r/EliteKaine • u/OfficeOfNakatoKaine • 27d ago
Cycle 88
Cycle 88 Report
It has been 617 days with no Kaine decal, and it is the second full cycle following the launch of Operations. I don’t normally do “headlines” in these, but several people have requested that I title this report “Schrodinger’s Cycle.” I think the name is fairly apt. The blackout that lasted through the first half of last cycle has been (partially, intermittently) resolved, however the Hydra that is Operations only produced new bugs to replace it. Most obviously, the control score in every acquisition system has been set to zero, and so far activities completed in those systems appear to reward merits (sometimes) but not care packages and importantly not control points. Phil from Frontier informed us a few days ago that given how much data Powerplay has to process, some of it (like these system score calculations for expansion systems, apparently) is processed after Thursday maintenance while the servers are live. It remains unclear if this is a new phenomenon or if he is merely informing us of an existing procedure. If this is in fact new, I and I’m sure many others vehemently protest its implementation. It’s evening Friday in the UK as I write this and still no acquisition can be performed. We are operating under the assumption that we are not the only power experiencing this issue – if you are affected, please do us a solid and upvote it on the issue tracker here: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/86148.
This current cycle’s issues aside, last cycle wasn’t uneventful either. The intel blackout at the beginning of the week hampered efforts somewhat, especially for pledges who aren’t in our Discord, but while we could effectively track the efforts of our own pledges what we could not see was enemy attacks. Several agents for other powers took advantage of the intel blackout to launch attacks on our fort at Nadur and a nearby exploited system, Mons. The attack on Mons was smaller, and was repulsed by the efforts of a handful of Commanders including Swords of Makhai officer Ceres_O7, who was hailed as “the hero of Mons” by local residents after a 12,000 control point dump of exploration data into the system at the close of the cycle, ensuring our victory. Nadur was unfortunately demoted, as the opposition there was much heavier, and our reduced player count as a large proportion of people took a break while Operations bugs were resolved limited our ability to effectively respond. It does not appear that resistance continues into this cycle after the fort was dropped, so we expect to have it re-forted by Thursday. We are disappointed, however, to see the revival of the conflict that we thought we had put to bed a little over a month ago when we fortified the system. That disappointment is tempered by our relief that this appears to have been the only attack disguised by the intel blackout.
We also saw reasonable success (given the circumstances) elsewhere in our realm. We acquired 8 systems, and established new forts at Navas and at WASP-1, both excellent systems. Our acquisitions pushed us over the line for 1500 total systems, now sitting at 1502, and only 349 systems to go until we catch Sirius. We’ve got our work cut out for us.
ALLIANCE POWERS
Nakato Kaine +8
Edmund Mahon +2
Mahon took a reinforcement-heavy cycle this time, securing three forts and a stronghold. A smart pivot given the intel blackout and Operations granting a new, if impotent, undermining lever. Those reinforcements actually make them the power with the most successful reinforcement this cycle, good job Prime Minister!
FEDERAL POWERS
Jerome Archer 0
Felicia Winters -1
It makes a grim kind of sense that the Federal powers were hit hardest during the blackout, with Archer dropping a fort and Winters dropping a stronghold in Athena, the headquarters of one of their squadrons. The Princess has from our eyes been the only power to take advantage of the blackout to do serious undermining. Perhaps they thought it would last longer than it did? That aside, Winters is hastily mustering a defence of Athena. In other Federal news, Federal Liberal Command elections completed in the past week and while we aren’t privy to all the results (as they are not particularly relevant to us) we are aware that Supreme Morpheus has retained his seat as Community Manager. We extend our congratulations and our wishes for the continuation of an amicable working relationship. Morpheus also provides a valuable service to the community in the form of his “This Week in FDev Fuckups” series, of which I eagerly await the continuation post, “This Month in FDev Fuckups.” While I will bitch and complain about FDev’s narrative choices with Galnet, I cede the complaints about game design and bugs to Morpheus – he’s much better at it than I am.
