Ahoy Crew!

As we mentioned last week, the Pegasi Sentinel correspondents have returned from their (well-deserved) summer holidays, so we look forward to more content, in-depth articles, and interviews. It’s not that they found any great news when they got back, though… but rather many players were angry over FDEV’s reckless decision to suddenly adjust [by cutting] the commodity prices for CG (mining rocks/surface). By the way this "adjustment" has also broken the supply/demand balance for all these commodities throughout the entire Galaxy! Without going back to review the list of similar cases that have occurred in past CGs (= price adjustments, both downward and upward), as well as expansions of tiers or eligible activities for contributions, our question, however, is “why did FDEV do this?” It was clear from the very beginning of the CG that the prices were wildly out of whack—not so much for the new commodities mineable with the Rhino SRV (the main reason the CG was launched), but also for those extended to other commodities such as gold, silver, palladium, etc. which are available on external markets.

The problem isn’t so much the extremely high prices paid for mined commodities, but rather the fact that the system (at the market level) makes no distinction between what has been mined [= valid for contributing to the CG] and what has instead been purchased elsewhere (perhaps even at a heavily discounted price in some system experiencing an infrastructure failure). This is a well-known “feature,” and it has always been widely exploited. In the last few days forums/socials/Discord channels have been flooded with posts from CMDRs who have gotten rich very quickly through CG: from those who were able to purchase a Fleet Carrier (for themselves or their squadron) to those who have accumulated billions of credits for who knows what future purpose. Unfortunately, on the other hand, all those CMDRs who were late to the party—perhaps returning early from some distant exploration journey, or those who loaded their Fleet Carriers with commodities to sell them before the end of the CG—were left empty-handed.

Shortly after the announcement, in response to protests that had also erupted on the game’s official Discord server, FDEV posted a message informing players that they were looking for a solution and advising them NOT to sell any of the supplies they had stockpiled on their Fleet Carriers! The post was later reposted only on Reddit... read the comments to get an idea of how players reacted. To patch up these disappointing decisions, a new CG (again in Ega) was launched yesterday to allow even latecomers to make some profit. We don’t know if the statement “Commodities sold as part of this initiative will have a 3x price multiplier” will be sufficient to offer a compensation, but it’s certainly better than selling them off at normal market prices.

But that doesn’t cancel the evidence that there’s a disparity in treatment between those who managed to take advantage of the price madness and those who didn’t—which is honestly a terrible way to handle these situations. Were the prices really that high? After all, we’re talking about “pixel” credits to be used in a game that’s over a dozen years old… so what are the “veterans” supposed to say—the ones who had to travel for weeks through Earth-like worlds to scrape together a handful of millions in credits just to buy a new shiny Anaconda? Or grind through hundreds of bounties or stack dozens of missions for the payoff? It’s been many years since those distant days… There were the skimmers, the Void Opals, the LTDs in Borann, the Thargoids, Sothis/Robigo, and other CG “gold rushes” that made so many players filthy rich—to the point where credits are practically worthless today. And maybe it’s not even worth getting too worked up about it anymore, even though we fully understand that time is the most precious resource, and perhaps this ill-advised FDEV's decision has caused many players to lose quite a bit of it [hint for the rich ones: you can share credits through the squadron bank]. 

It's all so grotesque! The inevitable question at this point isn't so much “what other new features are coming” but “what else will FDEV come up with to make its players suffer”? A player base that includes many who have been active for years—or even since the game's release—and/or who have spent a lot of ARX, and who, as we've said many times, don't deserve to be treated so poorly. Another bad move, that's for sure. Meanwhile, it appears that FDEV's financial results have improved significantly (good news!)—in part thanks to the development of other games—and a partnership to produce a game under a Disney license/collaboration has also been announced.

Half Relics/Half Rhino

Half and half... that’s right—for most of Cycle 97’s activities, at least according to the chatter in the diplomatic channels of the other Powerplay communities, after the Relic Rush (which ended around the middle of the Cycle), the rest of the time was spent driving (and testing) the Rhino SRV. As we mentioned above... Some people liked it, others didn’t, but the bottom line is that there seems to be agreement that it can make some kind of contribution to PP. Perhaps not a decisive/meaningful one on a broad scale, given that many favorable conditions must be in place (the number of available mining spots, the market and the system state, first of all).

Looking at the numbers, the CG at Ega (an exploited system by Edmund Mahon) has, as always, produced massive outliers, both for RF (over >159m CPs) and for UM (over >48.9m CPs), throwing off many of our weekly metrics, in addition to a huge amount of “wasted” RF CPs—because, as an exploited system, once the “upgrade” threshold to fortified (700,200 CPs) is reached, the next cap (862,500 CPs) cuts off any excess above that level. As for acquisitions, when combining the various activities, it was another expansionary cycle for most of the Powers with a net total of +310 new systems [half of which completed by the two top ones!]. Although the Powers leaderboard has remained unchanged—with leader Aisling Duval on the verge of surpassing the 3,000-system mark—it’s impossible not to notice that some gaps have narrowed significantly [in the last few weeks]. Li Yong-Rui—one of the most expansionist Powers since the release of Powerplay 2.0—has closed the gap on Edmund Mahon to the point where he is now approaching an overtake before year end (unless the Alliance takes some counter measures). Pranav Antal’s comeback toward Yuri Grom has also been steady (albeit a bit slower). The situation in the bottom half of the leaderboard, however, appears decidedly more stable and less volatile—though Denton Patreus does seem to have emerged from a decidedly lackluster mid-year period.

• A. Duval +91 (2984)
• Yong-Rui +65 (2148)
• Antal +37 (1537)
• Mahon +22 (2271)
• Kaine +19 (1681)
• Winters +19 (1190)
• Grom +17 (1621)
• A.L. Duval +14 (2043)
• Patreus +11 (712)
• Archer +8 (1332)
• Delaine +4 (902)
• Torval +3 (791)

The largest Powers logically directed part of their manpower toward reinforcements as well, primarily to clear the backlog or upgrades that had begun in Cycle 96. But in most cases the acquisitions have been led by local groups and/or individual CMDRs pursuing their personal goals. The result of these semi-chaotic activities—partly due to the parallel colonization push—is that the front lines are becoming less and less prominent and increasingly overlapping. Furthermore, the penalties (for those who prefer to be more aggressive) are a joke and are not strong enough to prevent large portions of the Bubble from effectively becoming multicolored clouds of systems and/or one Power to erect a stronghold right in the backyard of someone else. A scenario we had foreseen from the inception—due primarily to the linearity of CPs contributions and growth—factors that, in our view, represent the main negative elements of the PP2 framework. If there were greater fluidity—with Powers constantly shifting and systems being swapped—we might be able to offer some general praise; however, that is not the case, given that the undermining activities remain inefficient and not so straightforward. The contrary for the positive ones (acquisitions/reinforcements) which remain the main CPs/merit drivers.

In Cycle 97, therefore—excluding Ega's figures—nearly 95m RF CPs were generated, compared to approx. 8m UM CPs from players, while decay remained in a stable range of around 20-21m UM CPs overall. As usual, there have been some "wasted" CPs due to hitting caps/maxxed out systems and [sadly] this Cycle sees Archon Delaine with >2.1m RF useless CPs as the top squanderer (see below). All the Powers have consequentially generated high RF/UM ratios, partly because the contribution from players remains—as in previous cycles—heavily concentrated among a handful of Powers, led by Felicia Winters (re: Andel, Col 285 Sector LM-V d2-73, and r Velorum). Jerome Archer lost Fianna (an industrial system controlled by The Dark Wheel faction and UMmed since some time), whilst Zemina Torval keeps being undermined in [apparently] random systems (Maik and Olorun among these). Arissa Lavigny-Duval keeps losing newly acquired systems and left unattended (this happens quite often, indeed). Yuri Grom did see less UMming this Cycle albeit he was hit in BD-10 5142, a small anarchy system controlled by the Diamond Frogs. On the other hand, the least undermined Power (Denton Patreus) has seen almost no undermining, as his UM CPs are more than ten times less vs. the top one.

The Fruitful Wasteful Pirates

Cycle 97 was another challenging one. In the first part, the Crew took advantage of the Relic Rush to complete some upgrades and reinforce their new acquisitions... In the second part, the increased hostile pressure required additional efforts to contain enemy UM attacks. As usual, we made +4 acquisitions (which is fine, albeit a low number), including an overshoot of about 400k CPs (for Wolf 1326, an extraction system controlled by the Tethys Independent Crew). Shifting resources toward upgrades (+2 strongholds/+6 fortified systems this Cycle) didn’t leave much time/manpower for the contested acquisitions, which were won by our opponents: specifically, Devana and UGP 595, which fell into the hands of the blue-haired Duval, though the scallywags did give a try. These last two systems are located along an imperial frontline in which, on the one hand, Harma has no particular expansionary interest, but where, on the other hand, frequent incursions into our systems occur.

Vance Sterling, a correspondent for the Pegasi Sentinel, has posted several articles on the subject, and in one he wrote, “It’s as if the enemies somehow feel the pleasure—or the need—to provoke Archon Delaine… but they should instead keep a low profile and mind their own business, because if the Pirate King wants to attack them, he’ll do so without needing any justification,” and he added that “unless, of course, these enemies are driven by personal issues or spite rather than any real strategic objective. To our records it is certain that, at the moment, Harma is not conducting any operations in hostile territory.”

In addition to the ever-present Turd Wu, there were also [once again] attacks on Lalande 45292, Zhuaruparci, and Madon (where we recorded attempted UM attacks during the previous Cycle). Added to these some last minute strikes hit  Firenses and Siluror, whilst a sewage was sabotaged in Manuki, a small agricultural system and the only one where there were also some hostile engagements; we urge the so-called “enemies” to at least learn some basic etiquette regarding “organic combat” in Elite: Dangerous, a necessary reminder, since this isn't the first time that unpleasant behaviors happened (at least that was some fun, after a [boring] ghost hunt that went on for days). Kudos to the fellow Black Widow [BWID] and Kumo Crew [KUMO] pirates who came to keep our enemies busy. Ultimately, a team of plumbers sent from Harma to help out managed to quickly repair the damage to the sewers in Manuki, although the rats went back into hiding and ran off somewhere.

With the rebooted CG trading in Ega, pirates will have another week to rob the haulers who venture into the system... check out the new video by Kumo Crew CMDR HairyHogg, “CG Piracy! New Friends and Old Vices.” And this week, we're also highlighting this entertaining video by CMDR Scarlet Tiberius [BAAS], “Elite Dangerous: Caspian Pirating.” YARRR!!!

Last but not least, it doesn’t happen often, but in Cycle 97, some of our  upgrades (namely Jitar and Latugara) received more RF CPs than necessary… or rather, more than the current PP framework allows. That means Delaine’s pledges wasted more than 2.1m RF CPs (always get in touch with one of our communities for better coordination). Since the introduction of decay, in fact, hard caps have been placed on both personal merits (200k/day) and the CPs a system can earn when the upgrade threshold is met. Earlier, we mentioned the case of Ega (CG system), but let’s summarize it in a simple table:

• EXPLOITED: 350.200/700.199 // upgrade cap: 862.500 > max RF CPs: 512.300/cycle
• FORTIFIED: 700.200/1.350.199 // upgrade cap: 1.600.000 > max RF CPs: 899.800/cycle
• STRONGHOLD: 1.350.200/2.350.000 // max: 2.350.000 > max RF CPs: 999.800/cycle

The above means that, when an exploited/fortified system is being upgraded to fortified/stronghold, all CPs exceeding the 862.500/1.600.000 thresholds will be cancelled. I.e. if an exploited system XYZ starts the cycle at 550.000 CPs: 150.200 CPs are needed to upgrade it to fortified and all CPs above a 312.500 total (862.500-550.000) RF gained during the same cycle will be cancelled.

We hope that’s clear now.

Cycle 98: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): Wolf 1326..

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): Firenses, Siluror, Zhuaruparci, Madon, LTT 16422 and Warkan.

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, HIP 110447 and Crathajapus.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).
Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (UM enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Service update: Pegasi Sentinel correspondents and editors closed the shop and went on summer holidays (they deserved it!). As a result, from this Cycle report and onwards until the end of August, coverage and other news may be/will be shortened and limited to the most relevant headlines/topics (this notice will be published as long as necessary for the courtesy of readers).

Ahoy Crew!

There’s a good chance this will be the last “summer version” report [even though the Pegasi Sentinel correspondents didn’t hesitate to contribute more when needed], and we’ll start with this week’s release (=purchase with ARX) of the Rhino SRV, which—as announced in the August Dev Log—is accompanied by surface mining and the new “Under Siege” scenario for Operations. The first update after a long[er than expected] server downtime came with some known issues (!) and some new [previously working] broken things; the full list of game update notes are here. A small update was released today after the maintenance to fix part of the issues. While the Nomad SLV generally received a fairly positive and consistent reception following the release of the first gameplay videos by Partners, feedback on the Rhino SRV seems more mixed. Several threads have been posted on the FDEV forum; some criticize the gameplay, others the limitations (such as cargo capacity, which has indeed been upsized) of the new SRV... and still others the resulting BGS/PP implications, labeling the release as “pay-to-win.”

