner workings. That's why you don't get arx for powerplay activities and Dav has said that the Power Contact why we're stuck with what we've got.

I only got into powerplay when the content drought hit and was really surprised by that it was quite fun if I got involved with the community playing it. It's a shame that people still 5C and that commanders are blocked so the can't get involved in the legitimate PvP side of powerplay. But there's nothing that can be done, we have to rely on other players being 'Honest' or playing the game 'properly' until fdev do something about it.

Well there was that "feature revamp 2023" which I'm pinning my last molecules of hope on. Thing is FD need to give the groups hope and not suddenly / hopefully spring it on them as by them people would have gone.

 

[Darrack]

As someone who doesn't have a scooby about PP but finds this fascinating can someone explain what 5C is?
<goes and hides behind the Krait coffee machine>

O7

 

[Khan Tannhauser]

As someone who doesn't have a scooby about PP but finds this fascinating can someone explain what 5C is?
<goes and hides behind the Krait coffee machine>

O7

5C = Fifth Column

It's basically pledging to an enemy power to hurt it from within. So someone doing 5C will haul preparation/expansion cargo to loss making systems, or fortify systems to make sure their enemy keeps certain systems and drop others like in the case at hand.

It's widely considered poor form and an exploit because it's pretty much impossible to counter most of the times.

 

[DemiserofD]

As someone who doesn't have a scooby about PP but finds this fascinating can someone explain what 5C is?
<goes and hides behind the Krait coffee machine>

O7

The game is poorly designed. You have two conflicting aspects; it's possible to make extremely bad moves, and it's possible for anyone to join at any point.

The application is a bit technical, but you can practically imagine it like this; imagine you are playing a team game like overwatch, and your side is winning. Seeing this, a player from the other team swaps to your side, and starts killing all of your players in your spawn area. Not only are there no consequences for this, and your team doesn't have any ability to stop them from doing this, if you try to kill them, you are only hurting yourself. In the meantime, the other team has free reign to do whatever they want, almost certainly winning.

 

[Intersection]

As someone who doesn't have a scooby about PP but finds this fascinating can someone explain what 5C is?
<goes and hides behind the Krait coffee machine>

O7

“5c” stands for “fifth-column”, and as it name implies is the term we use to describe commanders pledging to enemy powers in order to intentionally harm them from within. Because Powerplay does not have robust mechanics in place to mitigate these sort of actions, it is both disproportionately effective and nearly impossible to counter, and as such is seen as tantamount to cheating.


One way 5c can harm a power is by preparing undesirable systems that would cripple that power’s economy should an expansion succeed. To prevent this, powers are forced to either call for a consolidation vote and lose the ability to expand, or waste resources to “outprep” the 5c by sinking a greater number of merits in each legitimate prep target, wasting resources in an effort that becomes unfeasible when multiple preps are involved. This sort of 5c has been endemic to federal powers for years, but you'll find another example with Aisling Duval, where each cycle sees her struggle with 150-200k in unwanted preps, something we find deeply regrettable.


A second, and less obvious method involves fortifying systems that a power’s leadership would rather leave untouched. Here’s why: if a power is able to coordinate its fortification ahead of a potential turmoil, it is able to choose which systems go under (unfortified systems drop first), and therefore select only unwanted systems for the chopping block. It's one of the reasons open undermining calls like the one the Empire has put out are nearly unheard of in Powerplay, and merit bombs (late turn-ins) are instead the bread-and-butter of offensive operations - a power needs to be caught unawares for good systems to drop.


However, if fifth-column haulers fortify systems a power would rather shed, that power is left unable to properly control its turmoil, no matter the contributions of its members: that is what’s currently happening to Hudson.


Powerplay has imploded many times in the past because of 5c, but time passes and some of us have evidently forgotten the damage it has caused. As the facts stand, the Empire is objectively exploiting the results of fifth-column fortification to keep Hudson in turmoil, with an undermining strategy that would fail disastrously should 5c fall short of blanket fortifying Hudson.


I’ll leave you to form your own opinion.

 

[Rebel Yell]

It's widely considered poor form and an exploit because it's pretty much impossible to counter most of the times.

That's why it's been banned within the Archon Delaine powerplay group.

 

[DemiserofD]

No game should rely on enemy player groups cooperating to prevent exploitative Behavior. The fact this issue has not been fixed yet is unpardonable.

 

[Mo Mo]

I mean, was that person pledged to an Imperial Power?

The person who posted those messages was/(is?) an FUC director, not some random person doing it for a laugh.

There were other instances of definite 5c activities; Fed CMDRs killing our haulers when we were trying to prep a pure blocker system for example - an anti-5c activity, so even though we couldn't proof that they initiated the 5c against us (low consolidation vote + massive prep merits going into a known bad system), their action clearly indicate support for 5c.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Powerplay has a fundamental flaw which allows 5C.

It doesn't matter how many nerds get together on Discord to agree that of course, they won't do 5C, there will always be those who place winning above fair play, and they won't agree... or they will agree publicly and then do whatever they want in private.

Until the mechanics are changed, you can shout and scream about it as much as you want on the forums, those who want to 5C will continue to do 5C. And they will laugh at everyone else trying to maintain fair play.

 

[Mo Mo]

For those reading this conversation and are capable of your own reasoning, just consider this:

If the Empire is using 5c tactics against Hudson, why do we have to wait for systems to get fortified before handing in undermining merits? If we are in control of the 5c fortifiers, we could have just blanket undermine Hudson, knowing all the necessary systems will be fortified.

