And in the midst of the party the Goids stomp in and wreck everyone.
CG predictions...
- Thread starter CMDR Serra
- Start date
Last CGs back to the start of 2024 (most recent first)
- PP warzones (combat)
- BGS warzones (combat)
- trade (trade)
- mining (trade, just about)
- bounty hunting (combat)
- BGS warzones (combat)
- trade/bounty pair (both)
- exploration (neither)
- Titan killing (combat)
- AX (combat)
- research (neither) + trade (trade)
- trade (trade)
- trade/bounty pair (both)
- salvage (neither)
- trade/bounty pair (both)
- AX sampling (combat-ish)
- Guardian relic collection (neither)
I think the most you can say is that Frontier tries to not repeat exactly the same type of CG on too many consecutive occasions. But there are six different types of combat CG now and six types of non-combat CG (with the last Rares CG being in late 2023 for a seventh possible one there) so if you just go on the combat/non-combat distinction you might well see longer runs of the same type.
- PP warzones (combat)
- BGS warzones (combat)
- trade (trade)
- mining (trade, just about)
- bounty hunting (combat)
- BGS warzones (combat)
- trade/bounty pair (both)
- exploration (neither)
- Titan killing (combat)
- AX (combat)
- research (neither) + trade (trade)
- trade (trade)
- trade/bounty pair (both)
- salvage (neither)
- trade/bounty pair (both)
- AX sampling (combat-ish)
- Guardian relic collection (neither)
I think the most you can say is that Frontier tries to not repeat exactly the same type of CG on too many consecutive occasions. But there are six different types of combat CG now and six types of non-combat CG (with the last Rares CG being in late 2023 for a seventh possible one there) so if you just go on the combat/non-combat distinction you might well see longer runs of the same type.
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Sadly a few CG types have disappeared completely, so we have less variety than we used to.
Are you sure?
Thanks. Fixed...
NGL, the recent PP CGs confuse the hell out of me.
I'm not going to rehash my disdain for PP2, but my understanding of PP2 is that it's meant to be a framework for group vs group competitive play. And indeed, my criticism of "is the point of PP2 just 'what colour are the dots on the map, and who has the most of one colour?'" is often rebutted (fairly) with "if competition with others doesn't appeal to you, that doesn't mean it's a bad design". True enough.
But if that's the case, are these CGs not skewing PP activity for/against powers, and/or leaving others (unfairly) untouched? Dusting in my own opinion again, but despite the amount of players wearing their heart on their sleeve when it comes to Factions...the BGS has never been designed as a competitive, group vs group system. It's inherently very unfair even if left alone... and so CGs, the Thargoid war, even PP2 itself, is all "fair play" even if it very drastically affects for better or worse, a particular faction.
But PP... that's meant to be fair and balanced... we've seen whole activities disabled because they're unfair. That's never happened with the BGS because it's not a fair competitive system. But PP is meant to be.... so doesn't this just throw that all to the wind? Just makes no sense to me.
I'm not going to rehash my disdain for PP2, but my understanding of PP2 is that it's meant to be a framework for group vs group competitive play. And indeed, my criticism of "is the point of PP2 just 'what colour are the dots on the map, and who has the most of one colour?'" is often rebutted (fairly) with "if competition with others doesn't appeal to you, that doesn't mean it's a bad design". True enough.
But if that's the case, are these CGs not skewing PP activity for/against powers, and/or leaving others (unfairly) untouched? Dusting in my own opinion again, but despite the amount of players wearing their heart on their sleeve when it comes to Factions...the BGS has never been designed as a competitive, group vs group system. It's inherently very unfair even if left alone... and so CGs, the Thargoid war, even PP2 itself, is all "fair play" even if it very drastically affects for better or worse, a particular faction.
But PP... that's meant to be fair and balanced... we've seen whole activities disabled because they're unfair. That's never happened with the BGS because it's not a fair competitive system. But PP is meant to be.... so doesn't this just throw that all to the wind? Just makes no sense to me.
It's a tricky one, certainly - and I do think CGs are a poor fit for Powerplay in general because all the mechanical stuff Powerplay already does better.
- the CG itself has no direct Powerplay effect, whoever wins
- it obviously has a very large indirect Powerplay effect by bringing unusually many players to a particular system to do stuff which also (if they're pledged) might score Control Points for one side or another
- most CGs if they take place in a Powerplay system, because of how broken the Undermining activity selection is, are just free reinforcement for the owning Power despite being on paper outnumbered ~11:1 (and that includes, of course, CGs with nothing narratively to do with Powerplay at all)
- these CGs do at least use one of the few symmetric Powerplay activities so the Undermining levels are keeping rough pace with the Reinforcement taken across all six systems rather than being "hey, free Stronghold"
As far as total Powerplay balance goes...
- ultimately it's irrelevant to the outcome, it's six systems of Duval's at stake, none of particular importance, two of which on current rates they'll lose by the end of the two week period, during which time Duval will probably gain fifty more elsewhere, and the two they'll probably lose they have a very good chance of just taking straight back (if they want them) once the CG is over.
