Lets talk about Undermining ?

[R00TBR]

Hello, I'm the spokesman from the brazilian community Elite Dangerous Brasil and I've come here to talk about Powerplay, most specifically about the Undermining system.

First, I would like to confirm the knowledge we gattered about the mechanic after watching the Powerplay Tutorials, after reading the Beta Manual and the Powerplay Manual:

EXPANSION SYSTEM:
1- If only the Expansion Trigger is achieved, the Expansion will occur.
2- If only the Opposition Trigger is achieved, the expansion will fail.
3- If both the Expansion Trigger and the Opposition Trigger are achieved, the Expansion will only occur if the Expansion Total is higher than Opposition Total.

(This means it is worth to keep doing Expansion/Undermining missions even after it reaches 100%)

CONTROL SYSTEM:
1- If only the Fortify Trigger is achieved, the system will be fortified and the cost reduced.
2- If only the Opposition Trigger is achieved, the system will be undermined and its cost will increase.
3- If both the Fortify Trigger and Opposition Trigger are achieved, they will cancel eachother and the cost of the system will be it's default cost.

(This means there is no reason to keep doing Fortify/Undermining missions after it reaches 100% )


Something that was never explained is the change of the Icon in the SYSTEM ALERTS inside the CONTROL TAB:



I've noticed that the symbol changes depending on the Undermining Total and the Fortify Total but it was never explained what the symbol change means. Reading the state of various Powers I can confirm that:
1-If the Opposition Total is higher than the Fortify Total it will display the Crosshair Symbol.
2-If the Fortify Total is higher than the Opposition Total it will display the Shield Symbol.
3-In the graphics on the PROGRESS if Fortify is higher than the Opposition, does not mean it will display the Shield Symbol:




PS: In the official video Powerplay Training Part 3: Expansion , at 3:00 when it starts to talk about Undermining Expansion of another Power, it displays the CONTROL TAB and not the EXPANSION TAB. (Since they work differently, this makes people confused).
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugdhzV_nefQ

Many thanks,
Elite Dangerous Brasil

 

[Indy Original]

I'm sorry ROOTBR, I don't know enough about Powerplay myself to answer your questions - but I'll bump you back up to the top of the page, and hopefully someone else will be able to help you!

 

[Zorkham]

I'd also like to know more about this

 

[R00TBR]

Thanks so much for the Bump guys. I hope someone or some group, maybe even a mod/dev could help us with this. I've already tried reading all avaible manuals of powerplay, all official videos... still no answers =/

 

[RingoD123]

If 2 powers are trying to expand into the same system (or prepare the same system for expansion) then the power with the highest percentage above the trigger takes it.
If neither power reaches the trigger then neither takes it. So it is worth while to keep up the expansion tasks if another power is also contesting the same system.
Controlled systems can be fortified and/or undermined. Fortifying drops the upkeep to 0, undermining makes it cost its regular amount plus whatever it would normally bring in from its exploited systems. If fortifying and undermining are both achieved then both cancel each other out and the owning power has to pay the regular upkeep.
I think the symbols are:
display shield if trigger has been reached for fortification, display crosshair if trigger has been reached for undermining, both are displayed if they have both been achieved and cancelled each other out (both boxes to the left will have "cancelled" in them).
hope this helps.

 

[R00TBR]

If 2 powers are trying to expand into the same system (or prepare the same system for expansion) then the power with the highest percentage above the trigger takes it.
If neither power reaches the trigger then neither takes it. So it is worth while to keep up the expansion tasks if another power is also contesting the same system.
Controlled systems can be fortified and/or undermined. Fortifying drops the upkeep to 0, undermining makes it cost its regular amount plus whatever it would normally bring in from its exploited systems. If fortifying and undermining are both achieved then both cancel each other out and the owning power has to pay the regular upkeep.
I think the symbols are:
display shield if trigger has been reached for fortification, display crosshair if trigger has been reached for undermining, both are displayed if they have both been achieved and cancelled each other out (both boxes to the left will have "cancelled" in them).
hope this helps.

