Powerplay Faction: Felicia Winters Winters Cycle 361: Vampire Breath

[dciskey]

Cycle Summary:

It was a busy week for the Empire! They undermined us and Hudson for around 2.2 million merits, quite a feat. Fifth column accounts pledged to Hudson fortified 35 of his worst systems, ensuring that systems the Empire wants him to lose would end up on his turmoil list this cycle. After the Imperial fifth column fortifications at Hudson finished, several of our least desirable system were fortified, also without our input or consent. Around this time (Monday-Tuesday depending on where you are) some "plausible deniability" undermining merits were turned in against three of our worst systems, in order to confuse casual observers about whether the resulting fortifying was really 5C. But we at FLC have been at this for nearly seven years, we know the difference between fifth column activity and fortification by well-meaning outsiders, and we will not be gaslit. On the final day, once these fifth column activities within the Federation were complete, Imperial alts pledged to Torval rapidly pushed her well-triggered weaponized expansion against Hudson and won it by a small margin.


These attempts to bring down the Federal powers from within are not a new tactic. The use of Torval as a weapon to hurt Federal powers against her own interests (and also feasting on her bones) is not a new tactic. Methods like this demonstrate the difference between our two groups. Imagine two soccer teams (or football clubs, if you prefer): one shows up to the pitch ready to play and hoping for a worthy foe, while the other arrives in unwashed, putrid uniforms, hoping the other team will find them so repugnant that they leave and forfeit the match. After Operation Valentine, Imperial leadership told us that one of the objectives of that campaign was to get us to leave the game completely. They seem to be trying for goal once again. We have not quit, and we will not. We will do what is right, not what is easy; this week that means undermining Torval at LHS 184.


In other news:

This week FLC members are voting on who will lead us for the next three months. Yours truly is running for Fortification Director, which means that barring any shenanigans, this will be my last cycle update. There are four community goals this week, including one in Winters space.


Voting:

Are you able to vote for Winters? Please vote PREP and vote EARLY.


Fortification:

Please do not Fortify any systems at this time. Priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!


Preparation (of new systems):

None at this time


Expansion:

None this week


Undermining:

LHS 184 (Torval, best turn-in is Kaura)

This is an expansion so you can hit it as hard as you like for as long as you like, highest percentage at the end of the cycle wins.


Want more objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! We coordinate primarily via text chat; while we do have some voice channels for working on Ops, participation in voice is by no means mandatory. Stop by and say hello! In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, for flame wars calm conversation about ship builds, and PvP training.


Diplomatic Overview:

Aisling Duval – Hostile

Archon Delaine – Neutral

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Unfriendly

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Neutral

Yuri Grom – Unfriendly

Zachary Hudson– Allied

Zemina Torval – Hostile

 

[Oraki]

So according to your hypothesis, the Empire not only undermined the entire Federation for 2.2m merits, but also fortified 35 Hudson systems using alt accounts, fortified a few Winters systems using even more (?) alt accounts, fortified our own systems to evade counter attacks using our own accounts (??), before using yet another set of alt accounts (???) to push Torval's expansion. Did I get this right?

Because if I did and you seriously believe that, you should just quit the game. I am dead serious, because with these resources (and number of accounts!) we would be unstoppable.



Now what is seriously grinding my gears is your soccer/football analogy. After a very long time of well-known federal toxicity, harassment via system-chat, aligning yourself with the bottom of the barrel of the playerbase, some of which are now banned from the game because of their toxicity and use of cheats, and a multitude of "alleged" botting incidents that lead to the banning of one of your leaders, who then proudly proclaimed he would evade the ban set by FDev via another E: D account of his, you of all groups have the audacity to tell someone else they are trying to bully folks out of the game?

The reason why people did these 2.2m merits last cycle and will continue to hammer Hudson this cycle is because they are tired. Tired of the gaslighting, trolling, and especially angry and tired of all the god damn projections.

We will do what is right, not what is easy

Funny that this comes from the training wheels power of E: D. Never understood that catchphrase.

