Powerplay Undermining now is fun and dangerous

[GaryII]

Before 2.1 undermining was boring transport ship farming, but now its quite fun and quite challenging and you can get a lot of materials, too.

So what you need to have to make it fun my setup:

Federal Corvette with cargo (this is important) but I guess almost any ship is OK

Gameplay:

Destination: select some Enemy power system, for start you can start in Anarchy (easiest) and then increase difficulty by going to non Anarchy systems from Low to High for "ultimate action"

1) merits and materials for haulers and other transport ships, for extra challenge undermine in non anarchy system, then you need collect materials fast or police will get you

2) in supercruise while waiting for transport ship to spawn scan all ships to get extra data, optional feature - attack every good value ship

3) since you have cargo pirates will attack you in Condas (if you in high end ship like fCorrvette) kill them = get some staff and bounty, too.

4) After some time Bounty hunters and police will attack you = extra action

5) Go to high security system where police react very fast due 2.1 changes, here I guess you will need Wingup with somebody or have very good ship with Rank 5 mods - did not tried yet

My favorite activity in game currently

 

[drhay53]

it's good that it's fun but it now needs to be re-balanced in terms of merit earning as combat-oriented players are leaving PP in droves because the grind isn't worth it anymore

 

[Bigglesof206]

So it's fun again,

You seem to be more interested in the loot, whereas underminers are trying to score high merit counts quickly in systems that are on the Reddit as the weekly targets - which the police etc has rather badly interfered with.
Dave

 

[Darth Ender]

It was already re-balanced to 30 merits a kill. Back when killing was easy, to offset the insanely easy fortification available. Both have been impacted equally so no additional rebalance is needed. 1 person shouldn't be able to undermine an entire system solo in a matter of hours. I'm sorry if that's how it was and you're used to having that kind of power but undermining a system should require many commanders. Now it does. Mission accomplished.

If people are leaving because they dont like being able to single handily impact another power or can't get their rank 5 50 mil for free then too bad.

 

[fergal]

It was already re-balanced to 30 merits a kill. Back when killing was easy, to offset the insanely easy fortification available. Both have been impacted equally so no additional rebalance is needed. 1 person shouldn't be able to undermine an entire system solo in a matter of hours. I'm sorry if that's how it was and you're used to having that kind of power but undermining a system should require many commanders. Now it does. Mission accomplished.

If people are leaving because they dont like being able to single handily impact another power or can't get their rank 5 50 mil for free then too bad.

One Player can fortify a system just as quickly, especially one with a half trigger.
The introduction of the Cutter shifted the fortification/undermining balance, now its shifted again.

It will be interesting to see if undermining merits have increased or decreased this week compared to last week, since there were no expansions to earn merits at.

 

[Quantrix]

One Player can fortify a system just as quickly, especially one with a half trigger.
The introduction of the Cutter shifted the fortification/undermining balance, now its shifted again.

It will be interesting to see if undermining merits have increased or decreased this week compared to last week, since there were no expansions to earn merits at.

There was also a cease-fire, so undermining should be low for that reason alone.

Second, you might need to decide whether you include Winters or not. Her commanders have taken collusion piracy to a new level: 13 cancelled and 3 undermined systems - which is about the same as all other powers combined.

 

[Darth Ender]

One Player can fortify a system just as quickly, especially one with a half trigger.
The introduction of the Cutter shifted the fortification/undermining balance, now its shifted again.

It will be interesting to see if undermining merits have increased or decreased this week compared to last week, since there were no expansions to earn merits at.

Not if you believe all the. "trading is too hard" crap being cried about... Which is no different from the people complaining about undermining.

I don't think your numbers will be indicative of much this cycle except how the last cycle basically left a huge portion of power play players either self sabotaging or not participating.

Undermining should always be harder merit for merit than fortifying by its nature. It is always going to be an easier act to operate in a system you control vs one you don't. Everything else regarding the activities is balanced by the trigger. I see any change in difficulty on either activity simply a correction. One seen across the board and not even specific to power play but the underlying action taken place in the bg sim

 

[GaryII]

So it's fun again,
You seem to be more interested in the loot,
Dave

I am interested in everything that makes gameplay varied, fun and rewarding.