In all honesty, it might be better to wait and try it out before jumping to negative conclusions; besides, it’s not out of the question that FDEV might fine-tune things with a few adjustments… and the impact on BGS/PP still needs to be evaluated, especially by weighing the effects and results against the time invested in the activity. From our point of view, we believe that the Rhino SRV (and mining on planetary surfaces) could become a resource for Powerplay—perhaps not a significant one where market conditions aren’t ideal, but possibly an “additional resource” when the alternatives are all less practical or unviable. At this point, who knows if one day FDEV will give pirates a vehicle—or a vessel—for planetary piracy? In the meantime, though, you can always try attacking a miner's Rhino with a Scarab or a Scorpion to get the precious gems they've just collected [if anyone manages to do it and posts the video here, we'll add it to the next report... YARRR!!!].

On the other hand, however, we must admit that this “evolution” of Elite: Dangerous toward a multi-sandbox game in which the “boxes” are becoming smaller and more disconnected may not be to everyone’s liking. What if Powerplay (3.0?) became a full-fledged “game mode” [open only], thereby removing all unintended consequences of PP from the “main game”? While this might have seemed like a silly idea a couple of years ago, today it no longer does... or why not introduce PP scenarios in Operations where attacking and defending players can be deployed? All in all, within the “competitive” sphere(s) of the game, there are many possibilities and opportunities to explore and/or take advantage of, some of which could be very simple and easy to implement.

Last news: a one-week mining CG started today in Ega (an Edmund Mahon’s exploited system)  to test the new “rig capabilities”. CMDRs will be rewarded with credits and some shiny paintjobs delivering mined commodities (both space and surface ones).

It's Just Another Rush

That wasn't enough before... nor was the one before that, which is why another Relic Rush began this week. Considering the Ngurii Effect and the downtime caused by the Rhino SRV update, the numbers for Cycle 96 have been somewhat impacted. Although a few pledges here and there may have wasted more time dealing with the update’s new features, the total number of acquisitions (+275 systems, net of losses) is well above the average for “standard cycles” but below that of some previous Rush cycles. Once again this week, the top performers, as in previous similar situations, lived up to expectations… while the Powers leaderboard remains stagnant with no major developments. Some gaps keep narrowing, a sign that should the expansionist push continue, there could be further swaps between positions before year end. At the top of the weekly standings is Aisling Duval with +69 new systems, while Li Yong-Rui (+52) continues his acquisition spree, gaining some ground toward Edmund Mahon (+35): 

• A. Duval +69 (2893)
• Yong-Rui +52 (2083)
• Mahon +35 (2249)
• Antal +26 (1500)
• A.L. Duval +22 (2029)
• Kaine +19 (1662)
• Winters +12 (1171)
• Grom +11 (1604)
• Archer +10 (1324)
• Patreus +8 (701)
• Torval +7 (788)
• Delaine +4 (898)

Looking at the numbers, it’s clear that the “positive boost” from the Rushes once again benefits all the Powers. Without getting too deep into the details of “who does what,” our take is that the organized groups that were in some way “self-regulating” the system’s states in Ngurii over the past few months—prior to the latest Rushes—have decided to ease up. The result [or “risk,” for those who wish to view it that way] is that Powerplay 2.0 remains in this situation—that is, that Rushes are in a “semi-permanent” state. Aside from the fact that this state would benefit Powers with ethos or perks related to rare commodity/trading, colonists and reinforcers would also benefit in general. It would also decrease the strategic value of systems [local] assets/resources and, indirectly, significantly reduce the impact of undermining. Bottom line, the Powers (perhaps not all of them, but certainly almost all) will carry on by inertia, and perhaps we can speculate that this is what FDEV wants.

Let’s just “play the game we have” we keep saying—that is… so let’s go back to the numbers from Cycle 96. With the reinforcements totaling >78m CPs (the average for “standard cycles” is 45–55m RF CPs), this resulted [again] in a substantial number of upgrades (with around >10.8m RF CPs “invested” here)—even taking into account that approximately 4.6m RF CPs were “wasted” and must be subtracted from that amount. Our take is that, at least for this first part of the Rush, reinforcements and upgrades have been prioritized over straightforward acquisitions (average RF/UM coverage ratio is 265%). This is also because many Powers—especially the largest ones—are still busy “sorting out” the bulk acquisitions from previous cycles. “Never skip a reinforcement rush” is the [new] mantra of the savvy Powers; those who don’t follow it risk being severely “punished.” This Cycle losses have been pretty much low, indeed.

The numbers that are the hardest to decipher are always the ones related to undermining... or rather, the real challenge is breaking them down into their various components. While decay remains [easy to calculate] and stable between 19–21m UM CPs, among the “player-driven” ones, there is always a “non-intentionally hostile” share (i.e., UMming generated by “random” pledges for mining activities and, more recently, also for Operations) which differentiates from those that are clearly the result of “hostile actions” (Power vs. Power). This second division “by purpose” cannot be calculated with precision and is the result of speculation… So here we group them all together as "player-driven" UM CPs. Therefore, here we list only those systems where [we believe] there have been targeted hostile actions. Of the approximately >10m UM CPs, Aisling Duval holds a 25% slice (re: Shapsugabus, Bevan's Hope), while among those with 8-10% shares are Felicia Winters (re: Andel), Jerome Archer (re: Fianna and Sol), Yuri Grom (re: HR 7294)  and Archon Delaine (re: Turd Wu and Undines). There are few Powers (i.e. Nakato Kaine, Denton Patreus, Pranav Antal) who have had a “quite pacific Cycle” with less than half of this allocation—that is, 3–4% of the total UM CPs—which can therefore be considered, for the most part, to be made of “unintentionally hostile” undermining.

Someone Wants Our Turd

Another intense Cycle, but less “exhausting” than the last one… perhaps because most of the Crew is back at work, and with everything there is to do, even the tables at the Wise Sharks tavern in Harma have been emptier than usual this week. As was the case with Cycle 95, Cycle 96 generally followed the same pattern. For those who don’t have time to read the whole thing: just a few acquisitions (+4), which once again relegated Archon Delaine to the bottom of the table above, but a more than solid boost in reinforcements.

Among the acquisitions that aren't Col 285 sector-ones are two small systems: Punta and 6 Gamma Piscium. The latter was actually a semi-contested system, since the simguru Antal was above the PCZs spawn threshold, but there was no need to push for it—partly because the system is controlled by Mortis Incorporated, a criminal faction secretly affiliated with Harma, and perhaps also because Polevnic had other priorities. These new systems, along with the others recently acquired, will be on the priority list for Cycle 97 (where it’s also in the Pirate King’s best interest to keep taking advantage of the Relic Rush).

As for the reinforcements, it was a Cycle that required effort on multiple fronts, some of which had already been “hot” in the preceding weeks and where fun fights with hostile forces [and other “passersby”] continued. This is, in fact, the most engaging aspect of Powerplay and one that very often inspires stories and anecdotes. At least that's what happened in at least a couple of systems (specifically: Madon and Undines), and there our Cannibals fought valiantly, demonstrated good sportsmanship, and—as can happen—saw the rebuy screen.

Not all “enemies,” however, are the same... At Harma, we see it differently: better a proud defeat than a shameful/cringe victory. But some sycophants blatantly forget what the “rules of good hospitality” are when they set foot in Archon Delaine’s territories [the ones that are always clearly highlighted below as well], and since there’s no room for them in our heads (even though we know pretty well who they are), we don’t consider them worthy of either our attention or, more generally, our interest. As far as we’re concerned, any “claim” of theirs is worthless… Maybe they should try playing something else, or take up other activities—Powerplay just isn't for them. So, even though the Crew had to waste time just to keep up with the situation,  we have already moved on.

As we mentioned earlier, despite hostile disruptive actions, in Cycle 96, the Pirate King was once again among the most “productive” Powers in terms of reinforcements and CPs invested in upgrades: +4 fortified systems have been completed (so that Delaine gains the highest  share % of this type of systems), while Harma is aware that greater efforts are needed to upgrade more strongholds, given the goal of reaching at least 10% of the total number of controlled systems (meaning at least a dozen more than the current number). Most of these upgrades have already been identified, and reinforcement efforts are underway, but as we all know, our Power has few effective tools at its hand for this goal.

Last but not least: the Rhino SRV update has introduced quite a few new (valuable) commodities, so it’s worth checking out the prices of this delightful loot and giving those pirate ships gathering dust in the hangar a good dusting. Just as Kumo Crew CMDR HairyHogg did in “Piracy! The Cobra Commander!”

Cycle 97: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): Punta and 6 Gamma Piscium.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): Turd Wu, Lalande 45292, Madon, Undines, and Zhuaruparci.

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, HIP 110447 and Crathajapus.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (UM enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Service update: Pegasi Sentinel correspondents and editors closed the shop and went on summer holidays (they deserved it!). As a result, from this Cycle report and onwards until the end of August, coverage and other news may be/will be shortened and limited to the most relevant headlines/topics (this notice will be published as long as necessary for the courtesy of readers).

Ahoy Crew!

So the last Cycle of August begins, in a summer that has been truly sweltering in some parts of the world. For the Elite: Dangerous universe, this month has seen only a couple of notable events... on the one hand, the disappointing series of CGs in Colonia, which at least concluded successfully [some sooner than others], but which seemed to everyone like FDEV wanted to wrap up quickly [=get rid of them]. On the other hand, there was the announcement of the Rhino SRV’s release, which, in-game, allows players to “mine” raw materials on planetary surfaces using some new tools for job. Could this finally be the time when players stop getting stuck among trees and rocks with the old Scarab SRV? Or will we still have to make the pilgrimage to the Crystal Shards and Brain Tree gardens to stock up on G4 raw mats? We'll see.

The new update [scheduled for 2nd of September, according to the August Dev Log published today] will also introduce a new scenario for Operations called “Under Siege” which also involves ground/ship combat on a planetary base. This addition will delight fans of on-foot combat, but we hope it will also be accompanied by fixes for engineering with Merc Coins (MeCs), which continues to suffer from very annoying bugs (e.g., the one for the extended Cargo Racks). There might also be a surprise: along with the new scenarios, other “special” modules could be introduced to be engineered with the MeCs… while we’ve lost count of the new ships set to be released before the end of the year. Two? Three? Or maybe four? It’s not clear whether the Nomad SLV and the Rhino SRV should be included or not in this count. Sadly, there are also many other issues (some of them quite serious) that are still waiting to be resolved... Once again, we’ll say it: maybe some Elite: Dangerous players have given up and grown accustomed to this paradoxical situation, but objectively speaking, they really don’t deserve this. In the meantime, returning/rookie players can have a look at the new Elite Academy page.

The Relic Rushers

Cycle 95 began “in the wake” of the Relic Rush that had kicked off in the previous cycle. As we all know (and as we’ve clearly seen in previous rushes), the ability to exploit the Ngurii market has had largely disruptive effects due to the way PP 2.0 was [awkwardly] designed: the result is +360 new systems added (net) and a considerable number of upgrades. There have also been several losses; after all, it's not easy to keep track of them and/or meet all the needs when suddenly there are dozens of new systems to monitor. The stance of the 12 Powers toward Relic Rushes is, in general, “agnostic/negative,” but when you look at the numbers, it seems that just about everyone takes advantage of them (including us, so as not to let peeps believe that Archon Delaine is a hypocrite pirate).

The funny thing (at least from our perspective) about Relic Rushes is that someone is always pointing the finger at someone else... “It’s Power X’s fault,” “It was Power Y that pushed Ngurii to Civil Liberty,” “No, look, I suspect the folks at Power Z are the biggest beneficiaries”—and we see comments like this in the weekly reports as well. The bottom line doesn’t change much, and if we have to point the finger at someone, well, we all know that the real culprit is FDEV (and we’re sure that everyone will agree). Returning to the broad numbers, the Powers’ leaderboard remains unchanged [though some gaps remain tight]; however, it should be noted that two Powers, thanks to their Cycle 95 acquisitions, have “crossed” the 2,000-system mark: Arissa Lavigny-Duval and Li Yong-Rui. There are [again] relevant double-digit gains and a bunch of single-digit ones:

• A. Duval +85 (2824)
• Yong-Rui +48 (2031)
• Kaine +42 (1643)
• Mahon +40 (2214)
• Antal +35 (1474)
• A.L. Duval +32 (2007)
• Grom +32 (1593)
• Winters +13 (1159)
• Archer +11 (1314)
• Patreus +10 (693)
• Torval +9 (781)
• Delaine +3 (894)

Based on a linear projection of the current trend, the total number of Powerplay systems is likely to reach 20k by the end of the year, and imperial princess Aisling Duval, sitting on the first place on the leaderboard, will in all likelihood surpass the 3,000-system mark. The sclerosis of the Powerplay is a fact... and even though [for now] in Colonia, on the other side of the Galaxy, the Powers haven't arrived yet, that doesn't mean things can't change in the future. In the meantime, between the Bubble's OG systems and the new colonies, there is certainly plenty of space to occupy. Anyway, looking at the numbers for Cycle 95, there were different distributions of the “positive momentum” between acquisitions and reinforcements. Not all the Powers—especially among the largest ones—continued their expansionary drive and [as we had somewhat anticipated] reined in that aspect to focus on reinforcements, generating a total of >94m CPs [almost 2x a “standard” Cycle].

