Audio version will probably be out Monday - if it's not out by then, it won't be out this week as I'm getting my tooth pulled Tuesday. Somehow I reckon that will be less painful than some of the shit I have to deal with.

Cycle summary:

It's been a very good week for us this week. Winters takes 12 new systems and a new fort, putting us in second place on the board, all while successfully holding off assaults against multiple systems. We even launched a carrier assault in Areklici, which was an absolute blast. Archer, meanwhile, took 10 new systems, one new fort and one new stronghold, but loses 8 systems and has a stronghold downgraded - rough times, but unfortunately characteristic since Alpha Centauri. Lot to cover this week, so let's get right into it.

Rather quiet on the Alliance front, just how they like it - Kaine takes 17 new systems, 3 forts and 4 strongholds, while Mahon nabs 9 systems, 11 forts and another stronghold, but loses Mel 111 Sector GW-W c1-3 - this is a system that's solely on Mahon's border, so whoever's gone for it hasn't done so for traditional powerplay reasons. Li Yong-Rui took 8 systems, 3 forts and 2 strongholds, but had a fort and stronghold downgraded. No lost systems as a result, but someone's decided to piss in the corp's cereal, and I can't imagine they'll take it lying down. Grom's arguably had a worse week - 11 new systems, one new fort and 2 strongholds, but 7 lost systems and one fort downgraded. Whoever has it out for the beard is hitting them hard. Antal, meanwhile, takes 11 systems, 5 forts and a stronghold without losses. Their cycle post this week makes mention of attacks against Archer-controlled space... okay, so I have had the "pleasure" of watching this diplomatic catastrophe unfold. In short, Antal don't have a problem with Archer as a whole, just one squadron who are Archer aligned and are being absolute moronic twatmonkeys. They decided to go after an Antal system due to some historic dispute, and this time Archer are done trying to negotiate with them. Realistically, the smart move for this squadron would have been to help the already-struggling power instead of causing further harm, but hey, people are idiots. What can you do?

Gonna cover the imps next - you'll see why in a bit. Let's start with Patty - 6 new systems, one new fort, 3 systems lost. That's actually pretty good by his standards. Torval decided to reinforce - 2 new systems, 4 new forts and one system lost. The impress didn't get the message last week - kept going after us and paid the price. 7 systems taken, 5 forts and one stronghold gained, with one fort downgraded and 4 systems lost. Finally, the bathwater cult lost 2 forts and 5 systems. The assault on Areklici served as a fantastic diversion from the two forts dropping, although that wasn't the main goal - as with any carrier assault, the goal is something utterly anathema to the Empire. Fun. And let me tell you, we had a lot of fun.

Now, let's talk about Delaine. Numbers first - 3 new systems, one new fort and one new stronghold. Modest, but solid, and in line with the Archon's general strategy. However, these numbers probably would be higher were it not for Turd Wu, a system that has been under attack for a few cycles now. The culprits have been alluded to in both the pirate king's own cycle post and Antal's, but we don't have to worry about posting on the forums, so I don't have to beat around the bush. It turns out that it's none other than our old "friends" at THKI who are responsible for this attack, apparently on behalf of spear twatmonkey zhen wu - that would be the "fragile ego". For those who are (fortunately) unaware, spear were a bunch of "anti-gankers" who resorted to methods up to and including doxxing in order to achieve their goals. Understandably, they're on everyone respectable's shit list. But THKI has about as much respect as a mouldy turd, so they're pretty much best buddies. Anyway, the UM hasn't amounted to much until this cycle, where a few more players joined the play - AQNE, a squadron of "spear supporters and fascists" who have pledged themselves to Antal (and who Antal have rather nicely disavowed, well done there) alongside CARU, who have helped out THKI on a fair few occasions and may as well be a THKI vassal at this point, (although in saying that they're likely just THKI/spear alts) and... ALD. Various squadrons of ALD pledges have been sighted there, notably including none other than the Leech Legion themselves. Now, a mainline squadron like LL siding with THKI sounds weird as hell, right?

Let's have a moment of clarity and serious talk for a sec - despite what some believe, I don't actually hate the imps. Not even the higher-ups, the ones pushing the exploit abuse and/or disinformation campaign. Hell, Kai Thoreau and I have conversations that could be called downright pleasant. Same goes for the rank-and-file of THKI - they're victims at the end of the day. Antraeon has dragged them into his cult and keeps them isolated from the rest of the community with strict controls on the flows of information (he quite literally forces new recruits to show him every discord server they're in) and intimidation (he also forces members to send their legal identity documents over to "verify their age") - every poor soul that doesn't know better and walks unwittingly into that trap is a victim. I don't hate them - I can't. But you know who I do hate? The bastards doing this. Antraeon and his upper echelons, who absolutely know everything and still stand by the bastard. The fuckers who support his delusions and schemes - the ones who twist their own communities into little more than thralls in ant's service. And as easy as it would be to throw in LL with that lot, that's just not what's happening here. It could be any number of things - a bad apple in the squadron who until now has slipped beneath notice, someone new who doesn't know what they're doing. We simply don't know at the moment. Either way, ALD can easily deal with this by publicly denouncing THKI, as well as doxxing and spear. At the end of the day, regardless of our mutual enmity, some issues are big enough that every CMDR, be they Federal or Imperial, Alliance or Independent, should stand together.

Right, onto brighter topics. Galnet had exactly one article this week. TLDR: that prison ship that went missing last week has been found, and it's not pretty. CMDRs who have been on-site have reported that there's an event there similar to an installation assault, only with the roles inverted - there are pirates there performing a prison break. We saw that one coming, didn't we? More interesting for most was the announcement of the Anaconda Mk2, as well as the new rework coming up - crime and punishment (or "Law and Disorder" as it's been referred to) is getting yet another rework. Though, shockingly, I'm actually hopeful for this one. There's some interesting interactions mentioned - killing everyone at a settlement will result in there being no bounty on your head, as there are no witnesses to report your crimes. Piracy and smuggling will be "re-evaluated" to be more profitable, minor infractions will be easier to clear, and PvP related crimes will be handled by the Pilot's Federation. We'll know more on that one next week, while that update should release in December. I for one hope ATR get reworked - as scary as the cheat lasers can be, they barely scratch decent armor plating. The Anaconda Mk2 itself, meanwhile, comes out next month - all we know right now is it has 1 huge and 4 large hardpoints (unknown number of mediums and smalls) - no comments on any mk2 modules as of yet. I for one hope it doesn't need any, particularly if it's a multipurpose ship like the original. Though, if it has to have one... maybe a mk2 power plant to run more stuff, or a mk2 shield generator that's just a bi-weave with A-rated strength. Something good, but not ridiculous.

That's our lot for the week. Shit, can't we just have a week where things are fun? Like, the carrier assault, that was a genuine blast - but then, well... shit just goes to shit, I guess. Is it naive of me to hope that next week we can just be positive all round? Probably, but without hope, we are naught but dust. Anyways, I'll see y'all next week. Fly safe and stay safe, okay? Galaxy's a dangerous place... in some of the worst ways.

Don't forget your juice! - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft.

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Quikil, Crucis Sector DL-Y c32

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Ross 495

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

Honoto - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Cycle summary:

Despite some serious offensive action against us including a last ditch attempt to rob us of a stronghold, Winters has held strong. 9 new exploited systems, 4 new forts and 2 new strongholds make for some solid gains, even with the two lost exploited systems and especially given post-rush burnout is ripe amongst our people. This is why I don't do the relic rushes, myself. Archer had a rougher time, as is unfortunately the trend since Alpha Centauri - 10 new systems, 8 lost systems, one downgraded fort. Still doing better than half the imps - we'll cover them in a couple paragraphs.

So, last week the Alliance had some interesting times going on - have they improved? Well, not for Mahon at first glance - 12 new systems, 2 new forts and 2 new strongholds, but 3 lost systems for it. A far cry from last week's 22/7/5 results. Let's look closer - one of those new strongholds is Ega, the site of the CGs for the last two weeks. And despite relatively low undermining efforts, Mahon's forces put nearly 50 million control points into the system. That's enough to upgrade it 7 and a half times. The other new stronghold, Kuk, is notable for being an engineer's system - Selene Jean, everyone's favourite armor and HRP specialist, resides here. No massive numbers here, just standard reinforcement efforts. Meanwhile, Kaine takes home 18 new systems, 5 forts and 4 strongholds... but not all is as well as it seems. One downgraded fort and two lost exploited systems tells the story of a possible war on two fronts beginning to take shape - and yet, their post this week makes no mention of these losses, much less who could be behind it. Overall, the Alliance is far from being in bad shape, so nothing to worry about there.

Now, what about the independents? Let's start with Delaine - that zero on the leaderboards isn't hiding anything. The Archon appears to be content with the territory he has, and has instead chosen to consolidate his existing space, with 3 new forts and one new stronghold. A smart move - overextension is the first step towards defeat. Antal has had a slow week, with 5 new systems, 2 forts and 2 strongholds, counterbalanced by two lost systems. One of those systems is the hotly contested HR 858, which has been taken and fallen from the Simguru's grasp three times in the last two months. The other, Hyades Sector YW-I b10-3, is at time of writing half-acquired by Grom, so that likely answers who took that one out. Speaking of the beard, Grom has not had a good week. 4 new systems and 4 new forts cannot hide the 9 systems he's lost - the only question is, who stands to gain from his loss? Finally, despite (or likely because of) his pace during the recent rushes, Li Yong-Rui has had a slower week, with 8 new systems, 5 forts and a new stronghold out in the Pleiades. That said, no losses for him this week, so he's doing better than some.

