Hacked Holograms not staying hacked

[Mecrutio]

Is it a game feature to have holograms not change when hacked?

On Oct. 31st, I hacked all of Medupe Cities holograms and they all stayed hacked once I left the system and immediately returned. (Took a screenshot) The same day I went to Shajin Market in Kamadhenu and did the same thing, except when I jumped into SC and back into Shajin Market the holograms changed back.

Originaly I thought that it is the first day of PP 2.0 and people in solo are there changing them after me. Now that a couple of months of PP 2.0 I have not seen another hologram stay hacked out of several. I'm always flying in open and I do not see any other players in open even after many jumps into and out of the ports. With the amount of ports I have changed, it's highly improbable that there are solo players in every port I hack changing the holograms back. Please consider that I hack 5 or 6 holograms which takes around 3 min. total, jump out and back in for 2 mins. and see all 5 or 6 have immediately changed back.

It may not seem that important but there are things happening dealing with the amount of system power ships spawning that say "Enemy" in red and the amount of Power Convoys spawning. I have a theory that these banners may contribute to the spawn rates of these two specific items. I can't prove this theory as the holograms do not stay hacked.

Edit: Medupe City no longer stays changed. Confirmed that 7A, 3A, Multi Limpet, 3A Recon controllers and different ships do not make a difference. Verify files thru steam and PC reboot changed nothing.

Ticket: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/70342

 

[STRONTIUM DOG]

i would have thought it is a bgs aspect that this has to be done many hundreds of times to register its not that they have changed back per say its just that it has to be done by many commanders or repeatedly by you to actually effect an bgs change state

 

[Mecrutio]

i would have thought it is a bgs aspect that this has to be many hundreds of times to register its not that they have changed back per say its just that it has to be done by many commanders or repeatedly by you to affect an bgs change state

I understand that BGS and PP are not intertwined. Hacking holograms is firmly PP as it is a weekly task.

 

[STRONTIUM DOG]

still i think the mechanism is basicaly the same for pp2 to actually effect a change as such (and swung with the thursday tick IE which faction had the most hacks )
but this is just speculation on my part...........

 

[Mecrutio]

The ticket for this has expired due to not many other commanders confiming it or it is a duplicate issue. I used the search function in the issue tracker to find other tickets utilizing the words "hack" and "hologram". There are no duplicates.

How many commanders need to confirm a ticket for it to get to confirmed?

 

[Shadowsnog]

have you considered that you are experiencing intended mechanism at play? in my experience holos get changed only by player activity.

i have a weekly that wants me to flip holos in a system with 2 stations that has been under my powers control for a few weeks now. all the holos are permanently set to my power making the weekly uncompletable, so i have quite the opposite problem... ^^

 

[Mecrutio]

What do you mean by player activity?

Yes, I did consider it an intended mechanism. But there is a function at play that would help in defense and I believe it has something to do with these holograms. Had it been an intended mechanism, the ticket would have been flagged as such.

 

[Shadowsnog]

What do you mean by player activity?

to be clear im only guessing how holo hacking works, but based on my experience i think that they have their own progress bar. you fill the bar enough, they will stay flipped. enemy starts flipping them (or you havent reached the perma flipped state yet) and they will be resetting to neutral. enemy is more active than you = you will start to see enemy ads.
so my first guess would be either you not hacking enough of them, or you are having an opposition.

Had it been an intended mechanism, the ticket would have been flagged as such.

if your ticket timed out then it (most probably) wasnt even looked at.

 

[Fixitman]

It doesn't make any sense for holograms to stay hacked. If they did that, no-one else would be able to hack them. It does make sense for them to reset as soon as the hacker leaves the system though.

if your ticket timed out then it (most probably) wasnt even looked at.

Agreed. Support is already overloaded. No point wasting resources on normal game behavior.

 

[Mecrutio]

Agreed. Support is already overloaded. No point wasting resources on normal game behavior.

I think there is something being toggled on/off that relates to the percentage of holoscreens hacked to anything but the Power that controls the system and just normal adverts.

For example: A system that I spent some time in has 7 holoscreens. Of those,1 is changed to my power. This means 14% of the total system holoscreens were other than the controling power or adverts. The event being toggled was toggled off where in other systems it is toggled on. There are many other factors involved with this (SSP, BFP, distance from a fort/Sh system and so on.) and I'm slogging thru eliminating these factors to determine if the holoscreens are toggling something or if they are just a cute novelty to endlessly grind on with no real change.

On release day I went to Medupe City in Cubeo and hacked all the screens there. I jumped out to dodge the security and immediately returned to take a picture. They stayed changed. Today, the holoscreens in Medupe City do not stay changed. This happened sometime around the removal of merits from hauling rares. I don't remember any mentions of altercations to holoscreen hacking. Here is the evidence. (Skip to 4:15 for the evidence but you'll miss out on some good tunes!)

Source: https://youtu.be/KUh-HDcZOc0


Inside every power there is at least one system with a different power permanently fixed to the holoscreen. One of our systems has several of someone else's power decorating the holoscreens with none of our powers. Here, the event is also toggled off. This applies to systems deep inside a powers territory.

If the holoscreens were intended to return to their initial state after being hacked, then what was the point of adding in the mechanic? After FDev went thru the trouble to eliminate some of the more grindy aspects of Elite, why turn around and add more? At the very least, a changed screen is a tell that someone was there and which power they belong to. A simple addition that added so much more richness to an already engaging form of play.

 

[DJ]

The ticket for this has expired due to not many other commanders confiming it or it is a duplicate issue. I used the search function in the issue tracker to find other tickets utilizing the words "hack" and "hologram". There are no duplicates.

How many commanders need to confirm a ticket for it to get to confirmed?

Idnk but it's already Wk13 of PPv2.0 and few trackers progressed. I felt that exploits were the only issues FDEV prioritised and commented upon. I can [grinds back teeth] understand that logic. Cmdrs have collectively raised many PPv2.0 queries and issues, not knowing if PP mechanics are intended or borked. (Thank goodness colonies will have a beta.)

It sounds like you've done all you can for now @Mecrutio and I totally get what you, and others, suggest. Perhaps PPv2.1 update notes will shed light on much, albeit we might have an unintended unbalanced bubble of strongholds by then overseen by the kilo-ranked few who haven't already given up on it in the interim.

It doesn't make any sense for holograms to stay hacked. If they did that, no-one else would be able to hack them.

... but then no-one would be able to repair them for merits either. Nor would that defensive gameplay mechanism exist.