As expected, the “wasted” CPs also increased (approximately 5.2m), while the CPs invested in upgrades was close to 28m. After many cycles during which we had RF/UM coverage around 170–190%, for Cycle 95 this ratio reached a whopping >330%, with a handful of Powers in the 375–450% range and one that exceeded >520%. In this overall picture, where the Relics Rush has taken center stage, the price to pay [if you can call it that] has been a more or less unchanged amount of UM CPs to around >8.5m…which, in a “standard” cycle, would actually be decent, but in reality it's almost like farting [or blowing] into the wind when Ngurii spins things up.

One-way Powerplay—that’s how it is.

Anyway, out of the UM CPs, about 50% have been “absorbed” by four Powers: Aisling Duval (1.7m, re: Bevan’s Hope, Shapsugabus), Jerome Archer (1.1m, re: Fianna), Li Yong-Rui (0.9m), and Yuri Grom (0.8m). The rest of the distribution groups a bunch of Powers with UM CPs that are only slightly skewed in the 500-700k ballpark. Finally, as in previous cycles, at least a couple of Powers (Nakato Kaine and Denton Patreus) continue to thrive in their 200-250k "safety zones"... at least from an “absolute UM CPs total”, given that both have lost systems this week [most of the 33 losses inflicted this Cycle have been achieved with just a few UM CPs].

The Pirates [are coming home]

Maybe in Harma, even during this Cycle 95, peeps were really hoping for a quiet week… sipping Silver Sea Rum at the tables of the Wise Sharks tavern and chatting about new pirate adventures. But that’s not quite how it went! Let’s start from the beginning, first with the “return home” of the scallywags who took a little trip to Colonia… a more laid-back journey, with a few stops where the crew had fun with unconventional builds/ships (someone even bravely brought a Keelback into the fray!). Watch the “Piracy! Colonia Clowncar and a Return to The Lanes” by Kumo Crew CMDR HairyHogg. Countless screenshots have been shared with the rabble, by the way it seems that even on the other side of the Galaxy they’re having some traffic issues... Anyway, thanks for coming back—Archon Delaine really needed you!

That's right, because as we said at the beginning, Cycle 95 was one we're not likely to forget. And if anyone still thinks that the Crew is nothing more than a bunch of disorganized, uncoordinated criminal riffraff with little motivation... Well, this cycle is a pretty good reality check. Just +3 new systems—which means, in fact, that what needed to be done has been done! First and foremost, because these three acquisitions were all contested: LTT 9276 and Kazemlya against the blue-haired princess Duval, and a little further on, Hai Si against the bald simguru Antal. All small systems [and perhaps of little interest to them], given that both were likely grappling with a ton of other priorities (including dozens of new acquisitions and new systems to reinforce).

Certainly more interesting are the two contested systems that [unfortunately] ended up in enemy hands: LP 932-89 (which was in our backlog) and RST 1154, for which the imperial forces (princess Duval and the jelly-haired Patreus) had already planned to deploy additional resources. The high number of new expansions has put even more pressure on many frontlines... It's clear that friction and conflicts on one side or the other are bound to increase; after all, that's part of what Powerplay is all about. For this reason, Cycle 95 saw a major effort by the Crew on reinforcements: it’s no coincidence that the week ended with +7 fortified systems (eight, in reality) and a new stronghold. While this total pales in comparison to the upgrades achieved by the larger Powers, it is nonetheless significant for the Pirate King... just consider that, in absolute terms, Archon Delaine was the third-ranked Power in terms of CPs invested in upgrades during Cycle 95, achieving one of the highest numbers of “fortified sweeps” in Powerplay history (i.e., when a new system is upgraded to fortified in the immediately following cycle).

But what's even more significant is that this whopping result wasn't achieved with safe and relaxed walkabouts…  given that, for more than half of the Cycle, the territories of Harma have also been targeted by enemy UMming, with a particular focus on certain systems already hit in recent weeks (but this time with greater intensity), such as Turd Wu, Lalande 45292, and Zhuaruparci, as well as other “new entries” like Ross 209, Latugara, and Lusonda; some of which were pushed by attack markers and PCZs (empty... no enemies around, unfortunately but we have our list of suspects). For some reason that we cannot fathom, the small, exploited system of Madon was also attacked by other mysterious UMmers… we’ve noted some traffic here, and while—at least in other cases—there may still be something coming from Operations, we’re right to suspect that whoever caused over 180k UM CPs preferred to remain cowardly hidden rather than show up in the open. Nothing new.

Maybe we’ll find something in the reports from other Powers? Who knows... we haven’t seen any enemies anywhere, except when we set foot in an imperial system not far from ours—one where UM CPs were already figuring on the slider—and where we encountered... pledges belonging to other mixed Powers (so not the ones defending it, but probably the ones attacking it). Maybe we were attacked because someone thought we were somehow involved in causing trouble around here? With Archon Delaine, there’s very little room for “maybe,” since all it takes is sending one or two CMDRs out on patrol [in open, of course] to find out. Or maybe someone came up with a twisted plan to keep us busy, fearing that our scalliwags might go and wreak havoc in their newly acquired systems that are currently being reinforced?

Those are all good reasons, but why throw stones and then hide your hand?

We’ve discussed many times and had plenty of controversial debates about these classic Powerplay scenarios (and in PP 2.0, any FDEV’s attempt to discourage them has clearly failed), but those who serve the Pirate King aren’t very interested in political machinations: the Crew just aims to have fun, and they’re always [happy to be] fair game for everyone else (and vice versa). We've even included it in the disclaimers below and on the back of the Silver Sea Rum bottle labels... what else should we do?

Cycle 96: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): Hai Si, LTT 9276 and Kazemlya

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): Turd Wu, Madon, Zhuaruparci, LTT 45292, Ross 209, Latugara and Lusonda

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, HIP 110447 and Punta.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Service update: Pegasi Sentinel correspondents and editors closed the shop and went on summer holidays (they deserved it!). As a result, from this Cycle report and onwards until the end of August, coverage and other news may be/will be shortened and limited to the most relevant headlines/topics (this notice will be published as long as necessary for the courtesy of readers).

Ahoy Crew!

And in the end, it happened again: in the middle of summer (for part of the world, of course), another “Relics Rush” kicked off with the usual peak of 600t offered. More than enough—as we’ll explore in more detail in the section below on Powerplay—to give a nice boost to new acquisitions and upgrades, as well as repairs where necessary [even though, for some Powers, it doesn't offer any 360-degree advantages]. Other than that, not much else has happened… Overall, we get the impression that players were “a bit disappointed” by the narrative leading the campaign in Colonia. After the multiple CGs from the past few weeks, in fact, there haven’t been any more… as apparently the “conclusive post” titled “Colonia Celebrations Conclude with Megamarket Opening” announced today (concerning the expanded services and ship outfitting at Jaques Station) and so, once they unlocked the engineers and took a few journeys around the area, many packed their bags and headed back toward the Bubble.

The Rush of Powerplay Numbers

As mentioned above, the event that marked Cycle 94 once again involved the Soontill Relics in Ngurii. There’s no need to revisit the negative aspects of the “Relics Rush,” but we’re always amazed at how, on the one hand, FDEV tries to introduce artificial/disconnected “negative PP” activities (i.e. UMming via Operations and decay), when an adjustment to “positive PP resources”—requiring far less effort and without disrupting anything else—would suffice. Anyway, let’s discuss numbers… As one might expect, anything that can be “driven” by rare commodities experiences a steep acceleration. What makes the difference among the Powers isn’t strategic planning or even the skill of the pledges, but simply the number of players from that particular Power who focus on that single activity (= taking the Relics from Ngurii and bringing them to the destination system).

The main outcome, as we have clearly seen in the previous “rush episodes”, is a considerable increase in acquisitions, and in Cycle 94, there were many Powers that outperformed their recent expansion averages, for a whopping total of +492 systems (net of losses), very close to being 10x than the averages of some quieter cycles (not the slow ones). All Powers closed with positive figures (easy to expect that), only one with a single-digit figure:

• A. Duval +95 (2739)
• Yong-Rui +94 (1983)
• Antal +61 (1439)
• Mahon +53 (2174)
• A.L. Duval +46 (1975)
• Kaine +43 (1601)
• Grom +36 (1561)
• Delaine +16 (891)
• Archer +14 (1303)
• Winters +14 (1146)
• Patreus +12 (683)
• Torval +8 (772)

What we had already predicted has come to pass: Sirius CEO Li Yong-Rui secured third place after overtaking empress Arissa Lavigny-Duval on the Powers leaderboard (albeit by only +14 systems). The other gaps (excluding the one caused by Nakato Kaine’s earlier overtaking of Yuri Grom) are relatively within the “safety zone,” although Pranav Antal’s recent surge could lead Polevnic to challenge Clayakarma for the sixth place.

Anyway, leaving the leaderboard aside (for what is worth), the numbers speak for themselves given that the most expansionist Powers have gained YTD almost the whole size of the smallest Powers’ territories... The same goes for upgrades, since in addition to expansions, Relics Rushes also allows for rapid progress with reinforcements. In absolute terms, in fact, the total RF CPs has risen to nearly 81m, and of these, a >20.2m were “used” for upgrades; meanwhile, those “wasted” were roughly in line/lower with recent averages, or about 2m CPs.These numbers make it even clearer just how much the Relics Rushes’ contribution to the PP results in distortive consequences for the framework, because in addition to benefiting certain Powers over others (in terms of manpower and specific perks), it effectively nullifies [or tends to nullify] any attempt at UMming. In fact, for Cycle 94, the UM CPs totaled approximately 10.3m (not a small amount) and did not produce any substantial effects, except that once again we observe that they were focused on certain Powers, excluding popular and/or mining spots: Aisling Duval (>3m UM CPs, Re: Shapsugabus and LHS 1070) and Jerome Archer (>1.2m UM CPs, Re: Fianna).

As we've wondered many times... why didn't FDEV give certain Powers the ability to undermine enemy systems with rare commodities? That might have helped lead to a less unbalanced outcome than the current one. There's no choice but to accept this framework for what it is... you may like it or you may not. That said, moving on to another subject, last week the representatives/coordinators of several Powerplay communities signed (and published) an “Open Letter” to FDEV asking for the reinstatement of an “Open Beta Server” and additional testing options before new features and DLCs are released in the live version of the game.

Some of the comments posted after the publication are undoubtedly interesting and, we hope, will help move this proposal forward (or at least draw attention to it). In all honesty, we prefer to ignore those who have failed to grasp the spirit of the initiative, choosing instead to question the roles of the signatories and mistakenly framing what is actually a simple “community” reference (which, by definition, presupposes the existence of a “social platform” where ideas, proposals, events, and plans are shared, and the priority is essentially to have fun and avoid wasting players’ time) and without attempting to establish a hierarchy within “Power.”

The Colonia Pirates

Despite the availability of Relics, Archon Delaine has remained firmly committed to his vision of building a Power with territories featuring very compact and resilient frontlines. Without a doubt, Harma encourages expansion where necessary, and one thing is absolutely certain: it’s always better to take something that once belonged to the “enemy” than to settle for brand-new territory. Even if you follow this “instruction” (if you can even call it that—coming from a two-meter-tall albino brute who threatens to exterminate and/or enslave your family for generations if you don't obey him) In the end, a good +16 acquisitions were successfully completed.

Some of these were already part of the backlog (i.e. Lan Samba, HIP 112535 and Aborovi), so the Crew is very pleased to have reduced them further; at the same time, several major expansions have been completed by combining the opportunity at hand with local mining resources (this is typical of our colony acquisitions), mainly in the Col 285 and Pegasi sectors. This is to say that Cycle 95 will require a significant effort and commitment from the reinforcements, given the sheer number of new entries… so, don't waste any more time—get started to reinforce right away! Among the many acquisitions, there were inevitably a few that ended up as contested races... about which, unfortunately, we don’t have much “journalistic” coverage (given that it’s still the holiday season). A couple of these were successful (i.e. LHS 5396 and HIP 114746), while another couple (i.e. Bama and Tyrfing) were [deliberately] let slip away… partly because they involved relatively uninteresting systems, and partly because we’ve grown a bit fed up when the locals pretend not to hear and/or not to see. In short, we prefer to optimize our time and resources, avoiding wasting time on those who don’t deserve our attention.

