So how does carry over work?

[Agrar Therenus]

It says it carried over all of my merits from last week, a mere 190 - so does this mean I have to earn another 100 to maintain rank 2? If I get another 560, will I earn rank 3 next week? Or do I need to get 750 this week; if so, then what even is the point of the total?

How does this system work exactly?

 

[Commander Starcloak]

Same here - apparently all of my merits from the last cycle are being carried over. But it also says I must earn the same again or more in order to maintain my current rating.

 

[CMDR Brock Samson]

What's going on?People is reporting wrong systems going into expansion(arissa's #1 didn't) and now 100% merits carried over?
On top of first cycle ending prematurely.

 

[Moosegun]

What's going on?People is reporting wrong system going into expansion(arissa's #1 didn't) and now 100% merits carried over?
On top of first cycle ending prematurely.

100% should be carried over, decay doesnt happen until the end of the cycle after the merit were counted towards you rank, so you keep the full 100% until next thursday, then it goes to 50%, then to 25% or something like that. I am not sure of the sequence though at the end of the next cycle. Whether it decay and then your rank is given or visa versa. My initial thought is that is counts the full amount for your next rank and it then decays. Still cant find any definitive answers, all I have found is a bit ambiguous

 

[Finn Tarses [RoA]]

I'd really like to know what the actual decay rate is? There are no clear answers to that anywhere. Or maybe add merit decay stats to the in-game statistics? That way you could keep track of it.

 

[Aldaris]

I'd really like to know what the actual decay rate is? There are no clear answers to that anywhere. Or maybe add merit decay stats to the in-game statistics? That way you could keep track of it.

No it's pretty clear what the rate of the decay is. It's given in the PP manual.

 

[DangerousLarry]

Decay is supposed to be 50% after each cycle. For this cycle we did not receive any decay, however if you had unclaimed merits you lost them all. I think it's a bug.

How it's supposed to work: 50% of your merits decay each week no matter your rating. If you're rating 3 with 750 merits 50% is gone by the end of the cycle. If you're rating 5 with 10,000 merit 50% is gone by the end of the cycle. After four cycles of being in the power you're reset to rating 0 or rating 1 from what I can recall. Basically a full merit wipe.

I would hold off on doing merits until tomorrow or Saturday in the odd chance that merits are decayed tomorrow as the cycle was supposed to finish then originally... Things could be very bugged so play it safe if you're trading for merits and spending millions in the process.

 

[Dorohedoro]

This doesnt sound fun at all, what was FD thinking when they implemented this "feature"?

 

[M.E.A.T]

i think 100% carry over is a bug, otherwise the PP manual would have been updated.

 

[jay88]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=155518&page=5&p=2381249#post2381249

go to page 5, second to bottom, my post.

basically, the system is whack and the numbers and manual don't line up. The manual might as well be bunk for that matter.

 

[Moosegun]

No it's pretty clear what the rate of the decay is. It's given in the PP manual.

Nothing specific in the manual I read

EDIT
Ok found it, there was a newer manual than the one I had, it has pictures and everything!

Still not very clear though

It could be correct at the moment, but the credits from last cycle will be halved at the end, prior to the ranking update.

 

[DangerousLarry]

This doesnt sound fun at all, what was FD thinking when they implemented this "feature"?

They were thinking rating 5 at 50mill was an alluring amount of Credits to get each week.

Realistically you're looking at taking quite a significant loss to get to rating 5 and only expect to make credits as a trader at least towards the end of the month.

I think the best way to do it as a trader is to get rating 3 for 750merits(7.5million to "Fast track") for week 1 with 500k returned(7million spent). By week 2 aim for rating 5 with 20 Trade Agreements per fast track, spending 50million(1.5Million return = 2million returns on 57.5million) fast tracking it(Yeah...) and then by week 3 while at rating 5 with 50% merits spend 10million(50 trade agreements per fast track) maintaining your rating thus 40million in profits for weeks 3 and weeks 4. So, by the end of the month, if you're dedicated you stand to make... 34.5million in profits over a month. Basically, it's a huge investment for traders. If combat can get rating 5 by weeks 3 without spending cash I would say it's completely broken.

 

[Iskariot]

Decay is supposed to be 50% after each cycle. For this cycle we did not receive any decay, however if you had unclaimed merits you lost them all. I think it's a bug.

