The difference is that it changes how Powerplay players approach System Colonization. Instead of colonizing with a single outpost or station (which can be done in a few hours with a coordinated group carrying supplies) and moving on to the next system, there is an incentive to build out the system further. That improves both Powerplay AND System Colonization. It also diminishes the incentive to colonize systems that only have a single build point.
There are 60,000ish neutral systems already forming a shell hundreds of LY wide around the original bubble. There's no need for Powerplayers to approach System Colonisation at all, right now - everyone else is already doing the work for free. Inhabited space is still growing at well over a thousand systems a week; the 12 Powers collectively rarely break a hundred. A group from my Power is running a project to bring Powerplay to one of the nearby nebulae - not for the standing bonus, for which the need to build a reasonably reinforced chain makes this way less efficient than just capturing all the in-fill systems around our existing territory would be, but just because it's a more interesting project than occupying Col 285 Sector BL-H a10-3 would be.
Changing undermining viability without also reducing the value of freshly-colonized systems is doomed to fail. I can't see an amount of improvement Frontier is willing to allow that would make undermining more valuable than just colonizing and acquiring a new system. At that point, the system would be so chaotic that it would cause players to leave in frustration.
I do agree with this point - the pre-Colonisation bubble was already too large for Powerplay 2 to be particularly conflict-heavy and it's now much larger, but again I think population is the wrong metric to try to fix that.
It's probably unfixable on any metric, but to give it a try positioning the valuable systems to be fought over needs to be done very deliberately. There isn't a massive battle taking place over Santy right now because it's in any way
important in quantifiable metrics but because Frontier have offered additional rewards for fighting there specifically.
Declaring two or three (the thousand or so billion-plus systems are still too many!) systems currently held at Exploited state by each Power to be of major importance, positioning those systems to be on the existing borders those Powers have with their neighbours, and having some sort of reward for holding as many as possible at a particular time ... that might focus Powerplay action on few enough systems to matter. Then once that time is reached, hand out the rewards and designate a new round of high-importance systems based on where the borders have now shifted to.
Promoting investment in building out systems instead of a "pump and dump" strategy is a good thing.
Do you really think anyone much is doing pump-and-dump construction of systems to get more Powerplay standing at the moment?
A good third of colonised systems are over a million population (which definitely requires some additional construction), another third are over the hundred thousand population mark (which suggests they've got more than just their initial outpost present). There's already plenty of non-Powerplay incentive to build systems up and plenty of Powerplay incentive just to take those systems rather than building your own specifically for the purpose.
Those stats will change somewhat if system architects start building out systems.
No they won't. There are about 12,000 systems currently at Exploited or stronger. Only about 800 of those are newly colonised systems. Powerplay and colonisation are barely interacting
at all right now. Colonisation starts to matter in about five years time when Powerplay
would have Acquired and Reinforced the entire original bubble without it.
Building a billion-population system via colonisation may be essentially impossible unless you can grab something ridiculous like a binary ELW system; building even a hundred-million one is extremely expensive and requires a rare suitable system too. Focusing on population focuses the action on the existing bubble systems - which is good! - but it also focuses the action on a bunch of systems which are largely already captured, heavily fortified and unlikely to be successfully attacked.
(Well, unless "launch credible attack on a defended Stronghold" is the level of undermining which other changes allow, but that feels unlikely)
This entire thread is about a decay mechanic designed to reduce the accumulated control points of existing systems.
Reduce their CP total, yes. But it's got a floor at 25% strength, so it cannot possibly change their actual state - lots of bad feeling, no actual top line effect. All of those Strongholds will stay Strongholds, and will keep at least a 250kCP buffer against player-led undermining, which puts attacks on them out of range of all but the most active groups.
I think the best result comes from a combination of the following:
- Give more/better Undermining options.
- Improve Undermining values so the playing field is even between Undermining and Reinforcing, especially since many Undermining activities are illegal and can result on Notoriety.
Agreed absolutely on these two. Nothing works unless successfully undermining a system versus a marginally smaller reinforcing force is actually possible.
- Change the Power standings to focus on system quality instead of solely focusing on system quantity.
Yes, but population is the wrong metric. Having given people the means to undermine with the first two, the motive has to come from the targets being ones where a strong attack could reasonably succeed. The high-population systems are mostly positioned such - as leftovers from PP1 - that this wouldn't work very well.
- Give bonuses/penalties based on Superpower alignment with the controlling Power.
Wasn't popular the first time round, likely to be even less so this time.
- Enable adjustments for smaller Powers so that being behind doesn't have a snowball effect that eventually makes the Power unviable. One suggestion would be a bonus to Reinforcement for smaller powers, or a vulnerability to Undermining for larger ones.
I don't think it's possible to have both:
- Undermining is viable even in the face of opposition and something players are genuinely incentivised to do
and
- all 12 of the existing Powers survive.
The difference in player bases, rank bonus quality, etc. of the various Powers is too great.
Frontier will certainly try to have it both ways, but they'd be better off in that case accepting that "all 12 survive" is more important to them, and removing Undermining from the game entirely as incompatible with that.
I don't think this sort of potential snowball effect isn't really worth worrying about unless it happens. I have no belief that Frontier are willing to let Undermining get to the stage where any Powers are regularly losing
net systems week on week. They want people to Undermine - see all the merit changes made - they don't want people to Undermine
successfully - see all the lack of other changes made.
). Same with smuggling, piracy, settlement sabotage and other illegal missions for Archon; combat missions for Archer, Denton and Arissa etc.