- while no Power gets attacked very much in normal circumstances, one of the reasons for Duval heading for the top of the leaderboard is that they usually get attacked less than most. So the CG levels the odds somewhat on that.
- overall Powerplay balance (even just in terms of how easy different Powers find it to Reinforce/Acquire their own systems peacefully) is a sufficient mess as things stand that a CG loosely targeting one of the beneficiaries of that imbalance is a very crude hack but arguably better than doing nothing
So I think as a long-term goal, this sort of thing shouldn't be needed because it should arise naturally out of people playing Powerplay. But it hasn't been and so many changes would need to be made to make that happen, so as a short-term patch over that it's fine.
(Whether Frontier actually understands why there's no real inter-Power hostility going on in Powerplay is hard to tell. Most of their rebalancing so far has been largely irrelevant to it)
- the CG itself has no direct Powerplay effect, whoever wins
- it obviously has a very large indirect Powerplay effect by bringing unusually many players to a particular system to do stuff which also (if they're pledged) might score Control Points for one side or another
- most CGs if they take place in a Powerplay system, because of how broken the Undermining activity selection is, are just free reinforcement for the owning Power despite being on paper outnumbered ~11:1 (and that includes, of course, CGs with nothing narratively to do with Powerplay at all)
- these CGs do at least use one of the few symmetric Powerplay activities so the Undermining levels are keeping rough pace with the Reinforcement taken across all six systems rather than being "hey, free Stronghold"
As far as total Powerplay balance goes...
- ultimately it's irrelevant to the outcome, it's six systems of Duval's at stake, none of particular importance, two of which on current rates they'll lose by the end of the two week period, during which time Duval will probably gain fifty more elsewhere, and the two they'll probably lose they have a very good chance of just taking straight back (if they want them) once the CG is over.
- while no Power gets attacked very much in normal circumstances, one of the reasons for Duval heading for the top of the leaderboard is that they usually get attacked less than most. So the CG levels the odds somewhat on that.
- overall Powerplay balance (even just in terms of how easy different Powers find it to Reinforce/Acquire their own systems peacefully) is a sufficient mess as things stand that a CG loosely targeting one of the beneficiaries of that imbalance is a very crude hack but arguably better than doing nothing
So I think as a long-term goal, this sort of thing shouldn't be needed because it should arise naturally out of people playing Powerplay. But it hasn't been and so many changes would need to be made to make that happen, so as a short-term patch over that it's fine.
(Whether Frontier actually understands why there's no real inter-Power hostility going on in Powerplay is hard to tell. Most of their rebalancing so far has been largely irrelevant to it)
Same. The harshness of dystopian futures are often counterbalanced by a bit of laconic humour so it's nice to see somebody remembering this.
For me it’s just rather ironic, that the galaxy’s worst corporate wage slaver megacorporation is offering (I should say claiming) to be the better option for the system’s governance, right alongside Hudson Jr/2.0 who is possibly an even worse despot right to [liberal lore interpretation] having his personal PDB division in disregard to Winters’ ruling it illegal, and would probably turn the Federation into an even worse corporate hellscape than it already is*. Which would be an impressive achievement for its own reasons.
All in the face of the one (important?) person advocating for an Empire without slavery, whether that is genuine or for political traction. Also just going to leave the ‘hot potato’ Torval tried to throw into the mix out, for now…
*… but probably still not as awful as Rochester’s version would’ve been.
All in the face of the one (important?) person advocating for an Empire without slavery, whether that is genuine or for political traction. Also just going to leave the ‘hot potato’ Torval tried to throw into the mix out, for now…
*… but probably still not as awful as Rochester’s version would’ve been.
CG numbers suggest that a lot of players agree with that, Aisling is comfortably winning overall. Some systems might change hands though. That is probably going to be decided by the individual battle results per system, not overall lead.
Judging by the current early numbers, the two systems with a megaship might flip to unoccupied but who actually obtains (or regains) them is up in the air, since it’s likely not everyone fighting there is pledged to Archer.
It’s also a big might, if Aisling’s supporters put a bigger focus on those most active locations to outdo the undermining applied through combat there.
(I also don’t know who does and doesn’t have eligible fortified or stronghold systems in range since it’s not the kind of attention I pay but Ian is always at hand with that sort of information)
It’s also a big might, if Aisling’s supporters put a bigger focus on those most active locations to outdo the undermining applied through combat there.
(I also don’t know who does and doesn’t have eligible fortified or stronghold systems in range since it’s not the kind of attention I pay but Ian is always at hand with that sort of information)
The Powerplay tab on Inara has this - e.g. https://inara.cz/elite/starsystem-powerplay/1492/ - though it does take a bit of sorting to extract the specific info needed
For Archer's attack on Santy: Duval, Grom, Archer, ALD and Torval are all in range to retake it.
For LYR's attack on Gondul: Duval, ALD and Torval are all in range. Curiously, LYR isn't
The other four are seeing net Reinforcement so will probably be kept by Duval regardless.
I wonder what happens if a system goes Unoccupied this Thursday. Hopefully the PCZs stick around even before the conflict threshold is crossed.