Powerplay merits - help record complete data!

[marx]

How the developers have (currently) set personal Powerplay merits gains from selling exploration or exobiology data remains to be seen. Unfortunately, mentions I've seen so far for UC data or VG samples sold and merits gotten all have missed something crucial: the system they were sold in, and its PP control points. I'd like to ask for folks to help record more complete data then, so that it's easier to figure out just what exactly an explorer can expect.

So, what would I ask for? The following:

• The credits and the first discovery bonuses of your sale, UC data and VG samples separately(!)
• The system you sold it in, its power, strength and control points before and after the sale (the date and time of the sale might also be nice, but hardly necessary)
• How many PP merits you gained at each transaction
• Which power you're pledged to, and what bonus to data you have (if any)

Because of the system-specific part mentioned above, you might want to switch systems after a while, and also, choose systems that aren't heavily fortified yet. The less control points, the better.
Why, you ask? Let me explain.

When Frontier made the post about re-enabling stuff (here), they added this part: "They will now give increased merits compared to their effect on a system when handed in."
Which is a nicer way of saying that if they have lesser effects on a system, then you'll get fewer merits. I take it this was designed to combat large data dumps over-reinforcing systems.
Given that there's no in-game warning that you're about to spend your data poorly (as far as I know, that is), this is something that most people would forget. What's the magnitude of the penalty like? No idea yet.
Then there have been rumours that only first discovery bonuses count, so those should be recorded separately too. We can guess at this from the total, but it'd be better if it were recorded.

You can find the data from the thread here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OTDKlRQRaSlim7s1fRt6OwzvxEeWJldZ_6ufPx1CzXM/]

 

[Ian Doncaster]

• The system you sold it in, its control points before and after the sale (the date and time of the sale might also be nice, but hardly necessary)

It might also be useful to this if people provided:
- their power
- the system's power and strength level at the time of sale
- the system strength penalty and beyond front line penalty levels shown on the powerplay score panel
as that seems likely to make quite a difference to merit outcomes.

For some things the BGS state of the faction controlling the station the action takes place at can also matter ... it's probably not going to in this case, though.


(Also: don't forget when testing that you get no merits for any action done in a capital/HQ system - whether yours or anyone else's. Systems like Rhea and Kamadhenu should be avoided entirely as they'd be expected to give zero)

 

[kaputnikGo]

results of a preliminary survey for Stellar Cartographers Guild and any effects with Power Play.
currently pledged Li-Yong Rui (LYR), rank 10 at 60162 merits

using galmap - agricultural, terraforming, no firsts, all DSS achieve Efficiency target

depart stronghold carrier
HR 1254, LYR stronghold, reinforce 43286 pts
ruling faction Simbad Regime, allied 100%


Cocontae, LYR exploited, reinforce 3584 pts, FSS, DSS WW - 671,320 (+20%), 20 merits
Met 20, LYR fortified, reinforce 10433 pts, no FSS, DSS ELW - 2,475,361 (+20%), 60 merits (first discover bonus 1,523,299)
Ssu Ling, LYR exploited, reinforce 923 pts, no FSS, no DSS
HIP 6943, unoccupied , --, FSS, DSS WW, AW - 1,866,907 (+20%), 40 merits
Svansa, unoccupied, --, FSS, DSS HMC - 1,118,465 (+20%), 20 merits
Bagaiteru, unoccupied, --, no FSS, DSS HMCx2 (both 1 bio no scan) - 3,952,406 (+20%), 100 merits (first discover bonus 2,432,251)
Gungu, Antal exploited, reinforce 219351 pts, FSS, no DSS, 33,474 (+20%), 0 merits
HIP 754, Antal exploited, reinforce 0 pts, FSS, no DSS - 42,336 (+20%), 0 merits
HIP 117972, Antal fortified, reinforce 5903 pts, no FSS, DSS HMCx2, WWx3 - 8,653,884 (+20%), 240 merits (first discover bonus 5,325,469)
Aonikenk, Antal exploited, reinforce 1367 pts, no FSS, DSS WW, HMC - 4,449,897 (+20%), 120 merits (first discover bonus 2,738,399)
Tangaroa, LYR exploited, reinforce 29429 pts, no FSS, DSS ELW - 1,375,012 (+20%), 40 merits (first discover bonus 846,162)
Abrocmii, LYR exploited, reinforce 4170 pts, no FSS, DSS ELW - 2,263,663 (+20%), 60 merits (first discover bonus 1,393,024)

