CG predictions...

[Factabulous]

TRIAL OF FLEET ADMIRAL VINCENT BEGINS
The Federal High Court on Mars has opened the trial of Fleet Admiral Lucas Vincent, who is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and treason.
Vincent stands accused of organising the sabotage of Starship One in 3301, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
The Federal Times’s crime correspondent Ethan Takahashi reported:
“The trial began with the prosecution counsel outlining the case. Material evidence obtained from Chief Technician Rory Webster, whose testimony led to Vincent’s arrest, was presented before the jury.”
“Vincent was questioned about a secure transmission from his office to the presidential vessel on the 24th of May 3301, ordering an unscheduled diversion to the Azaleach system for routine maintenance. This is where Webster’s engineering team followed Vincent’s orders to install the sabotaged hyperdrive component that caused the misjump.”
“Evading the questions, Vincent claimed that the entire trial was a ‘Liberal Party cover-up’ and that Starship One was destroyed ‘to put Winters in charge’.”
“With the loss of President Halsey and Vice President Naylor, Felicia Winters did indeed assume the role of acting president and became leader of the Liberal Party. However, the defence counsel played down these accusations, instead declaring that Webster’s recordings of Vincent’s orders could have been falsified.”

 

[aRJay]

As speculated, the daily deliveries declined over the weekend (very unusual, Saturday & Sunday are usually biggies). Sunday has a few hours to go yet, but I can't see that changing much.

View attachment 205525

Utopia is now at the delivery level Sirius reached 2 days ago, with the delivery levels dropping (and we would expect them to keep dropping on weekdays) it is pretty much impossible for Utopia to stage a comeback
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Always counter-intuitive to me that people would continue delivering for Utopia in this situation - but they're still doing it. (I guess you could say the same about Sirius supporters, though they at least have the chance of T3 I think)
View attachment 205530

Perhaps they are hoping to match the total deliveries and force a draw.

 

[Factabulous]

Perhaps they are hoping to match the total deliveries and force a draw.

Well, yes - the goal of the CG is to win.

I just don't know why they think they can - with less than half the time to go they have only about half the amount that Sirius has - so (assuming Sirius doesn't stop) they need to gather twice as much as Sirius, but with half the contributor count. And yet they will probably carry on until the very end. People eh?

 

[Danieros]

Perhaps they are hoping to match the total deliveries and force a draw.

They explicitly state in CG text that if both sides end on the same tier, the winner will be the one with highest contribution.

It makes me wonder if this isn't the case when they don't mention it. I'm not sure it ever happened, though. One side eventually gets tired of the uphill battle, though for this CG since it isn't an activity that pays (and the optimal method is disgusting relog "gameplay"), both sides slowed down.

 

[Rubbernuke]

They explicitly state in CG text that if both sides end on the same tier, the winner will be the one with highest contribution.

It makes me wonder if this isn't the case when they don't mention it. I'm not sure it ever happened, though. One side eventually gets tired of the uphill battle, though for this CG since it isn't an activity that pays (and the optimal method is disgusting relog "gameplay"), both sides slowed down.

Its why I find it puzzling they set it up like they did- its not especially exciting, and odds on it won't matter who hosts it.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Its why I find it puzzling they set it up like they did- its not especially exciting, and odds on it won't matter who hosts it.

Or at least, to the extent that it does matter who hosts it - and they certainly both have hidden agendas - there's been no real hints as to what that agenda might be, beyond general knowledge about those organisations.

 

[Factabulous]

At the moment they seem to be trying to bring as many PP names into the story as possible. While maintaining complete radio silence on PP in EDO. Does make me wonder if we're going to get a PP 'Red Wedding' event ... 🗡⚔

 

[Nadreck]

At the moment they seem to be trying to bring as many PP names into the story as possible. While maintaining complete radio silence on PP in EDO. Does make me wonder if we're going to get a PP 'Red Wedding' event ... 🗡⚔

Of course, there's one PP power they can't use in any story, because he's technically still "owned" by a group of players. Even though that group has since abandoned him, Frontier can't make decisions on his behalf now.

Yuri Grom has become the crazy uncle that nobody talks about.

 

[Danieros]

Its why I find it puzzling they set it up like they did- its not especially exciting, and odds on it won't matter who hosts it.

I do think it matters who hosts it, because they're making it pretty clear there can be no ties here.

Also, no module or decal. They certainly don't want the usual "noise" from folks just farming the CG for a personal reward.

Indirect rewards are a thing - the most noticeable examples that come to my mind are the ship escape quantity for the Ackwada Marlinist CG, and the engineer base flipping versus module reward.

