Powerplay Powerplay Efficient Merits & Credits Guide

This is a guide for all those that can't be bothered with the maths, or those interested in Excel use.

Information on this guide is based off the thread by support, found here; and based off Aisling Duval's Rating Progression

Using the Google Sheets document I generated recently, this guide will go through minimum requirements for maintaining whichever PowerPlay (PP) Rating you want; and the methods by which you can do so.

Here is the document with the more or less Raw Data.


Rating 1
Basic rating for all those that join a faction.

Raw Income
:
1,000 Credits (cr)
Minimum Requirements: N/A


Rating 2
The rating for once in a while players of a faction.

Raw Income
: 50
,000cr
Minimum Requirements: 54 Merits per Week (M/week)

Fulfilling Requirements:
via fast-tracking commodities - cost of 484,600cr
via destroying hostile ships - 4 (3.6) Kills
via free commodity runs - 4 (3.6) Runs in 2 (1.8) Hours
@ equivalent income p/hour = 33,178cr


Rating 3
The rating which is doesn't seem worth it at all.

Raw Income
: 500
,000cr
Minimum Requirements: 400 M/week

Fulfilling Requirements:
via fast-tracking commodities - cost of 3,460,00cr
via destroying hostile ships - 27 (26.7) Kills
via free commodity runs - 20 Runs in 10 Hours
@ equivalent income p/hour = 90,000cr


Rating 4
The rating that enthusiasts want.

Raw Income
: 5,000
,000cr
Minimum Requirements: 800 M/week

Fulfilling Requirements:
via fast-tracking commodities - cost of 2,920,000cr
via destroying hostile ships - 54 (53.3) Kills
via free commodity runs - 32 Runs in 16 Hours
@ equivalent income p/hour = 392,500cr


Rating 5
The rating for those with too much money and too much time.

Raw Income
: 50,000
,000cr
Minimum Requirements: 5334 (M/week)

Fulfilling Requirements:
via fast-tracking commodities - cost of 2,806,600cr
via destroying hostile ships - 356 (355.6) Kills
via free commodity runs - 107 (106.7) Runs in 54 (53.34) Hours
@ equivalent income p/hour = 1,470,782cr


Do what you will with the information above. I will be going for Rating 4; as I prefer not to invest 54 hours into Elite Dangerous per week; I'm not sure how long it takes people to get a kill... as you have to search, interdict, destroy repeat. At lower levels, it is probably more efficient, but at Rating 5, I feel it may be difficult to get 356 kills in 54 hours.


Brought to you by CMDR Key-Lan,
Fly Safe Commanders.
 
I think your math might be off for cost of commodities for Rating 5

Nah Aisling just has a cheaper fast track due to empire bias *Joking*

I don't know if the calc is something involving free allowance + price to full a hold, assume 30min round trip or something? but then that'll depend on ship type etc.

Destroying hostile ships (undermining) is 30 merits a kill and it seems people do between 10-20 p/h depending on skill/exaggeration .

Also bear in mind you never have to earn the full 10,000 merits in one go, if you keep putting in 5334 you will eventually get there and also know how much it takes to keep it.
 
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I think your math might be off for cost of commodities for Rating 5
Yep, fast-tracking 1 ton of commodity = 10k credits.
So if you go for 100% fast-tracking, 5334 x 10000 = 53,34 millions credits.
Any allotments that you would collect in the process would save you 50 x 10000 = 500k credits.

And for those who are not happy with the way it is, did you really think you would get paid 50 millions for doing nothing? ;)
Now go take down these dangerous Haulers and get the equivalent of 300k for a single kill. :p
 
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If you check the equation on the spreadsheet; the way I calculated the cost was the following;

Amount of Commodities Needed x 10,000 Credits - Amount of Commodities Needed x 100 Credits

Why?

I do assume 100% fast tracking.
I also take into account that you get paid 100 credits per Merit you hand in to the destination.
 
Amount of Commodities Needed x 10,000 Credits - Amount of Commodities Needed x 100 Credits

Lets assume I need 5 000 merits this week
Math:
(5000 x 10 000) - (5000 x 100) = x
50 000 000 - 500 000 = 49 500 000 m

But you will get 50 free merits at start - if you have Anaconda with 400t space - you will get free 50 and buy 350 remaining merits

and that additional free 50 every 30 min when you get back to Capital system.

So total expenses will be lover, but still very high...

I have done this countless weeks..

You never fast-track merits for profit, its for Rank 5 and to help your power e.g. to fortify systems..

