Powerplay Hypothesis: The Powerplay Stalemate

[The Golden Knight]

While I'm sure this is nothing new to reveal since the full-time Elite Dangerous mastermind community solves every puzzle within 1 real day of its launch (except for Raxxla, and the only reason that is still out there is because Frontier has given LITERALLY NO CLUES regarding it), I still wanted to nudge this issue from a new-ish point of view. And specifically, what I've noticed by glancing through the in-game Powerplay board (yes, tangent, I REFUSE to use external third-party sources, as I find them less than 110% reliable, so I will strictly stick to OFFICIAL SOURCES ONLY) is that there is far greater focus on Fortifying than Undermining, across most if not all factions. With seemingly all factions across the board concentrating entirely on defense, any potential for significant offensive maneuvers is now impractical if not absurd, and current projections say it will never be doable (not without some deep retooling by the development team). What this results in is a much more static map that has little to no change at all from week to week, especially from a cursory or casual viewpoint. And I have come up with a few reasons to explain this phenomenon:


1) It's a matter of simple Mathematics. To fortify one star system, the points requirement is in the 4 digits, whereas to undermine one, it is in the 5 digits. On average, it takes 10 to 30 times the numbers of points to undermine a system as it would take to fortify an allied one. So yeah, if one player could choose to either undermine 1 or fortify 30, I think we know where the manpower "efficiency" is going to lean (this is also using veteran standards for frame-of-reference; novice, new, and casual pilots are going to find negligible results on an individual basis). And so long as an offensive push is mathematically uphill, never expect any substantial offensive attempts. Even if hypothetically one system were undermined successfully, without a fortification to negate it, the most that would happen is a dent into the faction's "CC" pool...which, assuming that's not enough to instill the state of Turmoil (it seldom to never IS), then nothing will have changed in the grand scheme of Powerplay, for all that hard work.
2) The process of undermining is much more random, inconsistent, and spotty. While I can only speak for the Alliance faction and my home-boy Mahon, there stands a fair reason to believe that the process is more universal: undermining requires combat against a specific type of Powerplay NPC ship. And, they will spawn sporadically, with numerous times that there wouldn't be any targets to even attempt to catch. That makes the process of undermining feel more like "fishing" than waging war (yes, I wish there was a way players can go into "active military service" in-game, rather than the mere bragging rights of the "Auxiliary Navy", but that is a whole other tangent beyond the scope of this hypothesis). Contrast this with the process of fortifying: you go to a station in a "control system", you load up a cargo hold with a specific arbitrary item found in the Contacts tab, and deliver it back to your Headquarters. The "fast-tracking" credit demand is intended to mitigate bulk fortifications in rapid succession, but this only prevents the aforementioned "novice, new, and casual players" from contributing. I appreciate (if not overtly enjoy) the implications that Elite Dangerous is NOT a "casual game", even if that means demanding a massive time-sink for anyone aspiring to deliver a greater-than-negligible contribution upon the galactic stage. Anyone who's played upwards of months of real-time (or hundreds of hours of in-game time) would have hundreds of millions of credits with nothing else to do but fast-track hundreds of tons of powerplay fortify resources. It's definitely not profitable to do this, given the "weekly powerplay salary" in contrast with the fast-track price of 10k per ton (so a fast-track of 20 units costs 200k credits). Though since I'm speaking as somebody who is never strictly "in it for the money", that means the monetary speed-bump hardly matters from my point of view. What this expenditure gets you is a far faster, streamlined, and most importantly, consistent way of earning Powerplay merits...and in bulk.
3) MOST (or SOME) factions simply are not very coordinated. I know that the most die-hard masters will congregate to these official forums, or potentially any fan-run Discord servers (which is why I came here early in my Elite career...specifically to "learn from the best"). But by and large, that's only a couple dozen out of the 5 digit player population; the rest of them most likely "just do their own thing". I've seen factions fortify a system up to 500% of the trigger requirement, and since you only need to hit 100%, that's a great deal of inefficiency (and the predatory advantages of such inefficiency are still well offset by the mathematical hurdle outlined in Reason #1 above). Given Reason #1 listed above, combine such Mathematics with this lack of coordinated efficiency, and there will never be any major undermining because of how much organization it would require to pull off to any noticeable degree.
4) Star systems no longer give any "Command Currency" (CC) Profitability. Now I did say I'm not "in it for the money", but I am aware other players feel there is no practical or tangible benefit to the Powerplay faction AS A WHOLE with any potential star systems we are able to expand into (even if we could hypothetically take over enemy star systems), so for no apparent reward of claiming new star systems, combined with the greater amount of space needed to defend and fortify (as in, being averse to the classic "spreading too thin" problem), the current state of the galaxy has every incentive to double-down on locking in what factions already have, instead of grabbing new and fresh resources on the fringes of human-inhabited territories. When I say "profitability", I don't just mean credit payouts for individual pilots; I mean specifically logistical benefits to the Powerplay faction up to and including a sense of power-projection. On a final trivial detail, I am not 110% certain what "CC" stands for, other than it is the main Powerplay resource on the faction scale, so forgive me if I've made any initial error. All I know is, its appropriate shorthand is "CC".