In fact your first explain is partially true. Not only if another Power is trying to expand but also if the Undermine is ongoing, it's worth to keep doing expansion missions because the expansion will fail if its TOTAL surpass the Expansion Total.

Your final statment is not true to the CONTROL TAB (in System Alerts), only one symbol is displayed as I said and showed in the first post. It is true, yes, for the Galxy Map.

Lets build knowledge guys !

 

[R00TBR]

May I bump this so we get some answers and can understand the system better?

Thanks =)

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

I'm interested in this as well - especially the fortification bit.

Especially this question: There is a second trigger mark higher up. In my power, there's currently a system where undermining and fortification cancel each other out - however I wonder if fortification overrides the cancellation again if it reaches the second trigger.

Does anyone know?

I know the text in the manual suggests there's no point in pursuing it any further, however there's hardly a point for the second trigger marker if it doesn't do anything (not saying the latter is not a possibility in PPs current state ).

I was planning to try and still will, however the unexpectedly long downtime was in my prime playing time, so not sure if I'll make it.

[edit]: lol - nevermind - after doing a run and not getting closer, I noticed the suspected second trigger is supposed to be the graphs legend.

Stupid me, but also not the best place to put it - ah well - need a couple of thousand tons for rank 5 anyway - doesn't really matter where I haul them from.

 

[R00TBR]

I'm interested in this as well - especially the fortification bit.

Especially this question: There is a second trigger mark higher up. In my power, there's currently a system where undermining and fortification cancel each other out - however I wonder if fortification overrides the cancellation again if it reaches the second trigger.

Does anyone know?

I know the text in the manual suggests there's no point in pursuing it any further, however there's hardly a point for the second trigger marker if it doesn't do anything (not saying the latter is not a possibility in PPs current state ).

I was planning to try and still will, however the unexpectedly long downtime was in my prime playing time, so not sure if I'll make it.

[edit]: lol - nevermind - after doing a run and not getting closer, I noticed the suspected second trigger is supposed to be the graphs legend.

Stupid me, but also not the best place to put it - ah well - need a couple of thousand tons for rank 5 anyway - doesn't really matter where I haul them from.

I feel like they explain it pretty bad in their videos/manuals and the visual information represents pretty bad the system itself (looks like the design group didnt understand the system or something like this).

Lets hope people figure out at some point or maybe they could just answer or make a better explanation.

 

[DJ]

Good write-up and question raising R00TBR. I'll bookmark this one as i'd like to read the answer.

 

[DrakeAurum]

You could try asking this guy, he seems to be an expert.

[video=youtube;C_mSHxmJp0M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_mSHxmJp0M[/video]

 

[Bobo]

How do I prevent or stop a system from being undermined?

For example, Im currently with Li Yong-Rui, Ive been running around Winters system's killing her ships and getting merits and all that jazz.

I want to stop the undermining in LP 355-65, so do I just fly around in sc looking for anything that's not independant and kill them, or do I have to do horrid postman missions to fortifie?
Also, how do I find out who is doing the undermining?

I swear I thought I had it all figured out last night

 

[RingoD123]

How do I prevent or stop a system from being undermined?

For example, Im currently with Li Yong-Rui, Ive been running around Winters system's killing her ships and getting merits and all that jazz.

I want to stop the undermining in LP 355-65, so do I just fly around in sc looking for anything that's not independant and kill them, or do I have to do horrid postman missions to fortifie?
Also, how do I find out who is doing the undermining?


I swear I thought I had it all figured out last night

you cannot stop undermining just like people cannot stop you from undermining them.

 

[DrakeAurum]

How do I prevent or stop a system from being undermined?

For example, Im currently with Li Yong-Rui, Ive been running around Winters system's killing her ships and getting merits and all that jazz.

I want to stop the undermining in LP 355-65, so do I just fly around in sc looking for anything that's not independant and kill them, or do I have to do horrid postman missions to fortifie?
Also, how do I find out who is doing the undermining?