 

[dciskey]

Your objections and name-calling are noted. If the EMPR squadron were legitimate, surely we would have heard from them after Trepin, or Wulganda, or now. If our non-FLC fortifiers were not 5C, they wouldn’t fortify our loss-makers from lowest income to highest, during the exact cycles in which such fortification most benefits the Empire. If our removal from the game is not your goal, I suggest you speak to the leaders of the many and disparate Empire groups, because some of them clearly do not agree with you. If you feel gaslit or bullied then I empathize with you, because as I said above, I know exactly how you feel.

 

[LDFR_Prozer]

So according to your hypothesis, the Empire not only undermined the entire Federation for 2.2m merits, but also fortified 35 Hudson systems using alt accounts, fortified a few Winters systems using even more (?) alt accounts, fortified our own systems to evade counter attacks using our own accounts (??), before using yet another set of alt accounts (???) to push Torval's expansion. Did I get this right?

Because if I did and you seriously believe that, you should just quit the game. I am dead serious, because with these resources (and number of accounts!) we would be unstoppable.



Now what is seriously grinding my gears is your soccer/football analogy. After a very long time of well-known federal toxicity, harassment via system-chat, aligning yourself with the bottom of the barrel of the playerbase, some of which are now banned from the game because of their toxicity and use of cheats, and a multitude of "alleged" botting incidents that lead to the banning of one of your leaders, who then proudly proclaimed he would evade the ban set by FDev via another E: D account of his, you of all groups have the audacity to tell someone else they are trying to bully folks out of the game?

The reason why people did these 2.2m merits last cycle and will continue to hammer Hudson this cycle is because they are tired. Tired of the gaslighting, trolling, and especially angry and tired of all the god damn projections.




Funny that this comes from the training wheels power of E: D. Never understood that catchphrase.

Hello I think I'm concerned by one of your message here.

First of all, I never got banned for botting reason and I've told that your underling more than one time. Second, FDev never told me I couldn't come back, I've explicitly asked them and they never said anything different.

Finally, I hope you realize that Hudson does not have active 5c. We have rando, we have unaware people but we don't have any groups capable of forting 35 (only bad) systems in less than 3 days.
Unsurprisingly, we knew you guys were going after us, you didn't even try to hide. So you had to be sure we wouldn't scrap. Cause if I was planning with our rando fort ONLY, we would've had way more systems in turmoil, not the poor few systems currently on the list. The only way you can be sure, to open call for arms against a power that knows how turmoil work and not helping them, is by 5c forting. This is the only thing you can do. So sorry to say, but you, imperials, did fort all the bad Hudson systems that never got forted in years.
We have stats, we have graphs of all the forts for Winters and Hudson and the only way all the little incoherence that never happen on any cycle before leads to undeniable 5c from you.

Lie to yourself or to your community, but don't lie to us.

 

[QueensPawn]

If you really thought it was 5c and not randoms, you wouldn't have stationed carriers around renamed to "Don't Fortify [system name]!" in your lossmaking systems. 5c wouldn't listen to carrier names telling them not to fort, so why would you bother with putting those carriers there? Your actions contradict your words. Who is really lying here?

 

[dciskey]

If you really thought it was 5c and not randoms, you wouldn't have stationed carriers around renamed to "Don't Fortify [system name]!" in your lossmaking systems. 5c wouldn't listen to carrier names telling them not to fort, so why would you bother with putting those carriers there? Your actions contradict your words. Who is really lying here?

When we place carriers that direct randoms to our discord we often get good results and new recruits. As you say, these carriers failed to stop the forts, so the fortifiers were probably not randoms, but instead were purposely fortifying to harm the Federation.

 

[QueensPawn]

We didn't see them there last week. Hard for randoms to respond to carriers that weren't there at the time.

And even if you usually get results, you're not going to get through to every random. When people see a system under threat, the natural reaction is to want to fortify. We also have to fight that impulse constantly in our own randoms.

 

[Fezix93]

We didn't see them there last week. Hard for randoms to respond to carriers that weren't there at the time.

And even if you usually get results, you're not going to get through to every random. When people see a system under threat, the natural reaction is to want to fortify. We also have to fight that impulse constantly in our own randoms.