return stronghold carrier HR 1254

 

[MattG]

From that data, it looks like you get 20 merits per ~750k (746,763 - 752512) with some rounding going on. Lots of questions still, but it's a starting point. I don't see any correlation to FD bonus either.

 

[kaputnikGo]

2nd survey, same hand in stronghold carrier at HR 1254

quick trip to find a small system to scan all bodies:
HIP 20999, no pop., FSS, DSS all 9 bodies incl. HMCx7, WW, IW - 5,167,379 (+20%), 140 merits

then sell remaining:
sell page, 11 systems, FSS, no DSS - 1,550,472 (+20%), 20 merits

 

[marx]

Thanks! Not quite what I asked for, but it's good to have some data still. There's no need to record the Powerplay details of systems that you scanned, all that matters are the systems where you've sold your scan data at.
Also, stronghold carriers might not be good places to sell at, based on what Frontier has said. We'll see. Right now, HR 1254 is listed as Very High system strength penalty, after all - but for small sales like this, that might easily not matter much. (Plus it's likely that however Frontier adjusted the merits gained, the point was to discourage large data dumps all in a single system.)

 

[kaputnikGo]

that preliminary survey was just to establish a baseline and methodology.

 

[kaputnikGo]

3rd survey, hand in at lower state system, still reinforce, no biological scans
Evnicoano, Winters, FSS, no DSS
Mahari, unoccupied, no FSS, DSS ELW
STKM 1-626, Mahon, no FSS, DSS ELW
Toxanda, unoccupied, FSS, no DSS
Jeng, unoccupied, no FSS, no DSS
Aymarahuara, unoccupied, no FSS, DSS HMCx2, WWx2 - 11,102,415 (+20%), 320 merits (first discover bonus 6,832,258)
Waluk, unoccupied, FSS, no DSS
Oduduni, unoccupied, FSS, DSS all 9 bodies incl HMC - 1,338,457 (+20%), 40 merits
Glooscap, unoccupied, no FSS,no DSS
Col 285 Sector EN-Y b15-4, no FSS, no DSS

hand in LHS 3980, exploited LYR, reinforcing 1069 pts
Gresley Enterprise, faction Interstellar Technology Research Corporation, neutral
2 high value sold individually, then:
sell page 3,089,464 (+20%), 60 merits

system now at 1110 control points

 

[CMDR Kasanna]

I went on a week long trip and sold to Valtys system which was a system listed as reinforcing (sorry I forgot to look at the start and ending control points). I FSS scan everything, DSS all terraformable worlds, and worlds with more than 3 biology signals. Any planet with more than 3 biology signals I scan everything but bacteria.

Prior to heading out I ranked up to Rank 5 Li Yong-Rui with 15718 Merits, and all data gathered was after the Nov 7th announcement that it was turned back on.

Totals from multiple-page sales

System Totals: 81,077,978 cr
Bonuses: 583,000 cr

Merits Earned: 2883 (in my opinion.. this is way too low for the time requirement vs other gameplay methods to earn merits)

Exobiology: 1,625,379,500 cr
Merits Earned: 0 (bug that others are also reporting, I submitted a request)

For having Rank 5 with Li Yong-Rui the 20% bonus is applied on the sell page, and does not affect the bonuses page. Because the 20% bonus is affecting the payout page, I'm going to assume the merit calculation does not account for the gained 20% bonus, (so calculate merit earned on 67,564,981cr?) . Overall, maybe this is worth it for merits if Exobiology gets fixed, but without it, it is dissapointingly low merit gain for a weeks worth of game play.