In conclusion, with any hypothetical future updates that Frontier may have in store, if they wish to retool Powerplay to make it more engaging, dynamic, and impactful (all of which I feel will make for a richer experience), I suggest taking this feedback into account. There is too great of an obstacle to overcome whenever a single player starts feeling ambitious, and the community has recognized this by going fortifying across the board. Repainting the map would take a lot of work for seemingly nothing in return, especially since falling short will translate to wasted effort in mass quantities. Unless the design was specifically intended to reenact the stalemate conditions on par with trench warfare seen in WWI, I fail to understand why someone would want something so uneventful to remain the norm. Such emphasis on nonstop defense and "consolidation" means we seldom or never see any changes onto the political map, and all this put together is why there is "The Powerplay Stalemate".

 

[Bashy81]

Your assessment was an interesting read, and it seems youve drawn good conclusions from the info youve gathered. Imo there's a bunch of 'right for the wrong reasons' & vice-versa, and would be too much for my coviddy mind to unpick satisfactorily right now.
What I would say, is that due to some nefarious OP methods, some individuals actually exert far too much influence on Powerplay already [(Fifth-Column activity (5C) is a prime culprit here] and you will never tweak Powerplay to legitimately make an individual feel like theyve really achieved much all on their own. simply because, where does that leave all the other thousands of players who all want the same? It wouldnt benefit the feature to have powerplay bubbles change like lava lamps.
Also, while your assessment on effort required for undermining versus fortification is very much correct, this is why people dont do serious undermining using the method you infer.
if you engage with the communities that know Powerplay you'll quickly fill in some knowledge gaps. (Discord mostly, and most never visit these forums, except in an 'outreach' capacity).

The problems you find with Official Sources is a lot of ingame descriptions are years out of date, or just plain misleading. And official places like this forum protect ignorance as well as knowledge, and if you can really tell which is which, then you didnt need to read said topic in the first place.

Best advice to all new power- players is the Powerplay experts are all on the discords (etc) so go pick their brains if youre pledged, theyre happy to help where they can & are very prompt

 

[Rubbernuke]

Pretty much correct- its too hard to attack and its too easy to defend (fortifying is too easy, consolidation makes things even worse), leading to a condition where the bubble is full of bad moves and no good ones.

 

[cmdr Ramius007]

Only thing that can balance power play is open only mode with removal of block functions in current form, alternative are merit penelties so big to solo/pg, that they make those modes not competetive, RL example are players who start to block pvp-ers hunting them while undermining, or shieldless solo haulers, i guarantee you that open mode make time zones, merit/h while hauling, merit/h while undermining irrelevant. Currently any power that starts with negatice CC balance can be considered turmoiled, now imagine same in open, btw it doesnt mean starting balance would lose it's importance, opposite is true, as limiting stating balance would make turmoiling easier, but not auto as we have now.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Only thing that can balance power play is open only mode with removal of block functions in current form, alternative are merit penelties so big to solo/pg, that they make those modes not competetive, RL example are players who start to block pvp-ers hunting them while undermining, or shieldless solo haulers, i guarantee you that open mode make time zones, merit/h while hauling, merit/h while undermining irrelevant. Currently any power that starts with negatice CC balance can be considered turmoiled, now imagine same in open, btw it doesnt mean starting balance would lose it's importance, opposite is true, as limiting stating balance would make turmoiling easier, but not auto as we have now.

