Powerplay If I go on an exploration trip, being pledged to a power is wothless, correct?

SkyRex

S
Hello,

I'm currently pledged to Aisling Duval as I thought it would help in ranking with the empire.
But it hasn't anything to do with ranking has it?

And right now i'm far from inhabited space, and everytime you would do this all your merits will decay, right?
Additionally it annoys me that i'm considered hostile in half of inhabited space now.

The effort for a Power seems to be worth nothing really, you don't get rich by doing merit-missions and the power-specific extras aren't any game-changing things either.
Unless you stay in inhabited space and do stuff for a power regularly, pledging to someone doesn't benefit you but it just locks systems out as 'hostile'.

Am I missing something here or is Powerplay really not worth it, if you plan to do exploration trips from time to time?

P.S. is it possible to put the emblem of a major faction on your ship? If I decide to not participate in powerplay I would still like to put an Alliance-sign on my ship.
 

ROSS-128

ROSS-128
As far as "hostile" systems go, the designation seems to be meaningless outside of letting you know if you can kill your undermining targets. I can dock, trade, do missions, bounty hunt, etc. in "hostile" systems with no problem.

Unless I've got a big bounty on my head from recent undermining at the time.

As far as decay, the merits do decay 50% per week with any more than 4 weeks old being tossed. So if you want to have PP rank when you get back your exploration trip basically has a 4 week cap on the round-trip time.

Theoretically you could stay at rank 5 for the whole 4 weeks (say if you wanted Li's bonus to exploration data, good luck with that), but you'd need to earn about 80,000 merits in a single week.

Going into week 2 it would go down to 40k, then 20k in week 3, 10k at week 4, then at the end of week 4 all 10k will get tossed out (but I think it'll calculate your rank before doing that, so you'll get oooone more paycheck out of it).

Your weekly paychecks will accumulate while you're away, waiting for pickup. So you won't miss out on any of those as long as you don't die.
 

Araviel

Araviel
SkyRex said:
Hello,

I'm currently pledged to Aisling Duval as I thought it would help in ranking with the empire.
But it hasn't anything to do with ranking has it?
Click to expand...

Aisling is one of the powers that does affect this, at rank 2 whit Aisling you will unlock a bonus to the influence you gain by doing BB missions in her controled/exploited system.
this in turn will help you get rank whit the empire. currently as she is ranked 1 in the power ranking this bonus grants you 25% extra influence on every BB mission.
for many players this is also why it is worth putting effort into your power, to maintain that extra bonus.

for me personally that bonus is worth everything in the world, as i am a combat oriented player that is pledged to Lavigny who grants a bonus to bounties and combat bonds. i can easily make a 14m/h from bounties when we are ranked nr.1

its not hard to maintain either, rank 2 only requires 100 merits or 50 merits/week to maintain.
and so unless you are after the modules you get after being pledged for 3 weeks at rank 3 i see no hurt in dropping in and out of power play if you so wish,
as 100 merits is not very hard to re-gain.
 

Lance 'Spacecat' D.

Lance 'Spacecat' D.
It's true that the faction equipment are sidegrades, not upgrades. And that you will make more money doing your own thing than doing the merit grind. (Although you can benefit from faction boosts to trade or fighting, like Araviel mentioned)
And yes, I've went out on long exploration trips and saw my merits dwindle to nothing, and having been rank 4 I had a 10.5 million paycheck waiting for me on the return home, and I didn't feel it was such a big deal... In short I can personally confirm everything that's been said here. Including how the faction hostility is not a big issue, you can still fly around and do your thing, bounties are more of a worry.

Besides the odd little bonus that might fit one's playstyle perfectly, many folks will 'join powerplay' for roleplay reasons. Like I was a faithful imperial from day one, so I joined an imperial faction and am sticking to it. It's often less about benefits to oneself, and more of being part of something grander, of helping shape the story of Elite, it's a community thing.

And of course you don't have to. This is a space sandbox game, you play it the way you like. For Freedom. :)
 
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Araviel

Araviel
irongut said:
According to support rank progression is not reputation based so pledging to Aisling will not help.

(It may help tanjentially because higher rep will get you better missions but not directly.)
Click to expand...

i am a subscriber to that thread so know it well and i maintain my opinion that getting better missions will help you get faction rank, especially as combat and donation missions gives you the most faction points, and when you get high enough standing whit the minor factions you will be swimming in them
 

Ganjis

G
I think the single worst thing about PP is constantly getting interdicted by NPCs on the opposite side of the planet just as you are about to disengage lock to a station in a control system. They tell you that you are in the wrong neighbourhood (???), have zero bounty on them from anywhere (?), give no merits for destroying and are in general an immersion-breaking pest.

If you are equipped for serious exploration, be sure to have task manager running in the background. I would hate for you to lose all your data because a hostile Deadly Anaconda NPC just happened to be waiting all this time, doing nothing, for YOU to have the audacity to fly back to a friendly control system to cash in your exploration. Seriously.
 
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