So the natural reaction to seeing Hudson getting blanket UMed is to fort all the convenient Winters systems? There's been plenty of cycles where random Winters systems get some random amount of UM, such that the UI says that it is 'under threat', yet there's been plenty of times where those systems never get forted. It's not because of the 'Under Threat' message; full stop; data and experience don't back that up. Maybe a system or two, but not en mass like this was. But beyond that specific point, why are you even defending them? It's a known fact that just about every power has 5C problems. You could have said, yeah, sorry that happens, but it has nothing to do with us, but no, you're reaction was to try to justify that it wasn't 5C, just some randos. Like, why play that game with yourself? I'm not saying you are directly responsible for the 5C, but when you say that it wasn't 5C, when it very clearly was, it makes you come across as protective to them at best, and suspicious at worst.

Why is it so difficult to just play straight up? I don't understand it frankly. 'I want to play powerplay, but I don't want there to be any risk involved, so I'm going to go into solo/PG and/or mass block list entire squadrons because some people maybe might've done something kinda suspicious with their nameplate and/or i don't want to be insulted and/or multibox with multiple accounts with turret boats for extra merits per hour and/or justify 5C because we want to believe they're cheating because the only alternative is that we're losing. It's ridiculous and boring and old and childish.

The bottom line is that this (and several other past instances) have been 5C, and have obviously been 5C, and that if you aren't responsible for the 5C, then you have no reason to be defending what happened.

 

[Khan Tannhauser]

– Guys, I have an idea. Let's turmoil Hudson!

+ Sounds like a plan! ... Oof, wait a minute, that's a lot of merits we'd have to snipe.

– Snipe? Nah, we'll just hand in our merits as we go.

+ But if we don't snipe, Hudson will see it coming and could leave most of their crappy systems unforted.

– Trust me on this one. They will fort all their junk and next week they'll lose the systems threatening our beloved Princess.

+ I don't know man, when the Feds do this they snipe and it's for a reason. Imagine doing 2 million UM merits in plain view just to help them scrap. All our hard work for nothing!

– Nah, that's not gonna happen. TRUST ME wink wink

 

[tiddymun]

I'm sure a fair amount was rando forting.. Not everyone is on FUC discord or reads the Reddit fort list... and I'm sure alot just fort their favourite nearest system.. but some bad systems got forted even before they were undermined. ones that never get forted in normal cycles.

Anyway - congrats Imps on some massive hard work. No matter the tactics of a nefarious few (well more likely quite a few), you prove that PP is still kicking... Some tough cycles ahead for hudson I'm sure. Our delivery of pain to the Empire will be only temporarily suspended.. See you in Open

 

[tupacci]

So according to your hypothesis, the Empire not only undermined the entire Federation for 2.2m merits, but also fortified 35 Hudson systems using alt accounts, fortified a few Winters systems using even more (?) alt accounts, fortified our own systems to evade counter attacks using our own accounts (??), before using yet another set of alt accounts (???) to push Torval's expansion. Did I get this right?

Because if I did and you seriously believe that, you should just quit the game. I am dead serious, because with these resources (and number of accounts!) we would be unstoppable.



Now what is seriously grinding my gears is your soccer/football analogy. After a very long time of well-known federal toxicity, harassment via system-chat, aligning yourself with the bottom of the barrel of the playerbase, some of which are now banned from the game because of their toxicity and use of cheats, and a multitude of "alleged" botting incidents that lead to the banning of one of your leaders, who then proudly proclaimed he would evade the ban set by FDev via another E: D account of his, you of all groups have the audacity to tell someone else they are trying to bully folks out of the game?

The reason why people did these 2.2m merits last cycle and will continue to hammer Hudson this cycle is because they are tired. Tired of the gaslighting, trolling, and especially angry and tired of all the god damn projections.




Funny that this comes from the training wheels power of E: D. Never understood that catchphrase.

...you should just quit the game. I am dead serious...
...you of all groups have the audacity to tell someone else they are trying to bully folks out of the game?

All this in the same post? Hope you've stockpiled some gas, the light may go dark once Russia closes the valves.

Jokes aside, I thought the Imps' blocklist "fixed" the "problem" where your players were getting dunked on by our pvp'ers and getting called dog#### for it (cause your guys are dog#### at pvp)? In any case, on that front Imperial pvp went and aligned with a group that harvests and geolocates players' IPs to find out exact locations of where said players live IRL (their leader got permabanned for it and said he'd do ban evasion on an alt account), so I'd call that a wash at best...


