Powerplay Thoughts over Powerplay

[Peirof]

Good,
I write this post to expose my thoughts on the Powerplay in Elite Dangerous. The first is to apologize to everyone for my poor English, this document is written in my mother languaje, Spanish (Castilian), and translated with Google Translate.
All right. The subject.
I played Elite for some time, but had never devoted time to Powerplay ... and my summarized in one word is: POOR.
Perhaps, not use it well, so partly why I will present my experiences and all Commanders who read this post, I think it will be a little long, you expose your ideas ...
I think the Powerplay offers little performance for the work involved, in my case, I have reached the Tier 5, which requires 10,000 merits a week, which need 5,000 Merits for week for renew the Tier 5. Forms, the most usual, there to get the Tier 5 (I am not sure, correct me, please):
- Hunting rivals in systems that are to be controlled. I think they give 15 merits.
- Hunting rivals in systems that are to be controlled in rival territory. I think they give 30 merits.
- Bringing supplies to systems that are fortifying, one merit per tn.
- Bringing reports of corruption in systems that are being prepared for expansion, to systems that control your faction (I this is the method I use is similar to the previous)
For parts, the first two are similar, I think the second best because they are 30 merits, require an enormous amount of time, why. If to renew Tier 5, 10 minutes ago missing 5000 merits a week, 5000/30 = (approx) 167, must be shootdown 167 rivals, many and long, suppose it takes (being fast, interception included) by enemy . 167 rivals x 10 minutes each = 1670 minutes, rounding 24 h ... This method is very slow.
I use, the other two methods, in my case, I have a Type 9 ready for this, you can fit about 500 tons, so every trip can carry up to 500 documents, if needed 5000 to renew the Tier 5, 10 trips they can carry. If you are looking for systems that are nearby in 2/3 jumps you can make the trip, which means there and back about 30 min, fine. That would be 10 trips x 30 min = 300 min, much more reasonable. The problem with this method is that if you do not want to wait 30 minutes, you have to pay 500,000 cr per 50 reports. This makes 450 (the first 50 are free) / 50 = 9 x 500,000 = 450,000 cr. payments, per 500 reports. If there is to do about 10 trips it means that 45,000,000 cr needed to achieve the 5000 merits, and spend about 30x10 = 300 min, 5 hours. Well ... not come out very profitable, because if you pay 50,000,000 each week, but you need to spend 45,000,000, 5,000,000 cr I think not worth investing time 5 hours. With any other activity more performance is obtained.
So, I discuss the above, if any commander who read such a roll, want to put your system, if there is a more cost effective way to keep in Tier Powerplay ... If I do not think I'll leave. I think not worth any other activity gives more performance ...

 

[Rubbernuke]

Powerplay is not profitable, but then that's it's intention as it's something to spend money on rather than generate it.

 

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Undermining used to be very profitable, fighting in expansions too. Not anymore.
Fort/prep was never worth it for the money because you waste most of your salary on fast tracking.
(considering the time/salary/risk ratio)

 

[Starwolfe]

I believe the core of Powerplay is an end-game cash sink for the game.

The game needs something like that for the people that generate massive incomes and nothing to spend it on, but the way its implemented? Well, it needs to be done differently.

 

[Bigglesof206]

Undermining used to be very profitable, fighting in expansions too. Not anymore.
Fort/prep was never worth it for the money because you waste most of your salary on fast tracking.
(considering the time/salary/risk ratio)

I've been fortifying now for some time, in a 400t Anaconda, for a good while mixing free stuff with paying for fast tracking - probably averaging an actual gain of about 20-30 MCr a week, which seemed pretty fair. Things changed, and over the last couple of weeks (carrying around 5400 tons a week to keep level 5) I hardly fast tracked any of it - I wrote a couple of commands in Voice Attack, the program loads 400t over 4 hours, I fly the ship where it's needed, then go read a book, watch TV or Youtube, haunt the forum, whatever.

Not arguing like, just suggesting that there is a way to keep most if not all of the PP paypacket, from 20-30 Mcr a week I now get 50MCr pay, and the profits from backhauling (around 800,000 Cr a round trip).

PP looks dead in the water, so I'm finishing this week at level 5 then just letting it all decay - I'll unpledge when the weekly payment drops below 5M in a few weeks time....just earning credits isn't fun, and that's all PP has become since FD broke it.
Dave

 

[withnail]

The fact that players use the free allocations in such a way suggests that something is wrong, if you ask me. (We all do it).

 

[Bigglesof206]

Well, I COULD sit here with my faithful kitchen timer, clicking the left mouse button 8 times at 30 minute intervals (not far from how I started) but it doesn't seem a very productive use of my time.
I started in an ASP, got the cash for a Vulture, then a FAS, undermined like crazy to tier 5, did that for a few weeks until I could buy and outfit a Tradeconda....purely with the goal of being able to fortify a decent amount for my power. I've spent a LOT of hours here at my desk, and in the last few weeks I've found a more efficient way to do it. Let's be honest, having to wait 30 minutes for every 50 tons is a bit of a joke anyway - like much of PP there's not really a lot of sense behind it

 

[Brimstone]

If you have tons of free time, then sure it's profitable. It's not very efficient though.

 

[Bigglesof206]

Damn, browser crash 18 pages into the reply....
Yes, inefficient, but then is so much of the stuff you do in the game for fun and profit. Waiting around for cargo is slow, but you keep 50MCr, that will buy you a fairly decent FAS in one week. I also like following the Reddit, I try to make sure I drop cargo where it'll do some good, and I get a bit of fun seeing how much of the game I can produce useful VA commands for (thanks to bookmarks I can automatically plot routes to my chosen destinations, for example). Sure it's not been all that exciting - undermining my way to rank 5 for a few weeks DID involve slaughtering around 170 NPCs every week, which gets quite old fast, autoloading half the cargo by letting it run overnight has definitely improved things a bit though. Having made a fair pile - I have a bunch of ships and almost 500 MCr currently - and as Powerplay has just pretty much crashed, I'm going to spend a few weeks just doing stuff for fun now...funded by PP'ing through the winter months.

Dave

 

[drhay53]

unfortunately for me, I don't usually have enough time to make enough money to feel as if really becoming fully engaged in powerplay is worth it for me.
There should be some activities that are formally recognized by powerplay that actually allow you to make money; they should be less efficient in both ways, i.e. so people don't spam these things at the expense of all other methods, but I find it's very frustrating to participate in powerplay on a limited schedule. PP is more rewarding (in terms of 'fun') for people who play more, which IMO is not quite right.