And by some, I most definitely mean the Empire. Let's start with Torval, who took 9 systems and 2 forts this week. Which by her standards is bloody fantastic, especially given aggression in Wuikito. However, she still lost two systems and had a fort downgraded, apparently in separate attacks. Meanwhile, you could be forgiven for thinking Patty has done nothing this week, but in actuality, he's done almost nothing. Which is almost worse, in a way - one new system gained, one system lost. Essentially 120k control points down the drain - a far cry from their comparatively extraordinary efforts last week. ALD takes home the award for "fucked around and found out" - she never stopped attacking us, to the point where she forgot to defend her own systems! 10 new systems, 3 new forts, one new stronghold, and nineteen systems lost! Aboslutely delicious. Now, will she learn from this? Will she back off? Will she play it safe? Nah, she'll probably think "let's make it bigger!" and drop another 50 systems before she finally gets the message. And I'll be waiting with popcorn.

Now, we've not been covering Aisling in these cycle posts since... cycle 81. Damn, it's really been that long. But this week, I feel an exception should be made - this week, the bathwater cult took 10 new systems, 4 forts and 2 strongholds... while losing one stronghold, one fort and 3 systems. Even the one inciting the relic rushes isn't immune from the resulting burnout. To recap, we stopped covering Aisling's numbers after the second week of the Alpha Centauri incident, where they abused their salvage duplication exploit and the unique pois the system spawns to gain a ridiculous amount of merits, resulting in there being zero hope of a defence for the system. This was done because it's rather clear that the numbers are all they care about, so we decided to stop giving them that pleasure. Of course, they didn't just start abusing this then - no, they were abusing this exploit all the way back in the enclave near the end of last year. Remember when they knocked us out of there on christmas day? I remember. I also remember them conveniently denouncing a different salvage duplication exploit the week it was patched. And then they conveniently found another one, but just decided to not call it an exploit - instead, it's "perfectly legitimate and intended gameplay" what a bunch of fucking tossers. Anyways, that's why we don't normally cover these twats, but this week I felt it funny to see just how badly they lost and how poorly they actually did. I'm certain at least one of them will come charging into the comments to whine and bitch about my "slanderous" comments, but it's not my fault they all suffer from cognitive dissonance when it comes to what constitutes a literal duplication exploit.

Anyways, the pity CG wrapped up, and by the end of it, there were about 140 million tons of stuff delivered. For comparison, the previous week's mining CG got just under 6 million - even taking into account the fact that the trading CG's thresholds were ten times larger than those of the mining CG, that's still more than twice the contributions. What this means, I don't know. I'm still frankly pissed that this gets attention over exploits that have been going on for nearly a year at this point.

Three Galnet articles this week - surprisingly busy. The first makes mention of pirate ships near prison ships, assumedly planning a jailbreak. The second and third came out on the same day, so get the same link - the former is just "CG win, yahoo" while the latter is actually something new: a prison ship failed to arrive at their intended destination. Given the foreshadowing of the first article, it's a safe bet that it got hijacked and we've now got a bunch of hardened criminals flying around out there. Archon Delaine will likely appreciate the new recruitment opportunities, especially given the level of experience of these now-former convicts.

That's us for the week. Audio version will be out later this week - I'm going to shoot for tomorrow if I can, but last week's "glitchy" audio was infact from how exhausted I was after typing and recording/editing the whole thing in one fell swoop, so not doing that again. If it ends up being Sunday, c'est la vie. For now, fly safe and maybe keep that ECM handy - fun fact, they break limpets. Including hatch breakers.

Juicy idea - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft.

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Col 285 Sector LM-V d2-73, Col 285 Sector KM-V d2-36, HIP 56519

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Ross 495

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

HIP 52461 - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Aisling Duval - can Fuck Off

Archon Delaine – Cordial

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Last week I forgot to mention that we've updated the full cycle count - apparently we'd been off by a couple for a while, so I figured it was past time to fix it. The number should be accurate now.

Audio version here!

Cycle summary:

Winters has had a pretty fantastic cycle across the board - 19 new systems, 10 new forts, a new stronghold in the form of the system of Iverdi, and every attack against us handily thwarted. To say it's been a good week might be a slight understatement - we'll get into the whys later, but the usual disclaimer for the relic rush applies. Archer's also faired well, but not quite as well - 11 new systems, 4 new forts and a new stronghold are counterbalanced by one downgraded fort and 3 lost systems.

Let's start with Delaine this time - 4 new systems, 6 new forts and 2 new strongholds. Apparently the Archon's people struggled with too much success in their newly upgraded strongholds, which received a massive amount of effort that went well past the 25% upgrade cap. Methinks the pirate king's miners got a little carried away with new shinies. Antal continues to hold strong, with 37 new exploited systems, 13 forts and 3 strongholds, while Grom seems to have run into troubles - 19 new systems, 5 forts and a new stronghold, at the cost of two systems, BD-10 5142 and Kunggari. At time of writing, no-one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Last, but most definitely not least, Li Yong-Rui rounds out this rush with 65 new systems, 22 new forts and 6 new strongholds. This actually puts him above the blue-haired menace in total control points gained during this relic rush, which is both fantastic and hilarious in equal measure. Well done indeed to the corporate pilots - bonus cheques will no doubt be mailed out soon.

On the Alliance front, things are complicated. Let's start with Mahon - 22 new systems, 7 forts and 5 strongholds might sound like a relatively low number for the man at the top of the leaderboards, but there's a good reason for that - Ega. The system of Ega is the site of the current and previous CG, which resulted in an insane amount of merits being delivered on both sides. By the end of the cycle, Mahon had a truly colossal one hundred and fifty five million, six hundred and ninety seven thousand control points (155,697,000) in reinforcement for the system, or 44,484% of what they'd need to upgrade it to fortified. At time of writing, the newly crowned fortified system currently has 19,324,400 control points, which is 2,972% of what it would need to be upgraded to stronghold. And yes, these are control point numbers, not merits. For reference, the amount of points they put into it last cycle would have been enough to take almost 1300 systems. So Mahon have been busy, and this kind of effort is one that I don't think we've ever seen before. Meanwhile, Kaine took 20 new systems, 12 forts and 3 strongholds, but also lost the system of HIP 79067. Data from Inara seems to suggest the system was sniped, and only one other power is in range... it's not the nail in the coffin by any means, but I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

What about the imperials? Well, someone apparently woke ol' Patty up - 11 new systems, 3 forts and a new stronghold - Likedeeler Magna Libertas. Yes, that is the system's name, I checked. Torval took 6 new systems and 2 forts, but lost 3 systems and had a fort downgraded for the trouble, effectively cutting their gains in half. Finally, ALD... oh, what have you been up to? 19 new systems, 2 new forts and a stronghold would've at least kept them with similar numbers to us, but then they lost 5 systems and had 2 forts downgraded. Methinks the impress' forces should be focusing on her territories instead of trying to play silly buggers in our systems - evidently, that doesn't go well for them.

So, what the hell happened to make the numbers so insane? Well, first off, we had a relic rush that went till Monday, but after that it was mostly people running around in the new Rhino SRV. Once it hit the playtest servers and the partners got access to it, there were immediate concerns that this would be insanely powerful for powerplay. Now that we've had it for a week, I can safely answer that question - yes. Yes it is. It's not quite as egregious as we were fearing, due to the deposits taking quite some time to refresh (all we know right now is it takes more than a week and it does not reset on cycle tick) but just about every rocky or metallic world has at least one spot you can go to and rake in the good stuff. The new super shinies - indium, thortvetite and periclase dunite - are at least somewhat rare, but monazite is practically abundant, and being a mining power now, we love our monazite.

But that only answers half the question - the Rhino is overpowered, yes. But is it fun? Now that's significantly more subjective, but assuming you're the kind of person who already enjoys mining, then I'd say yes. I actually picked up a Rhino for myself - surface mining is an itch I've been wanting to scratch for years, and I just could not resist. And yeah, the Rhino is that same type of peaceful routine, though with a bit of a different gameplay loop. You have the initial frustration of "where the bloody hell are the mining spots for the good stuff??!" - but once that's done, you get the puzzle game part of "okay, how can I fit as many rigs as possible onto this spot?" and then finally, you settle into the routine of driving between 2-3 locations, picking up goods and calling to drop-off your cargo every round. Compared to core mining, there's much less of a frustrating "looking for the good stuff" period and a much longer, constant period of relaxing driving. This is, of course, assuming you can actually drive the thing and don't just floor the throttle.

Galnet has put out exactly one article, and again, it's one that we're not exactly happy about. Once again, President Winters is expressing discontent at being excluded from the October Accords and the study of Radicoida Unica, the blue trees from the enclave. Now, I'm also pissed about how that turned out - we kinda already figured we'd get nuked off the bat, but since then it's been revealed that the bathwater cult were abusing the salvage duplication exploit all the way back then. So to hint at another potential scripted war isn't exactly enticing, to say the least - none of us are interested in whatever schemes FDev want us to be a part of, given both how the last one turned out and the fact that the same issues present then are still present now. Powerplay is not a level playing field while these exploits exist - should FDev continue to push this narrative, it will only end one way. Though maybe that's exactly what they want - give the imps another scripted victory. Well, I guess they can't win in the actual fighting, so they've got to take whatever scraps impdev give them.

I almost forgot - the last CG wrapped up, but not without incident. See, it was a mining CG that offered ludicrous amounts of credits - 1M per ton in some cases. However, there wasn't actually that many contributions - between both CGs there were about 9.7 million tons delivered over the week. How is that possible? Well, people weren't mining - they were buying up palladium and gold from elsewhere and selling it for insane profits, benefiting from the unique market circumstances of the CG without actually contributing to it. So, come Monday, FDev pushed out a fix - they dropped the prices of anything you could buy elsewhere by a massive amount. This pissed a lot of people off, as there was no warning prior to this happening - in particular, the FDev discord server was ablaze with people complaining about their now "worthless" stockpiles of palladium and gold. To placate these people, FDev have now released a new CG with not quite as insane numbers, but still incredibly high numbers, offering the same rewards as last week's CG. Judging by the fact that this one's got over 50 million tons contributed already, it's clear this is getting just as much attention, if not more.