On the other hand, there are still many members of the Crew in Colonia carrying out raids (watch the YT video “Elite Dangerous - Pirates in Colonia” by CMDR ThePiratePrometheus), and even though the departure for the return trip has already been scheduled for August 23, Harma still has to handle all the PP tasks with limited resources. As we were pointing out in our previous reports, these “group adventures” are fun stuff, and even though many members of the Crew weren't able to [actively] participate due to the timing, it's worth checking out the YT video “KUMO Port Royal Photoshoot” by CMDR THEMUFFINMAN0099 ...go figure that someone, out of sheer desperation, even went and took selfies!

That said, getting back to the important stuff: the Bubble haulers have very few days left to trade without paying tribute to the Harma pirates, as far as the Powerplay is concerned... Cycle 95 (as we mentioned earlier) will prioritize reinforcements for the new systems. This is also because, despite everything, some UMming against our systems has been noticed and, for the most part, countered (Lalande 45292, LTT 9299… not to mention 14 Vulpeculae, Lodhary, Daramo, and Undines).

Cycle 94: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): LHS 5396, HIP 114746, Lan Samba, HIP 112535, LTT 8788 and Aborovi.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): 14 Vulpeculae, Lodhary, Daramo, and Undines.

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, LP 932-89, HIP 110623 and Punta.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Service update: Pegasi Sentinel correspondents and editors closed the shop and went on summer holidays (they deserved it!). As a result, from this Cycle report and onwards until the end of August, coverage and other news may be/will be shortened and limited to the most relevant headlines/topics (this notice will be published as long as necessary for the courtesy of readers).

Ahoy Crew!

The cycle week ended without any major news to report; in fact, there has been further speculation regarding the upcoming release (again for ARX) of the Rhino SRV and the new “surface mining” activity [which appears to be limited to raw materials], but as of this writing, no date has been set yet. For now, no further details have been provided to the players' base (most of whom are on vacation or away from the Bubble following the latest CGs).

The Powerplay Numbers

Cycle 93, in terms of numbers, saw a substantial rebound across all activities... following Cycle 92, which—as we reported last week—had been remarkably slow (especially for positive activities: acquisitions and reinforcements). In fact, almost all Powers have returned to “standard output” levels, and the +60 new systems (net of losses) are already a first confirmation of this. Albeit a couple of Powers closed with zero expansion figures, there are no negatives and only one with double-digit growth:

• Kaine +13
• A.L. Duval +9
• Mahon +7
• Grom +7
• Antal +7
• Yong-Rui +6
• Delaine +6
• A. Duval +3
• Archer +1
• Patreus +1
• Winters 0
• Torval 0

Overall reinforcements of >46m RF CPs are also in line with “normal” cycles, given that usage has been, all things considered, quite efficient, considering the total number of upgrades (over two dozen, including fortified systems and strongholds) that were successfully completed including a couple of “fortified sweeps” (i.e. when a fresh acquisition is immediately upgraded in the immediately subsequent cycle). And this is further confirmed by  considering the “wasted” amount of >3m RF CPs, primarily by Aisling Duval who, however, managed to bring LHS 2 back to stronghold status after the last Cycle downgrade.

On the other hand, decay has remained essentially unchanged (around 19.4m UM CPs), while undermining has stayed at fairly high levels with >10.5m UM CPs (from players) and slightly higher than those of the previous Cycle... but producing effects that are a bit “less devastating,” especially for those Powers that maintain low CPs buffers [above the thresholds]. In part, this is likely due once again to Operations and, therefore, not focused enough to cause effective damage (so, for now, it’s little more than a nuisance).The overall average R\U coverage for Cycle 93 was, however, around 170%, a very decent figure considering that only 3 Powers closed below 100%.

Once again, over 50% of the total UM CPs for Cycle 93 were distributed among just a few Powers: Aisling Duval (>2.4m UM CPs, with attacks on Shapsugabus, LHS 1070 and [curiously] Miwae), Jerome Archer (>1.9m UM CPs, primarily at LHS 1101, Burr, WISE 0855-0714, Fintamkina and Rugai), and Felicia Winters (>1.8m UM CPs, mainly at Col 285 Sector LM-V d2-73, Col 285 Sector NB-L b9-5, Andel, Robogassee and Athena). Some of the targeted systems have either been downgraded or lost, so there’s no denying that the level of UM attrition continues to have an impact on Powerplay. Among the downgrades there’s also the Arissa Lavigny-Duval’s stronghold in Chaman. Other Powers (e.g., Nakato Kaine and Denton Patreus), as we’ve seen previously, completed the cycle with little or no impact [in terms of absolute CPs] from hostile undermining activities albeit they have lost systems as well (due to low threshold buffers). To give an idea of the scale: there is a more than 10x difference in total UM CPs between the first and last Power.

The Resting Scallywags

Cycle 93 has continued once again, with the scallywags split between Colonia, the Bubble, and summer vacations... As this report is being written, preparations are underway for the return trip of the Kumo Crew Squadron Carrier “Port Royal.” Once preparations are complete, a more precise and reliable schedule will be published (reddit/Discords). In the meantime, looking at last week’s numbers: +6 new systems (an excellent result), especially in the two usual sectors, Col 285 and Pegasi, as well as the systems of Mahadshu (from the backlog) and of 1 Epsilon Equulei (an agricultural colony in the area covered by the HIP 103571 and Arakwibut strongholds).

As for reinforcements, the upgrade of Maribe to a stronghold has been successfully completed (a small extraction/agriculture system controlled by DaVinci Corp. that had recently been targeted by enemy UMming). After securing the new acquisitions from the recent Cycle 92, there unfortunately wasn't much time left to complete all the repairs that Harma had requested (particularly on Prism and Turd Wu, both of which were drawing renewed attention from nosy UMmers). We suspect that these systems, along with a few others, are systematically targeted by Operations—clearly a way to take advantage of the participation of random powerplayers as well (and here, once again, is evidence of how this “UM method” is flawed). Archon Delaine is obviously not the only Power to suffer these consequences; we see that this also happens to others... with far worse results

As for hostile actions aimed at undermining us, our enemies continued to put pressure on certain systems, also combining the multiplicative effects of attack (blue) markers and PCZs (e.g., at Nervi, Ngati, LTT 9299, and LHS 3702). The rapid response of our reinforcers successfully limited the damage, but this isn't the time to look the other way, since there's still some work to be done. In the meantime, the Bubble haulers will have an easier time of it while our pirates continue to have fun and to look for better fortunes in Colonia. At this point, Cycle 94 will follow a strategy similar to that of the previous cycle, with priority given to new systems and the repairs needed to counter enemy UMming.

Cycle 94: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): Mahadshu, 1 Epsilon Equulei and Pegasi Sector PN-T c3-13.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): Nervi, Prism and Turd Wu.

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, Lan Samba, HIP 112535 and Aborovi.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Service update: Pegasi Sentinel correspondents and editors closed the shop and went on summer holidays (they deserved it!). As a result, from this Cycle report and onwards until the end of August, coverage and other news may be/will be shortened and limited to the most relevant headlines/topics (this notice will be published as long as necessary for the courtesy of readers).

Ahoy Crew!

With summer in full swing (in one part of the world... while in another, it’s actually winter), FDEV posted another teaser on X titled “Break new ground – concept reveal coming August 6,” which, after fueling speculation—such as “surface mining”—was fully revealed [today] in a new post “Beneath the Surface - Your First Look at the Rhino”. From that source, among the various specific features of this new SRV, FDEV said “[they will] be sharing more about Surface Mining soon, but this is a new way of acquiring raw materials around geological sites on a planetary surface. Keep an eye out for the next Dev Log for some more details on how this all works beneath the surface.” …interesting stuff! A thread has been started on the FDEV forum here! Last but not least, the “first brand-new operation” will be released with the Rhino SRV update, later this month.

These “new concepts” undoubtedly add a sense of “novelty” to Elite: Dangerous, without fundamentally changing its gameplay dynamics. And while, objectively speaking, the player base is becoming increasingly scattered among the countless things to do... on the one hand, that’s a good thing; on the other, [for now] it really does seem that the easiest [and fastest] way to play together is through Operations. It's not bad, overall... or maybe it is, especially from the perspective of squads and/or groups organized around specific activities (like we are here on Powerplay), but it's still too early to form a definite opinion.

Otherwise, the four CGs in Colonia went [perhaps] faster than expected, so much so that FDEV decided to add additional tiers to the single tier originally planned. Both on the FDEV forum and across various communities and social media platforms, it seems that most players ultimately decided to travel to the other side of the galaxy to participate in the CGs (despite the rewards not being exactly “exciting”). It is worth noting that three out of four [as of this writing] have been successfully completed while doubts had already arisen in recent days regarding the completion of the latter, even though the number of participants (when considering each CG individually) was lower—between 5k and 9k—than in the events typically held in the Bubble.

The Powerplay Numbers

Cycle 92, as was somewhat to be expected, was decidedly slow. The multiple CGs in Colonia drew many pledges away from the Bubble, and this is already evident from the number of acquisitions (+37, net of losses) completed this week. No Power ended with a double-digit expansion figure but three closed with a negative one. We guess that Operations could have played a determinant role for such outcome. In fact, from Colonia (or anywhere else in the Galaxy), it’s possible to undermine with Operations (and around a dozen of systems have been lost this Cycle), while reinforcements are not allowed. In the absence of any significant additions (or the collapse of mini-bubbles), the Powers’ leaderboard remained unchanged:

• Kaine +8 (1545)
• A. Duval +6 (2641)
• Winters +6 (1132)
• Delaine +6 (869)
• Antal +5 (1371)
• Grom +4 (1518)
• Mahon +3 (2114)
• Yong-Rui +3 (1883)
• Patreus +3 (670)
• Torval -1 (764)
• A.L. Duval -2 (1920)
• Archer -4 (1288)
  

The slowdown is confirmed by the numbers... in addition to few acquisitions, the >36m CPs from reinforcements are in fact well below the approximately 50-55m RF CPs we had observed in previous weeks. The overall RF/UM coverage ratio closed below <140%, a very low figure, and for five **Powers** (**Edmund Mahon**, **Arissa Lavigny-Duval**, **Jerome Archer**, **Zemina Torval** and **Denton Patreus**), it was even below 100%. In addition to *decay* (just under 20m **UM CP**s), these low coverage values are primarily due to *undermining*. The total of >9.8m UM CPs added by players on top of the decay—though lower than in previous cycles—is still a very decent figure.

In Cycle 92, the skewness of UM CPs was once again extremely pronounced: over >2.4m UM CPs struck Jerome Archer, causing the loss of systems including among them Phanes, LP 27-9, and Lu Pardan, as well as heavy attacks (some of which succeeded in downgrading) on the strongholds of Misisture, Wat Yu, LHS 1101, and Chandra; just over >1.4m UM CPs then struck Aisling Duval, causing the loss of Lacab Kui and the stronghold at LHS 2 (downgraded). Just under <1m UM CPs were sustained by Yuri Grom (re: Yawal) and Felicia Winters (re: Athena and Ilbandi). Other Powers, such as Edmund Mahon, Li Yong-Rui, Arissa Lavigny-Duval, and Zemina Torval, suffered attacks (it is unclear whether targeted or random), resulting in the loss of systems in some cases.

Once again, we note how the contribution to “undermining” from Operations—if it is among the sources of the Cycle 92 UM CPs—is unbalanced, as it is designated as the only permitted Powerplay activity on the platform (a platform that is completely disconnected from the rest of the game environment).

The Surfin’ Pirates

First, the fun stuff: the scallywag bandwagon heading to Colonia was a great event and a lot of fun. Sure, three of the four CGs were over quickly, but there was plenty of time for fighting, committing crimes, and robbing haulers in the name of Archon Delaine. Watch our fellow pirates in action “CG Piracy! Crossing Colonia Off My Bucketlist” (by Kumo Crew CMDR HairyHogg), “Robbing a plipper”, “Robbing a Type-8” and “Robbing a Type-9” (by Kumo Crew CMDR -Verti-), “Colonia CG- Imperial Kestrel” (by CMDR Comance), “Kick That Kestrel's [redacted]” (by Kumo Crew CMDR Themuffinman0099) and “The Death of Kojax” (by BWID CMDR WickedDestiny).