How it's supposed to work: 50% of your merits decay each week no matter your rating. If you're rating 3 with 750 merits 50% is gone by the end of the cycle. If you're rating 5 with 10,000 merit 50% is gone by the end of the cycle. After four cycles of being in the power you're reset to rating 0 or rating 1 from what I can recall. Basically a full merit wipe.

I would hold off on doing merits until tomorrow or Saturday in the odd chance that merits are decayed tomorrow as the cycle was supposed to finish then originally... Things could be very bugged so play it safe if you're trading for merits and spending millions in the process.

I cant believe this is true.
Do you have a source for me?
I think this is a terrible system.
I do not mind some decay, but 50% is just too punishing.
It feels insulting after all the time I have put in to serve my pp master. If she doesn't appreciate that, then I will no longer invest time in this.
In general I like the PP political layer, but if you are right then I will start investing significantly more of my time in non pp activities.

 

[jay88]

They were thinking rating 5 at 50mill was an alluring amount of Credits to get each week.

Realistically you're looking at taking quite a significant loss to get to rating 5 and only expect to make credits as a trader at least towards the end of the month.

I think the best way to do it as a trader is to get rating 3 for 750merits(7.5million to "Fast track") for week 1 with 500k returned(7million spent). By week 2 aim for rating 5 with 20 Trade Agreements per fast track, spending 50million(1.5Million return = 2million returns on 57.5million) fast tracking it(Yeah...) and then by week 3 while at rating 5 with 50% merits spend 10million(50 trade agreements per fast track) maintaining your rating thus 40million in profits for weeks 3 and weeks 4. So, by the end of the month, if you're dedicated you stand to make... 34.5million in profits over a month. Basically, it's a huge investment for traders. If combat can get rating 5 by weeks 3 without spending cash I would say it's completely broken.

the price to fast track the total amount of commodities goes up. 50 commodity fast track costs 500,000 credits, which throws your numbers off. You're also forgetting to do it at a station that has return value of goods you can ship in, which throws off you calculations the other way. You're also not taking into account that the combat means roughly 50 ships a day to maintain rating 5, which is well over 2 hours per day of basically no-income fighting (well, 1500 per kill) which doesn't really even cover repairs/rearm/fuel and certainly not integrity costs.

and the rating decay, as i linked earlier, is still pointing to the 'harder' grind. overall, by my napkin math, PP sustaining rank 5 as a trader is a slight profit increase per hour up until you get the minimum, then it's back to normal. it's overall easier and better to just play the game normally...especially if they end the cycle a day early and wipe all progress on PP points you had in your transaction log (lol, bye 765 points, glad i literally wasted that much time on getting you for a total loss)

 

[kirkkh]

I'd really like to know what the actual decay rate is? There are no clear answers to that anywhere. Or maybe add merit decay stats to the in-game statistics? That way you could keep track of it.

It's 50%^x, x=number of ticks. Say you earned 100 every week, for four weeks.

Week 1 = 100 mertis + 0(.5) (previous week's mertis) = 100
Week 2 = 100 mertis + 100(.5)(.5) (previous week) = 125
Week 3 = 100 mertis + 125(.5)(.5)(.5) (previous week) = 116
Week 4 = 100 mertis + 0 (nothing carries on week 4) = 100

 

[Arksun]

I do not mind some decay, but 50% is just too punishing.

No it isn't, otherwise everyone would get to Rating 5 far too easily and everyone would be earning a cool 50 mill each week from it. I do agree there's some balancing issues between earning merits from trading contracts vs killing rival ships to be addressed, but making decay less is definitely not one of them!

If there were to make it too easy then they should reduce the weekly credit bonuses.

