Powerplay Dataset Issue

Sandro Sammarco

Lead Designer
Frontier
Hello Commanders!

A couple of Powerplay data sets have become slightly out of sync. This has lead to a few systems not correctly showing as exploited, and in a couple of cases, failed to account for new populations.

In the next cycle change we will fix the exploited systems and populations, which will mean a slight increase in CC (between 4 and 7) for powers affected, but one Power (Mahon) will lose around 10 CC because a system they are exploiting will correctly show as contested (by Torval).

We’re will keep an eye on the numbers to see if anything else crops up.
 
Is this related to this bug report?

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/353226-Galaxy-Map-doesn-t-match-PowerPlay

Is it in any way related to this bug?

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/354152-Possible-to-prep-already-exploited-system

Quite a few of us suspect that these are linked - if the data that PowerPlay uses for its calculations and rule enforcement doesn't match reality, then not only do we get situations where the income is incorrect, but also situations where systems that should be exploited doesn't end up counting as exploited by the rule enforcement.
 
I should probably expand a bit - if the 10 CC that Mahon loses, is indeed due to a single exploited system, then this dataset issue doesn't fix the issue that I've been seeing in the data for a while - probably at least a year.
 
When will the changes be applied relative to the rest of the tick processing? LYR is in turmoil, and it's tricky enough to figure out the numbers as it is. If the numbers change before or during the tick, systems could be retained or lost based on unknown data.
 
As far as I can tell Torval has a couple of control spheres whose income defies every rule known to me. Until now I have refrained from a bug report because a) the issue is already known and reported in other bug reports, e.g. the one linked by Vectron above, and b) I could not rule out my data was outdated or wrong. However, with more and more current data being generated and accessible via third party apps, I am having a hard time to understand the CC values of e.g.

EHECATL (base income on PP tab = 141 CC, base income by system CC count = 126 CC)
CASPATSURIA (base income on PP tab = 19CC, base income by system CC count = 48CC)
LFT 37 (base income on PP tab = 140CC, base income by system CC count = 104CC).

There are more, but these three show the biggest difference between expected value and value displayed (and calculated) in-game.
 
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Well, I am curious to see what the outcome of this is. From what I can tell, there's only one contested system between Mahon and Torval worth 10 CC and that's in Contien, and by my "quick and dirty" comparison, Contien was generating 22 CC less than it should - not more.

But we'll have to see what happens after the tick.
 
Okay, now we're past the tick, and I'm still seeing issues with the Galaxy Map not matching PowerPlay, and PowerPlay reporting income numbers that are not supported by sum(round(log10(population * 10))).

I'm not sure what you were hoping to fix, Sandro, but it's not fixed one of the major issues with properly calculating/displaying PowerPlay income
 
Dear Sandro

It's obvious you are willing to help us get to the bottom of these problems - otherwise you wouldn't be posting here. As such, I have a data request that can help us all out.

I would like to ask for a list of exploited systems that looks a bit like this:

System name ; control system ; population

If we have that, we can very very quickly figure out where the problems lie. We'll be able to correct the numbers in eddb and thus be able to calculate what the numbers should be, and we'd be able to spot how systems end up with the wrong income (i.e. how does a system end up with 30CC income more than it's bubble's population supports? Oh - it's exploiting a system that isn't in range.)

Pretty please with sugar on top :)
 
Here's the breakdown of what's wrong with just one of the PowerPlay bubbles. I'm using Pongo as an example, partly because it's one of "my" systems (I'm Mahon pledged and have been a Mahon organizer for about 100 weeks, so it's not biased against anyone else), partly because I've known about the issue with this sytem for probably more than a year. I've even bug reported this issue that long ago, without singling out Pongo, because I want the issue fixed, not a single system patched.

Anyway - Pongo.

According to the Galaxy Map, Pongo has a radius income of 150 CC.

5t0cvDg.png


According to the PowerPlay menu, Pongo has a radius income of 185 CC.

4sESe4I.png


According to the CSV-files, Pongo has a radius income of 185 CC.

So, which is right?

Well, it used to be that you couldn't trust the galaxy map for these values, but in this case this is not correct.

This is the populated Pongo bubble:
unknown.png


4th column is population, right hand column is the calculated CC for each of those system. That income is calculated as round(log10(population * 10)). The total income is calculated as the sum of these individual numbers.

Notice that this adds up to 150.

But wait, I hear you say, how do you know that these are the correct population numbers? How can you be sure you haven't forgotten some systems?

Feel free to go through and verify them yourself - I've attached an album with pictures of every system's sytem map along with the navigation list for Pongo's neighbours within 15 light years.

http://imgur.com/gallery/cS0rO

Now, this is the second time I'm quite literally spending hours on making a bug report for something that quite honestly should have been picked up by QA, or at the very least have been made in at least as much detail by QA from the number of bug reports that we have posted with regards to these issues.

Please take us serious. The number of bugs that keep arising from the same kind of issue (if not the EXACT same root cause) is frustrating. Not getting proper income? Same root cause. Able to prep systems that are already exploited? Same root cause - incorrect PowerPlay data calculations. Not winning expansions because they are more expensive than it seems? Same root cause - incorrect PowerPlay data calculations. Unable to prep systems, because they are more expensive than shown? Probably the same root cause.

And so on and so forth.

Please - take us serious instead of letting our bug reports go unanswered for ages or just following up with "we've passed this on", because that's what we keep getting told, and nothing changes. Please don't make me force a space loach to eat a sock.
 
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They do from time to time. Alioth increased by 40+% out of the blue and went from 10 to 14 billion, Lave saw a 10x increase in its population from 2.5 billion to 25 billion.

Oh yeah, I remember Lave used to be a hotspot when rares trading used to be a thing. That's an impressive increase.
 
one Power (Mahon) will lose around 10 CC because a system they are exploiting will correctly show as contested (by Torval).

I am now genuinely more curious than I was before the tick.

The only system that your data could possibly refer to is NLTT 35146, which is contested between Aranbarahun (Mahon) and Gaula (Torval), yet Aranbarahun's income hasn't changed.

But guess what bug reared its head.

zU3xZKh.png


eoV0jPl.png


Yup - it's the good old bug where the Galaxy Map income does not match the PowerPlay menu income. And not only does it not match, it's off by the exact amount of CC that you said said Mahon should be losing.

At what point do I get to say "I told you so"?
 
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