Powerplay Zemina Torval didn't get hr 8104 after winning the expansion
- Thread starter GoodGorilla
- Start date
![Elite Dangerous Powerplay Cycle 13.avi_snapshot_00.40_[2015.09.04_09.56.34].jpg](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/attachments/28/28037-910709c06829babdfc4e5d96964cd0e0.jpg "Elite Dangerous Powerplay Cycle 13.avi_snapshot_00.40_[2015.09.04_09.56.34].jpg")
It's because the system would have cost you CC. When they made the change to expanding in turmoil, they made it so only systems that were net positive could be gained in turmoil because they didn't want a newly acquired system to drive you deeper in debt. Because at the time they made the change some Imperial power (ALD I think) was having a problem with that.
The previous cycle Mahon turmoiled themselves to deliberately abuse this mechanic (auto-fail the bad systems, keep the good ones) though due to a surprise surge in Imperial undermining it didn't quite go as planned and they ended up with a larger deficit than expected.
So yeah, it's because your systems hadn't revolted yet, you were still in turmoil, and the target was a loss-making system. So it got blocked to avoid making your deficit larger.
Edit: I would like to add that Mahon also came out of turmoil this cycle, and as expected the bad expansion he was trying to avoid was successfully blocked by the turmoil mechanics. So Torval and Mahon did the same thing, difference is Mahon did it (mostly) on purpose.
The previous cycle Mahon turmoiled themselves to deliberately abuse this mechanic (auto-fail the bad systems, keep the good ones) though due to a surprise surge in Imperial undermining it didn't quite go as planned and they ended up with a larger deficit than expected.
So yeah, it's because your systems hadn't revolted yet, you were still in turmoil, and the target was a loss-making system. So it got blocked to avoid making your deficit larger.
Edit: I would like to add that Mahon also came out of turmoil this cycle, and as expected the bad expansion he was trying to avoid was successfully blocked by the turmoil mechanics. So Torval and Mahon did the same thing, difference is Mahon did it (mostly) on purpose.
Last edited:
That's interesting Ross.
Income would have increased by 104, but the upkeep and overheads would also have increased by 26 and 102 respectively.
This would have resulted in a net loss of -24 CC.
So given that at the end of cycle 13, before the revolts have occurred, would the expansion have succeeded if it resulted in a net gain or would it have failed due to being in a CC deficit before the revolts effects were calculated?
Income would have increased by 104, but the upkeep and overheads would also have increased by 26 and 102 respectively.
This would have resulted in a net loss of -24 CC.
So given that at the end of cycle 13, before the revolts have occurred, would the expansion have succeeded if it resulted in a net gain or would it have failed due to being in a CC deficit before the revolts effects were calculated?
Last edited:
As I said elsewhere, it seems that the calculations are done in two steps. I'm not saying that they are correct, but it's how they are done.
The first step is calculated taking into account the status of the systems at the end of the cycle (so, systems fully undermined do not produce CCs). At that point, with or without expansion, ZT was in deficit. That means she couldn't expand. Expansion dropped, the PP algorithm redoes the calculations to determine which systems need to be eliminated to have a positive balance, so 6 systems were removed until ZT got a positive balance.
The first step is calculated taking into account the status of the systems at the end of the cycle (so, systems fully undermined do not produce CCs). At that point, with or without expansion, ZT was in deficit. That means she couldn't expand. Expansion dropped, the PP algorithm redoes the calculations to determine which systems need to be eliminated to have a positive balance, so 6 systems were removed until ZT got a positive balance.
Last edited:
Cool! John that makes sense - ZT was in deficit to the tune of -414 CC before the revolt stage.
I agree that ZT should not have expanded last cycle based on the current power play implementation.
I have two remaining questions:
- Was it the CC deficit of -414 that prevented the expansion or was it that HR 8104 would have caused a CC loss and therefore was ineligible due to the CC deficit?
In other words - would HR 8104's expansion succeeded if only it has positive impact on the CC?
- How does the calculation choose which turmoil systems to discard?
Last edited:
As Casey pointed out, the answer is "maybe".
The only good case study that I know of before this cycle was Aisling during the Syntheng bug. She had seven or so systems prepped before going into turmoil, all but three were loss-making. She stayed in turmoil the next cycle, but got to keep all her positive expansions and drop the negative ones. Except one that was worth -9, not sure what was up with that one.