 

[jay88]

I cant believe this is true.
Do you have a source for me?
I think this is a terrible system.
I do not mind some decay, but 50% is just too punishing.
It feels insulting after all the time I have put in to serve my pp master. If she doesn't appreciate that, then I will no longer invest time in this.
In general I like the PP political layer, but if you are right then I will start investing significantly more of my time in non pp activities.

the weeks add up.

this week, you keep 100% of what you earn.
the next week, you keep 50% of that.
the week after, you keep 25% of that
the next week, you keep 12.5% of that.
the next week, you don't keep any.
the weeks are cumulative, meaning that what you earn will stay around for 4 weeks.

so, imagine you earn 100 per week.
first week: 100
second week: 100 + (100 from first week, x 50%) : 150 total
third week: 100 + (100 from second week x 50%) + (100 from first week, x 25%) = 175 total
fourth week" 100 + (100 from 3rd week x 50%) + (100 from 2nd week x 25%) + (100 from 1st week x 12.5%) = 187.5 total

essentially, multiply what you average every week by 1.875 to see what your total will approach and stay at if you want to hold everything steady. or divide the rank you want by 1.875 to get merits per week to get and maintain it.

The confusion arises whether the amount halved is what you earned that week, or the total merits you had for that week. numbers from people from beta making posts on the forums suggest mathematically the number you earn is halved, not the total amount.
This makes the grind much, much harder as well as maintenance of that rank...which, TBH, is what we should expect by now.

It's 50%^x, x=number of ticks. Say you earned 100 every week, for four weeks.

Week 1 = 100 mertis + 0(.5) (previous week's mertis) = 100
Week 2 = 100 mertis + 100(.5)(.5) (previous week) = 125
Week 3 = 100 mertis + 125(.5)(.5)(.5) (previous week) = 116
Week 4 = 100 mertis + 0 (nothing carries on week 4) = 100

this is wrong.

 

[Arksun]

the weeks add up.

this week, you keep 100% of what you earn.
the next week, you keep 50% of that.
the week after, you keep 25% of that
the next week, you keep 12.5% of that.
the next week, you don't keep any.
the weeks are cumulative, meaning that what you earn will stay around for 4 weeks.

so, imagine you earn 100 per week.
first week: 100
second week: 100 + (100 from first week, x 50%) : 150 total
third week: 100 + (100 from second week x 50%) + (100 from first week, x 25%) = 175 total
fourth week" 100 + (100 from 3rd week x 50%) + (100 from 2nd week x 25%) + (100 from 1st week x 12.5%) = 187.5 total
.

I imagine what a lot of us are now wondering is why in this second week have we had a 100% carry over from the first week instead of 50%. Is it thus going to be 100%, 50%, 25% etc? Or is this a one off, or a bug, or perpetual :O

 

[jay88]

I imagine what a lot of us are now wondering is why in this second week have we had a 100% carry over from the first week instead of 50%. Is it thus going to be 100%, 50%, 25% etc? Or is this a one off, or a bug, or perpetual :O

as far as I can tell, it's a bug. It makes no sense in either mathematical way of looking at it, nor does it make sense in comparison to the manual (which direly needs editing and clarification, as well as some real numbers).

Seeing as though the cycle unintentionally ended a day early (confirmed) and other systems didn't switch properly between prepare/expand, and the general nature of the game and dev, i'd say pretty assuredly it's a bug.

edit, new info:
To address concerns raised by those Commanders who were not expecting the first Powerplay Cycle to end this morning, we have reduced the decay so that all Commanders have only lost 6/7ths of the Merits they would normally have lost at the end of a cycle. This affects this cycle only, all future cycles will decay at the full amount.


(i'm pretty sure he means 1/7th, or that we keep 6/7th's of our merits, seeing as though losing 6/7ths of 50% would mean only a 42.85% decay rate, whereas 1/7th of 50% means a 7.14% decay rate, which is about perfectly what my numbers seem to be)

 

[Moosegun]

It's 50%^x, x=number of ticks. Say you earned 100 every week, for four weeks.

Week 1 = 100 mertis + 0(.5) (previous week's mertis) = 100
Week 2 = 100 mertis + 100(.5)(.5) (previous week) = 125
Week 3 = 100 mertis + 125(.5)(.5)(.5) (previous week) = 116
Week 4 = 100 mertis + 0 (nothing carries on week 4) = 100

But surely the extra 100 merits you earn each week are also carryng over. The model you have suggested cant be correct.

Week 1 = 100 merits + 0
Week 2 = 100 merits + 50 = 150
Week 3 = 100 + 50 + 25 = 175
Week 4 = 100 + 50 + 25 + 12.5 = 187.5

Then you would stick at this level


EDIT

I am too slow.....