PowerPlay Issue #1
Released: 28th April, 2018
Contents:
- Who are we?
- What is PowerPlay?
- Status of PowerPlay
- Ratings and BGS Bonuses
- The Solution
- Other Exploits
Who are we?
Lavigny's Legion is the largest Imperial PowerPlay player faction in Elite, protecting the Emperor through fortification and expanding her territory as she commands. Our goal is to make PowerPlay fun and engaging, while testing its mechanics and reporting potential bugs or exploits present in the system. We also have a close relationship with the Chapterhouse of Inquisition, a group who are highly knowledgeable in Background Simulation as well as PowerPlay. The lore of our faction dates back in the 2320s, when the first war broke out between the Federation and the Empire. Surrounded by the Federation, Legionnaires took flight and fought back at the invaders of their homeland, marking the birth of Lavigny's Legion. Commanded by Admiral Lucius Lavigny, the Legion is now the 3rd largest fleet with over three capital ships and a drydock at our home system of Carthage.
[video=youtube;YS6PqWzboe8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS6PqWzboe8[/video]
What is PowerPlay?
PowerPlay is a political war between all the powers of the galaxy. Their goal is to capture the most systems that are profitable and defeat those who oppose them. PowerPlay invites anyone who likes to do PvE or PvP to fight eachother for what they love. Shooting at a NPC or Player marked as Enemy won't get you wanted, but instead with a power bounty. In addition, any form of police response will not intervene during PowerPlay combat. While all and good, the Empire and Federation have alliances that make the battleground different. Still growing strong, the Empire has a coalition known as ZYADA, which is a coalition between the following powers: (For more details on zyada, see their reddit announcement)
- Aisling Duval
- Arissa Lavigny-Duval
- Denton Patreus
- Yuri Grom
- Zemina Torval
The ZYADA Alliance became something that showed true allies between each power, rather than an area where each power fought for itself. On the other side of things, the Federation also has a coalition between Felicia Winters, Zachary Hudson and Archon Delaine. Together, both of these Alliances helped their own powers in an effort to push forward their territories and oppose others with great force. Spies from all corners of these powers have been known to appear from the shadows, making Intel a valuable asset for their power. Today, PowerPlay is now the living blood of what represents players as an Imperial, Federal or whoever they choose to play as.
Logo for ZYADA, the largest coalition known to PowerPlay
Status of PowerPlay
Since the recent death of Senator Cartesius, PowerPlay has taken a hit for Denton Patreus, leaving him in turmoil with a -583 CC loss. Below is a map showing a summary of powers and their income/number of control systems.
Ratings and BGS Bonuses
When you are pledged to a power, you are presented with the oppertunity to acquire a Rating by earning Merits for that power. Earning merits can be as easy as Fortifying systems, undermining enemy powers or helping in expansions your power is currently conducting for the cycle. There are five ratings for every power, below showing the merits required for obtaining one of these ratings:
- Rating 1 = 0 Merits
- Rating 2 = 100 Merits
- Rating 3 = 750 Merits
- Rating 4 = 1,500 Merits
- Rating 5 = 10,000 Merits
Each power has a bonus with every rating such as weapons, bounty boosts and BGS. The BGS bonus, however, is one of the most widely used bonuses for the three powers that currently have it. This bonus increases the amount of influence you can do in your power's territory by 100%! This amount is massive, as a player can potentially flip a system on his own with ease with also opposition present in the system. Combined with the report by Mercs of Mikunn, this can put other powers without the bonus at a disadvantage by an exploitative bonus. Flipping systems from one government to another can greatly impact a power's nearby control system through fortification and undermining triggers. These three powers that have the bonus already have strong triggers, meaning it is almost impossible for a power to send the enemy power into turmoil. The downside is powers without the bonus would be more prone to turmoil, because it would require multiple players to work on one system, rather than one person with the BGS bonus.
The Solution
Allow all bonuses in PowerPlay to be a choice made by the player. You cannot simply be forced to join a power knowing it has a better bonus than the other for that only reason. Players need to have the ability to choose a bonus after PowerPlay maintenance so that they can choose on what they want to do for that week. The revision of the BGS bonus would be recommended, as it is too powerful considering one person can manage and flip a system by himself. Reduce the effect the bonus has to BGS, or apply some of the points made by the Mercs of Mikunn regarding to this.
Other Exploits
There are a few known exploits in PowerPlay, a popular one known as "5C". Fifth Column (or 5C) is a term used by the PowerPlay community for someone who pledges on the enemy side, then fortifies systems that negatively impact the power. This action is regarded as disliked and frowned upon, as you are doing something that is isn't supposed to be fair gameplay. This has relation to the Bots and Scripting discussion that was revealed by Tom D, who is part of Edmund Mahon's leadership and as a BGS expert for the Alliance of Statistics. These bots will use Solo Mode to automatically fill their hold with fortification supplies, then haul them to a system that doesn't provide a profit to the power. These bots appear to be doing these actions in Solo, as we've attempted to track down them while Arissa Lavigny-Duval was put into turmoil because of 5C during Cycle #145. The solution for this would be to remove the negative values if a bad system was fortified, meaning it would be a value of 0 CC. This type of exploit needs to be addressed, along with the BGS bonus, as we'd rather see players undermine eachother's powers the right way, rather than something that is frowned upon by the majority of the PowerPlay Community.
The other concern (not really an exploit) would be to keep PowerPlay activities in Open Play. This view is a controversial one to many, but many powers are frustrated to turn up to a system with a PvP response wing, only to find out that their enemies went through Private Group or Solo Mode to do PowerPlay. Players who are caught doing this are shamed by some players, and we prefer to avoid this behaviour so that players can have a fun time in Elite rather than getting called out for these particular actions in the game. The solution for this would be to have merits acquirable through Open Play rather than the other game modes. This wouldn't be one of our most advised problems with PowerPlay, but it would be great if it is investigated in the future.
Have a question regarding PowerPlay? Interested in finding more about our group? Feel free to visit us on our inara or on discord! You may also comment about your thoughts regarding the issues presented in this report, and do you feel that other changes need to be done in PowerPlay? Let us know below!
Fly Safe, Commanders.
Lavigny's Legion PowerPlay Team
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Would be great to encourage some of the other groups to do something similar. It brings a bit of much-needed colour to Powerplay and the more people who engage, the more chance we have of FD making some improvements o7