I care about merits, too, but my weekly target only is Rank 4, not Rank 5 I do not have time for it anymore...
long time ago I was grinding for Rank 5 for 15 weeks by fortification I was fortifying distant and important systems using Conda (before iCutter was available) and that started to feel like second job..
and I basically stopped to play PP at all, since all activities were boring till 2.1 update and now undermining looks like will save PP for me

 

[Croaker]

It was already re-balanced to 30 merits a kill. Back when killing was easy, to offset the insanely easy fortification available. Both have been impacted equally so no additional rebalance is needed. 1 person shouldn't be able to undermine an entire system solo in a matter of hours. I'm sorry if that's how it was and you're used to having that kind of power but undermining a system should require many commanders. Now it does. Mission accomplished.

If people are leaving because they dont like being able to single handily impact another power or can't get their rank 5 50 mil for free then too bad.

Oh...is it not possible to make this kind of impact? I just came back to the game this week (barely played it when i first got it). Pledged to Aisling for 49 weeks while collecting dust in a hangar. Finally took the time to learn about Powerplay and found it to be an intriguing part of the game to actually work towards. But if undermining efforts are kinda weak right now, I think I'll uninstall and stop wasting my time. Spending several hours doing anything​ should have a significant impact on the game world. Otherwise the game is shallow (which was the problem I had with this otherwise gorgeous game the first time around.)

 

[Bigglesof206]

It was already re-balanced to 30 merits a kill. Back when killing was easy, to offset the insanely easy fortification available. Both have been impacted equally so no additional rebalance is needed. 1 person shouldn't be able to undermine an entire system solo in a matter of hours. I'm sorry if that's how it was and you're used to having that kind of power but undermining a system should require many commanders. Now it does. Mission accomplished.

If people are leaving because they dont like being able to single handily impact another power or can't get their rank 5 50 mil for free then too bad.

Actually I have been fortifying for quite a while now, I based my comment re undermining on our power's reddit where people were finding it difficult to undermine to anything like the usual level due to continually being interrupted by the police response....which I'd call an unintended consequence, where FD didn't realise that a change to the wider game security mechanics would impact heavily on an aspect of powerplay. The fact that all our efforts just went for nought in the great galactic screw up just iced that cake for me.

I personally am leaving Powerplay because I'm not so thrilled at the interdiction mini game popping up that I want to play it every ten minutes, I'd like to be interdicted the same amount as the rest of the players....it's just become tiresome, to be honest, to not be able to go anywhere and do anything for any length of time without some bozo trying to kill me...it's as if the galaxy is populated with homicidal maniacs.

I admire your certainty in your own beliefs, you really ought to start a religion old chap.

Pip pip,
Dave

 

[Darth Ender]

Actually I have been fortifying for quite a while now, I based my comment re undermining on our power's reddit where people were finding it difficult to undermine to anything like the usual level due to continually being interrupted by the police response....which I'd call an unintended consequence, where FD didn't realise that a change to the wider game security mechanics would impact heavily on an aspect of powerplay. The fact that all our efforts just went for nought in the great galactic screw up just iced that cake for me.

I personally am leaving Powerplay because I'm not so thrilled at the interdiction mini game popping up that I want to play it every ten minutes, I'd like to be interdicted the same amount as the rest of the players....it's just become tiresome, to be honest, to not be able to go anywhere and do anything for any length of time without some bozo trying to kill me...it's as if the galaxy is populated with homicidal maniacs.

I admire your certainty in your own beliefs, you really ought to start a religion old chap.

Pip pip,
Dave

You're basing your opinion on the assumption that the usual level was the intended level. NPC's have been woefully inadequate since the beginning of the game (i dont think anyone can argue against that) and are now finally being given teeth and some amount of ability. The rate at which you fortified and at which you undermined will definitely go down (since powerplay is almost 100% PVE and the E is not as easy anymore). Just means your targets have to have more players thrown at it or you have to live with the lower rate.

I have seen nothing to suggest otherwise. Religion has nothing to do with it. It's just math. The only argument is scale and we dont really know the outcome of the current scale because nobody is playing normal powerplay since the FD screwup a week ago.

 

[SHEPR0N]

The rate at which you fortified and at which you undermined will definitely go down (since powerplay is almost 100% PVE and the E is not as easy anymore). Just means your targets have to have more players thrown at it or you have to live with the lower rate.