Often you do not have time to use your Rank 5 bonus anyway - for Arissa its double payout for Bounties and Bonds...since you spend all you playtime for getting to Rank 5 ;)
 
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I am aware that you will get a certain amount of free merits. Unfortunately, there would be too many variables; including the cargo space, how long it takes to do a single run when fast-tracking, etc.

If you don't want to spend so much time on remaining in Rank 5, you could fast-track half the merits and then take only ~25 hours to do the rest of them for free. In that case you still have about half your income from that week.

What can be concluded, as you said, is that Rank 5 is really for helping the power you are supporting; not so much for the income.
 
Often you do not have time to use your Rank 5 bonus anyway - for Arissa its double payout for Bounties and Bonds...since you spend all you playtime for getting to Rank 5 ;)
I kinda like the rank 5 bonus of Archon...being immune to fine and bounties, you can:
- Use auto-docking with your Anaconda full of illegal stuff and not care about the scan while listening classical music.
- Boost away from the slot, popping this little (NPC) Hauler and not caring about the bounty.
- And yep, if you have some spare time, you can also do some piracy.

Actually, I'm generally done securing my rank 5 after 2 or 3 days...but it's time consuming to be dedicated to your Power :)
 
Yep, fast-tracking 1 ton of commodity = 10k credits.
So if you go for 100% fast-tracking, 5334 x 10000 = 53,34 millions credits.
Any allotments that you would collect in the process would save you 50 x 10000 = 500k credits.

And for those who are not happy with the way it is, did you really think you would get paid 50 millions for doing nothing? ;)
Now go take down these dangerous Haulers and get the equivalent of 300k for a single kill. :p


Yeah, I figure I can one shot them with 3 Imperial Gauntlets in a Courier.
Might have to go 2 and have a medium laser to finish them off.

it will be useless for anything else but hunting down and killing small transport ships.
But that will make the best credits for my time.
 
I started with Zachary Hudson last thursday. Picked up about 7k merits over the weekend, another 1000 last night. Hoping to finish out the last couple thousand tonight.


It has almost all been accumulated undermining, except for maybe a couple hundred from fortifying, and another couple hundred in crime sweeps or W/E they call the Hudson combat zones.


Been a pretty brutal grind, TBH. Hopefully I can keep the 5.4k weekly merit grab going until this all seems worthwhile.
 
I started with Zachary Hudson last thursday. Picked up about 7k merits over the weekend, another 1000 last night. Hoping to finish out the last couple thousand tonight.
[...]
Been a pretty brutal grind, TBH. Hopefully I can keep the 5.4k weekly merit grab going until this all seems worthwhile.
Well, reaching 10000 merits in one week is indeed brutal :)
I reached rank 5 by going progressively and did not feel at all the process "brutal".

Now, keep in mind that if you plan to keep rank 5 by only undermining, you will eventually get bored.
Doing a mix of undermining, expanding, fortifying, preparing tasks makes the process way more enjoyable.
Of course, you need the right ships to do it properly.

On the another side, it is still better than attempting to get 25-50 millions reward by doing a community goal, no?
 
i currently have about 12000 merits this week having carried over about 3500 from the previous week, so yes I've about 8000+ this week with still a day to go.

How? Undermining at 30 a kill. pick out the wings of 3 and it mounts quickly. i can pull in 1300 in two hrs easily. 1400 - 1500 if i get a few lucky wings.

the rest? expansion. i played for about and hr in a well organised wing of 4 tonight and coined 1250. we were motoring.

btw i don't normally get this much free time with Ed, but im really looking forward to the 50m pay cheque!
 
For an trader not really interesting, I could make more credits in 50 hours able to choose my routes without restraints from powerplay.
Powerplay is designed for fighters with small cargo bays (with half hour time allotments that do not carry over.)
 
I know this is a very old tread, but its one of the first things that popped up when I was searching for info.

The math above for fast tracking is completely wrong. I'm only rank two so ill confirm the rest later. Maybe. Spoilers, week 4 is bullllllllll
At rank one it costs 100k and you get 10T.
At rank two it costs 150K and you get 15T.
Rank 3 200K, 20T (needs confirmation)
Rank 4 250K, 25T (needs confirmation)
Rank 5 300K, 50T (needs confirmation)

Half of your merits are carried over every week for 3 weeks.... Has a nice table and other usefulness: https://docs.google.com/presentatio...p=false&delayms=30000&slide=id.g5a1f0f74f_0_8

So. 5 weeks.