 

[CMDR Kasanna]

results of a preliminary survey for Stellar Cartographers Guild and any effects with Power Play.
currently pledged Li-Yong Rui (LYR), rank 10 at 60162 merits

using galmap - agricultural, terraforming, no firsts, all DSS achieve Efficiency target

depart stronghold carrier
HR 1254, LYR stronghold, reinforce 43286 pts
ruling faction Simbad Regime, allied 100%


Cocontae, LYR exploited, reinforce 3584 pts, FSS, DSS WW - 671,320 (+20%), 20 merits
Met 20, LYR fortified, reinforce 10433 pts, no FSS, DSS ELW - 2,475,361 (+20%), 60 merits (first discover bonus 1,523,299)
Ssu Ling, LYR exploited, reinforce 923 pts, no FSS, no DSS
HIP 6943, unoccupied , --, FSS, DSS WW, AW - 1,866,907 (+20%), 40 merits
Svansa, unoccupied, --, FSS, DSS HMC - 1,118,465 (+20%), 20 merits
Bagaiteru, unoccupied, --, no FSS, DSS HMCx2 (both 1 bio no scan) - 3,952,406 (+20%), 100 merits (first discover bonus 2,432,251)
Gungu, Antal exploited, reinforce 219351 pts, FSS, no DSS, 33,474 (+20%), 0 merits
HIP 754, Antal exploited, reinforce 0 pts, FSS, no DSS - 42,336 (+20%), 0 merits
HIP 117972, Antal fortified, reinforce 5903 pts, no FSS, DSS HMCx2, WWx3 - 8,653,884 (+20%), 240 merits (first discover bonus 5,325,469)
Aonikenk, Antal exploited, reinforce 1367 pts, no FSS, DSS WW, HMC - 4,449,897 (+20%), 120 merits (first discover bonus 2,738,399)
Tangaroa, LYR exploited, reinforce 29429 pts, no FSS, DSS ELW - 1,375,012 (+20%), 40 merits (first discover bonus 846,162)
Abrocmii, LYR exploited, reinforce 4170 pts, no FSS, DSS ELW - 2,263,663 (+20%), 60 merits (first discover bonus 1,393,024)

return stronghold carrier HR 1254

Reading this and comparing what I submitted, I see now that merits earned for exploring is not tied to the credit total, but the value of each individual system you are turning in. I only found a few systems with water worlds and one ELW on my trip (all first discoveries). I can go through my logs and determine how many that was and report back

Unfortunatly, space has a lot of barren/boring systems out there, and a long expedition trip that has low number of finds will not generate merits for the player.

 

[marx]

I've updated the first post with a sheet containing the data so far, including the ones that I've sold now. (Pretty much all of them from entirely undiscovered systems.)
I had some rather rude surprises there. First off, the exobio sale got me no merits, but it bugged out for me too. The display didn't finish correctly, but I was awarded the correct amounts (incl. bonuses) at least. No merits, however.

More importantly, I've received somewhat less than half of the merits reported here, and the systems seem to have gotten no control points from the sales. Not after the next map update, not after the next day. Now, I'm pledged to ALD, and she doesn't have "Hand in Cartography data" listed under the reinforcing activities. As far as I know, only LYR and Antal does that. (Yuri Grom doesn't, even though he has a small bonus to exploration data too.) As such, if that means that her systems don't get points from UC / VG sales, and the system score gained from the sales really does factor into the merits, then yeah, that would explain the discrepancy. My initial thought would be that there's a methodology difference perhaps, but even so, I highly doubt anything there would account to a merit gain over double the size that I had gotten. Or perhaps it's simply just some bug.

