Definitely. It's either going to be:
- this doesn't work (or at least, is inefficient compared with intended options) because of [some balancing factor]
- this does work (and maybe at some point Frontier will patch or rebalance that after the "how to win Powerplay" guides come out)
Checking individual behaviour would certainly be possible but a complete waste of time even if they had the people to spare to do it.
I think it breaks down into two groups: the 5C stuff (which is pure mechanical exploitation) which FD seem to have ironed out- and then Open based issues which can also be ironed out
if FD wish it.
For example- the commander alt farming. The easiest way is use the commanders weekly rank within the power (which is a thing- used for the Top 10 but also you can see this value when a ship is targeted) and link it to kill 'value'.
An alt will (unless pumped up by playing- thus defeating the exploit since all work counts) be low value and with an S curve like weight be worth much, much less than someone just playing. Its going to be a massive slog for the exploiter to fly out, destroy, fly out, destroy etc when its value is incredibly low.
We do assume that
there is an INF value attached to this as well. If there is no intrinsic value in the kill then it comes down to
what the player was doing that was stopped. It might be that all kills are
personal rewards that only advance us up the ladder- so its gaming the system but not the strategic layer itself.
And FD might also see continual destruction and go- eh? Even easier might be that the same S curve has diminished returns
at the top to prevent infinite returns. This would mirror the BGS where after a set amount of kills you max out your influence for that tick in that system.