I'd love if Frontier released the "what if" collection as a digital book or something like that - all the writing/plot differences they had for CGs with different outcomes.

 

[Factabulous]

I do think it matters who hosts it, because they're making it pretty clear there can be no ties here.

The wording is, I think, the same as for all competitive CGs.

I can't see the winner being important as they've not made that clear. If we retrospectively find out that choosing Sirius led to wholesale massacre where choosing Antal would have led to superpower peace and love I don't think it would be seen as a great move. At most there will be minor changes to upcoming galnets - replacing Antal with LYR

 

[maehara]

At the moment they seem to be trying to bring as many PP names into the story as possible. While maintaining complete radio silence on PP in EDO. Does make me wonder if we're going to get a PP 'Red Wedding' event ... 🗡⚔

I'd be up for that.
::grabs popcorn::

 

[Nadreck]

Well, supposedly Sirius provided the double-engineered FSD. Perhaps if Sirius win this, there will be a subsequent CG in which there's another chance to get one of those.

...Which would mean losing a chance to get something else from Utopia. As they're supposedly a high-tech society, that could have been almost anything.

We still don't know where the Marlinists got their improved PD turrets.

 

[CMDR Serra]

...
I'd love if Frontier released the "what if" collection as a digital book or something like that - all the writing/plot differences they had for CGs with different outcomes.

There are very few CGs where the result wasn't determined ahead of time. The Sirius explo CG for instance - they adjusted the targets so it didn't fail.

The only vaguely contentious ones would have been the competitive head to head ones and even then I can see a way that they could have reached the same ultimate outcome either way - although with slightly different "fluff". For instance - if all the Marlinist ships had escaped, or alternatively - none escaped, what would have been the actual difference in terms of result? Some would have escaped on "smaller ships" either way. So... the level of population in a half dozen systems?

TLDR - I think the "what ifs" list would be quite similar to the "what actually happened" list.

 

[Danieros]

There are very few CGs where the result wasn't determined ahead of time. The Sirius explo CG for instance - they adjusted the targets so it didn't fail.

The only vaguely contentious ones would have been the competitive head to head ones and even then I can see a way that they could have reached the same ultimate outcome either way - although with slightly different "fluff". For instance - if all the Marlinist ships had escaped, or alternatively - none escaped, what would have been the actual difference in terms of result? Some would have escaped on "smaller ships" either way. So... the level of population in a half dozen systems?

TLDR - I think the "what ifs" list would be quite similar to the "what actually happened" list.

Yup, there are very few of these cases and only at two-sided competitive CGs but I'd still be interested even if it's just a few different paragraphs of flavor text. I don't think Frontier has anything prepared for the non-competitive CGs failing to reach Tier 1.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The only vaguely contentious ones would have been the competitive head to head ones and even then I can see a way that they could have reached the same ultimate outcome either way - although with slightly different "fluff". For instance - if all the Marlinist ships had escaped, or alternatively - none escaped, what would have been the actual difference in terms of result? Some would have escaped on "smaller ships" either way. So... the level of population in a half dozen systems?

TLDR - I think the "what ifs" list would be quite similar to the "what actually happened" list.

Definitely agreed for the story so far, plus they need to get decent calibration on each of the CG types for what a reasonable weekly target is, especially with the new or rarer types, how much different rewards affect that, and so on. It's a tricky thing to balance, I guess - a CG with meaningful story impact (competitive or otherwise) they need a very good idea of likely totals so that it doesn't end up finished in an hour or hanging on at 1% at the end of the week, whereas the more interesting CGs are the ones which have some creativity.

And certainly they don't want too many meaningful branching points in the story, since that's going to make it far too hard to plan ahead if anything needs development support.

Equally, if they have any mechanism for influencing the Alliance election at all, that's only about a month away...

 

[SCiARA]

for all their target meddling in the past they seem to have no interest in this CG

 

[Sinister Evil]

my money says sirius wins, then frames one of the super powers for killing all the diplomats

 

[maehara]

"Good news! Our subsidiary, Sirius Atmospherics, has finally gotten their new ammonia-world terraforming tech to work! So we're going to hold the conference on the test planet out in the Coalsack. Don't worry, it'll be fine. Perfectly safe."

 

[Rubbernuke]

I kind of want Antal to get mad though, this is twice now someones crossed him- less of the 'ho hum' and gets his Guru Fists of Rage out somehow. Its quite annoying that losing a CG the Tier Ones don't have more other than "well, we tried but here is the payout". Patty is due some revenge time, and now Pranav too.

 

[Factabulous]

No CG this week - something lore related?