Never understood that catchphrase.

I take it to mean that FLC strives to follow the spirit of competitive Powerplay and encourage fair play, even when it's not convenient to them. FUC has a rule; In the spirit of fair play, we expect all FUC members to conduct PowerPlay activities in Open. We also don't block our enemies, instead we welcome the challenge.

I think attacking the Feds was a nice move all around to give Powerplay the jolt it needed. I just wish the 5C'ers had stayed out of it. Shame on cheaters. I think they're the ones that should just quit the game.

 

[Zechs Darius]

I think attacking the Feds was a nice move all around to give Powerplay the jolt it needed. I just wish the 5C'ers had stayed out of it. Shame on cheaters. I think they're the ones that should just quit the game.

100% agreed.,
The Fed turret bot guys should just quit the game.

 

[tupacci]

100% agreed.,
The Fed turret bot guys should just quit the game.

Anyone botting, 5C'ing or cheating should just leave. The devs are helpless against them, so it's up to those players to realize that they're ruining the game for those few of us that still care.
Edit: Anyone playing Powerplay in PG or Solo should also just quit it. My 2 cents

 

[Zechs Darius]

Anyone botting, 5C'ing or cheating should just leave. The devs are helpless against them, so it's up to those players to realize that they're ruining the game for those few of us that still care.
Edit: Anyone playing Powerplay in PG or Solo should also just quit it. My 2 cents

If BGS, PP, and yes, CG were open only, it'd be a very different and probably better game.

But in order for that to happen, I think FDEV would have to fix it so that full crossplay was a thing first. Post Odyssey that's just not going to be a thing for sure, which is a shame.

 

[Zechs Darius]

... Of course in order to do that, FDEV would need to improve the network code, which being P2P is a little janky sometimes. I know that when I play with my friend, and we multicrew (using my Crusader as a dropship) He will get a Braben tunnel 33% of the time (By which I mean 1/3 inter system jumps will result in my having to go back to the previous system to pick him up. Which sucks. Trying this with more than two people seems unbearable).

Basically, it's an ideal. But between platforms, timeszones, and bad connections it's never going to be a reality. Just one of this games many, many brushes with greatness. Where it doesn't quite seize it.

Which is a shame.

Anyway. Digressing. Back to the salt.

 

[Danieros]

Aisling was openly UM'd before the dramatic change in federal strategy to just expand whatever weapons with good triggers available to get her negative as fast as possible, probably so she could be turmoiled before Frontier ever corrects the Odyssey population CC she (and every power has), still missing nearly an year after the Odyssey release. So you guys should be fully aware of the similar lossmaker forting that happened that week. Yet somehow it is unfair that this happened first to Hudson, already extremely negative due to so many weaponized expansions he has self-inflicted damage with. Expansions which at some point, had over a million merits of very dubious no-squadron origin being consistently poured into.

Instead of the cyclical "no, U" in the bad effects of actions that happen in every power (bad fortification, bad preps, etc), I'd rather write this post to make a point that we should all unite for, which is against them even having effectiveness at all.

In my honest opinion, Frontier needs to rebalance the logic that defines what goes into turmoil. I wouldn't even mind if by some miracle they make it a top priority and make it happen during this offensive before it is complete (but not reverting it, which I believe would be incredibly disrespectful to the effort already spent in such record-breaking numbers of UM). It is an enormous threat how a power can be beaten by this, snipes or not. I really believe fortification or undermining should only affect the CC pool and not have any impact on what turmoils. This could be quickly achieved by just making whatever has the lowest base income turmoil first, or possibly some other stat or combination of them that is not affected by fort/UM status and would be the fair wayto address the CC deficit in a way that doesn't just make it go even more negative. So all those garbage systems or really low income spheres due to contests would always go.

 

[Zechs Darius]

Aisling was openly UM'd before the dramatic change in federal strategy to just expand whatever weapons with good triggers available to get her negative as fast as possible, probably so she could be turmoiled before Frontier ever corrects the Odyssey population CC she (and every power has), still missing nearly an year after the Odyssey release. So you guys should be fully aware of the similar lossmaker forting that happened that week. Yet somehow it is unfair that this happened first to Hudson, already extremely negative due to so many weaponized expansions he has self-inflicted damage with. Expansions which at some point, had over a million merits of very dubious no-squadron origin being consistently poured into.