Rank 1: Need 100 (0 carried over) 100-10(first free)=90 90/10=9 9x100k= 900K Earns 1000cr
Rank 2: Need 750 (50 carried over) 700-15(first free)=685 685/15=45.7 46x150k= 6.9M Earns 50,000cr
Rank 3: Need 1500 (375+25 carried over) 1100-20(first free)=1080 1080/20=54 54x200k= 10.8M Earns 500,000cr
Rank 4: Need 10,000 (750+187.5+12.5 carried over) 9050-25(first free)=9025 9025/25=361 361x250K= 90.25M Earns 5,000,000cr
Rank 5: Need 10,000 (5000+375+93.75 carried over) 4532-50(first free)=4482 4482/50=89.64 90x300k= 27M Earns 50,000,000cr

Week 6: Need 10,000 (5000+2500+187.5 carried over) 2313-50=2263 2263/50=45.26 46x300k= 13.8M
Week 7: Need 10,000 (5000+2500+1250 carried over) 1250-50=1200 1200/50=24 24x300k= 7.2M

Week 7 is the maintain. 8, 9, 10 will all be the same. Unless you don't maintain, then things go back to complicated.
So if the increase of 50K per rank is correct... Rank 4-5 should be done with a group of people attacking other powers... cus jezzus that is frightening. Just having to ship 9k tons is crazy nevermind the price tag. But once you reach the maintain stage its not looking that bad. Shipping 1250 will still suck, but netting a clean 42.8M a week looks good. Probably looks better on paper(text) than in actuality.

- - - Updated - - -

Like Darian said. Power play is for combat players. Fast tracking to do control is g terrible. If it stayed at 100,000K per it would be far more reasonable.
 
The OP math isn't wrong, just your interpretation of what he's providing. No one gets there rating by rating, do they? It's a tremendous waste of credits to do so. Most I know just skipped straight to R5 in a week of crazy undermining, and some of us have reclaimed it once or twice by delivery straight from R1. That sucks.

Really the OP isn't accurate either (which he/she attested), since it's actually impossible to fast track every single merit (you'll always have the first free allotment, and load size vs. delivery time mean you'll get more free allotments over time) but that's not overly useful.

The numbers he's using are for rank maintenance in perpetuity at a constant rate. The same as on slide 22 of the link you posted.

Edit: Re-reading your post: you understand the 10000/ton cost is static, right? Rating doesn't change that. Fast tracking 50 tons costs 500000 credits.

If you want to retain R5 by delivering exactly the same number of merits each cycle, the minimum is 5334
[5334] + [2667 + 1333.5 + 666.75] = 10001.25. This math applies identically every cycle you deliver 5334 after maximum carryover is attained.

Total cost fast-tracked: 53340000, -533400cr from delivery pay, -2000000 assuming 8 trips (Cutter) and a free allotment every other trip (200 tons total) just as example. This saving will increase as number of trips increases, as with a smaller ship. Time is money.
= 50806600 (-50mil salary = 806600cr)

Same idea with R4.
[800] + [400 + 200 + 100] = 1500, ergo 800 minimum as a constant in perpetuity. If I take the above example this would only be two trips, with one 25 ton free allotment.
8000000 - 80000 - 250000 = 7670000 (-5mil salary = 2670000)

And yeah, if you're judging Powerplay as a credit-gaining, personal-benefit activity, think again. It isn't (even in combat you can make more credits/hr bounty hunting or in CZs) and wasn't designed to be. The team with more people willing to sacrifice for it will succeed. Think of it as a sport.
 
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You can do all the calculations in the world. It'll be slightly different for everyone. The main point is that if you want to maintain level 5 by doing deliveries, it'll cost approximately 100 million in the first week, and then 50 million a week thereafter, but you get back 50 million per week. The rest is flysh_it by comparison. If you have an Anaconda or Cutter, that'll take about 6 hours and 3 hours respectively. You can take longer, claim more free allocations, and pay less, but you'd be better off going bounty hunting and claiming the double bounties.

There is one trick that some people use. Take a laptop to work with the game installed. Every half hour, open the lid, click your latest free allocation, and close the lid. That will fill up your ship for one run (say 500T) that you do first thing in the evening., so you could get half the 5000T free, which means that you'd get 25 mil per week for doing that.

I can't be bothered doing anything complicated like tha, so I spend 3 hours and 50 mil doing the deliveries on a Thursday night while I watch TV, then I spend about 4 hours a night on the other days bounty hunting. That gets me about t mil per hour doubled to 10 mil, so something like 250 mil per week. After 4 weeks, I have a billion, and then go and do something else for a while.