Unfortunately, due to the unusual nature of her turmoil that cycle it's not entirely clear if being positive is sufficient on its own or if the list would need to clear the deficit and thus stop any planets from revolting. If it's the latter, in theory revolting and expanding shouldn't happen in the same turn because their conditions would be mutually exclusive.
Data from Mahon should help clear things up though, as he had both positive and negative expansions on his list.
A lot of this is speculation of course, the devs haven't told us squat.
Do you have any information on how it went for Mahon? Other than the issue with Pongo, did you have any positive expansions last week, and were they blocked along with the bad system? That information could get us a little closer to figuring out the criteria.
We didn't have other successful expansions. The two good ones were denied by the friendly hands of every other power who wants peace with the Alliance and the 4th one didn't reach the trigger.
Alright, I did a quick check.
Torval currently has 40 systems, 3,084 CC income, 1,608 CC upkeep and 1,313 CC overheads.
Let's check what could happen if HR 8104 was successfully expanded. I see no obvious overlaps in HR 8104's control sphere, so it should have its full radius income of 104 CC and its upkeep of 26 CC.
Torval would end up with 41 systems, 3,188 CC income, 1,634 CC upkeep and 1,415 CC overheads. This is a total surplus of 139 CC.
"But Torval lost systems! She can't expand when she's lost systems!"
Well, this was FDev's response when Syntheng didn't revolt:
In other words, FDev has stated that it is entirely possible to have a system revolt (Syntheng) AND get expansions.
As such, there is no economic argument that HR 8104 shouldn't belong to Torval. That means that either HR 8104 bugged out (and it's not like powerplay is littered with game breaking bugs) OR Torval lost her expansion fight.
Now, for some really intricate and exceedingly brilliant reasoning (yes, that was sarcasm), there is no "paper trail" for each cycle. We cannot reliably see the actual numbers put into each system. Whenever we check the powerplay section, we're always seeing some cached data that has no age attached to it (so it could be 15 seconds old, it could be 10 hours old - you have no way of knowing). And once the cycle is over, the data is reset, so you don't get to check by how much/little you lost each race you found yourself in.
You might be subject to last minute sniping that put you into turmoil, but you don't get a chance to see by how much - just that it happened. And it's even worse for turmoil systems at the moment, because you don't get to see which ones of them were actually accounted for as fortified/undermined, nor by how much once you've lost them. You just have to blindly trust the system.
The system may be flawless, but while I can't speak for anyone else, I want to see the numbers! Not just for HR 8104, but for all the systems. It's flat out moronic that a game element that is as reliant on strategy and organization as powerplay is so completely dependent on manual data entry.
Torval currently has 40 systems, 3,084 CC income, 1,608 CC upkeep and 1,313 CC overheads.
Let's check what could happen if HR 8104 was successfully expanded. I see no obvious overlaps in HR 8104's control sphere, so it should have its full radius income of 104 CC and its upkeep of 26 CC.
Torval would end up with 41 systems, 3,188 CC income, 1,634 CC upkeep and 1,415 CC overheads. This is a total surplus of 139 CC.
"But Torval lost systems! She can't expand when she's lost systems!"
Well, this was FDev's response when Syntheng didn't revolt:
In other words, FDev has stated that it is entirely possible to have a system revolt (Syntheng) AND get expansions.
As such, there is no economic argument that HR 8104 shouldn't belong to Torval. That means that either HR 8104 bugged out (and it's not like powerplay is littered with game breaking bugs) OR Torval lost her expansion fight.
Now, for some really intricate and exceedingly brilliant reasoning (yes, that was sarcasm), there is no "paper trail" for each cycle. We cannot reliably see the actual numbers put into each system. Whenever we check the powerplay section, we're always seeing some cached data that has no age attached to it (so it could be 15 seconds old, it could be 10 hours old - you have no way of knowing). And once the cycle is over, the data is reset, so you don't get to check by how much/little you lost each race you found yourself in.
You might be subject to last minute sniping that put you into turmoil, but you don't get a chance to see by how much - just that it happened. And it's even worse for turmoil systems at the moment, because you don't get to see which ones of them were actually accounted for as fortified/undermined, nor by how much once you've lost them. You just have to blindly trust the system.