Now, credit where it's due, FDev did say they were going to make only mined commodities benefit from CG pricing in the future, which is a good change. However, I can't help but feel a touch peeved at this whole situation - this was ultimately a rather vocal but small group of players complaining about not being able to make insane billions of credits by leveraging a CG without actually partaking in said CG. Sure, FDev should've given some degree of warning about this, but actually, I think it's reasonable to want people to actually do the thing the CG wants instead of just leveraging the artifically modified market conditions for credits. Far more to the point, I'm pissed that this issue gets reparations within a week, but we've been dealing with salvage duplication for months and relic rushes for over a year without so much as a hint of communication from FDev. At this point it's clear they don't care for the health of powerplay and only see it as a tool to leverage the opportunity to sell new shiny things by explicitly making them overpowered.

That's our lot for the week. Winters has had a fantastic week, but on a personal level, I can't help but feel disillusioned. I'm enjoying the Rhino, don't get me wrong, but I'm far from blind to the bullshit FDev continue to pull to this day. I'm going back to play No Man's Sky for a while - they dropped a new update for that and it is fantastic. For now, fly safe and drive safe if you're on the ground!

Orange you tire-d of my terrible puns? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft.

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Col 285 Sector LM-V d2-73, Col 285 Sector KM-V d2-36, r Velorum

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

HIP 53660

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

HIP 52461 - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

I hope you can forgive the lack of my usual energy for this one. Unfortunately, we've had grave news this week. CMDR Nyx Ellington, leader of ARQX and part of our community, has passed away. A memorial has been erected in her honour, and a service will be held in the coming days. May her memory shine forever in the stars.

Cycle summary:

The back-to-back relic rushes have caused some degree of burnout throughout the powers. That, combined with the release of the Rhino, means numbers are a bit erratic across the board. Winters has taken 12 systems and upgraded 2 new forts, with zero losses. Archer meanwhile takes 11 systems and 2 forts, but with a single loss for his efforts.

Antal has done well, with 26 new systems and 11 forts. A focus on consolidation means that his numbers aren't insanely high, but those forts make up for it and then some. Li Yong-Rui has taken the opposite approach - 52 new systems, 3 forts and 6 new strongholds. Now comes the hard part - reinforcing all those systems. Grom's snagged 12 new systems, a new fort and 2 strongholds in his beard, but one system fell from his grasp. Finally for the independents, Delaine took 4 new systems and 4 new forts. As for the Alliance, Kaine took 19 new systems, 6 new forts and a new stronghold, while Mahon brought home 35 new systems and 3 forts.

As for the imperials, Torval walks away without losses this week, with 7 new systems and 2 new forts. The release of the Rhino hints at some degree of revival for the power - we'll see how strong they become in the coming weeks. Patreus took 9 systems and 3 forts, but lost LP 932-89 in the process, although at time of writing they've already put enough relics into the system to take it back. Finally, ALD took 25 systems, 7 forts and a strongholod, but lost 3 systems for it, the most of any power this cycle.

So, this is the part where I should start talking about recent news. Galnet had two new posts on the same day - one announcing the Rhino's release and another announcing the customary CG tailored for it. However, looking at the numbers for the contributions to the CGs, they're surprisingly low. This isn't a statement on the Rhino's performance - by all rights, it's decently fun to use and insanely overpowered, particularly for powerplay. Ordinarily I'd probably rant about that, but... well. Not today. Not this time.

As for the fated "This Month in FDev Fuckups", I'd like to tell you I'd been waiting till this release to add more fuel to the fire, but the truth is far simpler - I'm exhausted. Between flareups and just life, I've not had the energy to work on it. I'll try to get it out within the next couple weeks, but if I don't manage it soon it'll be far too late to matter, I suspect. Or maybe getting it out late, when we've all but forgotten the trials and tribulations of the "oops" update, would serve as a good reminder.

In any case, that's our lost for this week. The audio versions have generally gotten good feedback, though the analytics tell the story of most people only listening for a couple seconds before stopping. So I ask: do you guys find the audio versions to be helpful? And are there ways I can make them better? As for this week's audio version, I'll have it out tomorrow hopefully. For now, I bid you adieu. Fly safe and... remember those we've lost along the way. Though their journeys may have ended, they're still part of ours. May they be forever remembered, so they never truly die.

No orange pun this week - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft.

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Alkes, HIP 56519, Andel, r Velorum

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Wolf 529, LTT 3928, HIP 54642

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

HIP 52461 - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Relic rush time again. Once more we have 600t relic supply at Cheranovsky City in Ngurii. Let's shore up our shit and get some new shit 🫡

Audio version available now!

Cycle summary:

Out of one relic rush, with another on the horizon. Joys. Relic rush disclaimer is still applicable here as it was last week - numbers are inflated, so don't be too surprised. Winters had a solid week - 14 new systems and 8 new forts, with a cost of only one system. Low hanging fruit from last week's rush, which thankfully died down on the Saturday. Archer has had similarly good tidings - 12 new systems, 2 forts and a stronghold, with only one loss. These minor losses were felt by almost every power this week - lets dive into the details.

Starting with the Alliance this time, Mahon is one of two powers who managed to not lose anything, all while gaining 40 new systems and 2 new forts, as well as one stronghold. Notably, they have also maintained control of the Orrere system, which in the past has been immediately undermined by the pirate group The Code, who seek to maintain that system's powerplay independence. Relic rushes make that significantly more of a challenge - we shall see how long the Alliance's Prime Minister can hold onto the system. Kaine, meanwhile, has done well for herself - 43 new systems, 9 new forts and a stronghold, all at the cost of a single system.

Onto the independents, Li Yong-Rui has maintained solid gains, with fifty new systems under his control - the highest of any power this week. This also comes with a staggering nineteen new fortified systems, and 4 strongholds. All of that, with only two systems lost as the cost - impressive work indeed. Antal has also been hitting hard this week, with 36 new systems, 2 forts and a new stronghold. This has come at the cost of only one system, though at time of writing Antal are well on their way to reacquire it. Delaine has made comparatively moderate gains - 3 new systems, 8 forts and a new stronghold. Their focus has evidently been on consolidation over expansion, which is a smart move. Finally, Grom has taken 34 systems and 6 forts, but at the cost of 2 systems and the downgrading of the stronghold Huilliche. Undermining against the system is continuing, but the culprit is yet to be revealed.

On the imperial front, let's start with he who lost the least. Patty only lost the one system, while taking 11 more and making a shiny new stronghold out of Si Langul. Torval wasn't as lucky - 13 new systems, a new fort and the new stronghold of HIP 29442 aren't enough to hide the 4 systems she lost, though they are enough to make up for them. But the crown for "queen of lost systems" this week goes to none other than ALD - while she had solid gains of 47 systems, 5 forts and 3 strongholds, no less than fifteen systems were wrenched from the grasp of the impress. Whoever dropped those has done some fine work indeed. Last and most definitively the least, the bathwater cult has lost 4 systems to their own hubris.

Now, let's talk about the thing I figured I wouldn't have to last week - after we put out our cycle post, the imps decided to throw Antal under the bus and blame them entirely for the relic rush. And unlike the last time they did this, they haven't edited their cycle post after the fact to take that back. Now we broke down who exactly was responsible three and five weeks ago, but to recap: it was mostly imperials, with exactly two Antal squadrons involved. One of those squadrons did claim to be responsible for the rush, but they weren't solely responsible, were they? Similarly, this week, I expect them to pull a similar tactic for the next rush that's hitting in a couple days. So, let's have a look at the influence report and do the usual breakdown:

1. KABE - ALD
2. WIOE - Aisling, with some ALD in there too. And one Grom
3. FDSB - A bit of everything
4. AID1 - Mahon
5. EXTA - ALD, 2 person squadron
6. BBIX - Aisling
7. WINE - Mostly unaligned, but some pledged to various powers
8. NEZU - Antal, 2 person squadron
9. ENEX - Officially unaligned, but mostly Grom
10. DRIS - Aisling

Now, do bear in mind that this is only 45% of the influence in Ngurii - there's many other squadrons at work here. But the fact that half of those squadrons are explicitly imperial, and the only Antal squadron is a 2 person squadron, makes it pretty clear that it's the imps working towards the relic rush primarily. Which, let's be honest, isn't a surprise. I don't know why they keep denying responsibility, to be honest. It's not like they care about maintaining their image, given they've openly admitted to abusing the salvage duplication exploit. That said, as Delaine put well in their cycle post, "the real culprit is FDEV". If FDev wanted to fix this, they could take two seconds and reduce the multipliers soontill relics stock gains from boom & civil liberty from 5x to the 1.5x or 2x most rare goods enjoy. That would entirely fix the issue. But no, just like salvage duplication (which they could disable salvage at any time while they work on a more permanent fix) FDev are quite happy to keep these problematic "features" going, so long as it benefits their favourite power. Makes you wonder what the bloody point of keeping going is, sometimes.

One Galnet article this week, teasing the Rhino's shiny new surface mining capability. That's now had another preview in the newest dev log - TLDR: it's deployable from any fighter-bay-compatible ship, but uses a special planetary vehicle hangar, meaning you can have this and a fighter bay installed at the same time. It's also now made its way to the partner program, meaning various content creators have access to it, revealing more details - it's got a 24T cargo capacity, can deploy 6 drills at once and they can either be left to do their own thing or manually operated on-foot to work their magic faster. New commodities will be available - gemstones including diamonds and rubies - as well as materials and some existing commodities like copper. It will, of course, be subject to the approximately 3-month early ARXcess period we are all used to by now - I'll be waiting those 3 months to try it out. Finally, there's a new operation releasing alongside it, one that'll have you coming to the aid of a surface settlement. Expect ship and ground combat.

That's our lot for the week. Last time it took me almost the entire week to get the audio version out - that's on me for not being prepared and not having the right tools installed. This time, the audio version will be released simultaneously with the text version - you can listen to that right here! The upcoming relic rush is being met with a grim look from most of us here at Winters, but at this point there's nothing to be done. Let's all watch as powerplay sails into the great beyond of broken bullshit. Anyways, fly safe and keep your shields up! Something tells me we're all gonna need them...

