Powerplay FD, Powerplay needs the merits sorted out ASAP. Surely this is being looked at?

[Miko]

If anything, undermining is not something that should naturally be rewarded more highly than fortification on a time cost basis JUST because it is harder.

Branding fortification as "cheap" and "too easy" is frankly wrong, on so many levels.

Reason:
Protecting your faction has a lot more natural "moral" merit. (see what I did there)

Solution:

If anything fortification/preparation is significantly UNDER rewarded, there should be a 6th or a 7th Tier where fort/prep merit rewards are perhaps 2 for large amounts of merits gained through diligent fortification where the fortification/preparation is done properly and toward profit making enterprises, so not toward loss making expansions, loss making control systems.

This would rely on FDev providing baseline upkeep (the 62.1) missing fron the stats and providing this information in Control View and Preparation Summary.

This would reward the loyal and assist in combatting 5c with a simple solution.

This is along the lines I'm talking. Thanks for the response.

 

[Martin Schou]

5th columning isn't as simple as preparing systems that do not make a profit. If that was the case, then myself and other Mahon organizers would be responsible for repeated 5th column attacks on Mahon because we've picked systems for other reasons, as are a lot of the organizers at Winters and Hudson for pushing the offensive preps into ALD space.

There is no fast and easy way to determine if something is a 5th column attack. For example, so far this cycle Mahon pledges has put 7,666 merits into DR Crucis. This is a profitable system (81 CC), but it's not one that the Mahon subreddit is interested in. As such it looks to us as a 5th column prep system, and any automated test would fail in detecting it.

The simplest way to fix 5th column attacks is to make preps limited. Each pledge only gets allocated the same amount of preparation goods as they have nominations for the entire cycle. If you're rating 1, you get no say with the power. If you're rank 2, you get 10 nominations and you can pick up 10 tons of preparation materials that cycle. If you're rating 5, you get 250 nominations, and you can pick up 250 tons of preparation materials that cycle.

This is by far the simplest solution, as it requires a minuscule amount of coding on FDev's behalf, it still makes it possible for saboteurs to do their dirty work, but more importantly it also makes it possible to actually counter the saboteurs. Currently the best way to sabotage preps is to build up a massive cash reserve (hello completely unbalanced bounty hunting bonuses) and then spend your week fast tracking a shedload of preps into a system of your choice.

It will also fix Aisling's bonus curse, because it will no longer be possible for trade grinders to completely swamp her prep list week after week by preparing systems with average prices on expensive goods and then selling them for 10% extra in Aislng's space. This change will make it easier for Aisling to actually get back in shape, because shedding bad systems right now will simply result in new bad systems being prepped and then expanded using the exact same bonus curse.

Sandro says he's concerned because it will mean that prep wars will be won by the most populous power, but that's already the case. Currently Mahon will never win a prep war against ALD or Hudson for two reasons. 1) Rank 5 ALD and Hudson pledges only have to spend a few hours to afford fast tracking 10,000 merits and 2) There are far more ALD and Hudson pledges than Mahon pledges, and they could out prep us simply through nominations alone (something we've seen Hudson do before when they've been in turmoil). Changing the current system to my system simply removed number 1 from the equation and means that number 2 is still active. In other words it improves on the current situation.

Fifth columning/sabotage needs to have a place in PowerPlay, just like PvP and player piracy needs to have a place in the regular game.

That being said - I do think it's rather strange that all ten powers are run by blood crazed terrorist supporters, who will gladly pay you 50 million credits for blowing up innocent people, but will charge you out the nose if you want to do useful work for your power (fast tracking fortification merits for example). I'd like to see FDev revisit the merit rewards for undermining for this particular reason, just like I'd like to see them revisit the bonuses (active and passive) and PowerPlay items. For example, why are we almost 40 weeks into the release of PowerPlay with Mahon still being stuck with passive bonuses that do not work along with a weapon that quite literally does not work? You would think that these things would have been noticed somewhere along the way in QA, but no matter how much we bug report it, it keeps being ignored. Anti-Alliance bias much? But that's a discussion for another day.