I swear I thought I had it all figured out last night

Once a system is fortified to 100%, you can't do anything to further fortify it against undermining.

You can patrol the system looking for ships belonging to other factions, and see whether they're engaging in undermining activity, then "discourage" them. However, there are likely to be as many such players working in Solo as Open, and you can't touch them.

 

[Bobo]

Right o, I'll go back to being horrible to Ms Winters friends then. Thanks for the quick reply folks

 

[Conley]

I do love this control:



You'll see the PROGRESS for CONTROL clearly states both have been cancelled since each have achieved 100%

Especially the Opposition being 19,360 above the trigger. Now i did not find doing the undermining lucrative for credits, so i am baffled as why people are continuing to achieve a goal they have already achieved. This clearly shows alot of CMDRS, or very few but very well skilled CMDRS do not understand power play, and maybe FD could shed some light.

If this was EXPANSION then going over the trigger is okay, as you mainly want to be over the opposition and vice versa. as you can see in this picture, both have achieved 100% but the OPPOSITION is above the EXPANSION, causing this attempted expansion to fail.



You can see in the yellow box it tells you that the "Expansion will fail unless increased above the opposition", so if you are doing something in the expansion area, keep going.

So if your reading this and you're out there doing missions for that CONTROL tab, but have already hit 100%, STOP!!!!! And try to go do the missions under EXPANSION.

Personally i think working on control areas at the start of the week until they hit 100% then moving onto expansion areas to keep them above the opposition % is key. Once i know there is a large enough gap between the %'s (in my favor hopefully) i start working on preparation.

Hopefully FD will create the power play to stop allowing people to go above 100% when doing CONTROL. this should fix some confusion.



PS: if im wrong with this reply, I apologize, set me on the correct path o wise one.

 

[Aio]

Why do people continue to do undermining after 100% is reached? It is due to some systems spawn a lot of targets making it easy to get a lot of points. Some systems are so empy that most cmds give up. Also due to the bounty system it is better to get all bounty/fine in one system than spread it out.

 

[RingoD123]

Why do people continue to do undermining after 100% is reached? It is due to some systems spawn a lot of targets making it easy to get a lot of points. Some systems are so empy that most cmds give up. Also due to the bounty system it is better to get all bounty/fine in one system than spread it out.

yep, this is simply down to individuals earning their merits using undermining. almost every control system that is near another powers space has already been fully undermined (with the exception of Aisling since she doesn't spawn angels in her control system so she cant be undermined), the undermine numbers are fairly low and so can be achieved fairly quickly by a relatively small group of players, but there's lots of players, who all want to earn 15 merits per kill, and their only choice is to work in a system that is already over 100% undermined.

 

[R00TBR]

You guys are right, there's no design indications or self-explanatory visualization present at this moment. Not even the graphic bars do their work, since their % is based on the Trigger value so 100% of expansion/control is not the same numeric value of 100% opposition therefore they cant be compared (higher graph bar is not always the wining bar).

As I see, FD needs to do a better job when it comes to the visual design of the powerplay. IF they want to maintain the 100% win/lose/mutual on the fortify/undermine, they need to make it pretty clear that there's no reason to keep going after it reaches 100%.

Also, it was not explained WHY and WHAT the crosshair and the shield symbols means and what make them change (as I've been following changes on numbers, it looks like CONTROL symbols - showed in my first post - change based on the EXPANSION mechanic).

We seriously need a light in here.

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

You guys are right, there's no design indications or self-explanatory visualization present at this moment. Not even the graphic bars do their work, since their % is based on the Trigger value so 100% of expansion/control is not the same numeric value of 100% opposition therefore they cant be compared (higher graph bar is not always the wining bar)..

Yeah - the same issue confused me a little this afternoon. One of Torvals expansion systems was displayed as "under threat" in the overview, but looking at the bars, I've found that her bar was much higher than the oppositions bar.

As you said, since the bars are normalized for the different trigger values, they're quite meaningless after the triggers have been met since the absolute value is the one that counts (tested it - chucked in 400 tons, which rectified the issue for the time being).