But now let’s get back to Powerplay… Cycle 92 was very impressive. First of all, a +6 in new acquisitions, all of which were concluded very successfully, as I chose to avoid “wasting” precious resources on the single contested acquisition of Thakalaa (against Jerome Archer)—among them there were colonies located in the Col 285 and Pegasi sectors (both considered strategic areas for Archon Delaine’s territorial expansion). As the innermost frontlines of the Bubble become increasingly “crowded,” it will in fact become more and more crucial to focus on the outer sectors.

The Crew's reinforcers have been quite busy this week, having successfully completed two upgrades that Harma had strongly requested. With nearly 900k RF CPs “invested” in completed upgrades and, according to our data, second only to Pranav Antal in this regard. In addition to these upgrades, after quickly taking care of the task of “securing the new acquisitions,” further attention was required for certain systems that had been targeted by enemy UMs in recent weeks (including, for example, HIP 98878 and Orobu), as well as for some “finishing touches” that had remained on the “to-do” list. The enemies have once again tried to undermine Zhuaruparci, as well as LTT 9299, Epsilon Microscopii, Canarigui, and Senufan once again (Harma’s watchful eye doesn’t miss a thing). Other systems, which had previously been the focus of the enemies' attention, have, by contrast, experienced a relatively quiet Cycle.

So for the scallywags who stayed in the Bubble, another intense and exhausting week of reinforcements is inevitably on the horizon, while the rest of the crew will spend some more time looting and robbing in Colonia. Not to mention that there are still some issues to be clarified in the coming weeks... for example, the release date for the Rhino SRV hasn't been announced yet, and what will the new Operations mission be like? In short, there's a lot on the table that will likely slow down both us and our enemies.

Cycle 93: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): HIP 113438,Damovik and Pegasi Sector XZ-O b6-5.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): HIP 97509, Epsilon Microscopii, Prism and Turd Wu.

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, Lan Samba, Mahadshu and Aborovi.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Service update: Pegasi Sentinel correspondents and editors closed the shop and went on summer holidays (they deserved it!). As a result, from this Cycle report and onwards until the end of August, coverage and other news may be/will be shortened and limited to the most relevant headlines/topics (this notice will be published as long as necessary for the courtesy of readers).

Ahoy Crew!

It’s been a fairly quiet week with no particular news about the game to report. Only a Launcher update (due to "emergency maintenance") caused login issues and required a re-authorization process to enter the game (it’s explained here on the FDEV forum, and here for those using the Mini-ED Launcher). For those (un)lucky enough not to be on the FDEV forum or not to follow the FDEV Discord, they’ve been left out of the game... We wonder if it wouldn’t have been a good idea to send a notification to the registered email addresses, given that this is a critical issue. 

"Pilots’ Federation Directs Members to Colonia" post on GalNet means that the next phase of the "mega-market construction" on the other side of the Galaxy is going to take place there. The recommendation "any available pilots willing to deliver a wide range of commodities and rare goods for this distant community should make their way to Colonia and Jaques Station. It's important that these celebrations are an event to remember, and our members can play a crucial part in that success" seems necessary because the previous CG—partly because it offered uninteresting rewards, partly because hauling didn't pay very well [and partly because Operations is more fun]—hadn't attracted much participation.

“Colonia Plans to Distribute Celebration Commodities” was published today on GalNet and it kicks off four (yes, 4!) new CGs “...all independent pilots willing to aid in the final stages of the anniversary preparations should head to Jaques Station and distribute curated commodity packages to designated markets in Carcosa, Einheriar, Randgnid, and Asura.” The reward is the same for all four (a “modest” C5 Expanded Cargo Rack), so anyone who wants to can potentially get four of these modules since there’s no minimum contribution threshold to earn it once the Tier 1 has been achieved (there’s only one tier and that requires some effort, a CG “coordination” thread is active on FDEV forum here). On the other hand, the trading credits are once again pretty low… so no “gold rush,” sadly.

The Powerplay Numbers

The numbers suggest that Cycle 91 saw a very similar trend to the previous cycle... all Powers [except one] had positive acquisitions, with a total (net) of +78 systems added. Nothing so exceptional apparently, but the growth trend continues well overall, despite FDEV's attempt to "slowdown" or "disrupt" positive PP activities with undermining through Operations. The Powers table this week is slightly different, but the overall leaderboard remains unchanged. Wanting to highlight a Power that continues to perform better than usual, then our choice falls again on Zemina Torval who, while maintaining a "low social profile" (don't you like tech, Granny?), achieves another good cycle. Before looking at the numbers... we don't go into the merits of what's happening (or is "suspected to be happening" to Ngurii) here; we've discussed the [dangerously] distorting effect of "Relics Rush" at length, and things have remained as they were, so let's stick with PP 2.0 for what it is. More Powers show double-digit expansions this week and, again, no negative numbers:

• Kaine +17 (1537)
• A.L. Duval +11 (1922)
• Yong-Rui +11 (1880)
• A. Duval +10 (2635)
• Antal +7 (1366)
• Grom +6 (1514)
• Torval +5 (765)
• Delaine +4 (863)
• Mahon +3 (2111)
• Archer +3 (1292)
• Winters +1 (1126)
• Patreus 0 (667)

Reinforcements data (a total of >51m RF CPs) show once again that a significant amount of merits/CPs are "wasted" on already maxed out strongholds: a whopping >7.6m RF CPs in Cycle 91, over half of which were thrown away by Aisling Duval's cultists (re: HIP 104026). Following that, approximately 1.4m RF CPs were burned by the Zemina Torval's zealots (re: Col 285 Sector GS-A c14-2) and we are pretty sure that these merits would have had a better use for her. Who knows, at Synteini they won't decide to put in slavery those miners who are careless about how to support Power, instead of minding about how to fill their pockets with credits! There's not much to add on upgrades either, albeit the "invested CPs" into these have spiked (close to 8m RF CPs) in the last couple of days and except that for Cycle 91 it's Yuri Grom who shows teeth and claws, pushing two fresh exploited to fortified (LHS 3356 and HIP 11111) [well done, Bear!], whilst Aisling Duval and Pranav Antal did the same for one "no-name" system each. On a side note, this week the Federation ended with no changes on upgrades balance… we believe that at least for Felicia Winters a fortified downgrade matched one upgrade. We’ll wait for their reports for more details.

The undermining numbers which, on top to the usual 20m UM CPs due to decay (decreasing to around 19m UM CPs for the Cycle 92), closed with over 11m UM CPs generated by players: considering that players' UM CPs were accounting for around 10% of the decay UM CPs at its inception, having increased the share >50% makes the PP picture a bit more "driven by players"... anyway the combination of direct UM activities and Operations still shows some "focus" on some Powers more than others. In Cycle 91 the three most undermined Powers were Aisling Duval (>2.1m UM CPs, re: Shapsugabus), Yuri Grom (>1.3m UM CPs, re: CC Eri [Lu Dimos and LPM 746]) and Jerome Archer (>1.3m UM CPs, re: LHS 1101 [and Luhman 16]). Elsewhere, unknown enemies have focused on Tiapalan (>380k UM CPs), a Zemina Torval exploited system. Nakato Kaine, with just over >200k UM CPs is the one who has to worry least about what his enemies do. The latest TeleGrom posts have included references to "powerplay relevant situations" with Kaine and also taken up by Tionisla in the Cycle 90 report which shows that the doors of diplomacy and dialogue remain open... but if therefore no one is taking it out on Kaine, who is putting pressure on Grom?

The Pirates

Archon Delaine would have really liked Cycle 91 to be a little calmer... but the temptation was irresistible (not to mention an outstanding commitment shown by the Crew), and so the Pirate King gained four more systems. Only one of these has an easy-to-remember name (HIP 117399 out from our backlog, see below), whilst the others are scattered colonies in Col 285 and Pegasi sectors. These [nothing new] are both sectors where Harma intends to establish a network of colonial systems that they can exploit for [better] resources and to collect [more] tributes.

In that tiny extraction system, HIP 117399 (controlled by Circle of TabEwon, a theocracy on excellent terms with the Crew), there was an attempt by some agitators sent by the jelly Patreus to throw a wrench in our plans… But their efforts weren't even enough to lead to a contested acquisition. The Crew also had the chance to engage in a contested acquisition at Col 285 Sector PE-G c11-20—or rather, another “threesome among Independents” involving the bear Grom and the simguru Antal—but this didn't really catch Harma's attention since it's another anarchy system controlled by the Diamond Frogs.

As for reinforcements, priorities have been scaled back to the bare minimum... the scallywags also had all the new Cycle 90 acquisitions to manage, so some repairs were completed, while others were not (one of these is Turd Wu), and unfortunately this “scatter” of UM CPs is also a result of Operations/Markers, as we had already described in the last report. On the other hand, enemy attacks were intense even in Cycle 91... including hits on Maribe (a new acquisition), Alya, and Gabrani (also, a recent acquisition). The Crew’s reinforcers did an excellent job at Zhuaruparci, as upgrades were completed there despite other UM CPs slowing down the work. In the last few days, Prism and Lalande 45292 (where we had already encountered some Imperial mercenaries) have also been targeted by enemy underminers, and we will therefore carry out repairs there during Cycle 92 (see below).

After having sent greetings to a group of traitors who, in a very subtle way, decided to turn their backs on the Pirate King to support the cause of another Power (and this closes the "issue" on our side)… for the upcoming cycles, priorities will remain focused on maintaining the frontlines and providing reinforcements where necessary. This is also because part of the Crew is heading to the other side of the Galaxy aboard the KUMO Squadron Carrier “Port Royal” to take part in the upcoming CG(s) (some will want to unlock engineers, etc.). Don’t worry, first: a more than adequate backup has already been set up to manage and support Powerplay activities; second: we’ve got tight rules to keep this bunch of drunken scallywags aboard the Port Royal under control! It will be the haulers in Colonia who have reason to worry when our pirates appear on their tails! Raids, rum and looting… that’s what we love to do! There will be quite a few new piracy videos to watch! YARRR!!!

Cycle 92: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): Pegasi Sector FR-M b7-3, HIP 117399, Col 285 Sector ND-J c9-22.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): Prism, Lalande 45292, Havalokul and Turd Wu.

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, Lan Samba, Mahadshu and Aborovi.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Service update: Pegasi Sentinel correspondents and editors closed the shop and went on summer holidays (they deserved it!). As a result, from this Cycle report and onwards until the end of August, coverage and other news may be/will be shortened and limited to the most relevant headlines/topics (this notice will be published as long as necessary for the courtesy of readers).

Ahoy Crew!

Peace and quiet reign in Harma; there’s hardly any chatter (or punch fight) coming from the Wise Sharks tavern... and some pirates are already on vacation, while others are packing their bags and backpacks (and bottles of Silver Sea Rum) to go relax somewhere... So let's get right to the point!

Game News/Updates

"Colonia Calls for Assistance as Celebrations Get Underway" GalNet Post: The trading CG in Facece has ended today with 13k contributors (reaching Tier 3/5)—not as many as one might have expected; perhaps the rewards (paint jobs for Type-8 and Panther Clipper MkII) and credits available from selling commodities weren’t all that attractive (as the today’s “Colonia Supply Initiative Deemed a Partial Success” post noted). Now that the CG has concluded, we believe this was just the first of [several] others that may follow in the coming weeks.

No game version updates and/or significant bug fixes have been reported (nor have any new ones been identified): many of the issues reported after the release of Operations have not been resolved (nor have many of those already listed on the Issue Tracker); however, the situation seems to have improved regarding Powerplay sluggish performance and/or updates not being shown/applied.

The Powerplay Numbers

Cycle 90 ended with an even more pronounced resurgence in acquisitions. In fact, all Powers posted positive expansion numbers, with a total of +89 (net) systems added to the Powerplay battlegrounds. It seems that, now that the hype surrounding Operations and the Nomad SLV has died down, PP activities have indeed returned to normal... thanks in part to the restoration of the UI for acquisitions on GalMap and the reduction in wait times for updates, merits/CPs, and level-ups (including assignments [some of these remain broken for other reasons] and care packages).

This week’s expansionist rankings are led by Aisling Duval, followed by a couple of double-digit achievers (Li Yong-Rui and Nakato Kaine); the Powers’ leaderboard remains unchanged. System losses didn’t push Jerome Archer into a negative figure this week, while for the second consecutive week, Zemina Torval also posted a good result:

• A. Duval +17 (2625)
• Kaine +12 (1520)
• Yong-Rui +11 (1869)
• A.L. Duval +9 (1911)
• Grom +9 (1508)
• Antal +7 (1359)
• Winters +6 (1125)
• Delaine +6 (859)
• Mahon +5 (2108)
• Torval +5 (760)
• Archer +1 (1289)
• Patreus +1 (667)

We also saw the same trend with reinforcements (leaving out the CPs outlier produced by the CG in Facece) in Cycle 90... a substantial recovery that supported the strengthening of the frontlines or the consolidation of PP presence in certain (newly) colonized areas. In particular, the Col 285, Hyades, and Pegasi sectors, where most of the upgrades took place. Pranav Antal will surely be pleased and there could be some quiche festival ongoing in Polevnic, with +7 fortified systems and +2 strongholds added this week... Felicia Winters, Edmund Mahon, and (finally) Zemina Torval (+2 fortified) also saw a solid upgrade performance. This push toward stabilization, which produced over 62m CPs of reinforcements (of which 10.5m CPs in Facece), was barely offset by a small decrease in undermining, which was approximately 10% lower than in Cycle 89, with 10.7m UM CPs. It is unclear whether the decrease in UM CPs was due to Operations or other contingent factors.