Also, note that my merit gains were always in 10-s, while CMDR Kasanna above had hers end in a 3 (2,883), so the calculation there might have a different factor.

I'd like to see some more data, especially from folks who aren't pledged to LYR. At least I know now that for myself, if I want Powerplay merits, I should do Powerplay. Thankfully, that means I needn't bother with mapping bodies I don't intend to land on. To be honest, I think that including exploration / exobiology sales to PP 2.0 was a mistake, and I wonder if Frontier might have realised this too and made sure that it couldn't realistically be used to instant-fortify systems. Feels like it got Smiter's Boon-ed though. (That was a reference to a balance change in Guild Wars, when the developers realised they simply can't balance the Smiter's Boon skill for PvP, and as they couldn't just remove it from there, they said they're deliberately nerfing it so hard that nobody would use it.)

Oh, one more thing. Selling some data at a system that had a Very High strength penalty seemed to not have made much of a difference, if any. I would have wanted to go sell at a high Beyond Frontline penalty system, but I couldn't find any for ALD. The "worst" I could find would have been a Moderate - Moderate penalty system, and I wanted to go there for the final page too, only to realise that I had one less page to sell than I thought. Whoops.

 

[Purrfect]

This thread provides more data points for my initial thread you also participated in. Basically, for LYR and Antal, the exploration and exobiology bonuses are basically worthless for the time invested. Considering that other powers have working bonuses, like rare trading bonuses and combat bounty bonuses, LYR and Antal should be pushing for either a proper rebalance or asking for a different bonus to be applied, because the ones we have don't function. This puts both of us behind, and it means that Cmdrs who want to do exploration or exobiology have zero reason to pledge to any power.

 

[marx]

Going by this dev post, exploration merit gains were supposed to have been multiplied by six now. With that, it should be worthwhile for LYR at least, probably also for those powers who do get a system score bonus from turning in exploration data. Last I checked, those were LYR, Antal, Aisling, Mahon, Kaine, Torval. However, exobio only helps LYR and Antal, so if somebody wants to earn Powerplay merits without actually doing Powerplay stuff in the bubble, those two are the ones to pledge to.

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

Going by this dev post, exploration merit gains were supposed to have been multiplied by six now. With that, it should be worthwhile for LYR at least, probably also for those powers who do get a system score bonus from turning in exploration data. Last I checked, those were LYR, Antal, Aisling, Mahon, Kaine, Torval. However, exobio only helps LYR and Antal, so if somebody wants to earn Powerplay merits without actually doing Powerplay stuff in the bubble, those two are the ones to pledge to.

Grom gets 20% too. It's not much, but for some it's enough if you like to mix Exploration in with other activities. He doesn't the exobio bonuses though.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

- the system strength penalty and beyond front line penalty levels shown on the powerplay score panel

Just to note, having done some research on this: neither of these appear to make any difference when selling to friendly systems, and you wouldn't be selling exploration data for merits elsewhere anyway. These only apply to Undermining actions.

 

[marx]

Thanks! That's good to know, especially since I'll sell some more data soon. I'll remove that part then.

 

[marx]

Here comes another update, you can see the data on the sheet. First, let me reiterate something that's likely important: I'm pledged to ALD, and the power's ethos is about as far from exploration as one can get. So, with that in mind, my merits gained should be the lowest possible: other powers, especially LYR and Antal, should see significantly higher merits. Let's see what I got then.

Exobio samples sold at Vista Genomics: zero merits gained. As for Universal Cartographics, after waiting for the update, there was no system score gained for the power from my sales (remember that handing in exploration data isn't listed as a reinforcing activity for ALD), and the merits gained appeared to depend on the sale value of individual bodies(!) - not total sales of the page, not total sale of individual systems. A body that you sold for somewhere between 700-750 kCr will get you 120 merits, and they come in "packets" of 120 above that. I have a good guess that it'd be somewhere between those two values, but not certain. Since there were some display bugs in merits gained (there were two times when a merit packet was displayed twice, and two times when I gained it but the message wasn't displayed), I'd need more data. In practice though, this would mean that you'd only gain merits if you map valuable bodies, although not all of them would have to be untagged - see here for the payout values. Just going through systems scanning bodies won't get you any merits.