Don't forget that you don't have to and in your bounties straight away. If you don't die very often, you could spend say 10 hours bounty hunting while you're waiting for The Thursday tickover, but don't hand in your bounties. They'd be worth about 50 mil. Do the 10,000T deliveries on Wednesday, which costs 100 mil and takes 6 hours. As soon as you get the level 5 on Thursday, hand in your bounties to claim 100 mil. That means that you spent 16 hours to get the 50 mil salary, so 3 mil per hour, but after that you get 10 mil per hour. That way, you don't notice the loss of 100 mil when you start.
 
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Edit: Re-reading your post: you understand the 10000/ton cost is static, right? Rating doesn't change that. Fast tracking 50 tons costs 500000 credits.

If you want to retain R5 by delivering exactly the same number of merits each cycle, the minimum is 5334
[5334] + [2667 + 1333.5 + 666.75] = 10001.25. This math applies identically every cycle you deliver 5334 after maximum carryover is attained.

Total cost fast-tracked: 53340000, -533400cr from delivery pay, -2000000 assuming 8 trips (Cutter) and a free allotment every other trip (200 tons total) just as example. This saving will increase as number of trips increases, as with a smaller ship. Time is money.
= 50806600 (-50mil salary = 806600cr)

Same idea with R4.
[800] + [400 + 200 + 100] = 1500, ergo 800 minimum as a constant in perpetuity. If I take the above example this would only be two trips, with one 25 ton free allotment.
8000000 - 80000 - 250000 = 7670000 (-5mil salary = 2670000)

And yeah, if you're judging Powerplay as a credit-gaining, personal-benefit activity, think again. It isn't (even in combat you can make more credits/hr bounty hunting or in CZs) and wasn't designed to be. The team with more people willing to sacrifice for it will succeed. Think of it as a sport.



Yeah I got my maths wrong. Carried the total over instead of just what was contributed. And yes there will be quite a bit of wiggle room, there's no way to pin down how long trips will take and what not. In my cutter everything but Rank 5 can be done with in the half hour usually. The reward credits for the drop off is also too terrible to mention, handed in 600 some tons and got 60 something thousand credits, so that's negligible too.
Maybe its just for Li yong-ru, but the fortifying cargo is entirely free. There is no 10k/ton. My fast tracking does appear to be going up 50k per rank though.

At rank one it costs 100k and you get 10T.
At rank two it costs 150K and you get 15T.
Rank 3 200K, 20T
Rank 4 250K, 25T (needs confirmation)
Rank 5 300K, 50T (needs confirmation)

Rank 1: Need 100 (0 carried over) 100-10(first free)=90 90/10=9 9x100k= 900K Earns 1000cr
Rank 2: Need 750 (50 carried over) 700-15(first free)=685 685/15=45.7 46x150k= 6.9M Earns 50,000cr
Rank 3: Need 1500 (350+25 carried over) 1125-20(first free)=1105 1105/20=55.25 56x200k= 11.2M Earns 500,000cr
Rank 4: Need 10,000 (562.5+175+12.5 carried over) 9250-25(first free)=9225 9225/25=369 369x250K= 92.25M Earns 5,000,000cr
Rank 5: Need 10,000 (4625+281.25+87.5 carried over) 5006.25-50(first free)=4957 4957/50=99.14 100x300k= 30M Earns 50,000,000cr

Week 6: Need 10,000 (2503.125+2312.5+140.625 carried over) 5043.75-50=4993.75 4994/50=99.88 100x300k= 30M
Week 7: Need 10,000 (2522+1251.5+1156.25 carried over) 5070.25-50=5020.25 5020/50=100 100x300k= 30M

There we go. Yeah fast tracking to ship stuff is terrible if money making is your goal.

Dono d8veh. Looks like if you fast track you can net 20mil... it only costs 30 not 50. The first week to rank 5 100M looks correct though.
 
At rank one it costs 100k and you get 10T.
At rank two it costs 150K and you get 15T.
Rank 3 200K, 20T
Rank 4 250K, 25T (needs confirmation)
Rank 5 300K, 50T (needs confirmation)

No dude, for real. We've been at this for two years.
Your free allocation/30min changes, but fast tracking (everything not free) is 10k/ton. 10 = 100k, 15 = 150k [...] 50 = 500k. You're seeing it go up 50k because the allocation goes up by 5 until R5. 10, 15, 20, 25, 50.

I don't know how to prove that to you. I guess I'll just wait until you're R5 and find out.
 
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There we go. Yeah fast tracking to ship stuff is terrible if money making is your goal.

Dono d8veh. Looks like if you fast track you can net 20mil... it only costs 30 not 50.

I'm curious to see how much more true you find the former, once the latter is proven completely false.
CA5578B002AB03832F2644766A6D86B79AF63EE6
 
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