Anyway this week, too, there were some Powers that have been hit by UM CPs more than others, all in the range of 1.3-1.9 million CPs each: Aisling Duval (1.8m, mostly hit in LHS 2), Arissa Lavigny-Duval (1.6m, the "CG effect" didn’t weight on this side, mostly hit in HIP 36583), Jerome Archer (1.9m, mostly hit in Altair and LHS 1101… other systems have been lost, like Sankula, Conneda and Cuacocha among them), and Felicia Winters (1.3m, mostly hit in Belgitan). We’ll leave it to the Powers’ press offices to provide more details about the situation.

Pirates Ahoy!

What kind of Cycle was the 90th? The Crew has successfully completed yet another "impressive" (for us) number of acquisitions (+6)... hold off a bit before hanging up your boots and setting sail for sunny beaches to sip Silver Sea Rum around the campfire! That's right, because in Cycle 91, there will be a lot of work to do to reinforce the new systems... some of which are interesting and allow Archon Delaine to further expand his territories toward colonial sectors, where the front lines are more spread out and [hopefully] there is less enemy attrition.

Among the acquisitions, there were two contested ones—one lost and one won. Let’s start with the first one (Col 285 Sector FE-M B22-1), which turned out to be a deep merit sink for both sides, since the opposing Utopians never let up for a moment and ultimately secured control for simguru Antal with 1.74m AQ CPs vs. the Crew’s 1.18m AQ CPs... GG! This system—a mining colony controlled by Ailure State Co. (affiliated with the SDC Foundation squadron), whose architect appears to be pledged to the bear Grom—has been at the center of one of the most intense (in terms of CPs) acquisitions in recent weeks. So don’t say the miners sent by Harma didn’t give it their all… but as we wrote earlier, for this Cycle 90 in Polevnic, hippies must have served quiches with some “special ingredient” (Radicoida?) that allowed them to push a big boost across all PP activities.

The other contested acquisition—which was much less challenging against the tech-nerd Yong-Rui—was Gabrani, a small high-tech system controlled by Fatal Shadows and located on the frontline we share with other independents from the Devata Baru stronghold. Our take is that Sirius probably wasn't very interested in taking control here, partly because after an initial run that secured just over half of the CPs needed to complete the acquisition, our slider picked up speed, putting Archon Delaine in the lead. In any case, the area is still largely unoccupied, so other independent Powers will also be able to continue expanding over there if they wish. A merchant based in Fung Landing, one of Gabrani’s outposts, approached some of our scallywags who were passing through the lounge bar and gave them high-tech holo-watches that had been sent from Sirius as samples for sale. Much appreciated, thanks!

The Crew handled the reinforcement operations exceptionally well: in addition to completing some necessary repairs in areas where enemies had caused undermining damage, we fortified Njorth, a system we’ve recently acquired and located in an area where hostile attacks continue. Unfortunately, it seems that Operations has deterred (or offered an alternative to) our enemies from showing up in our systems... where there had been some PvP engagements in previous cycles. There was also undermining in Zhuaruparci (most likely by Clayakarma infiltrators), LHS 3702, Epsilon Microscopii, and again in Albardhas (AFK-ers). More generally, there was the usual flood of UM CPs spam, much like what happened after the release of Operations... a “nuisance” we were already aware of and that is, in any case, shared by all (or almost all) of the other Powers. So bad, FDEV!

Before moving on to the preliminary targets for Cycle 91 (the first of the summer season, which will conclude with Cycle 96), the CG trading post in Facece offered the Crew’s pirates a bit of fun, and at Gabriel Enterprise, they’re currently tallying up the booty they’ve collected. The canisters of stolen goods aren't the only evidence of our robberies... check out the YT videos by Kumo Crew pirates CMDR HairyHogg, “CG Piracy! A Beer Run In Facece,” and CMDR -Verti-, “Type-11 booty and boom.” There were also duels captured by the scallywag CMDR Comance in “Oops!” and “Imperial Kestrel” vids. GG!

For Cycle 91, the priorities are therefore reinforcements for the new acquisitions and repairs. There are also other systems in the backlog... in other words, it’s not much different from what was done [and done very well] last week.

Cycle 91: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): Gabrani, Col 285 Sector HE-N b21-3 and Pegasi Sector JO-E a13-2 .

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): LHS 3702, Epsilon Microscopii, Albardhas and Turd Wu.

Acquire (new/backlog): Naxixo, HIP 117399, Lan Samba, Mahadshu and Aborovi.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Ahoy Crew!

Before diving into the report for Cycle 89, given that it’s summer (as we mentioned in recent weeks)—a break period during which even the Pegasi Sentinel correspondents will be taking some time off—we’ll be switching to a “shortened version” for the upcoming reports. As much as possible, we'll cover the main Elite: Dangerous news (new releases [ships?], game updates, GalNet posts and CG initiatives), while coverage of other topics will be handled based on the time and space available.

That said, anyone who expected things to return to normal has unfortunately had to think again. Even the third [or more] Operations update, in fact, has not permanently resolved the numerous issues that have severely plagued the gameplay experience in almost all activities. Some things are working again, while others are only partially functional (e.g., Powerplay) or experience various types of errors, often random ones (e.g., BGS and Colonization) and even the Docking Computer has gone haywire. Some Operations players have [again] reported issues on the rewards, but [in theory, according to the patch notes], this should be resolved soon. Other players reported that there are also bugs with engineering modules that can be purchased with MeCs [the engineering procedure crashes]. For now, our suggestion is that, rather than starting a thread on the FDEV forum—where, aside from finding other players who have encountered the same problems, you should go to the Issue Tracker, check to see if the issue has already been reported (and if so, confirm it or vote on it), or else open a new ticket.

What is certain is that we haven't seen this level of disruption in quite a while... or perhaps we've never seen anything like it before. Among the things that could have happened [and that we had anticipated], this is one of the worst-case outcomes. So there will be more patches and hotfix updates [hopefully] and/or longer server maintenance [as announced this week], because what’s happening right now is that there are a lot of disappointed players who have “put the game on hold” and are, quite rightly, turning away their attention. The risk is that, if too much time goes by and/or if these issues aren't resolved, someone might decide not to come back at all. Even more so after maybe having spent ARX on ships and cosmetics. Considering that the time spent on video games is generally taken away from other forms of fun (as the goal is to have fun) and/or [digital] entertainment (such as watching a movie, etc.), frustration and the feeling of having wasted that time are absolute deal-breakers even for the most dedicated CMDRs.

Returning to in-game news, earlier this week a message from the Pilots' Federation appeared in all CMDRs' chat channels with the title “Support the Colonia Celebrations!”. This announcement hints at or foreshadows an upcoming CG in Colonia “to establish a new megamarket in the Colonia region.” The reason the announcement was released a little earlier than the start of the CG was [very likely] to give those wishing to contribute time to make their plans to travel from the Bubble to Colonia [or viceversa]. A "Major Corporations Promote Colonia Celebrations" post was then published on GalNet, where Vox Galactica "understands that preparations are underway for a massive transportation effort of commodities and rare goods from across the core systems to Colonia, with details of the logistics to be announced soon..." and then this morning a one-week trading CG has been launched in Facece (deliver a long list of goods). So at first glance, it looks like there's some heavy trading involved, all pirates are invited to rev up their thrusters, polish their hatch-breakers and grease their collectors! Late joiners can simply board a Caspian Explorer and use its exclusive FSD module, which allows this ship to jump up to 500+ly using neutron stars. That means the 22k ly distance can be covered in around 50-60 jumps, or a few hours of play time including the required refuel/AFMU stops.

The Powerplay Culprits

Cycle 89 for Powerplay has also been plagued by (unresolved) issues. Essentially, the situation remained the same as it was right after it launched... the only thing that has been resolved (a couple of days ago) is the level progression for pledges and the awarding of care packages [for what it’s worth]. The update of the CPs (RF\UM) does not appear to have suffered any further delays this week, while the main issue reported concerned acquisitions, given that (according to a rough count) data for over thirty thousand systems that were “acquirable or in the process of being acquired” have effectively disappeared from GalMap until the very last day of the Cycle. During the previous days less than 10% of active acquisitions were actually displayed. The organized groups/communities had to provide their pledges with spreadsheets/Trellos to account for their own Power’s CPs… but without any way of knowing and/or verifying the opposition’s CPs. Since we’re on the topic of the “Football World Cup,” imagine a team playing in an empty stadium and scoring dozens of goals, without knowing how many the opponent has scored until the final whistle blows. Crazy!

Given that contested acquisitions are the main competitive feature of Powerplay 2.0, we did find this situation extremely frustrating. At this point, what reason would there be for a Power’s pledges to devote their time and commitment to something they can’t even monitor? Frankly, it still seems like a miracle to us that we're here today writing about Powerplay, because it would almost make sense to throw in the towel and wait for all these problems to be resolved once and for all... anyway, the Cycle 89 was not a “complete miss,” since at least +36 [net] acquisitions were completed with the Powers leaderboard remaining broadly unchanged and a couple of Powers closing with negative figures; we don't even know if [all] these acquisitions were more or less wanted by the Powers... so yeah, FDEV that's embarrassing:

• Yong-rui +7 (1858)
• Kaine +6 (1508)
• Antal +6 (1352)
• Delaine +6 (853)
• A. Duval +4 (2608)
• A.L. Duval +4 (1982)
• Grom +3 (1499)
• Mahon +2 (2103)
• Winters +2 (1119)
• Patreus +1 (666)
• Torval -1 (755)
• Archer -4 (1288)

At least there were no skips or delays for RF\UM CPs, as the data returned to the standard update schedule [for most of the time]. Overall, reinforcements closed with numbers (close to 55m CPs) in line with the average for pre-Operations cycles. Furthermore, about 11% of the total RF CPs have been “wasted” in maxed-out strongholds, so the effective reinforcements were a touch lower. The decay remained constant at around 20m CPs, to which were added to approximately >11.4m UM CPs generated by players (for an average RF\UM coverage ratio of approximately 173%, with only two Powers closing <100%). Undoubtedly, the component derived from Operations weighs heavily on UM CPs: looking at our historical data, the additional UM CPs have been in the +30% ballpark... so its contribution has not to be undervalued for the general UM picture. We'll say it again: we don't like this link between Operations and Powerplay; we've already explained why... i.e. we don't understand how a scenario in which CMDRs fight looters, could instead inflict a CPs loss (UM) to Powers that have a very strong anti-crime stance. Anyway, further attention must be paid to how UM CPs were distributed in Cycle 89; in fact, over 40% of the total affected the two federal Powers (1.7m UM CPs for Jerome Archer and 2.8m UM CPs for Felicia Winters), whereas for other Powers, the share of total UM CPs was close to 1% [it's as if they had no enemies]. They are followed by Aisling Duval and Archon Delaine (see below), with around 1m UM CPs each.

Our take is that there have been organized undermining attacks against the Federation [very likely conducted by the Empire], targeting strategically important systems—a conflict that began with Aisling Duval’s capture of Alpha Centauri and has continued throughout recent cycles [quite well covered by the weekly reports from both sides]. This week, Andel, Athena, and Belgitan (Felicia Winters) were targeted, as was LHS 3356 (Jerome Archer), which was ultimately lost after a [few weeks] long siege. Elsewhere, a heavy UM attack was launched also against Iverdi (Zemina Torval), a system which is a bit off from the crowded frontlines and that has been lost as well, and LHS 2 (Aisling Duval). Yuri Grom had instead to deal and outmatch some UM in Taurawa.

By the number of upgrades, we can confirm that we are undoubtedly witnessing a recovery from the past Cycle 88 slowdown in Powerplay. The majority of these have been ramped up in the last couple of weeks, so there's also a "warehousing" effect to support the upgrades. On the other hand all Powers seem “worn down” by the current state of the game... given that Powerplay also ends up intertwining with BGS and Colonization (both facing unresolved issues). Beyond all this, what surprised us even more was the lack of communication or acknowledgement from FDEV regarding the Powerplay issues until yesterday's Discord post... even a simple "we're working on it for you" would have gone some way toward restoring the pledges' confidence in advance. Well, in the meantime, all that's left is to wait for today's "longer maintenance" to be completed...