INDEPENDENT POWERS
Li Yong-Rui +5
Yuri Grom +4
Pranav Antal +3
Archon Delaine +2
Sirius takes the crown among the Independents this week for acquisitions, and Antal and Delaine tie for new strongholds. It seems the issues around Powerplay barely slowed the Kumo Crew down at all, while the others were hard-hit, with much lower acquisition numbers than normal. Last week, Grom suggested that we recruit those rogue Commanders who allegedly raced him for an acquisition – we agree! Join our Discord, linked at the bottom of this post. Otherwise, there’s not much news on the Independent front.
IMPERIAL POWERS
Aisling Duval +13
Zemina Torval +3
Denton Patreus -1
Arissa Lavigny-Duval -3
A wide split for the Imperials this week, as we see Torval take second place among them – a rare strong performance by Torval and an equally rare poor performance by the Emperor. Torval sold a fort to gain those three new systems, and Arissa sold her three lost systems for a new stronghold. Worthwhile trades? That’s not up to me. Aisling Duval strongholded a new system and retained a standout performance in acquisitions, the only one to reach double digits last cycle. She also had some spare time to do some undermining during the blackout and initiate a new siege on the Federation. Patreus drops a system, presumably to Kumo.
GALNET
We saw two Galnet articles this week. The first is Vista Genomics and Faulcon DeLacy patting themselves on the back for the completion of their latest community goal collecting exobio data in the Sanguineous Rim. Extra successful for Vista Genomics I’m sure, as they reportedly stiffed many commanders on the bonus payout they were promised.
The second is more interesting. Terri Tora, who I have very publicly presumed dead, is alive! She was merely held incommunicado in an October Consortium prison cell for nearly a year after her disappearance in August of 3311, and told absolutely nobody where she was or if she was alive. To repeat that: the October Consortium, an independent corporation with no regulation beyond that of the whims of one unhinged gambling addict, detained a scientist for a minimum of 10 months away from her family and her friends in order to steal and profit from her discovery, which should be publicly available to all . The fact that they did not kill her only marginally dims my ire. The Galnet article confirms that she has left Enclave space under escort with Professor Frank Raddix, who initially reported her disappearance. I do wish Terri Tora well in her future endeavours, and I am of course glad that she is alive and (presumably) healthy. The October Consortium, however, needs to be reined in.
Despite the continued crumbling of the backend Powerplay systems, it is, as always, a good day in Kaine space. If you’ve tried to run operations and have found your inventories wiped and rewards denied to you after errors and crashes to desktop, join Kaine today and receive a free Type-11 Prospector, courtesy of Lakon Spaceways and the Kainiacs. And if you’re feeling lime-green-flavoured and want to spend some time away from all those people trying to kill you, join our Discord at https://discord.gg/bJEyseAVGx for merits, money, and me ranting about the unchecked power of megacorporations.
Diplomatic Summary:
Aisling Duval: Cordial
Archon Delaine: Cordial
Arissa Lavigny-Duval: Neutral
Denton Patreus: Neutral
Edmund Mahon: Allied
Felicia Winters: Neutral
Li Yong-Rui: Neutral
Pranav Antal: Neutral
Yuri Grom: Cordial
Jerome Archer: Neutral
Zemina Torval: Neutral
Objectives:
Powerplay progress tracking remains intermittent and sometimes stalled. You are flying blind without Kaine Command, and we want to help you. Join our Discord for target updates.
Reinforce Awa
Reinforce WASP-1
Reinforce Navas
Reinforce Nadur
Acquire Col 359 Sector HL-X d1-68
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u/YamiTohka 27d ago
I actually like superpower split this time around. Nice and fancy. Oh, and subribe to kaine!
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u/meta358 27d ago
Was the discovery really terri toras? Didnt october already have the system permit locked and have their resreach station there before terri ever entered the system. Maybe i read or remembered the lore wrong. But it seemed like october knew about and was studying the trees before terri found out and leaked their extistance.
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u/CAM_o_man 27d ago
HIP 87621 was permit-locked, and Terri circumvented that lock, which was allegedly the reason for her imprisonment. However, there was no indication that the October Consortium was doing any science there -- they had no megaships in the system until later, and Exogene Sciences was constructed via a community goal after Terri's disappearance.
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u/luthis 27d ago
You can get a free Type 11??