I'd also welcome more measurements from people, especially if they are with LYR, Antal, or the powers who do have some exploration in their ethos: Aisling, Kaine, Mahon, Torval. I wonder if system score increase would still have a part, as per the original dev post, or if it doesn't, since the merit gain buff. But in any case, it's not like anyone is going to insta-fortify systems with dumping large amounts of exploration data, so that's good.

 

[Nowski]

Returning from a short exobiology trip, I took some notes when handing in at Vista Genomics, system by system (except one instance of two systems together.) The account is pledged to Antal, but only rank 12 (after handing in) so not enough to have any related bonuses. No weekly assignments involve exobiology (and are all uncompleted).

All scans had first-discovery bonus. I recorded the total amount (divide by 5 for the base amount) and the merits earned for each hand-in. (I had to quit out of the VG dialogue and hit the on-foot powerplay screen between each hand-in to see the merits because there are no pop-ups when handing in to VG. This is quite annoying!)

I handed in at an Antal exploited system.

Here's the list of merits and credits earned, sorted in order of increasing credits

 merits |   credits
--------|----------
    0   |   7359500 
    0   |  32900500 
  120   |  38084500 
  120   |  40150000 
  120   |  42090000 
  120   |  42090000 
  120   |  42090000 
  120   |  44894500 
  120   |  57645000 
  120   |  57645000 
  120   |  57645000 
  240   |  74044000 
  240   |  83186500 
  240   |  95054000 
  360   | 100054000 
  360   | 100054000 
  360   | 100054000 
  360   | 103503000 
  360   | 103503000 
  360   | 103503000 
  360   | 103503000 
  360   | 104799000 
  360   | 104799000 
  360   | 104799000 
  360   | 104799000 
  360   | 116316500 
  360   | 124150000 
  360   | 132553500 
  360   | 132553500 
  600   | 175339500 
  600   | 199853000 
  720   | 206849500 
  840   | 237430500 
  960   | 280681000 
  960   | 291068000 
 1920   | 542640000 
 2040   | 591783000

For the two instances where no merits were earned, one was a single bark mounds worth 1471900 base value and the other was a system with tussock ventusa, concha labiata and bacterium aurasus with base values 3227700, 2352400 and 1000000 respectively. I guess these are below a threshold since there was nothing else to distinguish them from the other samples.

I did hand 11 pages of exploration data at the same time, but didn't record merits for this, except I did screenshot merits popping up for handing in a single system which I did as an experiment, having read a couple of comments indicating merits were not awarded for single-system handins. The system was a first discovery, but I didn't record the bonus.

Subjectively the earnings per effort were quite a bit better for exploration than for exobiology.

Somewhat lacking compared to your request, but I hope it helps!

 

[marx]

Somewhat lacking compared to your request, but I hope it helps!

Thanks! It does, and every bit helps. For example, with your contribution, now we've confirmed that Antal gets merits for exobio (as ALD, so far I haven't gotten any), and that it's also in packets of 120, like exploration data is.

 

[Nowski]

Antal gets merits for exobio (as ALD, so far I haven't gotten any)

Pardon for asking, but when you checked exobiology for ALD did you note your merits before and after the hand-in, from the Powerplay UI (I mean the UI that appears on the right hand panel when in the ship, though you can also access it via the on-foot menu wheel thing).

I was confused into thinking I didn't receive merits first time around, because there's no merits notifications for exobiology, unlike every other merit-earning activity I can think of.

It would be extremely odd if some powers could earn merits for exobiology but not others, IMO - I have trouble believing that tbh. In any case, I have an unpledged account and a handy bookmark for some first find exo data, so I'll test for another power in the fairly short term.