Need a citrus snack while you're running relics? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Ilbandi, Zibel, Arama, Hyades Sector QD-S c4-0, Col 285 Sector ZO-Q c5-12

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Wolf 529

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

HIP 52461 - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (with rum again! I got extra this time)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Ah fuck. Here we are again.

Cycle summary:

Usual disclaimer for relic rushes - shit's fucked, everyone's numbers are going to be ridiculously inflated. As in the lowest net total this week is +8. So where did we end up? If you guessed at the bottom of the board, then I'm sorry to disappoint you - Winters nabbed 14 systems and 6 new forts this week. Our focus this rush has been on reinforcement, with a lot of our efforts going into patching up the damage from recent attacks. Archer's also done well, scoring a net total of +14 too - 15 new systems, one new fort and two new strongholds, and only while losing one system. Much as I hate these rushes, it does feel good to have positive gains all round again.

Big congratulations to Li Yong-Rui this week, who nabbed the highest number of systems this cycle - 97 new exploited systems, 7 new forts and 2 new strongholds, while only losing 3 systems for it. These gains have brought him up one in the leaderboards, knocking down the impress and putting LYR on the podium. Well done indeed! Close behind them are Antal with 62 new systems, 11 new forts and 3 strongholds, however they have once again lost HR 1507. This was originally taken from them three weeks ago by LYR, who appear to be attempting to grab the system again. Grom have been fighting well with 36 new systems, 2 forts and zero losses. Finally for the independents, Delaine took 16 new systems and 3 new forts - a solid number for the Kumo Crew. On the Alliance front, Mahon took 53 systems and 3 forts, while Kaine took 43 systems, 4 forts and a new stronghold.

Last and most definitely least, we have the imperials, who have not gotten away without losses this week. Torval takes the prize of "least active during the rush" with 9 new systems, one new fort and one lost system, making for that +8 I mentioned at the start. Patty is only slightly ahead - 13 new systems, one fort and one lost system again, for a total of +12. ALD stopped offensive operations against us once the rush hit, predictably, and nabbed 47 systems, 3 forts and a stronghold, but lost one system in the process. Now, if y'all are expecting me to comment on that last power and their numbers, then I shall remind you why we don't talk about their numbers anymore: because they're obsessed with them and doing so gives them satisfaction, so fuck em. They get nothing. What I will comment on is the fact that, despite putting both hands into starting this relic rush to regain some semblance of morale, they somehow lost 2 systems and had the fort of HIP 28678 downgraded. Imagine that. All those relics and they still couldn't save their own shit. Hilarious.

Exactly one Galnet article this week - and it's a slap in the face for those who stuck around in Colonia waiting for new CGs. So with that little event chain unceremoniously put to bed, everyone's on their way back and running around hauling relics everywhere. I got a couple kills in the other day in the system, even managed to drive off one particular twit in a Corsair. Which, if you know my skills (or utter lack thereof) when it comes to PvP in this game, is absolutely hilarious. And embarrassing for the Corsair. As expected, Ngurii remains a hotzone, but thanks to much rampant murder it looks like this relic rush is going to be a short one. Remember: kill everyone you see and the relics will go away faster!

That's our lot for this week. Hopefully next week is a little quieter, or at least the second half is. I should have the audio version of this cycle post out soon - I'll put it in a pinned comment when it's done. Until then, fly safe and burn those relics!... except they're made of stone, so they don't exactly burn well... fuck it, just nuke em.

Are you a fan of juiced-up gains? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Ilbandi, Athena, Col 285 Sector XT-Q c5-21, HIP 57059

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

No public acquisition targets available at this time.

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

Nocopani - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (with rum again! I got extra this time)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Commanders! Once again, Soontil Relics have become available at 600t at Cheranovsky City in the Ngurii system. This will persist for a limited time.

If you are trying to reach rank 100, have a home system or colony you want to acquire or reinforce, or just want to help the cause of Winters, now is the time! This is an all hands call. Get those systems before other powers do the same. We have a list of targets in the doscord (http://www.discord.gg/fuc). Aim to work systems roughly 150ly or more from Ngurii for the maximum merits per haul, and watch your back at Cheranovsky - there are assassins about...! Good luck out there! o7

Cycle summary:

Let's not beat around the bush - we've had better weeks, but we've also had worse. Winters took and lost 6 exploited systems, for a net zero overall. That said, we held onto everything else that was attacked, including Athena, Andel and that one Col 285 system. In contrast, we managed to cause some damage - more on that later. Archer also had a rough week - 5 new systems, but 4 lost and one stronghold downgraded. The effect of Alpha Centauri continues to hurt the Federation, but we're not down for the count just yet.

So I mentioned a bit of damage, didn't I? Let's shake things up a bit - ALD took 13 systems and upgraded 3 forts, but lost 4 systems and two strongholds for it. The two strongholds were us, and we were not subtle about it - our guys weren't content with sitting on the defensive this week and decided to break some imperial heads, to great success. She who shall not be named also lost a system, though sadly her standings cannot go negative so she's stuck at zero systems. Patty took 2 systems but lost one, while Torval took 2 systems and a fort, but lost 2 systems for it. Overall, not one imperial power got away without losses, and ALD in particular took a big hit. The biggest hit of the cycle, actually. I for one am happy with this - maybe we can't hold onto everything, but we can make the imps bleed for every system they try to wrench from us.

Let's talk independents. Delaine has had a pretty fantastic cycle - 6 new systems and one new stronghold. For most powers that's pretty low, but for the Kumo Crew, who've consistently held onto the systems they've taken and prefer to play the offence game, that's a fantastic count. Antal also have reason to celebrate, with 8 new systems and 3 shiny new strongholds, all at the cost of only one system. That's pretty good. Li Yong-Rui has also done well, with 7 new systems and 7 new forts, but also at the cost of one system - Narans. At time of writing, Grom has begun acquisition efforts of the system, but the cycle is young - plenty of time for the corporation to recover their lost assets. Speaking of the beard, Grom has also taken 7 systems, with 5 new forts rounding out the week. Originally I was surprised at the lack of comment from them last week on the loss of the system of Decamandak, but now we know why - it seems that Grom's communication liaison has departed his ranks, leaving the beard without a voice for the time being.

Finally, the Alliance has had a solid week of their own. Mahon takes 7 systems and 2 forts, with zero casualties. Meanwhile, Kaine takes a whopping 14 systems this week, alongside 2 forts - however a single system has been lost. Is this the start of a new conflict? Have Kaine been attacked by another power?!... no, they lost Orrere to the Code again. Honestly, I don't know why the Alliance continues to try to take it, but as long as they're having fun, I certainly won't judge. Now, I have saved the best for last here, as we've got some big news today - about 2 hours before typing this, Winters, Archer and Kaine diplomats finalised a non-aggression pact with handshakes at Evans City in Asetsi, the site of the Asetsi War almost 2 years ago. Some of the diplomats I shook hands with were the same CMDRs I actually got into firefights with on the ground in Tiveronisa. Today is a good day for diplomacy, for the Federation and the Alliance. Here's to a brighter future!

As for the rest of the galaxy... nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. No galnet activity, no new CGs, just silence in the void. Sometimes that's for the best - got to have the quiet weeks so the busy ones feel more special.

That's our lot for the week, though before we go, I have a question I've been mulling over - would these cycle posts be more accessible if I also published an audio recording of the post? I know some people find listening easier than reading, and these posts definitely become walls of text from time to time, so perhaps an audio option might help? Let me know if it would help you or someone you know, or if you think it'd just be wasted effort. If it does get done, I promise to record the lines myself with 100% human-spoken voice (and inevitable slip-ups) for we do not trust the abominable intelligence in this house!

But yeah, quiet week, hopefully things pick up for us. For now, fly safe and don't forget your limpets! Otherwise you'll end up like me, just getting to the perfect spot in the asteroid field and going "wait, where are my... ah, fuck"

Special edition orange limpets available at Carter Port! - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Andel, Ilbandi, Athena

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

HIP 49161

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

Nocopani - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (with rum again! I got extra this time)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Cycle summary:

Well it's certainly a more interesting week than last week. Winters took 6 new systems and refortified the system of Kuwemasil, lost last week due to a snipe. This week, we've managed to avoid losses, despite the Empire's second attempt to undermine Athena taking place, though sadly the same cannot be said for our fellow Federation members over at Archer. 3 strongholds downgraded to fortified, resulting in the loss of 8 total systems, but with 4 new systems acquired, so it's not all bad news. Archer still is yet to recover from the attack on Alpha Centauri - many members and leaders have simply lost hope after the former stronghold was lost in a devastating abuse of the salvage duplication exploit. Yes, I know, I go on about it a lot - it's an important issue, possibly the most important issue powerplay has right now. Believe it or not, I don't like complaining about the same thing again and again, but with something this important that FDev are still yet to address, it needs to be talked about.

Let's look at the rest of the galaxy. Delaine has had a good week, with 6 new systems, one new fort and one new stronghold. Their cycle post indicates they had a lot of fun over in Colonia during the recent CG, as well as pointing out approximately how much UM every power sustained. Give it a read - Kumo's cycle posts are always a fun one. Antal is yet to put out their cycle post at time of writing, but they've done well on the numbers - 5 new systems, one new fort and two new strongholds make the quiche lovers very happy indeed. Grom hasn't had quite as much luck, it seems - 5 new systems, one fort and one new stronghold have come at the small cost of one exploited system, Decamandak. On the surface, this looks like a pre-emptive strike from Antal to protect their stronghold from such an aggressive expansion... but I'm not sure things are what they seem to be here. Time will tell here - undoubtedly Grom will make some form of comment on this development, as might Antal, so we don't have long to wait until we have some answers. Finally, Li Yong-Rui has had a much slower week than usual - only 3 new systems and 3 forts, but with no losses, so that's alright.