 

[aspiringexpatriate]

I'm just going to quote everyone who has already said what I think about this topic.

I don't think it should be easier to maintain the distant systems than it already is.

[...]

That being said, I do find it rather moronic that every single power in PowerPlay appears to be run by a blood thirsty terrorist supporter who would rather pay you fifty million credits each cycle for committing acts of terrorism (undermining) than supporting their political ambitions (fortifications), but it does serve to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of player willingness to aid their power beyond selfish reasons.

In any case, the increasing difficulty in maintaining distant systems is something that needs to stay. It's a good way of limiting overall expansion

Distant systems SHOULD be harder to hold on to. Having less players willing to travel to fortify a system helps to limit the overall expansion of a power.

In fact it is the only thing which limits overall profitable expansion. Your players' willingness to travel that far.

The minor factions that would benefit Hudson are virtually unheard of in our systems not to mention that if we moved these factions in we would need to flip our systems away from Federation to Independent and Empire.

Yes, but Hudson does not suffer from having independent feudal governors under his influence, does he? We crossed that bridge a long time ago, and as we stand for justice and order, having independent and even Federation governors in Control systems is only damaging if they're dictators.

If every single one of our systems are undermined, we'd need to fortify something like 350,000 merits to stay out of turmoil, and we're more than capable of doing that.

It is truly impressive. Every week I see 11-14 systems undermined on your stats page, and yet y'all haven't dipped into Turmoil since Pongo?

The simplest way to fix 5th column attacks is to make preps limited. Each pledge only gets allocated the same amount of preparation goods as they have nominations for the entire cycle. If you're rating 1, you get no say with the power. If you're rank 2, you get 10 nominations and you can pick up 10 tons of preparation materials that cycle. If you're rating 5, you get 250 nominations, and you can pick up 250 tons of preparation materials that cycle.

This is by far the simplest solution, as it requires a minuscule amount of coding on FDev's behalf, it still makes it possible for saboteurs to do their dirty work, but more importantly it also makes it possible to actually counter the saboteurs. Currently the best way to sabotage preps is to build up a massive cash reserve (hello completely unbalanced bounty hunting bonuses) and then spend your week fast tracking a shedload of preps into a system of your choice.

That would be a fix. My proposal from months ago was to leave preparation as it is, but only for 6 days. Every Wednesday, every Power would have 14 hours to cast their nominations into those Top 10 systems as the final 'vote'. It's a marriage of both your system and the current one.

Fifth columning/sabotage needs to have a place in PowerPlay, just like PvP and player piracy needs to have a place in the regular game.

That being said - I do think it's rather strange that all ten powers are run by blood crazed terrorist supporters, who will gladly pay you 50 million credits for blowing up innocent people, but will charge you out the nose if you want to do useful work for your power (fast tracking fortification merits for example). I'd like to see FDev revisit the merit rewards for undermining for this particular reason, just like I'd like to see them revisit the bonuses (active and passive) and PowerPlay items. For example, why are we almost 40 weeks into the release of PowerPlay with Mahon still being stuck with passive bonuses that do not work along with a weapon that quite literally does not work? You would think that these things would have been noticed somewhere along the way in QA, but no matter how much we bug report it, it keeps being ignored. Anti-Alliance bias much? But that's a discussion for another day.

Agreed on both accounts.

Frankly, I don't understand how combat undermining offers merit vouchers at all.

Power sponsored piracy? Essentially, privateer work, and it'd be wonderful if that was galaxy-wide. Opposition, sure, fortification, definitely, but rampant murder being rewarded? It's a bit disgusting.

 

[Martin Schou]

Frankly, I don't understand how combat undermining offers merit vouchers at all.

