Let me be that one. I'm sure Frontier has an idea how it should work, and also set up mechanics with some parameters for the roll-out, but just as with the thargoid war, only the community feedback will eventually help to fine-tune it into a proper feature. They don't know yet how it will eventually work out.
Elite Dangerous | Powerplay 2.0 Questions and Answers
- Thread starter Paul_Crowther
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Its Thargoid war x 12, all driven by players.
Imagine spinning plates in an earthquake balance challenge.
The questions you should ask yourself:
- How much does the time it takes to raise a module from G3 to G5, vs how much time does it save?
- Are you having fun while gathering those components?
Take, for example, that G5 FSD of yours.
Going for the full G5 increases a G3 DBX fitted for planetary exploration increases the jump range from about fifty-one to fifty-eight. If you are the type of explorer whose goals are "because it was there" style* exploration, or simply want to get to Beagle Point as quickly as possible, then it will be well worth your time to pursue raising that jump range to G5. But if your goal is to simply explore as you travel, you don't care how long it takes to get to your destination, then that extra seven light years jump range really isn't worth the extra effort it takes to acquire.
And if you're flying a mission runner, it definitely isn't worth it if the materials are scarce, because that extra range isn't likely to come into play very often, even over hundreds of hours.
I'm not saying that you should never upgrade your modules to G5. If you've got the mats, and have no other use for them (like trading down to do G3 engineering), then definitely improve your modules to G5. My ships have been upgraded to G5, because I gather my materials and data in-situ. But if you refer to gathering materials as a "grind," or are thinking of quitting rather than engage in engineering, G3 definitely gives you the most bang for your buck. And if you're simply experimenting with a build, then stop G3, test it out, and if you decide like the results, then complete the modifications to G5.
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*which has been superceded by Fleet Carriers anyways
How to keep Superpowers out [of system]?
The only reference that touches this topic in the Q&A isAs the 'janitors' or 'bailiffs' of an independent anarchy with quite some population and economic power for five years, we were wondering what actually can be done to keep powers out?
Like for example the (old pp) concept of blocking an expansion into a system/area by bringing a similar amount of merits from another super-power.
We want to stay neutral and sell our stuff to everyone, as if some power decides to expand into our system this will not only keep clients from other superpowers away but also complicate our job as mercanaries (for whoever pays most) and managing INF as "Powerplay activities can influence the BGS".
We don't want any 'Wagner-like private army' to attack guests from another power in our system.
Unless this new feature is so important that established game-play in this area doesn't matter...
You have to be pledged to a rival power to counter your enemy power- i.e, only pledges can influence systems. The only other way is to wipe out any Power pledge you see in Open.
That should still work, looking at what they've shown so far - and be clearer as to what you need to do compared with PP1.
As with PP1 you'd need to pick some distant power to carry out the counter-attack 'with', but you could drop that again once the battle is over, or keep it to also knock out any of that power's systems that are near your system, to make the point more forcefully and make it harder for them to try again later.
At least a few PMFs got buried for over a year by the Thargoid conflict with no practical way to dig them out [1], so "could this inconvenience BGS faction managers?" certainly isn't an overriding concern for Frontier. Earlier Frontier comments on Powerplay I do also read as PP2 being a deliberate attempt to bring "rather than trade without a purpose, why not trade with one?" to a wider audience, a more official scoring and reward system, and better sustainability against running out of space, and that's certainly has potential as a replacement for the Political sim in those terms.
That said, the removal of the concept of "(un)favourable government types" (and allowing squadrons to support factions and powers from different superpowers) does seem to be a change by Frontier intended to reduce the deliberate impact of Powerplay on the BGS (a Power is less likely to care which faction controls a system), so the effects might be more from increased passing traffic than anything more focused, and if it's not a contested system, maybe not even that.
[1] Most of them, sure, ones which had already been flattened by some other 50-system PMF for who the loss of a few fringe systems was less severe.
All right. If it's just me, I've been playing since 2015, I've had everything on 5th grade for a long time. And as soon as SCO came out recently, I just replaced all my FSDs with SCOs and made them 5th grade, since I have plenty of materials of all sorts as it is. There's nowhere to put the materials anyway.
The main problem for me is going to the engineer and putting in the secondary.
and who play in the same time-zone...
Powers generally have players from all over, but its really doing what you can when you can. But in the end only other pledges can push a system to the unoccupied state.and who play in the same time-zone...
Hi Ian, in that case I'd say force major...
I presume FDev have had some thoughts about that and probably the whole "engine in the background" doesn't allow anything else, although there is a [existing] variable defining the stance of pmfs towards super-powers existing. And as long as a pmf not having any affinity towards a superpower is ruling, this/ose system(s) could have a "can't be occupied" state. But...
Looking forward to it however, I am just afraid that it will not only be enjoyable gameplay but more work
, as I am pretty sure any superpower close (ALD, Denton, Torval and Liu) wouldn't really invade without proper "diplomatic" contacts ahead, as it has been for the last years, but there is always the danger of some randoms "blazing their own way"...
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That would probably be worse for many factions - and probably worse than the PP1 equivalent - as it would give Powers a very direct motivation to attack them and put someone more suitable in charge.