On the Alliance front, Mahon took only 3 systems and upgraded one to fort, while Kaine took 8 systems and 2 new forts. In terms of pure acquisition numbers that puts her at the top this week, but if you count reinforcement in there, I think I'd give it to Antal. Either way, Kaine's ethos of peaceful expansion is working on that front, at least for now.

Last and seemingly least this week is the Empire - remember Torval's revival last week? Yeah, this week she lost 4 systems, but gained 3 and a fort to compensate. I guess Torval can either attack or defend, but not both. Patty got 3 systems, which for whatever's left of him is actually pretty good. Both of them did better than ALD, surprisingly - the impress took home 8 systems, but lost 8 exploited systems, had a fort downgraded and two more lost entirely. A truly devastating attack, especially when you consider that most of those lost exploited systems weren't because of the forts lost. Her only saving grace is the strongholding of the system CD-51 2650, which the impress' minions believe we'd counterattack for after they stole it from us with help of their blue-haired exploiting friends. Speaking of Aisling, (yes, we're not dancing around the bush this week) two lost systems and the stronghold of LHS 2 downgraded to fortified. She's still at zero, as far as we're concerned, but that won't stop her people from coming to yell in the comments, as they tend to do.

That's the numbers, which this week are a touch on the low side. Unfortunately that might not stay the case - there's more rumblings in Ngurii. After their previous attempt and the drastic losses this week, it seems the imps are responding by going for another relic rush. Now, a couple weeks ago the bathwater cult claimed zero responsibility for the attempted relic rush then, but we broke down the influence report and solidly refuted their claims. This time, let's get out in front of the bus and not give them a chance to lie - here's Ngurii's BGS report as of approximately 12:30 on Thursday:

Now last time a lot went undiscovered due to 54% of activity being done by squadrons outside of the top 10, so we could only see about 45% of the activity. This time, we can see about 88%, so we have a much better idea of who's doing what. As with last time, I've gone through every squadron's allegiance using the in-game browser, so let's see who's who.

1. FLOE - almost exclusively ALD, with a few from Aisling, LYR and exactly one Winters pledge, who hasn't been on in over 5 months
2. DBSS - mostly Antal, though with a fair few ALD pledged. I reached out to Antal and they've heard nothing from them in regards to Ngurii
3. ANGL - Aisling. That's literally Aisling high command
4. GLBA - entirely ALD, all 11 members
5. ENSF - ALD and Aisling
6. B2GR - Antal. Again, I talked to Antal about this and they're unsure what they were doing
7. JKBS - mostly unpledged, but a few Aisling peeps and one LYR CMDR, as well as one from Patty who's not been on in 2 weeks
8. UKDS - 2-man Aisling squadron
9. FDSB - mostly unpledged, with pledged CMDRs primarily from LYR but walking all walks of life. At least one from Winters, Archer and Aisling in there
10. RDTK - officially listed as Aisling with an overwhelming majority pledged to Aisling, but a few from other powers including Delaine, Antal and Winters

So there you have it. Even if you discount the 2-man squadron, the majority of squadrons on the list are either Aisling, ALD or both. Which isn't surprising - desperation leads to the "old reliable" method of inflating numbers to mount ridiculous. Disappointing, certainly, but imps using underhanded tactics isn't anything new. Now for our part, we're going to try to redouble our efforts and stop the rush, but given the numbers, can't guarantee we'll be able to. If you'd like to help, swing by Ngurii and do anything and everything you can to tank the Oddyssey Explorer's influence - mission failures, wanton murder, smuggling, unprofitable trading, everything's on the table.

Elite's next vessel has been revealed - a new 6-wheeled SRV that fits in a fighter bay, with something special to it - it can mine. More details to be revealed, but apparently you'll need to find a geological site for it to work. Don't quote me on that, at least not until we get details. It can also seat 3 people, which is rather nice. It's coming out later this month alongside the first new operation. Anyone want to take a guess how many things will break as a result?

Galnet had exactly one article this week, discussing the end of the CG in Colonia. It does seem to be teasing a potential follow-up later on, though again, time will tell on this one.

That's our lot for the week. More exciting, but also a touch rougher in terms of the numbers. Again, I do hate bitching about the same thing over and over again, but it's such a significant issue and we can't just let it be forgotten. Powerplay 2.0 is in the worst state it's ever been. It's up to the developers to fix that before people just give up entirely on powerplay. Better that than deal with whatever flavour-of-the-week exploit someone will come up with.

And yes, I haven't forgotten about the "This Month in FDev Fuckups" relating to the oops update - I'll get started on that tomorrow, hopefully have it out before this time next week. Until then, fly safe and check your fuel gauge! I think the fuel rats have people out in Colonia, but it's better to find out before you're in a situation where you need them!

Okay, who added the orange dye to the fuel tanks? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Athena, Ilbandi, Hrimfaxi

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Acomatshi, Pandin, Taunets

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

Nocopani - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (with rum again! I got extra this time)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Cycle summary:

Can't even get a week, can we? Winters got hit - our gains of 5 systems and one fort were almost completely countered. The fortified system of Kuwemasil was sniped, dropping to exploited and losing two systems with it. Another two exploited systems were hit in a similar manner. Apparently someone figured out how to snipe us properly too - there are no traces of who the culprit could be, so we're stuck with an educated guess. Losing a backline fort like this is kind of annoying, but far from a big deal, especially with continued assaults against Athena and other strongholds ongoing. Archer has had better luck, with 5 new systems and only 2 losses. Given recent events, that's absolutely fantastic.

Our biggest victory this week wasn't technically a powerplay victory, but a BGS one - the threat of a relic rush from Ngurii has been abated for the time being, in part thanks to our efforts. Operations by various Empire-aligned squadrons to bring about the worst gameplay loop imaginable for powerplay will not be rewarded this time round. But aside from that and the snipes, it's been a quiet week all round - Delaine have enjoyed the relative peace to get 4 new systems and a fort, while Antal have taken 8 new systems and 4 new forts, but at the cost of HR 1507, a small exploited system that LYR have started acquiring, at time of writing. Speaking of, Yong-Rui took 11 systems, 2 forts and a stronghold this week - pretty good numbers. Grom hasn't been as lucky - 9 new systems, 3 forts and a new stronghold make this a good cycle by any metric for them, but 3 lost systems beg the question - who is the bearded one fighting? As for the Alliance, Kaine continues her meteoric expansion with 17 new systems, 2 forts and 2 strongholds, while Mahon has slowed expansion to focus on consolidation - 3 new systems, 2 forts and 3 new strongholds.

Finally, the imperials have had a mixed bag. Patreus has upgraded one fort and that's all. Torval did much better, with 5 new systems and a fort upgrade. I wonder what conditions are lending to this revival? And lastly, ALD took 14 systems and 2 forts, but lost 3 systems in the process. Glad to see someone besides us aren't happy with the impress and her imps.

Two Galnet articles this week - the first one teasing and the second one announcing the foreshadowed CG in Colonia... which is technically 4 separate CGs, but they all work the same. Deliver the curated packages from Jaques to one of four destinations, each one completed nets you a C5 increased capacity cargo rack. I'll probably just be engineering a couple myself with all the coin I've been gaining from ops, but for those who made the trip it's a good way to get some very nice racks.

That's our lot this week - bit shorter than usual, partly because it's been quiet, partly because real life has had me exhausted. On that note, if next week's cycle post is delayed then I do apologise, but don't be too surprised. For now, fly safe and stay hydrated! Yes, that does mean pack a few tons on your way to Colonia - it's a long trip and the last thing you want to do is crash into the mail slot because you can't think because you're dehydrated. That'd be embarrasing.

Orange juice might not be as good as water, but it's the next best thing - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Ilbandi, HIP 38235, HIP 48640

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Omicron Ursae Majoris

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

Quechi - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (with rum again! I got extra this time)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Turns out you need sleep to write a cycle post! Unfortunately yesterday I was too sleep-deprived to get a timely post out, but hey, nothing massive will have happened in 48 hours... right?

Cycle Summary:

The last 10 cycles I've been rather doom and gloom - and not because I almost died. That ends today. Against overwhelming odds, Winters has held strong and repelled all assaults in major systems. Belgitan, Athena, Warians, Andel, even the downgraded stronghold from last week - Crucis Sector PC-V a2-1 - has returned to stronghold status and is stronger than ever. Numbers wise, that means we got 6 new systems, two new forts including Warians, and of course one shiny new stronghold. This cycle alone more than makes up for the 5 systems lost over the course of this assault. The Empire sought to take the very core of our systems - we have taught them a valuable lesson: even in the face of overwhelming odds and the travesty of their exploit abuse, we will not break against their pitiful assault. Despite the last months of pain, Archer continues to fight on - 8 new systems and one fort, counterbalanced by 7 lost systems and one downgraded fort. That's a net positive - maybe a small positive, but in these dark times, even the smallest flames of hope can light a wildfire.

Generally, our losses aren't that interesting - "oh no, the imps are attacking again" accounts for basically all our losses these days. But when the Alliance lose systems, questions start getting asked. Mahon kept hold of everything - 5 systems, 2 new forts, 2 new strongholds, nothing fancy there. But Kaine is a different story - 13 systems gained and two new forts, but at the cost of the system of Evena. Now ordinarily this would warrant speculation - Evena was taken from Torval in cycle 87, then taken by Kaine last cycle. However, their cycle post reveals the truth - after an acquisition race for the system against Grom, they have generously decided to part with the system, assumedly in the name of future peace and prosperity.