Power sponsored piracy? Essentially, privateer work, and it'd be wonderful if that was galaxy-wide. Opposition, sure, fortification, definitely, but rampant murder being rewarded? It's a bit disgusting.

You could change how opposition works.

Opposing combat expansions is done in the combat zones.

Opposing transport expansions is done via transport by bringing your own expansion PowerPlay goods to the expansion target.

Undermining is done by transporting your own PowerPlay goods to the undermining target.

It would require a little bit of reworking of some of the names, as it doesn't make a LOT of sense for Kumo Crew to ship Marked Slaves into Mahon's control systems to somehow undermine Mahon's control, whereas shipping garrison supplies to foster violent uprisings makes sense.

Obviously this would make undermining in open a LOT more fun, because now you are going to have your transport ship trying to get to dock somewhere without losing its precious cargo, but it would also make armed convoys a thing. Could further this by having merits shared across the wing just like you do with wing bonuses.

But changing how undermining works is going to be a major revamp of PowerPlay.

 

[xDreadnoughtx]

You could change how opposition works.

Opposing combat expansions is done in the combat zones.

Opposing transport expansions is done via transport by bringing your own expansion PowerPlay goods to the expansion target.

Undermining is done by transporting your own PowerPlay goods to the undermining target.

It would require a little bit of reworking of some of the names, as it doesn't make a LOT of sense for Kumo Crew to ship Marked Slaves into Mahon's control systems to somehow undermine Mahon's control, whereas shipping garrison supplies to foster violent uprisings makes sense.

Obviously this would make undermining in open a LOT more fun, because now you are going to have your transport ship trying to get to dock somewhere without losing its precious cargo, but it would also make armed convoys a thing. Could further this by having merits shared across the wing just like you do with wing bonuses.

But changing how undermining works is going to be a major revamp of PowerPlay.

Dare I mention solo/open. It somewhat sinks armed convoys and "a LOT more fun".

I have come round to the idea of PowerPlay=open only. Oh, but the tears.

Having said that I don't disagree and +1 on the prep mechanics you propose. Winters pledged and its a little bit dull denying the dullard mechanics cycle after cycle.

Cheers

 

[Mr.Sharku]

I'd be happy if they'd just put the Preparation & Control pickup-s on a separate timer. Fly out 9 jumps to drop control items off, and have to wait to pick up intel from another system for the 30 min timer.

 

[teatmecoder]

Elite Dangerous is a pretty cool game.

 

[Martin Schou]

Or just stop giving merits for fortifying beyond 100%. Problem solved without any rebalancing needed.

No it doesn't fix anything, because that screws over the half of the powers that have inbound fortifications, as they are incapable of avoiding overfortifying. Not only do we not have the option of dropping off 1 merit to get an update, every single fortification merit we have are for one single control system. You clearly have outbound fortifications, so you just have to go somewhere else, and at most you've wasted 1 merit to get an updated number - we risk wasting 792 merits completely.

This has been covered time and time again, including right here in this thread, which makes it quite clear that you haven't bothered actually reading the discussion before weighing in.

 

[teatmecoder]

Elite Dangerous is a pretty cool game.

 

[Martin Schou]

I don't see a problem for inbound powers either. If a station gave you cargo, you get merits but once it's 100% fortified it will not give out cargo any more - so you might get a slight overflow because of in flight cargo.

And how do you propose fixing the preparation grinders then? If you think Hudson has it bad because he gets a hundred thousand fort merits in a stupid system, now imagine it being dumped into a prep instead, and soon Hudson will be faced with the issue that Aisling has.

The people doing the stupid forts for Hudson and ALD aren't in PowerPlay for anything other than the bounty hunting bonus. If they can't get their merits through forts, it'll be gotten through preparations, and that is a situation you do not want to find yourself in.

 

[bigity]

Or just stop giving merits for fortifying beyond 100%. Problem solved without any rebalancing needed.

Or maybe not expect in game systems to manage your horde.