The system may be flawless, but while I can't speak for anyone else, I want to see the numbers! Not just for HR 8104, but for all the systems. It's flat out moronic that a game element that is as reliant on strategy and organization as powerplay is so completely dependent on manual data entry.
Like I said earlier, I'm pretty sure the answer rests in it being a net negative income system. Aisling and Mahon have both had net-negative systems blocked due to turmoil, even when shedding systems brought them out of it. This is consistent with statements the devs have made about wanting to prevent powers from taking on harmful systems in turmoil.
I think if it had been a net positive income system, Torval probably would have got to keep it the same way Aisling kept her net positive systems. Unfortunately it seems that none of Mahon's positive expansions succeeded in the first place, so Aisling is currently our only data point on the behavior of positive systems in turmoil. Hudson probably would have been a great test case last time he went into turmoil, he tends to have a diverse mix of positive and negative systems lined up, but he only had 22 CC going into that cycle so he couldn't prep anything.
I do agree that we need way more transparency. How are we supposed to find bugs if we can't figure out what the intended behavior is? Also, how do all these massive galactic bureaucracies keep zero paper trail of their accounts? Why should we have to try to turmoil our own powers under specific circumstances to figure out how turmoil works?
I know when people call out FD on the lack of transparency game they like to say "but the mystery is half the fun!", but screw that. If I wanted a mystery I'd be playing Call of Cthulhu.
I want data. Hard numbers. I want to see formulas. I want my buttons to be labeled so I don't have to push them blindly and see what happens. I want the stats on my guns to mean something, so I don't feel like I'm buying them from a used car salesman.
"What's the penetration on that railgun?"
"Oh, it's rated A!"
"What is this, high school? Alright, how about these pulse lasers?"
"They're rated A too!"
"What? Fragment cannon."
"A!"
"Multicannon."
"A!"
"THEY CAN'T ALL BE A! DO YOU EVEN METRIC?!"
No. When Aisling expanded while in turmoil (because she should have lost Syntheng but didn't), FDev said the only bug was Aisling not shedding Syntheng.
One of the systems that Aisling expanded into was a net negative income system (Aowica). Clearly you're allowed to expand into a net negative system after losing systems, as long as you can maintain a surplus, which Torval definitely could.
Either there's a new bug at play, Hudson won the race (and Hudson says they didn't) or FDev were mistaken when they said that the only bug that affected Aisling was not shedding Syntheng.
Except that Aisling also lost several net-negative systems that should have succeeded in that cycle, and Mahon also lost his net-negative system that should have succeeded. Are you saying that Mahon's expansion was bugged too?
Hmm... maybe it's not individual systems, but your expansion list as a whole that needs to be positive? Because I've dug up the systems Aisling was going to expand into in the cycle in question:
Aowica: -9
HIP 95256: +30
Blod: +5
Dakshmandi: -56
Tacahuti: -66
Kuki An: -55
Had she not been in turmoil, all six of those would have succeeded as far as I know. But only Aowica, HIP, and Blod went through. Why?
Well, the net gain from those three was +26. Any one of the other three systems would have made the entire expansion list negative, because they all would have cost more than 50.
So, my theory based on that is that if you're in turmoil, and you're expanding, the game will drop expansions until your expansion list as a whole is a net positive. This means you can only expand into a negative system in turmoil, if you have a larger positive system to offset it. If you only have negative systems it drops the whole list, which is consistent with what we're seeing.
If my theory is correct, that means the Mahon Maneuver should only work if the system you're trying to get rid of tips your whole expansion list negative. In that case, if for example you had a -60 loss system, but the rest of your list added up to +61 profits, you'd have a net list of +1, the Mahon Maneuver would fail, and you'd still be stuck with that loss-making system.
Unfortunately, until we can get another Power to go into turmoil with a mixed expansion list it's just a theory. I very strongly suspect though that if Torval preps a positive system, she will be able to expand into it even if she goes into turmoil.
And annoyingly this is more likely to happen quicker than Frontier is to give us the actual answer. Which is moronic, since powerplay is a strategic aspect of the game, and it requires more than a blank page for a rule book.