Sure, and more so in PP2 where there's unlikely to be a central organisation you can meaningfully negotiate with. But equally, everyone already has to deal with passing player traffic affecting their systems, and assuming PP2 isn't such a success that it permanently adds an order of magnitude onto the number of active players, it might redistribute players a bit but it's still going to be the case that the median system has single-figure 24-hour traffic and any deliberate BGS manipulation will beat that easily.
(Yes, you could get unlucky and be one of the systems which is unappealing to visit in the current situation but becomes a major attraction in PP2, but it's probably about as likely as the next Thargoid invasion coming in next door to you)
He has some valid points, but I think IMO he is mistaken as to the positioning of PP2- IMO PP2 is really BGS+ and going back to Powerplays original outline of being the conflict layer of the BGS (rather than what happened and the BGS instead being played that way). So just as factions cannot be destroyed, neither can powers.
What I do agree about is Open- there is an awful lot in PP2 that leans towards Open (and other players) and there has to be incentives to play in that mode.
That's a good point, let me add some thoughts.
On some kind of meta level it contradicts the whole idea of pmfs (which might have been abandoned somewhere on the way), on one side probably representing progress (of the game's rules) but on the other side also tastes like some kind of Apple update policy - sorry, you need to buy the new iPhone as yours does only support iOS X.XX but to run all the apps you like, you'd need X.XY and that only runs on the new CPU in the new phone.
Or as in our case, no matter how much time you have invested or story you have been playing in your heads over the years, we preserve the right to just literally iron you flat, if we please.
So a flag for pmfs not having pledged to a superpower, even if what you wrote is certainly possible, would provide at least a possibility to stand against an occupation through the already existing ways via bgs - as you wrote, so why not have this boundry in pp too? Maybe there are not that many pmfs that haven't decided for a super-power, so they can be neglected, but however...
Additionally, it is a rather strange 'narrative' that someone can come to a place, not obtain power but is granted policing rights (which is ofc even stranger, one way or the other, in an anarchy) seems to refer a bit to installed authorities like sovjet polit commissars or the catholic inquisition in the middle-ages, imho
. Anyways, we will see how it develops and if there is interest in our system at all. If so and overpowered by the invaders, there will certainly options to 5C them elsewhere...
As long as the incentives are that it is more engaging or more fun or 'better' to play in open that is fine, but if the incentives are effectively bribes to play there and punishments if you don't then that will be bad.
That's certainly and inevitably true - with thousands of player groups in the game, Legacy is the only version which guarantees nothing will ever change in a way that makes some group or another unable to continue or needing to substantially revise its operations.
So far I've been in groups which have fallen victim to:
- surface material composition being visible on a basic exploration scan
- non-mission NPCs not interdicting players without cargo
- FSDs being purchasable by other players (in fairness, there may have been a bit of a flaw in their plan to start with)
- the Odyssey release being a commercial disaster
I don't have the best of luck with this sort of thing.
I assume you mean "Power" rather than "Superpower" here, since four of the Powers are independent themselves?
The tricky thing here is that no PMF is aligned to a Power currently, so this is either a setup for a giant Powerplay vs PMF war across the entire bubble, where rather than merely crushing the PMFs of unfavourable government types, Powerplay teams now need to crush all of them, or there'd need to be some way to mark them as being aligned or not and there's not an obvious way to do that (and, when it comes down to it, having 11 of 12 powers wanting you out of system control isn't much better than 12 of 12).
Its 'bribes' to join Powerplay to begin with, including all the heat (hopefully) that comes with that- to me its the same again.
The question will always be making Open worth risking being 'in' when there are actual stakes, since you have strategic gains as well as personal ones depending on mode. FD (from the livestreams) see Open having more of a focus (things are framed from PvP perspectives and that killing other players is an objective in the UI) and that as the streamer points out other modes do remove all that.
Taking the example of player kills- if they are weighted too little or too much, people won't bother or see them as being too much of a strategic risk (since all kills count either to UM or fortify). In that case players might not choose to risk that situation and stay in other modes- this presumes that if NPCs kill players that is not counted the same (it hopefully should, but in PP today it does not).
In other threads this has been er...talked about (
) but for me it would be things like adjusting wing bonuses, so that in Open you keep the x4, PG is lowered to x2 and that you don't get them in solo (naturally). This would encourage wings and reward it in the places of the game that it matters most- Open Powerplay without being distorting. Add to that we know one of the bonuses is rebuy cost reductions, I'd like that scaled to Open as well (since you'll be shot down more often). Other ideas were making certain actions in solo only count for personal Tier rewards (and no INF gain for the power)- such as areas like Stronghold FC sabotage. This obviously depends on NPC resistance- if its actually decent then the muting won't make sense because solo would be more often harder since its just you.
Playing AX I can actually see that it's easier to play solo. For every commander there are more enemies and more aggression they create.
The biggest issue with PP is people being able to oppose other powers efforts from solo and pg. Put it open only and that disappears. Now the haulers are opposable and need cap to get to the destination. I get the impression that you have never engaged with a power play group.
Open mode facilitates the recruiting and payment of noobs into an army of effective agents, you can't do that in either private group or solo mode, someone really needs to handicap open mode, its seriously overpowered.