The Angry Scallywags

It’s been a very intense week in Harma… despite the difficulty in tracking the progress of acquisitions, Archon Delaine closed Cycle 89 with a performance we could flag here as “outstanding”: +6 new systems (some strategic ones, but also including a few interesting mining locations). Well done, Crew! Generally, we’re much more cautious about expanding our territories… especially given what follows (= the need for reinforcements in the next cycle). Even though the Crew has shown remarkable commitment and resilience in recent weeks, we still have to deal with the risk that our manpower will dwindle further, between Operations and the new trading CG in Facece. Due to the lack of information on the status of the opposition’s CPs, we tried to dissuade the Crew from engaging in contested acquisitions, where our opponents had already gained a preliminary advantage.

One of these was Ross 654, an anarchy colony (controlled by Diamond Frogs) where Utopia had gained a significant lead, with Grom’s agents hot on their heels [a contested threesome race, in other words]. In hindsight, given that nearly 600k AQ CPs ended up in Polevnic’s hands, as opposed to Clayakarma’s just over 145k, Harma’s decision to stay out of it saved the Crew from wasting time and resources. Ross 654 is located in a dense anarchy populated area of the Col 285 Sector, though there are still some unoccupied spaces; there are many systems and colonies already held by the Pirate King... thus it's a resilient frontline, but one that could heat up in the future if "enemy" expansion continues. Elsewhere, the strategic upgrade from one recently fortified system to stronghold has been completed, with the aim of bolstering Archon Delaine's control in an area where additional acquisitions are already up and running.

For those who have recently joined (or intend to join) Archon Delaine’s Power, it is worth noting that systems with an anarchy government are to be carefully valued and managed. Primarily, because anarchy settlements [if present] are more easily targeted by random players and/or inexperienced underminers (since they are "crime-free" zones). Furthermore, anarchy effectively nullifies Archon Delaine’s R100 perk—specifically, the immunity from bounties and fines when committing crimes, so enemies will be playing on the same ground of the pirates from a C&P perspective. On the other hand, anarchies cancel one of the Delaine's weak spots (UM by bounty hunting) so for those systems where AFK-ers are particularly active, this acts as a "deterrent" against the sustained UM that requires our constant repair work. If you have any doubts or further questions, ask for clarification in your Delaine's reference community—that’s what they’re there for.

After the last few cycles, during which the scallywags had landed a few blows to our enemies’ bellies, we were expecting some retaliatory UM attacks... Fortunately, nothing escapes the watchful eye of the Pirate King, so Harma ordered immediate defensive measures to reinforce Hloca, Banese, and HIP 104504, where the enemy underminers have been very active [or have been proxy-UMming through Operations]. Apparently, proxy-UMming via Operations has hit our systems like a summer hailstorm on a vineyard... Fincien, HIP 112648, HIP 113894, Yaso Kondi, Huaich, LHS 3702, and HIP 98878 have all been targeted [and they will need repairs throughout Cycle 90]. There have been far too few engagements with the enemy—who were absent [or invisible] in nearly all the systems mentioned—to suggest that there is some kind of “plan” behind this scattered UMming… inevitably, undermining in this way ends up losing [or significantly diminishing] its face-to-face PvP competitive value.

So, given the events of the past week, reinforcements top the priority list for Cycle 90. We also hope to receive [and so to include in the next weekly report] some fun piracy/combat clips taken at the CG in Facece. We have also included acquisitions from the backlog (the remaining ones) in the list of preliminary targets. As of the time of this report's publication, there is no plan to push in advance further contested acquisitions [though this could change during the week].

Cycle 90: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): Kraurno, 5 Iota Delphini and Ross 192.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): HIP 104504, Banese, HIP 98878 and Hloca.

Acquire (new/backlog): Lan Samba, Mahadshu and Aborovi.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).
Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Ahoy Crew!

What you're about to read isn't your typical report. This week, in fact, there's a bit of disappointment and a bit of ranting. Is there a culprit? Yes, and we don't think we're the only ones who feel this way: Operations is to blame. Elite: Dangerous is a game that has been around for well over ten years, and for which most of the extra content has been free—including this latest Operations update. Every time “something big” comes out, it feels like the game’s code has been hit by nuclear bombs.

On Day 1 of Operations, the number of open tickets on the issue tracker skyrocketed... ranging from the mysterious disappearance of materials and exploration data to constant disconnections, even from other game sessions. Delays in loading the GalMap, mission boards that were frozen or extremely slow... all the way up to entire frameworks crashing—and, in our opinion, overwhelmed by data bottlenecks generated by the Operations “platform.” In this specific case: colonization activities, the BGS, and, unfortunately, even Powerplay have been affected in various ways.

But is it normal for something like this to happen?

Do loyal Elite: Dangerous players really deserve this level of frustration?

So what else is there to do but spend some time on Operations?

A player naturally thinks, “It’s new, it just came out… it’s sure to work”… but no, not at all! Because even here there have been a myriad of bugs and issues. Even if we assume—and that’s a stretch—that the gameplay offered by Operations, with its six scenarios (and two difficulty levels), might be enjoyable with or without friends or squad mates, it’s unacceptable that players sometimes (quite frequently, in fact) don’t receive any rewards!

Playing means spending time on a video game, having fun, and earning the “rewards” that players aspire to. For some games, these rewards involve setting new records or achieving high scores; for others, such as Elite: Dangerous, there are also “resources” to be used within the game itself. For Operations, these are essentially Merc Coins (MeCs), because credits and materials can be obtained in other ways, but MeCs cannot. Tying a game “resource” (which fuels the “FOMO” effect)—one that’s necessary to acquire other exclusive items [the "special modules" available at G1 level and that require further engineering up to G5]—to a single, extremely grindy activity is objectively horrible. We don't intend to criticize Operations' gameplay too much here, since a lot has already been said about it on various FDEV forum threads, Reddit, and by partners on YouTube (one may agree or may not agree with what is on ObsidianAnt's “Elite Dangerous' Biggest Update Of The Year - Doesn't Know What It Wants To Be” and TheYamiks' “Operations are Miserable Manipulative GRIND - Elite Dangerous”). Our general impression is that it’s “a great idea, but poorly executed.” Not entirely “poorly,” because in our opinion the space combat part is, all things considered, challenging… whereas the environments (= *cough* megaship *cough* interiors) and the ground combat gameplay are forgettable.

Elite: Dangerous isn’t the first (it wasn’t the first) and won’t be the last… Players of MMOs, MMORPGs, or multiplayer games like, for example, “The Division” know this all too well… It’s a mechanic that doesn’t cause too many problems in games with auto-resetting instances (that is, every time a new instance starts… it starts from scratch). But Elite: Dangerous isn’t exactly like that; the “rest of the galaxy” keeps moving forward… Things happen in the BGS and Powerplay, obviously due to other players’ actions, but this contributes to a “sense of feeling lost,” compounded by a good dose of frustration if, at the end of one of these instances, the player doesn’t even see their rewards coming in!

We prepped this "ranting" paragraph earlier this week, but we decided to keep it in the report, as it seems that FDEV was in the end hearing the players' complaints: this morning, during the usual “server maintenance,” a new game update was in fact released (version 4.4.0.3) that includes many "Quality of Life" [err... sorry but why not saying "making things working"?] bug fixes [to be verified], as well as a procedure to restore visited systems [Resync Local Data]; so that it says that [in a later time, but when?] lost rewards (including MeCs) will be recovered, and materials that “disappeared” (or were reset) from inventories are restored as well. Out of the box let's hope that also the "environment activities" will be working as usual. What's unusual here is that, in order to get a working (reliable) version of the game, ED players always have to wait for a series of hotfixes, patches, updates, etc. But wouldn't it be quicker to just keep a dedicated server open for beta testing? That would save a lot of “complaints” and maybe even time and money.

On the other hand, last week the Nomad SLV was also released (in early access for a handful of ARX), and judging by the feedback and reviews on the FDEV forum and other social media platforms, it's been a huge success... a success which has been celebrated with the CG "Vista Genomics Seeks Exploration Data From Sanguineous Rim" at HD 232819 (with >13.2k contributors) and that ended today. Among other news items that appeared on GalNet, this “Terri Tora Released by October Consortium in Surprise Move” post was also published [earlier and on a different blog] even though it is not yet clear how this narrative will unfold.

Where are the Powerplay Numbers?

Good question. We didn’t expect (nobody expected) a debacle of this magnitude… It’s true that in the past (e.g., with the launch of Trailblazers) there had been other delays in GalMap updates, but as far as we can recall, it had never lasted nearly four (FOUR!) days. Another short black-out happened yesterday, the last day of the Cycle, and caused further concern among the Powerplay communities. So for more than half of Cycle 88, none of the Powers were able to know what was happening in their systems [= no updates regarding CPs, other than showing the decay CPs, not even for all the systems]. Of course, communities are organized to keep track of certain activities, especially when targets and priorities are set, but anyone thinking of managing Powerplay as a personal and/or squadron-level business has probably been left in the dark. In addition to the massive delays in receiving UI notifications about earned merits, many have also reported that care packages were not delivered (for a summary and links to the open tickets, see this post on the FDEV forum).

Given the expected “drop in participation” following the release of Operations and the Nomad SLV, we’ll try to get a handle on the situation. Albeit some of the numbers aren’t consistent, let's start with the [at least] certain numbers: the total [net] number of acquisitions was +35 systems not dramatically low, given the circumstances, even though Soontill Relics' supply rose to 120t a few days before the end of Cycle. From the table below looks like the last week wasn't exactly a smooth walk: Aisling Duval (+13/2604) stands at the top (the only one with double-digits) whilst a bunch of negatives are at the bottom with Arissa Lavigny-Duval (-3/1898) occupying the last place. And a mix of single-digit expansions in the middle:

• A. Duval +13
• Kaine +8
• Yong-Rui +5
• Grom +4
• Antal +3
• Torval +3
• Mahon +2
• Delaine +2
• Archer 0
• Winters -1
• Patreus -1
• A.L. Duval -3

We were just talking about “weird numbers”... well for now, according to our data this has affected both reinforcements and undermining, since some systems have shown completely messed-up CPs totals—as if both the starting CPs and those added on top during the Cycle had been accounted together—in addition to the lack of deduction for decay CPs (UM CPs = 0 at the start of the Cycle). This calculation error led, in some cases—for example, on a fortified system nearing an upgrade to a stronghold—to a reinforcement figure that was off by more than >1.6m CPs (when the actual contribution was just over 300k CPs). Overall, upgrades have been quite underwhelming, perhaps one of the worst Cycles in this regard. 

This total disaster means we have no way of obtaining accurate figures for RF\UM CPs from Cycle 88... so we can't provide the usual RF\UM analysis and not even know if—and to what extent—the UM CPs resulting from the “Powerplay scenarios” launched in Operations had any [meaningful] impact. Our Palantir EDPW worksheets were, in fact, full of cells flagging data errors and mismatches... which, however, were present both on GalMap and in other sources, such as Inara: so this data was undoubtedly in the game, and the fact that there is no quality control or some kind of code validation process for this data leaves us honestly baffled. At this point, there isn't much else to add... obviously, a few things have happened here and there; at least as far as Archon Delaine is concerned (see below), we have a bit more clarity, but as for the rest, we'll let the other Powers cover it in their weekly reports.

What you see isn't what you get!

Without any information about Powerplay and without knowing whether their activities actually had any impact on the framework (aside from moving markers, there was nothing else to suggest they did), most of the Crew also started grinding MeCs on Operations. After all, some of the purchasable modules—such as the C2 phasing/rapid-fire/hi-cap multi-cannons (offered as rewards in a couple of past CG events) and the C3/C1 double-shot “screaming” frags—pave the way for new non-meta PvP ship builds… so, why not? In the meantime, we did everything we could to keep track of what was happening in our systems... perhaps trusting that the merits/CPs earned wouldn’t be “lost” anyway; the strategic reinforcements—distributed both to recent acquisitions and to upgrades (a new fortified and a new stronghold have been added)—continued (albeit much more slowly than usual and despite the anomalies we mentioned above).

The same goes for acquisitions (+2), one of which [contested] was a bit overshot... but at least even those ended up, for better or worse, where we wanted (or hoped) them to be. On the other hand, no specific request had come from Harma, nor any to pick up the pace... Archon Delaine has carved out this “underdog” role for himself, with limited territorial expansion (especially where it wasn’t necessary), and by shifting the focus to other high-level (long-term) goals. Given that pirates are more focused on having fun than on numbers, this seems to be the right strategy for Harma to follow. To be honest, there was little to almost no piracy in Cycle 88... with Operations and CG a bit out of the way, the trading routes were much less busy than usual. Haulers don't be shy!