I've had this out with Rubbernuke a few times, but "make Powerplay more like it already is for the sake of the small fraction of players that like what it currently is" won't change diddly. (And will probably have the opposite effect by making it even less appealing to potential incomers, if it's seen as the domain of max engineered PvP tryhards)

Quite a large part of the problem with Powerplay right now is that nobody wants to do it. The reason 5th columning and botting can be so powerful is because the population is so small that a small number of dedicated individuals can have a massively outsized influence.

So what you want to do is figure out what people want to do in the game and integrate those things into powerplay. Look at the popular activities and figure out a way to tie them into Powerplay. Look at some activities that could potentially be popular now but aren't because they aren't hyper-efficient credit farmers and integrate those. Like all those underhanded surface missions doing sabotage and data theft and such, they could help Undermining if you do them in a target system whilst pledged. Mining and selling within your power's space could help produce CC, which would reduce the impact of fifth-columning into bad systems (CC balance from systems also needs overhauling to make this less impactful), make combat zones a bigger part of it, especially in expansion, so that there's a natural place for dedicated PvP and the PvPers get to be the ones leading the charge and taking on the enemy whilst players who want to feel like they're in the metagame but don't want PvP also feel like they're helping their chosen power.

And make all the systems around it less goddamn opaque. It needs to be much clearer what the hell is going on, what the state of your power is, and what the best things to do to help the power are, instead of "splot, here is masses of data with stuff all context for any of it, haul some vouchers I guess?".

And yes, the stagnancy needs to be looked at, though that's not as easy a task as you might think. It needs to scale so that the bigger powers have much more trouble staying big and the smaller ones can bounce back much faster (otherwise the smaller powers just get deserted by people who don't like to feel like they're on the "losing" side, causing a death spiral that reinforces power stagation).

 

[Rubbernuke]

I've had this out with Rubbernuke

Problem 1: FD (outwardly) don't want to change Powerplay radically, meaning it has to use the carcass we have now, meaning options are limited.

Problem 2: Hauling, and by extension fortification is too easy- leading to stagnation.

Problem 3: Attack is too hard, so you can't break apart large powers to continue the cycle of Powerplays territorial acquisition.

Problem 4: rewards are stuck in EDs past- 50 million is nothing these days, and bonuses / modules need looking at.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Problem 2: Hauling, and by extension fortification is too easy- leading to stagnation.

Problem 3: Attack is too hard, so you can't break apart large powers to continue the cycle of Powerplays territorial acquisition.

Which would probably be better addressed by scaling the relative values required with the size of the power. So that the bigger powers are super vulnerable to the smaller ones.

Ultimately though, without a radical overhaul Powerplay is stuck where it is. It's super hard to get new blood into doing it, and most of the suggestions surrounding it are coming from people too deep in it to see why that is, so they just make suggestions that would drive it further into a niche. Like the regular cries of "open only" which are basically just a howl of frustration that they want to blow something up to feel better even if that wouldn't actually solve any problems. (Not even botting, bots don't gotta sleep, they'll just run them at dead times)

 

[Rubbernuke]

Which would probably be better addressed by scaling the relative values required with the size of the power. So that the bigger powers are super vulnerable to the smaller ones.

Ultimately though, without a radical overhaul Powerplay is stuck where it is. It's super hard to get new blood into doing it, and most of the suggestions surrounding it are coming from people too deep in it to see why that is, so they just make suggestions that would drive it further into a niche. Like the regular cries of "open only" which are basically just a howl of frustration that they want to blow something up to feel better even if that wouldn't actually solve any problems. (Not even botting, bots don't gotta sleep, they'll just run them at dead times)

Thats what overhead was supposed to do, but it got fiddled by FD after The House of Cards early on- thats why after a certain point upkeep is flat.