Instead of the cyclical "no, U" in the bad effects of actions that happen in every power (bad fortification, bad preps, etc), I'd rather write this post to make a point that we should all unite for, which is against them even having effectiveness at all.

In my honest opinion, Frontier needs to rebalance the logic that defines what goes into turmoil. I wouldn't even mind if by some miracle they make it a top priority and make it happen during this offensive before it is complete (but not reverting it, which I believe would be incredibly disrespectful to the effort already spent in such record-breaking numbers of UM). It is an enormous threat how a power can be beaten by this, snipes or not. I really believe fortification or undermining should only affect the CC pool and not have any impact on what turmoils. This could be quickly achieved by just making whatever has the lowest base income turmoil first, or possibly some other stat or combination of them that is not affected by fort/UM status and would be the fair wayto address the CC deficit in a way that doesn't just make it go even more negative. So all those garbage systems or really low income spheres due to contests would always go.

Ok. So I came here for the popcorn, but I have 2 cents here.

FDEV need to just completely overhaul PP. Full stop.

Or get rid of it. Either or.
Nothing inbetween.
Heal the horse or shoot it in the head.

Sick of the alliance faction I am in being toxic to the only alliance PP.
Tired of PP having no Odyssey ramifications either way whatsoever.

Frustrated at PP equipment being subjective, and often useless. Especially. Hahaha. Triple especially Mahons coffee heater.

 

[QueensPawn]

The bottom line is that this (and several other past instances) have been 5C, and have obviously been 5C, and that if you aren't responsible for the 5C, then you have no reason to be defending what happened.

There's no reason I'd be defending against accusations that we 5Ced you? None that you can think of at all? Don't be silly. Of course we have reason to defend against false accusations.

I have reason to believe, based on observed behavior, that the forting was the work of randoms and not 5C. Perhaps that was "our side giving cover for 5C" as your side is spinning it, but the simpler explanation is that randoms were responding to what they saw in the UI. When you see "system under threat" and you have an option to fortify, the intuitive option is to fortify. I know how randoms think, because I was one before I joined ADC. I'd be surprised if most of you weren't ever randoms who didn't understand powerplay mechanics. So why act like you don't understand?

 

[Danieros]

Ok. So I came here for the popcorn, but I have 2 cents here.

FDEV need to just completely overhaul PP. Full stop.

Or get rid of it. Either or.
Nothing inbetween.
Heal the horse or shoot it in the head.

Sick of the alliance faction I am in being toxic to the only alliance PP.
Tired of PP having no Odyssey ramifications either way whatsoever.

Frustrated at PP equipment being subjective, and often useless. Especially. Hahaha. Triple especially Mahons coffee heater.

They don't need to revamp PP to add Odyssey ramifications to it, it'll be a great way to add more variety to it. Thrashing the current model instead of improving upon it is like reseting the BGS.. 8 years after release. Makes sense for a game in beta, but not after folks who have been around since release have spent nearly a decade maintaining, fighting and advancing it. Like Mahon, still the biggest power despite that attack from a Hudson-aligned squadron that happened while PU's were bugged and always showing 0 merits. Personally I hate PP equipment since you can just grab it and move on. I'd prefer more rewards that are available only while you're pledged and helping.

 

[tupacci]

There's no reason I'd be defending against accusations that we 5Ced you? None that you can think of at all? Don't be silly. Of course we have reason to defend against false accusations.

I have reason to believe, based on observed behavior, that the forting was the work of randoms and not 5C. Perhaps that was "our side giving cover for 5C" as your side is spinning it, but the simpler explanation is that randoms were responding to what they saw in the UI. When you see "system under threat" and you have an option to fortify, the intuitive option is to fortify. I know how randoms think, because I was one before I joined ADC. I'd be surprised if most of you weren't ever randoms who didn't understand powerplay mechanics. So why act like you don't understand?

The "randoms" suddenly picking up and fortifying systems that haven't been forted for years, precisely on the cycle the Empire attacks us is certainly fortuitous for the attackers. Seeing as their plan hitches on our bad systems being 5C forted.