 

[Khan Tannhauser]

No game should rely on enemy player groups cooperating to prevent exploitative Behavior. The fact this issue has not been fixed yet is unpardonable.

I think everyone agrees, but it's easy to blame Frontier while taking advantage of broken mechanics.

What should we as players do while Frontier refuses to address these game-breaking issues? In my opinion this is something the Aisling community and the Empire as a whole should give a thought after the things we're seeing the last few weeks.

 

[Khan Tannhauser]

The person who posted those messages was/(is?) an FUC director, not some random person doing it for a laugh.

There were other instances of definite 5c activities; Fed CMDRs killing our haulers when we were trying to prep a pure blocker system for example - an anti-5c activity, so even though we couldn't proof that they initiated the 5c against us (low consolidation vote + massive prep merits going into a known bad system), their action clearly indicate support for 5c.

This was a misunderstanding that got solved the very same day it happened. We told our pvp guys to leave your haulers alone and you guys managed to put that prep in first place. No harm was done, and on top of that, we helped you oppose that expansion the next cycle.

I'm gonna assume you forgot about the details of this incident, because throwing this here as an accusation is pretty cynical. I can provide screenshots to prove all I have said, just DM me if you want to see them.

 

[Khan Tannhauser]

why do we have to wait for systems to get fortified before handing in undermining merits?

This is not what happened the first week of the attack, when Hudson wasn't in turmoil yet and the Hudson pledges weren't getting the "your power needs your help" notification. You guys handed in your merits since the first day of that cycle and before those systems were fortified.

 

[Darrack]

So how would Fdev stop this? as an outsider 'looking in' it seems to be a problem or result of player actions.
underhanded dealing is nowt new in politics

O7

 

[Khan Tannhauser]

So how would Fdev stop this? as an outsider 'looking in' it seems to be a problem or result of player actions.
underhanded dealing is nowt new in politics

O7

It's not an easy problem to solve because of how Powerplay was designed but there are small tweaks FDev could make that would help immensely and make 5C way less damaging. There's a list of suggestions we posted here, and also Sandro Sammarco's proposal from 2018 that ended up in nothing.

 

[DemiserofD]

I think everyone agrees, but it's easy to blame Frontier while taking advantage of broken mechanics.

What should we as players do while Frontier refuses to address these game-breaking issues? In my opinion this is something the Aisling community and the Empire as a whole should give a thought after the things we're seeing the last few weeks.

Quit.

Seriously, I am legitimately confused why people even bother continuing to try to use the existing system. It's like trying to organize a row boat race in a speed boat course. Yes, if nobody with a speed boat shows up, you can pretend you have something legitimate, but the game is designed for speed boats; the instant anybody with a speedboat shows up, all your effort is instantly wiped away. If you get to the clubhouse, the wall is covered with trophies awarded exclusively to speed boats. Every aspect of the game is designed in such a way as to screw you, and nothing you do matters.

Not only that, but it's functionally impossible to try to play the game without using external services like Discord, anyway.

So why even bother? You would be far better off using your Discord and playerbase to construct a player run variant of power play that actually is fair and doesn't actively try to screw you at every turn.

At least that way, the people running it would actually care. And yes, it wouldn't have any direct impact on the Galaxy, but it's not like power play has any direct impact on the Galaxy either. 99.99% a player action is completely ignored, unless it happens to suit The Narrative they want to follow, and if reality doesn't suit the narrative, they will just pretend that reality is something different.

 

[Intersection]

For those reading this conversation and are capable of your own reasoning, just consider this:

If the Empire is using 5c tactics against Hudson, why do we have to wait for systems to get fortified before handing in undermining merits? If we are in control of the 5c fortifiers, we could have just blanket undermine Hudson, knowing all the necessary systems will be fortified.

We've been monitoring Hudson systems since the beginning of the imperial operation against us: this is inaccurate. Many of our systems - irrespective of profitability - were openly undermined long before they were fortified.

Regardless, this doesn't constitute a viable strategy: had 5c failed to blanket fortify Hudson, and had you followed the plan you describe, we would've simply been left with a large number of cancelled systems, which still leaves us within easy range of a scrap, given Hudson is default negative. We had pilots on the ready to red-team Hudson systems for this very reason.

The only think that could have prevented us from following through was the blanket fifth-column fortification Hudson suffered - not any sort of restraint with regards to redeeming merits.

 

[Khan Tannhauser]

Quit.

This right here is what some people in the empire would love to see, the reason Winters was 5C'ed to death in 2019, and the reason Hudson is being 5C'd right now. The thing is our player groups are stablished communities and don't depend on a CC number in game or the unhanded tactics some people might decide to use against us so I'm sorry to break it to you, but we won't quit.

 

[DemiserofD]

So how would Fdev stop this? as an outsider 'looking in' it seems to be a problem or result of player actions.
underhanded dealing is nowt new in politics

O7

The simplest way to do it would be to remove the potential for negative action. Right now, a single player with enough effort can take a system that forces and entire power negative, forcing them to lose even more systems to get rid of that one.

But the only reason that exists, is to prevent a single power from expanding exponentially and taking over the whole galaxy. There are much better ways to prevent that from happening.

Remove that, and all players can do to hurt their own power is take systems that aren't as good as other systems. But if even the worst system is still a net positive, then 5c is effectively eliminated.