The root problem is that hauling and general movement are not opposed by NPCs, meaning everything is a grind race and delivery with nothing else. Open only is one solution where NPCs are replaced by players who are far more capable.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Thats what overhead was supposed to do, but it got fiddled by FD after The House of Cards early on- thats why after a certain point upkeep is flat.

The root problem is that hauling and general movement are not opposed by NPCs, meaning everything is a grind race and delivery with nothing else. Open only is one solution where NPCs are replaced by players who are far more capable.

But a better solution is to move the easy economic activity like hauling away from the front lines entirely.

Open only has a much higher chance of just driving more people away from Powerplay and making it less likely that the sort of overhaul it needs would ever happen. The mode needs to work for people whether they ever want to see another player or not.

 

[Rubbernuke]

But a better solution is to move the easy economic activity like hauling away from the front lines entirely.

Without a rethink you can't, and really it should not be danger free. Hauling has to be perilous so that it can be stopped in some way, otherwise you make it a grind race which is not fun.

Open only has a much higher chance of just driving more people away from Powerplay and making it less likely that the sort of overhaul it needs would ever happen. The mode needs to work for people whether they ever want to see another player or not.

Powerplay does need an overhaul- however FD so far seem to want to put minimal work in, meaning the ways out are limited. What I do know is if they just add yet more anti 5C stuff with nothing else people will drift away.

 

[The Golden Knight]

And make all the systems around it less goddamn opaque. It needs to be much clearer what the hell is going on, what the state of your power is, and what the best things to do to help the power are, instead of "splot, here is masses of data with stuff all context for any of it, haul some vouchers I guess?".

I definitely like the proposition of having an in-game mechanism for saying "These systems are the priority" or something similar. While I do appreciate having the unabridged details by way of the lists as-is, I'm not sure how utilized those tools are with the "silent majority" of Elite's playerbase.

Problem 1: FD (outwardly) don't want to change Powerplay radically, meaning it has to use the carcass we have now, meaning options are limited.

Problem 2: Hauling, and by extension fortification is too easy- leading to stagnation.

Problem 3: Attack is too hard, so you can't break apart large powers to continue the cycle of Powerplays territorial acquisition.

Problem 4: rewards are stuck in EDs past- 50 million is nothing these days, and bonuses / modules need looking at.

This is basically the shortened version of my analysis, but it is still true. It's not just a matter of making it harder for big powers to stay big...universally, across the board, most or all factions are just hunkering down almost absolutely. As for the bonus modules, I will say that I feel the Alliance beam laser is fairly puny when looking at superior "prismatic shields" or flashy hellfire styled missiles. Yet to give the benefit of the doubt, I have not actually attempted to integrate the Alliance beam laser into my playstyle. In theory, having a weapon do more heat damage as opposed to raw hull damage would make it more suited for disabling ships rather than destroying them (which would be an amazing long-term Odyssey goal to have ship-to-ship BOARDING PARTIES, all Marines style).

And personally, as a new-ish player who is well aware of the plague of "ganking", I do not fully endorse the "open only" cries from this niche. Though I can understand the prospect of making player kills much more valuable (and one specific way to further that goal is to have some kind of automated GalNet bulletin for a "Pilots Federation Wanted Board", with certain individuals who need to be "brought to justice"...though "gankers" might see that as some kind of twisted leaderboard though it'd allow anti-ganker players to identify high-profile targets...maybe even help track them if the player's bounties grow too massive), but don't mute the solo pilots. Players "who are far more capable" is a terrifying prospect, because that means only the absolute best-of-the-best could even dare participate without the situation turning into a slaughter or worse. I know the bar players set, specifically including the Elite community...and I shudder at my place in comparison to it.