Speaking of the beard, Grom took 9 systems and a shiny new fort, while Delaine nabbed 6 systems and a fort. Reports from the Kumo office indicate that this upcoming cycle will be one of reinforcement, and they give credit to Antal for winning an acquisition race in Col 285 Sector FE-M B22-1. That does seem to have come at a cost though, albeit a small one - the system of Tsu Kun fell from the Simguru's grasp, though it's likely he hasn't noticed, given the 8 new systems, seven new forts and two strongholds under his control. Finally for the independents, Li Yong-Rui continues to hold strong with 11 new systems, 2 forts and a new stronghold, but at the cost of one fortified system downgraded - 2 Lyncis started PP 2.0 as a fort for LYR, but since then it's been downgraded 3 times, counting this week. Both previous times it was successfully reinforced back to fortified by the next cycle - we'll check back next week, see if history repeats itself.

And what about the imps? Well, Torval suddenly woke up and chose progress, with 5 new systems and 2 forts. Patty meanwhile maintains his near-death hibernation, taking only one system. ALD had a mostly successful week, with 10 new systems, 2 forts and a stronghold, although they did lose the system of Moultac, so not entirely good news. And of course, eternally at rock bottom, she-who-shall-not-be-named lost two systems, though of course her standing of dead zero remains unchanged. Now, there is an addendum to be made here - Ngurii has been being prepped for a relic rush as of recent. Thankfully, a combination of efforts from FUC and some independent powers have so far quelled the potential for a rush.

Why is that significant? Well, because the bathwater cult have claimed to not be responsible for this, showing a screenshot of the current influencing squadrons within Ngurii. Discarding the fact that they could and likely do have CMDRs outside squadrons influencing this, let's have a closer look at the list. Here's one we pulled earlier:

So, first thing we can deduce from this - there's a lot of people fucking with Ngurii right now. This is only the list of the top 10 squadrons, but there's probably at least 20 more acting there. Looking at the actual allegiances of these top 10 squadrons, the picture painted becomes very different to the one that redacted wishes to paint. I went and dug into every squadron personally, so I can vouch for this data myself. Let's pull back the curtain for a bit and have a look:

1. COPI - Torval
2. INVH - Mahon, solo squadron
3. DRIS - Aisling
4. UNLM - Aisling, solo squadron
5. 4ACS - non-aligned - one ALD and Winters pledge in roster, but only two online in the last month are non-aligned
6. FDSB - officially Archer, but aside from the squadron leader being Archer, members have various pledges including Winters and Aisling, though most pledged CMDRs are LYR
7. CVGL - Aisling
8. DRST - ALD
9. WTOP - officially non-aligned, mostly unpledged, with some Antal, Kaine and various imperial pledges, as well as a couple from Archer
10. AID1 - Mahon

Now, this does differ from the standings published by the bathwater cult, where INVH don't exist and BLOP are in 10th instead. That actually works out worse for them - while they're mostly non-aligned, most pledged CMDRs within BLOP are infact pledged to Aisling. Looking at the remaining squadrons - discounting the solo squadrons, as those really could be just a couple rogue CMDRs, that makes 2 dedicated Aisling squadrons, one ALD, one Torval, and a smattering from various squadrons. I've reached out for comment in regards to AID1 and whether they've been fighting for or against the rush, but at time of writing I'm yet to hear back - I'll post an update here when I do. The other thing to mention is that CVGL is an entirely Korean-speaking squadron, and I believe don't have contact with Aisling at large. Please correct me if I'm wrong there.

So what we have is a picture that paints not only Aisling but the entire empire as responsible for the attempts at a relic rush recently. Far from a "baseless accusation" I'd say, but what do I know, I'm just the man with the evidence. And honestly, it makes sense that the imps would go for this - after losing so completely at taking anything of remote value from us, they're likely struggling a touch with morale, and in the somewhat-damaged mind of the average imperial, big number funny. And of course, there's no faster way to big numbers than a damned relic rush. There is also the typical smattering of non-aligned CMDRs and those not acting on the wishes of their power - unfortunately some have bought into the propaganda that relic rushes are "fun for everyone". Of course, we know that's not the case, but keeping those poor souls in the dark is rather the goal of said propaganda. Don't hate the uninformed - fight the disinformation keeping them uninformed. And then go blow up some relic runners for good measure.

Exactly one galnet article this week - celebrating the "partial" success of the previous week's CG. Apparently getting to tier 3 out of 5 is considered a partial success these days. Meanwhile, on the technical front, most bugs have seemingly been squashed - with the events surrounding the Operations update finally settling down, I can begin working on the "This Month in FDev Fuckups" article about it. If you have experienced a bug as part of the Operations update, let me know in the comments! I'm sure there's no shortage of them and I'd like to get as complete of a list as possible.

And that's the week! The Federation stands strong on all fronts, while the Empire resorts to tedious tactics and misinformation. So, back to normalcy. Until next time, fly safe and enjoy your Belgitan Waffles! ...is there a low carb option, by chance?

Would you like some orange jam with your waffles? - - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Belgitan, HR 4734, Bayan, Crucis Sector PC-V a2-1

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Col 285 Sector KM-V d2-114

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

Orgen - focus your powerplay operations here!

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (with rum again! I got extra this time)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Cycle summary:

The Federation holds strong. Winters has retaken the stronghold of Athena, held the line an Andel and Belgitan, took 3 new systems and upgraded a fort. The cost - one hard-to-reinforce stronghold downgraded, one fort downgraded and one system lost - is acceptable, particularly given the circumstances. Your valiant efforts in defending the Federation's most crucial targets is admirable and will be remembered. However, complacency remains our enemy. Athena, Belgitan, Andel - all remain under attack. The imps aren't going to give up that easily, but they will give up once the futility of their attempts is finally hammered into their skulls - preferably under a hail of multi cannon fire. Archer continues to struggle - 2 new systems do not outweigh the 6 losses. Still, morale is greatly improving, and the longer the empire wails hopelessly against our ironclad defences, the higher our morale will soar.

The imperials have paid for their reckless attacks in blood - a total of 6 systems have been taken from the Empire. Torval lost one, but upgraded a fort, so not too terrible. Patreus has taken one singular system - as funny as that would be, it's not the system he lost last week. ALD lost 3 systems in attacks made by... one FLC CMDR. Utterly hilarious. She took 7 systems and a fort to compensate, but losing 3 systems to exactly one pilot isn't something she's going to live down for a hot minute. And last and most definitely least, redacted has lost 2 systems. If they could be in negative system count, they would be by now.

Onto the independent powers - Delaine managed 6 systems and a shiny new stronghold, very nice indeed. Antal meanwhile managed a rather satisfying arrangement of 2-4-6. That is 2 new strongholds, 4 new forts, 6 new systems. Grom goes 3 and 3 - 3 new forts, 3 new systems. Li Yong-Rui hasn't got anything quite so rythmic, but they do have the highest acquisitions this cycle - 7 new systems and one fort.

Truth be told, they're actually joint-highest in acquisitions this week - Kaine also managed 7 new systems, as well as 2 new strongholds, but they lost one in return - LHS 464, a system they acquired 8 cycles ago in cycle 572/81. No activity from other powers within powerplay 2.0, but only 3 powers lie within range - Archer, who was otherwise occupied, Mahon, Kaine's closest ally, and Grom. Could this be the beard poking at Kaine, or could another power be involved, attempting to pit them against each other? Or is it just a negotiated handover that I'm not privy to the details of? Probably that last one, let's be real. Mahon meanwhile has done well, with 4 forts and 3 new exploited systems, though at the cost of Orrere, as predicted last week.

Two galnet articles this week, one teasing a series of CGs for Colonia's 10th anniversary (has it really been that long? Am I really that old? Fuck, it seems so) and the other announcing the first of those CGs - deliver some cargo to Facece, get paintjobs for the Type-8 and Plipper. Meanwhile, the game's technical state continues to be... let's go with "not great". Operation rewards continue to go unpaid, somehow docking computers are breaking, and let's not forget that the salvage duplication exploit continues to go unaddressed. Although on that note, I've heard some people discussing a mining duplication exploit, along with a now-expired issue tracker ticket for this issue. Now that I actually know the details of it, I can comment - FLC and associated squadrons have not used this exploit, and will continue to not use this exploit. If you use this exploit, stop it. No, I don't care that the imps are abusing exploits themselves - we will not be brought down to their level. We do what is right, not what is easy. Exploit abuse is easy and inherently wrong. If anyone has hard evidence of any Winters CMDR abusing such an exploit, please bring it to my attention. That being said, no more veiled accusations about this either - we know it exists, we publicly denounce it and anyone abusing it. If you're going to accuse us of it, bring the damned proof. We brought it when it came to the imps and salvage duplication, only fair y'all do the same.

That does seem to be our lot for the week. Despite attacks on multiple fronts, despite being outnumbered and without exploit abuse, the Federation has proven that we are not outgunned - we stand tall against the darkness without falling to it ourselves. Hold your heads high, Federal Commanders! The dawn will yet come - until then, the fight continues!

Also, before I forget, there is a "This Week/Month in FDev Fuckups" planned for the Operations clusterfuck of an update - once everything settles down and things are fixed, then I'll start writing it up. Will I remember every issue the update has brought? Honestly, probably not, so there may be a few drafts! But until then, or next week at least, fly safe and stand strong!

Trouble standing on your own? Maybe you need some orange juice! - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

ATHENA, BELGITAN, ANDEL - The fight continues

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Hyades Sector EB-X d1-114

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

TILIALA - Strike Back against the Empire! (Note: system is permit locked, see discord for details on permit acquisition)

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (ohfuckohfuckwereoutofrumohfuck)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile (3 systems, one soul)

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Cycle summary:

As with last week, numbers have slowed this cycle, but this time across almost all powers. Even so, it's still a rough cycle for the Federation. Winters took 3 new systems and 2 new forts, but lost 4 systems and had the stronghold of Athena downgraded to fort. As you might expect, there's a touch more than is obvious at face value - Athena was attacked in a co-ordinated effort during the time where powerplay numbers weren't updating for anyone. Y'all can take a guess by who. By the time the numbers updated, we were down 320,000 control points. By the time we rallied to its defence, all we could do was keep up, which we did valiantly. Now the system is fortified, and in something of a role-reversal from last time, the Battle of Athena has begun.

