I've 180'd my opinion. Solo is REQUIRED for some players who'd like to participate in power play. It might not be the best solution, but this is the second time this cycle I've encountered the following:
http://plays.tv/video/56e0fad59714504a28
That's a 2-3 minute clip of "pvp" in power play. This cycle I have had two enemy commanders show up to Winter's expansion and both times was nearly the exactly the same. I'm a complete newb at this game and would rank my piloting and combat skills at a solid 1 out of 10. Until today. Unless we go into decimal places like 0.5/10 or something, then maybe I'd still be a 1/10. I ran into two pilots this cycle pledged to Winters and they were literally worse than the NPC's I interdict to farm merits.
Solo is required, some players will never be able to fly in Open
http://plays.tv/video/56e0fad59714504a28
That's a 2-3 minute clip of "pvp" in power play. This cycle I have had two enemy commanders show up to Winter's expansion and both times was nearly the exactly the same. I'm a complete newb at this game and would rank my piloting and combat skills at a solid 1 out of 10. Until today. Unless we go into decimal places like 0.5/10 or something, then maybe I'd still be a 1/10. I ran into two pilots this cycle pledged to Winters and they were literally worse than the NPC's I interdict to farm merits.
Solo is required, some players will never be able to fly in Open
I don't mean PowerPlay rewards. I mean having an impact on multiplayer part of the game when you clearly don't want to (that is the reason why to play in solo, right?). By playing in solo, you take away the multiplayer risk, why should you have an access to the multiplayer things?
If you can't stand the risk if being interdicted by players, then you shouldn't participate in a connected multiplayer, which PowerPlay is. And combat can be learned, if you aren't good at combat, then you don't give a damn about combat, and you should accept the consequences.
Who dare to send soldiers/mercs on the front line against enemy commanders?
No, solo it's not required for power play, in fact it's toxic for power play.
I'd love to watch the clip but the moment I do any scrolling in the video it just sits buffering :/
And no, not a connection issue on my part, as my connection is hardly saturated and not having any package loss, and being used for other things along the side, site seems to be having issues?
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Did you watch the video? If you read my earlier posts in this thread you would know I don't like power play + solo. Watch the video and tell me that player can ever play in open successfully. I'm the worst pilot in the game, IMO, but there are guys that are still valuable customers who will never be ready for open play. I agree with you some but you are actually wrong about "learning". When you hit a certain IRL age you can kiss your chances of going from bad to good at a video game good bye.
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Not sure brother, it works perfectly for me, I even fast clicked around the video time line and never buffered more than a second or less even. I don't even have good internet. Plays.tv is a really popular gaming clip site (check it out if you have any interest in recording game)
I use Microsoft edge with windows 10. I tried it in my backup browser Opera, had reduced performance but still pretty good
The clip is worth watching only in context to the discussion, not an enjoyable PVP video. To summarize, I interdict an ASP explorer who submits, then sits there doing exactly nothing while I start shooting him (just like a powerplay NPC would...) whereupon he flies in a straight line for awhile until I finally (because I suck balls at the game) manage to kill his drive (incidentally) and shoot him to death.
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Who dare to send soldiers/mercs on the front line against enemy commanders?
No, solo it's not required for power play, in fact it's toxic for power play.
Watch the video. Not all players are even close to competent.
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It is a war game, it is territory control.
I'm sorry to say but based on your comments, you really have no idea what you are talking about. So, I'll take your advice with a big grain of salt...
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When we had this preparation war against Chnumar a couple of weeks ago, we could have parked our fleet in Chnumar and warn and hunt anyone showing up there trying to fortify this real bad system to the tune of 350,000 preps. That's what we could have done if those saboteurs would have had to do their deeds in open.
If it was a war game, the Federation and Empire would be in open war, which is not the case at the moment.
If it was a war game, then you would never be allowed to dock in a system that belongs to a hostile power.
If it was about control of territory, then any system controlled and exploited by a power would have their major allegiance changed to that of the power. This is not the case at the moment either.
PowerPlay is as much about war as is the current US election.
martin shou seems to have the arguments pro solo Power Play, because he likes to work in the shadows. Where no one sees you, what you're doing. So if you have the numbers, no one can theoretically beat you. Just numbers... where is the strategical thinking?! Just to join a Power so you can destroy it from the inside, or join different Powers and seed discontent and war. Yes it would be ok, if you had a counter mechanism to it. Like spending one whole cycle to find those spies, or something similar.
While I get what you are saying, I doubt you would have any real success, though I will grant that if you can gather a large enough fleet to cover 24/7 it might be possible to affect something, but the actual fact of the logistics of such things are very rarely successful without support of mechanic behind them, is very unlikely at least in my book and from my experience few games have managed to pull it off, especially in stuff that isn't point and click like Eve, in that aspect the point and click system of Eve makes it a lot a lot easier to organize and actually do stuff.
Yeah. And what does this video prove? If you aren't good at combat, then don't undermine! Goddamn!
Actually my argument for solo and private participation in PowerPlay is based on two things:
1) Not knowing everything makes the game more challenging
2) Frontier doesn't want to limit any part of the game to open
Not knowing everything does indeed make the game more challenging, simply because you don't know where your opposition is coming from. Keep in mind - you're not the power. You're basically working for a lobbyist, who is trying to influence the power.
Playing in solo and private is the equivalent of voting without advertising who you're voting for.