As for the hauling, yeah, I agree, the current state is a grind race. With load upon load in my Type-9 Heavy (a.k.a. the "Space Trucker"), there is seldom to never so much as a hiccup in my shipments...especially if you don't count any possible glitching or game crashing. It's not exciting, but then again, not everything has to be.

And that's part of why I wanted to comment: I'm not some graybeard who's been a fan since the OG Elite back in 1984 (heck, I was still in Mom's ovaries as of 1984) so I wanted to try and give a fresh take on matters that may not have already been cracked several times over.

 

[cmdr Ramius007]

(And will probably have the opposite effect by making it even less appealing to potential incomers, if it's seen as the domain of max engineered PvP tryhards

I agree with a lot of points you made, but not this one, this and lst cycle underminers who were harrased undermining my faction started blocking and abusing PG, do you think their ships were not engineered? It's same as with hauling, you can have super efficient hauler that can only haul in solo, or you can decrease efficiency and take diffrent ship or well protected ship, same goes with undermining, how you are going to balance this? I see 2 options, make PP open only, or make PP npc's as hard as players, do you think guys who go to solo after beig challanged in open like any of those options? I dont see easy way out, if skill element is determinant factor in choosing solo/pg, so we can change gameplay to create something more exiting and attract new players, or remove current player base with changes making place for diffrent ones, it's sad, but it's like this.

 

[Danieros]

The biggest issue I see is that upkeep is uncapped. This makes a decent chunk of systems unprofitable to any power due to their distance having too much weigh on the upkeep.

Frontier repeatedly tweaked the overhead formula over the years and even capped it to allow powers to maintain a higher system count, but the upkeep part is now the biggest bottleneck that is preventing a lot of systems from being profitable to any power.

A very easy way I could see this changing would be reducing the impact of HQ distance on upkeep and having it also consider the distance to the closest control system. A random expansion to the other side of the bubble wouldn't be feasible, but that far system that is barely profitable would benefit from that and also open up a lot of opportunities.

It's also important to note that far systems have a lot more risk - starting at a certain distance the fortification triggers actually exceed the undermining ones. Since you're Mahon, I'll point you to the Picunche system (10612 fortification versus 10424 undermining trigger). At about 125 ly the trigger formula actually makes it take less merits to undermine a system than it is to fortify it at a 1:1 ratio, even with the full consolidation defense bonus. There is also the effort required with it - hauling 750 tons across 125 ly will take much, much longer than an experienced player takes to destroy 750 merits in ships.

 

[cmdr Ramius007]

On top of this reducing exploit radious can do a lot of good, making PP map bigger, but again, what's the point of grind wars in solo/pg, how diffrent is hauling power play cargo in solo/pg from hauling commodities from A to B, how diffrent is killing PP ships in PP CZ's from fgihting in actual CZ's, only diffrence is nav beacon undermining that is just worst form of combat, extremaly easy and with longer breaks betwean fights. Power play deserve to be special mode of Elite.

 

[The Golden Knight]

I see 2 options, make Powerplay open only, or make Powerplay npcs as hard as players.

No. Just, NO! I've seen what "players" can do, so all I can say is NO! The whole "Open Only" is synonymous to such an aforementioned problem, which is also equally absurd. In either circumstance, that'd doom all but the no-lifers and as a direct consequence only emphasize the current stalemate through reduced manpower by way of shafting the "silent majority" (though to be fair, at least the effect would be across-the-board, or so I predict). As if the current configuration isn't already gating as-is to what I lump together as "new, novice, or casual pilots". On a similar trajectory, to anyone aiming to make Powerplay a strictly Player-versus-Player (PvP for short) affair (which is what such propositions would incur), please, banish the thought! If you want strict PvP, that's what CQC (a.k.a. "Arena") is intended for (and even in a "fair fight", my experiences there have found it consistently intense, which is a good thing). I believe there should be a place for ALL skill levels, and ALL levels of participation. But that is a hard balance to strike, and I wonder if what we are currently observing is simply a testament to that, especially since it's practically designed SPECIFICALLY for any single, lone player to feel like "barely a drop in the bucket".