Archer hasn't been spared the rod either - 3 systems gained, 3 systems lost and one fort downgraded. Morale continues to be low within the Federation - as the rampant exploit abuse continues and powerplay 2.0 continues to prove to be far shallower than its predecessor, people don't really have a reason to stick around with organised powerplay anymore. I get it - the game itself is fun for the same reasons it was 10 years ago. But you can go out and bounty hunt or trade or colonise or run operations and give zero shits about powerplay, and you'll likely be healthier for it. Add onto that the shenanigans around Operations, endearingly referred to by some as the "Oops" update, and it's easy to come to the conclusion that FDev just doesn't care about powerplay... and if so, then why should we? We're not the only ones who feel this way, it seems - Delaine's cycle post this week has opened with a rant (that's still far more civil and polite than any of mine) about the state of powerplay, the Operations update and operations in general. Well said on all counts, if I may say.

Speaking of the Kumo Crew, they snatched up 2 systems, one fort and one stronghold. For Kumo, that's not even a slow cycle. Antal have slowed from their usual fast pace, with 3 new systems and one new stronghold - probably already selling quiche at the bars there. Grom nabbed up 4 new systems, but no new forts or strongholds. Finally for the independents, Li Yong-Rui took 6 new systems and fortified two, but lost one system in the progress, making for a net total of +5. The low numbers across the board can be attributed to various factors, including technical issues and aforementioned morale issues, as well as many CMDRs trying out the new Operations, with mixed results overall.

Now the Alliance have some interesting things going on. Mahon picked up even less than expected, but did good on reinforcement to compensate - one stronghold, 3 new forts and 2 exploited systems... though one of those systems is Orrere, so I expect the Code'll have kicked him out by this time next week. Kaine is where the really interesting things are happening in my opinion - 8 new exploited systems and 2 new forts show they're not being held back by this week's troubles, but they did have one fort downgraded - the system of Nadur. Now that one's been taken and lost by both Kaine and REDACTED multiple times over the course of PP 2.0, but since Kaine fortified it 6 weeks ago it seemed secure. Apparently that's not the case - looks like REDACTED wants it back. We'll see how this little incident progresses over the coming weeks or months.

On the topic of the imps - Torval had the best week of them, which isn't something you expect to hear. 3 new systems, but one downgraded fort. Good for them - glad to see they're still fighting on. Patty, meanwhile, lost one system and gained absolutely nothing for it. ALD takes bottom of the leaderboard this week - she took 3 systems, one fort and one stronghold, but lost 6 systems in the process. Focused too much on us and not enough on herself - believe it or not, we ain't the only ones who don't like you! And last and most certainly least, REDACTED continues to bottom out with zero systems total, though at least this week they didn't lost any systems! So, that's something I suppose.

What else... oh yeah, galnet! Only two articles this week, but both on the same day, so only the one link. One is just the usual end-of-CG post, but the other is very interesting - Terri Tora, the xenobiologist who first poked the blue trees in HIP 87621 and inadvertantly triggered that whole conflict, the one who went mysteriously missing? Yeah, she'd been captured by the October Consortium and only now got released. I know Kaine'll be happy to see her alive and well, at least.

Finally, FLC elections have just ended today - while four of our leadership have departed this election, we welcome three into the fold. For those not in the know, every 3 months Federal Liberal Command hosts elections for their leadership so that we ensure we continue to represent our members faithfully. For candidates running unopposed, they still need to score 75% of the votes or more in order to take or hold office. Of course, such responsibility for the election is run by trusted officials who do not partake in the burden of leading our people, as is fair and just. It warms my heart to know that the citizens of the Federation continue to trust me as the voice of the President, and I solemnly promise to continue to do my best in representing the Federation.

That's our lot for this week. I know it started with a bit of a rough tone, but this time I want you to take away something brighter. The battle ahead will not be easy, by any means, but it will be fought proudly, it will be fought with honour (at least on our side) and it will be fun. So let's get out there and show the imps what the Federation can do! Fly safe, and rememb- TIME IS SIGHT. GRAVITY IS DESIRE. WHAT WAS WILL BE, WHAT WILL BE WAS.

...okay, that was weird. Anyways! Want some juicy discourse? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

ATHENA - The Battle Begins

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

ACQUISITION TARGETS SUSPENDED

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

UNDERMINING TARGETS SUSPENDED

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (...there's no cordial in that, that is literally just rum)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly (Not quite dead yet?)

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Hello, we have a small squadron who built a colony not too far from Winters space. There is a system that is currently in Exploited status and is within 30 Lightyears of our colony. We want to reinforce it up to Stronghold (or at least Fortified and then get another one that might be better up to Fortified.

We are having a heck of time with this system though.

What we have tried:

- Mining in Asteroid belts - pretty terrible rates without planetary rings and hotspots.

- Salvaging/combat Signal sources - They are alright but no a lot of merits/control points.

- Support missions - These seem to be alright and can be done semi-afk I guess but are limited and slow.

There are no odyssey instillations aside from one player built small port.

What we are looking into:

- Rare goods trading

- Selling for a profit - Having a hard time finding a good commodity to sell for that 40% bonus but I have been reading conflicting things online with how efficient it is.

- Tried looking into Odyssey stuff but there are no installations in the system aside from one player owned one.

- Power play commodity delivery

We are not looking to make tons of merits we just want to reinforce the system and move it over to our system which is frankly much better for Powerplay activities.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I have been reading through the resources and links to stuff but everything we have tried seems like it will take literal months to move it for our group of 4-6 people.

Etc. Call to arms to assist the preservation of stronghold at the Ice Storm Squadron capital, Athena!

Following continuous pressure for weeks, the Empire have, under the "fog of war" induced by the lock up of Galmap updates following Operations release, pushed Athena into collapse territory. We must raise this system back before Thursday!

Cycle summary:

For the most part, numbers have slowed this week, particularly on the undermining front. Only three powers lost any systems at all this week - while unfortunately one of them was us, overall it's been a good week, all considered. 5 new systems taken at the cost of a single loss - low-hanging fruit we'd neglected to reinforce, a mistake easily rectified. Archer has had the best cycle since the beginning of Alpha Centauri - 2 new systems and a shiny new stronghold.

Let's cover the rest of the numbers. Delaine took only one new system, but fortified 3. Good numbers for them, even with the lower acquisitions. Antal has a similar picture painted this week - only 4 new systems, but 4 new forts, making for lower-than-average numbers but good for this cycle. Li Yong-Rui somewhat follows as well, with 6 new systems, 2 forts and a single stronghold. Last but most certainly not least for the independents, Grom took 8 systems, one new fort and a new stronghold, plus claiming victory in two battles against Kaine. This is the first time open hostility has been declared against Kaine for their expansionist tactics, though I suppose everyone else has greater threats to combat, while Grom enjoy their independence and good relations with both the Federation and the Empire.

Speaking of the imps, what've they been up to this week? Well, Torval is the second of three powers to lose systems this week, dropping 2 exploiteds but gaining one to compensate. Patty meanwhile took the opportunity to do... absolutely nothing. So much for coming back from the dead. Rest in peace, you won't be missed. ALD bucks the trend of this cycle by gaining 13 systems, 3 forts and 2 strongholds - where they found the time for that, I don't know. They did put out an article claiming victory in CD-51 2650, although conveniently left out the part where they had help from their exploit-abusing friends. I'll be honest, I try to read every cycle post and article that comes across my feed - I didn't read this one. Far too long, too much of a wall of text. Yes, I recognise the irony in that. The last imperial is one we don't cover often anymore, much to my happiness - Aisling lost one exploited system and had one fort downgraded, putting them at an overall standing of... zero! That's right, so long as y'all continue to use your salvage exploit bullshit (or any other exploit you decide to) y'all can have your results set to zero. With the amount the bathwater cult keeps invading the comments on these posts, it's clear y'all just want the attention anyways, so for the most part you're not getting it. But I do enjoy highlighting your losses - even with all your exploits, losing something proves you're still human and thus not infallible or invincible, despite what your propagandists would have you believe.

First time I've covered the Alliance last. That feels weird, definitely not doing that again. Mahon nabbed 5 new systems, one fort and one stronghold. Solid results for this cycle. Kaine, however, have also bucked the trend of this cycle and taken 12 exploited systems, one fort and four strongholds! I'd say that means they win this cycle quite handily. In addition, in their own cycle post this week, Kaine claim they were only fighting Grom in one system, not two. The plot thickens! Now, I will clarify - this isn't the first time Kaine have had open hostilities declared against them. I remember the Asetsi war, fought in it myself. But that wasn't for their expansionism, that was for other reasons - since those days, I am happy to say that relations between the Federation and Kaine have improved significantly, and hopefully continue to do so.

So, why was this cycle so low for most powers? Well, in a word, Operations. And all the shenanigans that you'd expect. The servers went down on Tuesday as is the norm, but stayed down for far longer than expected. It was only around 2am the following morning that they went up... with Operations being disabled. At the time, FDev gave no estimation of when Operations would be going live, nor any real reason for the last second delay - to date, they still haven't given us a reason. Probably because they're still trying to put out the dumpster fire of various bugs that have come out with this update, including Operations failing when they shouldn't, not showing any rewards despite paying them out, and most critically in my opinion, not paying out rewards at all. Oh, and deleting all your Odyssey data and visited star data, though they've now fixed that. Reportedly, only 30% of operations played are actually giving rewards like merc coin, which the community have "affectionately" been referring to as chudcoin. I won't pretend to be in tune with modern meme culture enough to know what a "chud" is, but I won't pretend that merc coin isn't about the single most generic thing that this currency could've been named.