From my personal experience there is no lower rate for fortification and preparation merits if your fort ship is fitted to survive player attacks in open before 2.1. No NPC (unless using the plasma multicannons) will get through a ~1000 MJ shield before you can jump out (like a 400ton Conda or 700ton Cutter build would have). Some solo builds like the shieldless T-9 will be (even more) suicidal to use, but I don't think that will decrease fort/prep rates too much. Quite a different stories for undermining merit/hour changes in my opinion

 

[Bigglesof206]

I fortified on a daily basis since 2.1 dropped, running a tradeconda to ZH systems, and found interdictions more troublesome but manageable most of the time, I did lose the ship once, to a repeatedly spawning Python serially interdicting me, but that really was down to the interdiction mechanic being (in my opinion) broken - I hardly ever managed to submit without suffering an FSD fail....giving the Python repeated chances to pound on me for an extended period. As this cost me around 2.5% of my current bank balance I could afford to shrug that off really....funny to think how I once almost burst into flames over losing a Vulture.....

Nothing prevented me, seriously, from maintaining my rank 5 rating via fortification, apart from the annoying NPCs being a bit grumpier than previously the cargo runs went ahead on schedule as they had in 1.5. I haven't been undermining in 2.1, but from my reading of the Reddit the rate of merit accumulation has dropped, and whilst you could undermine solo in 1.5 the message I see is that you have to wing up
these days.

So I'd say the balance has shifted, based on the evidence I've acquired and the posts on my faction reddit.

You're basing your opinion on the assumption that the usual level was the intended level. NPC's have been woefully inadequate since the beginning of the game (i dont think anyone can argue against that) and are now finally being given teeth and some amount of ability.

Actually I said that the hit to undermining rates was due to the change in system security, not the ability level of the NPCs - if you are suggesting that system security response times and the strength of the ships dispatched, the time they take to arrive, etc was always intended to be greater and it has now become so then I bow to your superior knowledge of the dev plan for the game - to me it just looks like they responded to the many, many requests for a stronger police presence and forgot to take 5 minutes out to consider how this might impact on Powerplay, given 10 minutes they might have figured out a way to incorporate one without totally borking the other. (In fact I'd suggest they spent zero time considering how any of 2.1 would impact on it, am only surprised that they are surprised they broke it).

Dave

 

[Darth Ender]

The background sim has to behave correctly above all else. If that means high security systems get aggressive police response then that's how it should be.

If powerplay requires you to break the law in what is going to be almost always high security systems, then powerplay mechanics need to change, not the background sim's reaction to your illegal activities. This wouldn't mean switching the trigger or making undermining worth more as that doesn't reflect the activity being done. I would suggest other avenues of undermining. Perhaps a power bringing in their prep goods would count towards undermining another power. The goods would be smuggled goods so scans by system authorities should be avoided but delivering the goods could logically be construed as edging the populace away from a given power's influence. Hence undermining. In this mechanic, you would simply work like a smuggler with all the same risks associated. Two ways to undermine should be sufficient without having to throw a magic wand around the background sim for powerplay if such a rebalance is needed.

 

[Croaker]

You're basing your opinion on the assumption that the usual level was the intended level. NPC's have been woefully inadequate since the beginning of the game (i dont think anyone can argue against that) and are now finally being given teeth and some amount of ability. The rate at which you fortified and at which you undermined will definitely go down (since powerplay is almost 100% PVE and the E is not as easy anymore). Just means your targets have to have more players thrown at it or you have to live with the lower rate.

I have seen nothing to suggest otherwise. Religion has nothing to do with it. It's just math. The only argument is scale and we dont really know the outcome of the current scale because nobody is playing normal powerplay since the FD screwup a week ago.

If you'd only meant there was a reduction in effectiveness because of buffed NPC's, then I'm not concerned. I probably fit into the group that enjoys the challenge, and I've been very mindful of defense when fitting ships, and how I deal with incoming interdiction.

 

[fergal]

The background sim has to behave correctly above all else. If that means high security systems get aggressive police response then that's how it should be.

The problem is the security response just can't be good enough. At the moment High Security system have a response time of 35-40 seconds after interdiction. This is ridiculously fast, but at the same time, isn't fast enough to save a player who is in trouble.
If you can survive 40 seconds, you are probably fighting the NPCs, if you are outmatched, 40 seconds is plenty of time to jump out.

 

[Bigglesof206]

The background sim has to behave correctly above all else. If that means high security systems get aggressive police response then that's how it should be.