(Also I had to fix your apostrophe misuse and translate Shorthand to English, as a courtesy to any hypothetically new players...but that's a small nitpick.)

Come to think of it, even in Open, my experiences find it rare to encounter another player in space, and even in those instances, it is not always hostile (though I admit I DO get jumpy after one or two bad run-ins). So maybe "doom" is too strong of a word. But my point is, I do not like the progression of that logic.

The biggest issue I see is that upkeep is uncapped. This makes a decent chunk of systems unprofitable to any power due to their distance having too much weigh on the upkeep.

Frontier repeatedly tweaked the overhead formula over the years and even capped it to allow powers to maintain a higher system count, but the upkeep part is now the biggest bottleneck that is preventing a lot of systems from being profitable to any power.

That is addressed in Reason #4 in my main Hypothesis at top, in the original post of this thread. Any expansion has no incentive on the faction, and many don't see spreading the colors as "worthwhile". Doubly because there is no narrative/lore gains through having an indomitable faction rule them all, or even a token "award" for staying #1 (well, arguably there IS, if your merit rank is high enough, but it's definitely easy to miss and easier to find useless).

Power play deserves to be a special mode of Elite.

That I do agree with. It should be similar in impact to Community Goals...y'know, the place where the action's at, and the sort of "shaping the course of history" that should make new players aspire to max out their ships...like, a reason to push for mastering the world of Elite, but not a gate to outright prevent "new, novice, or casual pilots".

 

[Agony_Aunt]

So what you want to do is figure out what people want to do in the game and integrate those things into powerplay.

Powerplay: Mining Edition!

Just think how popular powerplay would become with mining being an impact!

 

[Rubbernuke]

No. Just, NO! I've seen what "players" can do, so all I can say is NO!

Which is the actual reason why (along with other changes FD suggested) it would be a good move. Why? Because players can wipe the floor with each other and do it in ways which are totally outside the very narrow scope of NPC capability.

If you suddenly have a fight to keep fortification solvent, then you have a game- it then becomes a tactical battle to keep a large power large.

 

[Schielman]

I've been involved with Powerplay since about March, so while I'm by no means an expert, I have learned a few things, and I don't agree with everything you said. Here's where I think you're wrong:

I REFUSE to use external third-party sources, as I find them less than 110% reliable, so I will strictly stick to OFFICIAL SOURCES ONLY

Well, there's your first problem. A lot of the in-game tools are notoriously unreliable. They will, from time to time, produce bad information. This is why all of the hardcore powerplay planners will do things manually. This is one of the few things that I've seen both Feds and Imperial agree is true.

The process of undermining is much more random, inconsistent, and spotty.

Not...not really. There's something called the "Nav Beacon method" that make undermining much faster and more consistent. If you don't know what that is, get in contact with any big powerplay group. I've been at rank 5 for the last 2 months(?) and I make most, if not all, of my weekly merits undermining. It doesn't take that long. It also means that I make money when I get paid my salary.

there will never be any major undermining because of how much organization it would require to pull off to any noticeable degree.

This is just wrong. If you want some evidence of this, go check on Felicia Winters' control tab on Wednesday. Aisling Duval supporters have been undermining most of her systems every week for the last month and a half. If you want a bigger example, ask one of the old timers about Operation Valentine.

4) Star systems no longer give any "Command Currency" (CC) Profitability.

Here's where I agree with you. Most of the remaining systems just aren't profitable. Combined with the fact that overheads, which cannot be reduced or mitigated in any way apart from losing systems, increase as a power gains more systems, and most powers are pretty choosy about which systems they expand into. And this all assumes that you get your expansion, which is by no means a guarantee.

The other reason that you don't see a lot of movement in the standings is because most powers have loss making systems. These are systems that are net negative in terms of CC and that the power would be happy to lose if they ever went into turmoil, as this would make the power healthier as a whole. Most powers, if put into turmoil sufficient to have it lose a significant number of systems, have leaders smart enough to make sure that the loss makers a lost before anything else. Getting a power to lose only its profitable systems while keeping its bad ones is not an easy task. The aforementioned Operation Valentine, which took Felicia Winters from being a major power to being a quite small power and from which she has never recovered, was planned a year in advance.

