Questions about power take over and factions

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

As I'm still catching up with the mechanics, I found myself struggling to understand a few concepts, lately. For instance, I came back from exploration to find that one of my fav systems and long time second home, Nganji, was now under expansion for the account of deck card n° 8, AKA Li yong rui. Fine, I'll just try my best to mess with their plan, as I like independant systems to be, well, independants. But I honestly don't have a clue about how to actually prevent that. Are they supporting a local faction, in which case I'd have to support another one? Is it even something that can be prevented at all? Will I end up shooting at anything with the Li yong rui label to annoy them and prevent them to visit the system, at least in open?

And while I'm at it, there's something else I've never thought was possible. When I left Nganji some times ago, I was in good standing with the highest faction there, Silver Netcom whatever. They were in control of the Vizcaino starport. The system had other minor actors, among which the local nationalists (owning a coriolis too) and the feds, in very small proportion.

When I came back, I found the feds in control of Vizcaino with only 20% influence over the system, while the previous owners, still at 60%, were nowhere to be found, except in the BBs. How come? It's quite confusing.

 

[goemon]

i asked the same question yesterday, answer from powerplay players was: you can't do something without being pledged... i'm now thinking about pledging to a power far away from what i call home and undermine any effort there...

maybe it's time we group up?

concerning the second: there will have been a civil war while you have been away... and i think, those numbers are quite arbitrary in the moment.

 

[CMDR Zantiry Kaine]

Not so sure that having Li Yong Rui as the controlling faction of your system would be bad. He gives a very nice 15% discount to all ships and modules sold in his space.
But if your totally against it then go into the galactic powers menu, select him, then look under the expansion tab. It should tell you there how to oppose it...although I'm not sure if a non pledged player can do it or not. However expansions can and have been prevented in other powers in the last couple cycles.

On the minor faction struggles however, the way it works (as far as I can figure) is, the one with the highest overall rating will determine which major faction the SYSTEM belongs too. They will also fight from time to time over control of each station or outpost. Sorry but I have no idea about the mechanics that trigger fights over the individual stations, but I suspect it has to do with taking missions for a particular faction out of that station.
Maybe somone a bit more informed can fill us in on that part.

 

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

Thanks for the answers. If we cannot do anything without being pledged, that would be quite stupid. Indeed the only way to do something would be to pledge and then ruin the strategy from the inside. Seems like an exploit, somehow. I'm not sure I don't prefer a goold old standard confrontation.

Also, you are certainly right about civil war, but numbers seemed well tied to players actions, at some point. Could it be that the former owners were weakened by the civil war, lost the station, and then the expansion revived them to that extent?

And about grouping up, it's funny you should say that, we started talking about that with another folk: creating a strike force of some kind (traders or fighters) that would fight a power installation in a given system.

 

[Bardolin]

Also, you are certainly right about civil war, but numbers seemed well tied to players actions, at some point. Could it be that the former owners were weakened by the civil war, lost the station, and then the expansion revived them to that extent?

It's possible that Fed players supported the faction that ended up with the new ownership of the station, and afterwards left the influence to lapse, but sadly it's also very much possible that the background simulation decided on a whim to assign ownership of the faction to the Feds simply because: the whole influence and station ownership system (the "background sim") has never worked properly since launch, with devs having to intervene to manually resolve pending faction statuses or assign stations to the right factions after they won a war but weren't given the station/s.

 

[goemon]

from my understanding, you can fight powerplay expansions if pledged to another power only.

so an idea could be to make a group, where cmdrs organize to help each other against pp expansions, by pledging to a power and leaving directly after action or something.

or to ask powerplay players of powers far awawy for help or hire. maybe they are willing to earn their merits for undermining anywhere.