If powerplay requires you to break the law in what is going to be almost always high security systems, then powerplay mechanics need to change, not the background sim's reaction to your illegal activities. This wouldn't mean switching the trigger or making undermining worth more as that doesn't reflect the activity being done. I would suggest other avenues of undermining. Perhaps a power bringing in their prep goods would count towards undermining another power. The goods would be smuggled goods so scans by system authorities should be avoided but delivering the goods could logically be construed as edging the populace away from a given power's influence. Hence undermining. In this mechanic, you would simply work like a smuggler with all the same risks associated. Two ways to undermine should be sufficient without having to throw a magic wand around the background sim for powerplay if such a rebalance is needed.

Now this'll surprise you, but I agree - especially with your first statement. I too think FD should have a more coherent logic behind PP activities that allows PP to at least exist within the larger BGS galaxy, in an ideal world it would be an extra option for people who would be able to take part in PP without feeling that it was unconnected to the rest of the galaxy's daily grind. The different ways powers do things probably seemed a good idea - 'let's make fortifying for Imperial power 1 involve doing X, while Fed power 1 does Y instead, so it looks like the powers have real individuality to them'. Sadly it looks like it was just an extra complication that made keeping PP coherent even harder.

However, my opening post in this thread was really only to say, in a roundabout way, that I disagreed with the OP's claim that undermining was now fun, as it sounds more like he's using PP for loot than to earn merits for his faction, and I had seen very few other people suggesting anything other than that undermining was now even more broke than the somewhat odd mechanism when it was, on paper at least, working as intended.

To undermine a power I'd have thought running supplies to factions opposed to the system controlling power would be the way to do it - running guns to the rebel scum, so to speak. To 'solve' the problem short term though, can't the NPCs that are spawned specifically as cannon fodder in the various control systems be tagged as PP craft and system security ignore their automated cries for help?

Anyhow, I think PP needs a really big rework, and to be honest I'm not convinced FD want to do that, so...shame, but that's the way the baked comestible erodes.

Dave

 

[GoStu]

I'm somewhat okay with the increased undermining difficulty - it encourages people to work together in wings to try and overcome local security and the challenge of killing the new NPCs without taking damage. Hopefully this drives more people towards organized communities and less of the random swarm we used to see. Given that most of the heavy undermining of other powers was from organized groups anyway, it's not a huge upset, merely something to get used to and to prepare for.

What's not okay with me is how badly the consequences can follow you home now. Unless you want to be 100% combat and live in your best fighting ship all the time, the assorted bounty-hunting NPCs are going to be a plague. Somehow, Elite NPCs are willing to travel half the length of a bubble to claim a bounty of ~100,000 CR. Meanwhile, actual Elite pilots don't move until rewards start hitting the millions. Same with the hassle of dealing with random Powerplay NPCs in RES, nav beacons, etc. I dropped in on a navigation beacon in the middle of nowhere and got surprise jumped by a wing of 3 Alliance Enforcers who just happened to be waiting for me at a nav beacon a hundred light-years from the nearest station.

Previously, that sort of irritation was minor. Now, it's life-threatening as I'm having to bail out from a        g nav beacon with 30% hull on my mission-running Python. You can't stop being in Powerplay apparently: time to sell the trade ships if you plan to be an underminer because living in them is going to be hell. There might be some relief for those with Cutters and strong shields, but forget it if you're in anything smaller than an Anaconda.

 

[DragoonKnight]

Before 2.1 undermining was boring transport ship farming, but now its quite fun and quite challenging and you can get a lot of materials, too.

So what you need to have to make it fun my setup:

Federal Corvette with cargo (this is important) but I guess almost any ship is OK

Gameplay:

Destination: select some Enemy power system, for start you can start in Anarchy (easiest) and then increase difficulty by going to non Anarchy systems from Low to High for "ultimate action"

1) merits and materials for haulers and other transport ships, for extra challenge undermine in non anarchy system, then you need collect materials fast or police will get you

2) in supercruise while waiting for transport ship to spawn scan all ships to get extra data, optional feature - attack every good value ship

3) since you have cargo pirates will attack you in Condas (if you in high end ship like fCorrvette) kill them = get some staff and bounty, too.

4) After some time Bounty hunters and police will attack you = extra action

5) Go to high security system where police react very fast due 2.1 changes, here I guess you will need Wingup with somebody or have very good ship with Rank 5 mods - did not tried yet

My favorite activity in game currently

Undermining is crap now. It feels like an MMORPG dps race. If you dont blow your target quickly then you will have a dozen security ships all over you and it wont matter if you are flying a corvette or a cobra.
As for undermining anarchy systems, it may surprise you to learn that there is a strategy to undermining and we do not just blindly undermine the closest control system to our location.