 

[The Golden Knight]

When I mentioned "official sources", I had a very specific piece of information in mind, and it's one that any casual pilot can refer to:

With that settled, onto the next thoughts.

Which is the actual reason why (along with other changes FD suggested) it would be a good move. Why? Because players can wipe the floor with each other and do it in ways which are totally outside the very narrow scope of NPC capability.

If you suddenly have a fight to keep fortification solvent, then you have a game- it then becomes a tactical battle to keep a large power large.

It wouldn't be a tactical battle, it would be a one-sided murder-fest of no-lifes and full-time professional PvP pilots, versus the ten thousand other players who more than likely don't even stand a chance. Given I am well aware where y'all set the bar, I predict (or at least fear) it would create a new meaning to the slang term "ganking", absolutely ruining the fun for all but the absolute best-of-the-best (which I am not, and at this rate, never will be...which is why I am being so vocal myself). And that's why it would NOT be "a good move".

Not...not really. There's something called the "Nav Beacon method" that make undermining much faster and more consistent. If you don't know what that is, get in contact with any big powerplay group. I've been at rank 5 for the last 2 months(?) and I make most, if not all, of my weekly merits undermining. It doesn't take that long. It also means that I make money when I get paid my salary.

This is just wrong. If you want some evidence of this, go check on Felicia Winters' control tab on Wednesday. Aisling Duval supporters have been undermining most of her systems every week for the last month and a half. If you want a bigger example, ask one of the old timers about Operation Valentine.

On the flip side, thank you for this feedback. Though first, you mention the Feds and Imps, but not the Alliance? The one faction that is consistently near the top of the board (if not at #1 outright), and no acknowledging their existence by the vocal portion of the community? Or are these observations a testament to what I mean by a "silent majority"? Because if they have similar coordination to the "old timers", then it's definitely good and discrete. (Or maybe they're just on "Reddit", as I do not visit that particular website.)
Either way, given how constantly prominent the Alliance has been, combined with minimal to no acknowledgement from both GalNet and the vocal minority of aces, that is concerning evidence to show how little Powerplay matters as far as shaping the story of the galaxy goes.

And if it takes an actual, real year of planning to make such a significant impact, even with a concentrated effort of the best-of-the-best...what does that say about the rest of those who get on once or twice? Or the lone character like myself who wishes there were a way "One man CAN make a difference"? That kind of epic is an exception to the rule (albeit an awesome one), and my Hypothesis concerns itself with the norm rather than extraordinary anomalies. Special events aside, you make a fair point that I will need to keep a closer eye on the data for Felicia Winters in particular, since my initial findings were framed "at a glance" (also known as the "idiot in a hurry test").

As for "Nav Beacon Method", I imagine it either 1) means hanging out at the beacon constantly (which similarly could feel akin to fishing, especially if the beacon is not a "compromised" one), or 2) sends you to signal sources, many of which are of the "degraded/encoded emissions" variety and/or civilian variants like "convoys" or (once in a while) "weapons fire". I would need to put this into practice, assuming there's more potential for greater results than just waiting in supercruise for the odd one or two powerplay targets to interdict.

 

[cmdr Ramius007]

It wouldn't be a tactical battle, it would be a one-sided murder-fest of no-lifes and full-time professional PvP pilots, versus the ten thousand other players who more than likely don't even stand a chance.

Nice try, if we have "proffesional PvP pilots" how much they take for 1H of services? "versus the ten thousand other players" you overestimate experianced pvp pilots skills, make decent, not even good build, wing up, it's usually enaugh, but if you fly beam conda from 10th day of game to today, sure, you may run into problems. Can power play groups "hire mercenries"? Iforget blocking, blocking and going to solo/pg are legitimate game modes to protect yourself from "gankers", problem solved, other not solved problem is player quitting game becouse of lack challanges, dull PvE.