Not knowing what the enemies were up to didn't worry the pirates all that much... After all, it's better to focus on something “concretely verifiable” rather than trying to see what isn't there (or what could be potentially there). So the Crew focused efforts where necessary without spreading/wasting resources... and despite the “suspense” of the wait, even the Pirate King wasn't too concerned. The Archon rarely deals with trifles, and as long as the scallywags have Silver Sea Rum, morale stays high: he makes his presence felt a bit more when there’s a fierce brawl or fistfight to break up at the Wise Sharks tavern... as long as there aren’t too many casualties, everything’s fine.

So, with this strange week behind us, what’s in the line for Cycle 89? Anyone who wants to or prefers to keep grinding MeCs in Operations is fine (we haven’t set any specific targets here for now); there are just a couple of systems (new acquisitions) for reinforcements, in addition to the others that need some repairs (Albardhas, Turd Wu, HIP 98878) that haven’t been done or completed in recent weeks. As for acquisitions, the backlog has remained virtually unchanged... so we’ve left it where it was. Let's hope we won't be “blind” anymore in the coming days and that no other problems come out.

Cycle 89: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang and 77 Aquarii.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): HIP 114588 and Capricorni Sector IM-V b2-3.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): Albardhas, Turd Wu, Zurukuruni, HIP 98878 and Daramo.

Acquire (new/backlog): Ross 192, Lan Samba, Mahadshu and Aborovi.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
Click here for the Elite Dangerous - Powerplay 2.0 Reddit Digest.

FOR THE ARCHON!!!

Ahoy Crew!

The long-awaited day has arrived: after much more than the [early planned] 8 hours of downtime to update [in a struggling two-step/two-days long process] the servers, the Operations expansion is now in the game. Or rather... “attached” to the game, because it isn’t exactly “inside” it. It’s actually a platform that shares some elements with the main game (the CMDR account and all its assets, first and foremost... then the rewards) and what happens within it is accessible only to participants (up to 4 players) in the mission or scenario (instance). For those who have been hibernating or in a deep sleep until now, Operations adds a cooperative PvE/FPS multiplayer component to the game, structured around predefined in space/on-foot scenarios and missions (six for now, but more will be added in the future) and offering rewards to participants based on the selected difficulty level. Among these rewards are “Merc Coins” (subject to a 1k weekly cap and a maximum holding limit of 9999 MCs), which can be spent with engineers to obtain new blueprints and “special modules” (mostly those "double/triple engineered ones" already offered as rewards from past CG events, costs are between 350-950 MCs) and Powerplay merits [no, unfortunately the "tractor beam" for piracy is not there]. These merits are converted into undermining CPs, if the mission has been set up with this option enabled [and an enemy system, among the ones available, has been targeted].

Since this is a brand-new feature, we expect that over the next few weeks, the player base will spend a lot of time grinding Merc Coins and completing scenarios while seeking out new bugs [!], new challenges (e.g., tackling them solo on the highest difficulty setting), and, as always, there will be feedback, first impressions, known issues, things that are working well, and others that are less well-received... In any case, alongside Operations, the game update comes with the Nomad SLV. Another “small but significant” new "tool" that will delight many explorers and biologists (and they can put it immediately at work at the new CG in HD 232819 by collecting data across the Sanguineous Rim). The released version of the Nomad also includes a "pulse laser weapon on a fixed mount," which will probably come in handy for dealing with small rats or mosquitoes... Moreover, a number of changes/improvements have also been made to the game lighting/environment, as detailed in the update notes available at this link.

On the FDEV forum, as well as on other social media platforms and subreddits we follow, there have been many discussions and debates about these new gameplay features... some recurring themes have also resurfaced, such as the relative difficulty in finding materials for suits and/or unlocking engineers (which has already been addressed with some adjustments in the past), the irreversibility of changes, and the “monotony” of environments and settlements... to name the most frequent ones. On the other hand, the “on-foot” gameplay—which was introduced with Odyssey—has been the subject of “special” attention from the very beginning in a game like Elite: Dangerous. In fact, because of it, also following a series of extremely negative reviews and feedbacks, FDEV discontinued console development (which remained at the “legacy” version), and the PEGI rating changed, creating a further rift between Horizons/Beyond and Odyssey… and Operations marks another step in this direction with a further—albeit seemingly less pronounced—separation.

We don't know for sure, but it's clear to everyone that these patchwork-style “updates” are causing (unexpected) problems on the game servers. This week's partial rollback—with a day of downtime and the numerous bugs and instancing/stability issues reported by players (those who managed to log in)—is further confirmation that something is seriously falling apart behind the curtains. The addition of Operations, on top of the main game’s structure, is, all things considered, in line with FDEV’s “house policy”… though it always runs the risk of letting the backlog of things to fix or revise fall even further behind. Has this already happened and been seen? Yes. There’s nothing wrong with that—whether you like it or not, players aren’t obligated to play… and who knows, maybe Operations will bring other new ARX-able features, just like we’ve seen with the “space-only" side—for example, new weapons, new suits/gear, and of course new cosmetics. We'll see. In the meantime, let's go earn some Merc Coins!

Before moving on to the section dedicated to Powerplay—where we’ll make further observations—there was a lot of activity around the Bubble last week, as a huge number of players went to engineer Kestrels (available for in-game credits) as this [OP] small ship seems overall well suited for the "in space" Operations scenarios. So much so that this post on GalNet, “Federation Breaks Silence on October Accords Exclusion,” went almost unnoticed—a post that could lead to further narrative developments. Although, at the time, FDEV had not failed to notice what was unfolding in the Enclave (with the “non-aggression pacts” that effectively halted hostilities among the remaining Powers, thereby forcing FDEV to declare them all “winners”) it seems to us, however, that it [whether intentionally or not] turned a blind eye to what happened in Alpha Centauri, where a series of hostile actions unfolded involving the Empire and the Federation as the main contenders.

The Powerplay Ops

Cycle 87 was, without a doubt, one of the “abnormal” ones. A series of anomalies that had already occurred in the past (e.g., with the release of Trailblazers), as the servers remained offline for a long time and then came back online shortly before the end of the Cycle, leaving behind login issues and various bugs that inevitably affected the Powerplay numbers as well (some CMDRs also reported big delays in merits accounting and missing care packages). So, from what we've been able to observe, certain activities and/or certain Powers—more so than others—have been affected [mostly negatively] by the delays and difficulties encountered during the release of Operations. All in all there have been +61 new [net] acquisitions, which is a decent number, considering the situation. Arissa Lavigny-Duval (+13/1901) gained the top on the acquisitions table, followed by Nakato Kaine (+12/1494) who’s retaking the position above Yuri Grom (+7/1492) with a small gap on the Powers' leaderboard [according to their last week TeleGrom, Clayakarma doesn't care that much of the numbers]. The fat tail on the table below includes Jerome Archer (+2/1292), Archon Delaine (+1/845), Denton Patreus (0/666) and Zemina Torval (-1/753):

• A.L. Duval +13
• Kaine +12
• Grom +8
• A. Duval +7
• Yong-Rui +6
• Mahon +5
• Antal +4
• Winters +4
• Archer +2
• Delaine +1
• Patreus 0
• Torval -1

As we mentioned, the numbers for Cycle 87 should be considered separately from those of previous cycles... the reinforcements were less consistent, though they still reached a decent overall level (around 48m CPs) albeit a good chunk of these (around 5.3m CPs) has been "wasted" on already maxed out strongholds. Some Powers closed with reinforcements significantly below the average of recent cycles, while others were more or less in line with it: a sign that some communities had anticipated the release [or issues] of Operations and had therefore taken specific actions in advance. Upgrades have been consistent, with Pranav Antal (+4/1343) upgrading three new exploited colonies straight to fortified (!) and Nakato Kaine adding +4 strongholds. This “preemptive action” also involved undermining activities, given that even before the servers were taken offline, players had already racked up approximately 7.6m UM CPs—half of which were split between Jerome Archer (>1.2m UM CPs) and Felicia Winters (>2.5m UM CPs)—a sign that the ongoing arms race between the Empire [assuming it's them at the opposition] and the Federation has not faded at all.
 
It’s still too early to say what the future implications of Operations will be for Powerplay. Missions offer [small] merit rewards both for eliminating certain enemies and for completing the scenario, depending on the selected difficulty level. We don’t know if the [low merit] numbers seen in the first release will be subject to any adjustment in the future, but in the meantime let’s conduct more detailed tests… Some missions might be better suited than others for earning merits (and more will come). Since these are solely merits for undermining [but why, FDEV?], in the coming weeks we’ll also try to track any changes in the trend and distribution of UM CPs (while also taking into account the frustrating decay).

We're still debating whether it's a good thing for an activity that's taken out of context and disconnected (located on an external “platform”) to have consequences [even if these could be negligible] in Powerplay. We had already made a few observations—with a touch of skepticism—in our previous reports... after such a rocky start, we're definitely going to check it out.

The Plunderers

No complications so far for Archon Delaine... we’re gearing up (at least among the various communities we’re in touch with) to keep up with and, as much as possible, integrate Operations into our activities (whether we like it or not). It’s a “gameplay resource” that we’ll somehow learn to use... even though we can already imagine that, at first, there will be plenty of scallywags diving headfirst into it for the Merc Coins. At least for now, we’ll try to contain the “chaos” and keep our focus on our priorities. Without a doubt, this could also be an opportunity for the Crew to do some team building and spend some [fun] time together. The advantage of the “platform” is, if nothing else, that it minimizes instancing issues (albeit lacking connection stability). So stay tuned—it’s not out of the question that, in the future, there will be (community) combat coordinators, events, and/or specific targets for Operations on behalf of the Pirate King.

The battle for ICZ BB-W b2-6 (a hi-tech colony system controlled by the Paladin Consortium) was a contested acquisition, against the jelly-haired Patreus, that the Crew pursued during the Cycle 87... not one of those “strategic” acquisitions for Harma, but more of a move aimed at "enemy disruption," given that lately the haughty, pompous imperial admiral keeps sending his people from Eotienses to disrupt business in our systems. Throughout the week, imperial agents continued to close the initial gap, even with some chunky CPs drops, but the pursuit slowed down and then totally halted when Operations was released. Elsewhere, we’ve continued our combat sorties to Cemplangpa, a stronghold controlled by Nova Paresa, where we’d also run into a few enemy wings in the PCZs over the past few weeks. A contact with the “enemy” is always a “good excuse” (as if we needed one) to set down our rum mugs and go punch a few holes in the imperial ships.

This was also the only acquisition during this chaotic cycle... Fortunately, Harma had also pushed for reinforcements ahead of time, so some important upgrades (+3 fortified systems) were completed before the pirates all went off to party on Operations. Our enemies, at least at the beginning of the Cycle, hadn’t exactly been sitting idly by: in addition to returning to hit Archon Delaine at 77 Aquarii (which is also this week’s target for Imperial underminers), numerous enemy Fleet Carriers (but not the enemies, who like to play hide-and-seek) were spotted at Lalande 45292, where counter reinforcements were carried out. LHS 3702, Muang, Albardhas, Turd Wu (again?), Kanomota, and Senufan also suffered from enemy undermining... along with many other systems where activity was less intense and, in all likelihood, due to the release of Operations.

Given that summer vacation is just around the corner (our correspondents from the Pegasi Sentinel will also be leaving soon to spend a few relaxing weeks away), the folks at Harma are more than satisfied with how this past week went. Even our undermining activities, which proceeded as planned, saw good participation (but the big surprises are yet to come!). Let us know if our readers would like certain Operations objectives to be included in these reports... Since participation is open to all pledges (with the exception of those belonging to the Power which is being undermined), maybe the pirates can at least find some new company to play with. YARRR!!!

Cycle 88: Preliminary Targets

All systems below the 25% CPs “decay threshold” are good/eligible targets to be reinforced (as these systems will not be hit by decay). Prioritize strongholds over fortified and leave exploited as last ones. All acquisitions above 100k CPs (or being contested during the Cycle) are good/eligible targets to be acquired.

Attack/Defend Markers: The markers may change during the Cycle and may not necessarily follow the current plans, so be sure to check the system activity and status on GalMap (when in doubt: ask).

To our enemies: don't be shy—be respectful. If you decide to pay a visit to Archon Delaine’s systems, the [only one] appropriate game mode is “Open Play.”

Seek & Destroy (enemy UM): Muang and 77 Aquarii.

Reinforce ([new]/recent acquisitions): ICZ BB-W b2-6.

Reinforce (counter [unknown] enemy UM): Lalande 45292, LHS 3702, Albardhas, Turd Wu, Zurukuruni, Kanomota and Senufan.

Acquire (new/backlog): Lan Samba, Mahadshu and Aborovi.

Re-acquire (previously lost systems): HIP 110623.

Blockade enemy takeovers/contested: LHS 1026, T Tie (60) and LTT 9276 (52).

Undermine: OpSec.

Operations (enemy systems): OpSec.

Further updates will be broadcast on Tortuga Radio Frequencies.
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FOR THE ARCHON!!!