None of what you're saying defines whether it is a war game or not it's just your opinion. You are saying that controlling a system and profiting from it and using that to control more systems is not territory control. You also said previously that because some of the core systems worth a lot of CC are close to the capital means that there isn't a trend of the profitable systems being further out. Because SOL is worth a lot, and proabably a few other you could find, that there is no trend of profitable systems being further away from the HQ?
As far as undermined and fort, in ALD we didn't fortify a few systems and right before the end of cycle they turned in merits and put 7 unfortified systems into turmoil.
edit. meant undermined no turmoi8l
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That's because it would make the game too hard for people who only assign to a power to get the unique weapon, but 3 DBX's to stock them then align to another power. That's all PowerPlay is useful for.
While true, I find it odd that there's this massive ten sided war going on in the galaxy, yet there's absolutely no mention of it in the news. And how do you explain that Hudson is at war with Winters, when they're both officials in the Federation government? How about how Patreus is at war with Arissa Lavigny-Duval, yet ALD just promoted him to Admiral of the entire Empire navy?
If PowerPlay was a war game, then none of those things would make any sense whatsoever. If it's politics and political manoeuvring, then it makes perfect sense.
If it was control of territory, then none of the weaponized expansions that Hudson and Winters have pushed into ALD's territory would be Empire aligned any more. The fact that they are makes it rather obvious that this is not a war game, but about being the most influential politician. Basically it's the cold war. Remind me - just how many times did the US and the Soviets go to war against each other? I'm pretty sure the answer is zero. There were a lot of proxy wars, but none of them involved the US declaring war on the Soviet Union or vice versa, and none of them took place on their own territory.
You also said previously that because some of the core systems worth a lot of CC are close to the capital means that there isn't a trend of the profitable systems being further out. Because SOL is worth a lot, and proabably a few other you could find, that there is no trend of profitable systems being further away from the HQ?
I used Sol and Alioth as a counter to the claim that valuable systems are all far away from the head quarters, which is clearly not the case.
Also, the reason that most powers have those distant systems is because they are somewhat valuable, but that doesn't mean that the distant systems are the most valuable - they're just there because they were worth stretching for at some point. For example, Mahon has quite a lot of distant systems, but those aren't necessarily distant from all powers' head quarters. We just stretched for them early to make sure we got them.
But, simply because I'm curious, let's look into it a bit, shall we? First, what defines "far"? Your idea may be quite different than mine. To my mind, distant systems are the ones that have a higher default fortification trigger than undermining trigger. This happens at around 90 light years. Given that each control system bubble is 30 light years across, that means a system that is exactly 90 light years from the HQ, can have exactly two other control systems fit between it and the HQ (provided everything is placed perfectly of course. Given that you can travel 95 light years in a fully laden trade optimized cutter and 105 light years in a fully laden trade optimized type 9, I have a hard time justifying the idea that 90 light years is far.
So, on to the numbers then.
| Control System | Distance to HQ | Distance to closest HQ |
| Sol | 28.94 | 28.94 |
| Alioth | 30.55 | 30.55 |
| Tau Bootis | 34.76 | 34.76 |
| Omicron Gruis | 46.19 | 31.22 |
| Mullag | 47.91 | 22.08 |
| Baal | 53.20 | 49.60 |
| LHS 3749 | 55.72 | 55.72 |
| LHS 2150 | 58.85 | 58.85 |
| Amijara | 63.35 | 63.35 |
| Akkadia | 68.18 | 57.90 |
| HIP 20935 | 70.31 | 70.31 |
| Hanggardi | 72.92 | 72.92 |
| Zeta Trianguli Australis | 74.37 | 66.47 |
| Crowfor | 76.34 | 70.48 |
| Lusonda | 77.35 | 77.35 |
| LP 701-7 | 77.74 | 77.74 |
| NLTT 53690 | 81.53 | 70.56 |
| Simyr | 82.42 | 82.42 |
| Haroingori | 90.08 | 90.08 |
| HIP 101846 | 97.53 | 73.32 |
| Nurundere | 99.51 | 82.42 |
| HR 8474 | 109.55 | 85.78 |
| Leesti | 112.42 | 101.37 |
| V371 Normae | 127.12 | 84.90 |
| Matlehi | 130.54 | 105.71 |
| Di Kuana | 130.99 | 119.66 |
| Manbatz | 135.26 | 110.81 |
| Contien | 138.31 | 121.67 |
| Pongo | 144.42 | 127.52 |
| Li Jungu | 157.70 | 106.81 |
| Average | 85.80 | 74.38 |
| Median | 77.55 | 73.12 |
| 25th percentile | 59.98 | 58.14 |
| 75th percentile | 111.70 | 89.01 |
In both cases the average and the median is less than 90 light years. In fact 18 of the 30 most profitable systems are closer than 90 light years from their HQ, and once we look at the closest possible HQ it grows to 22 out of 30.
Now, obviously you may have a different definition of "far", but to my mind anything you can fortify in a reasonably equipped trade ship without having to stop and fuel scoop is close.
Read a bit and skipped most. you're taking the reality out of the game and trying to fit the lore in there as if it is more important than how it is actually played.
FYI, nobody said all the powers are at war with each other... I've never actually done it myself because I was told what would happen, I was told if you kill another imperial pledge (i'm ALD) you lose merits.
Did the US or the Soviets openly go into each others territories and spend weeks murdering any state related person that showed face? apples/apples
As I said, it's a combination of politics and state sponsored terrorism.