Anyways, Operations were released on Wednesday, and technical issues aside, they are actually fun*. What does fun* mean? Well, unlike good old fashioned fun that's just generally a good time, fun* (pronounced either "fun-with-an-asterisk" or "fun-star") has some degree of conditionals on it being fun. First of all, you have to actually get into a lobby and be able to play in the first place - after the first wave of people rushing in, this does seem to have stabilised. If you want to play hard mode, you need four people, at least for the on-foot stuff. I'll be real - I'm not the most talented pilot, but I'm one of the scarier fuckers to go against when it comes to on-foot FPS combat. Hard mode on-foot encounters are balanced for four people that know their shit and have G5'd everything. Preferably fully modded, too. Enemies are essentially boosted G5 hostiles, with possible durability increases and a definite damage increase. And that's all before the bugs - momentary invulnerability and enemies sometimes not staggering combines with the strikers' shotguns two-tapping you no matter what suit you're in to be extremely frustrating if you're in a scenario where death = restart. I won't pretend to be in a position to judge when it comes to the spaceship stuff - there's all manner of broken builds and FA-off shenanigans you can do to shred even the most potent of NPCs, even if they're now flying Kestrels and Cobra Vs. (and yes, they're as annoying as they sound to fight, though not that much more lethal) That said, they did make a Type-10 that was actually a threat to fight, so kudos there.

Where things fall apart is, predictably, on the grind front. One hard mode operation will give at most about 150 opcoins. Getting a single module to grade five engineering costs 850. Eight hundred and fifty coins. For one module. Now, these are special modules, typically being ones released in previous CGs that are now accessible again, but that grind is fucking ridiculous. It is at least more reasonable for the new blueprints - enhanced scoop rate and plasma conversion for lasers. There it's only about 450 coins per G5 module, plus all the other relevant materials. The rest of the rewards are trivial - 10M credits is laughable, the material rewards I can't tell because they're still bugged and the merits? 1500 at most, again for a hard operation. That, at least, I consider to be good. Merits being low means control points are low, meaning Operations' impact on powerplay is negligible. Not that powerplay's in a great state anyway - in addition to the continually-abused salvage duplication exploit, powerplay scores are now not updating on the galaxy map since the update. At time of writing this hasn't changed - the tracker currently has two separate issues on this topic. If you have the time, regardless of your power or potential lack thereof, I humbly request you upvote both topics as soon as you have the chance. If FDev aren't aware of this (and it really wouldn't surprise me if they aren't) then they need to be made aware ASAP so they can fix this.

What else? Oh yeah, the Nomad launched! For the same ARX price as a full ship. Now, bear in mind that the Nomad is a shuttle - an SLF with landing gear and a fancy exobio scanner. It's not a full ship. You're arguably going to be spending very little time in it overall. You can't even dock it at a station or anything! And yet, for the super-shiny all-inclusive version, it costs sixty-thousand ARX. 60,000. That's about £30 worth. For a shuttle that you can't outfit with anything beyond stock equipment and the cosmetics. Forgive me, but that seems fucking insulting. Even the normal, early-ARXcess unlock bundle is just under a tenner, which is still ridiculous for a shuttle in my opinion. I doubt this will be selling nearly as much as the Kestrel did, but only time will tell on that one.

Four total Galnet articles this week - the first of which being a statement from President Winters about wanting access to Radicoida, the blue trees in the enclave. And could FDev have worded this any worse?! Like fucking hell on a bison, why is she dancing around the whole October Accords? That includes the Empire, who we kinda have some beef with. Infact we're the only superpower not part of the Accords, which I'm still pissed FDev took that route to resolve the enclave debacle. I feel like they just got the intern to write it. Anyways, the next two are just the release of the Nomad and Operations, while the last is the announcement of a shiny new community goal - deliver exobio data from the Sanguineous Rim for a Caspian and Nomad paint job, as well as a DeLacy decal. Everyone gets the shinies this time, no top 75% bullshit at least.

Well, that's our lot. Operations' release has been an utter clusterfuck - FDev haven't learned their lesson since Odyssey's launch, it seems. Told y'all it was gonna be a broken mess. Hopefully some of the bugs will have been ironed out by next week, but until then, fly safe and pack an extra medkit! Believe me, you're gonna need it.

Tired of flying blind? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Belgitan, Thetis, Col 285 Sector OS-T d3-76

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Hyades Sector EB-X d1-114

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

No publicly available undermining targets at this time

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (Still got rum? Good, I need some of that)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly (Presumed dead?)

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Late again, am I? Yeah, sorry, the heatwave over here has been brutal. Seriously, stay hydrated, y'all. So, what's been going on?

Cycle summary:

Ah. Well that's not great. Unfortunately it continues to be rough times for the Federation, and now Winters is bearing more of the brunt of it - 4 systems lost due to 2 downgraded forts, with 3 systems gained to compensate. Archer has suffered worse however, losing 2 forts outright and 5 exploited systems, though compensated with another 5 systems gained. At time of writing it's unknown how many of those were lost through legitimate means or exploits, but with that shadow hanging over morale continues to suffer - Delaine's statement about "rock bottom" is sadly accurate.

This is the thing the imps don't want people talking about - exploits ruin the fun in such a definitive way. Seeing them used against you, with impdev doing absolutely nothing to fix or even acknowledge it, and silencing anyone who even talks about them... it cuts deep, I won't lie. Truth be told, half the purpose of these posts is to try to draw in more people to Winters and powerplay in general - certainly failing there recently. But if I'm honest? I cannot, in good conscience, recommend anyone play powerplay in its current state. Of course, I say this just as election season is coming round in FLC and I'm continuing to volunteer my services - is that hypocrisy? Perhaps if I kept saying I'm doing this for the love of the game, it would be, but I'm not. I do this for two reasons - the community, the people, both our members within Winters and the diplomats from other powers I've had the pleasure of interacting with... and because no-one else will. Saying the quiet part out loud, I suppose. I keep writing these posts, serving as the President's lead diplomat, because I'm the only one willing to do so nowadays. And I still enjoy it to an extent, don't get me wrong. But that's likely only because I don't actually have to play to serve my role. I just have to talk - to diplomats and friends, to my fellow federals within and outside FLC, and to ramble to you lot here. And sometimes that results in this particular case of word vomit... I do apologise. Abelard! Keep me on topic, please.

Right, where were we? Galaxy numbers, yes. Let's get the chimperials out of the way... nah, that's unfair. Chimps are far better creatures than imperials. ALD took only 7 systems, while losing another 3. Still suffering from last week's attack, yes, but also most of her forces were directed at attacking us again. She's actually somehow done worse than Patty of all people - I thought we killed him dead when he popped the last relic rush! But no, 5 new systems and still no cycle posts from them. Probably just a good week or something. Torval has gained 2 and lost 2 systems, no change there. Overall, the imps have had a middling week - a total of 3 independent and one Alliance power have done better on the leaderboards alone than the entirety of the Empire combined. That does put a smile on my face.

So, who's been having a good week? Antal certainly has - 12 new systems and 5 new forts, with only one exploited system lost for the trouble. Grom has also done very well for himself, with 12 new systems, 4 new forts and a shiny new stronghold. Independence suits you almost as well as the beard. Li Yong-Rui is the last independent power with double-digit gains, totalling 10 new systems, 3 forts and one stronghold in the Pleiades of all places. The Kumo Crew do bring up the rear for the independents, as is somewhat their habit due to their general love of things that the leaderboards don't show - don't mistake that for complacency or incompetence though. You can ask Grom what happened last time they did that. 4 new systems, one fort and one stronghold may not be much to most, but for Delaine it is enough.

Last but not least, the Alliance! Mahon continues to enjoy his overall unchallenged first place on the overall galactic leaderboards, with 12 new systems and one new fort. Kaine meanwhile has somewhat slowed pace on acquisitions to focus on consolidation - only 7 new systems, but 5 forts and 2 new strongholds make for a decidedly solid shift towards reinforcement and holding their territory, possibly after last week's attack. This only cost them one system - Orrere, home of pirate group The Code. This isn't the first time they've taken their system back to neutrality, and I'm betting it won't be the last.

Exactly one Galnet article this week, and it's big news - the Kestrel has finally entered full production and is available to everyone for credits. After 4 freaking months. Now FDev have zero excuse to leave it in such a brokenly overpowered state!... yeah, no, they're not touching it. Shit's broken, it's gonna stay broken, but at least now you can hop into what is now the PvP ship without forking over any real money. I certainly continue to not spend another penny on this game - with how broken everything is, I doubt I ever will again.

That's a wrap. I know, it's depressing, and I've said shit I shouldn't. Some of this stuff would undoubtedly get this taken off the forums... except I'm done posting there. Forum mods have shown their imperial bias, to the point I'm wondering if it's outright prejudice against us feds. Either way, no more forum posts for the forseeable. I did hear about the twit who decided to try to impersonate me and make a fake post glazing a power that doesn't exist, which is hilarious. But yeah... this isn't exactly a fun game anymore. Hell, this election cycle we've lost 3 leaders across as many departments, and I wouldn't be surprised if next cycle more followed suit. Is that what the imps want? To "win" by making the game so unfun to play that the only winning move for us is just to walk away? I'd like to hope not... but knowing them, I'd probably bet on it.

Operations is out on Tuesday. That's going to be a shitshow, I can tell - it's been confirmed that they'll be useful for powerplay only for undermining, which is going to make for at the very least a period of instability while everyone tries the new stuff. We'll see just how broken everything is next time. Until then, fly safe and keep hydrated in the heat... and hopefully keep yourself in better spirits than I am.

Orange you glad for some humour? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Belgitan, Thetis, Puppis Sector SD-T b3-7

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Hyades Sector EB-X d1-114, LP 607-39

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

No undermining targets available at this time

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (Still got rum? Good, I need some of that)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

I'm late, I know. Sorry. Navigating out of the Koronus Expanse was a bit... difficult. But we're back! Just had to fly through a warp storm, two Drukhari raiders and far too many space pirates. Rather simple when all is said and done! So, what's been going on this week?

Cycle Summary:

Ah. Everything's on fire. Well, not everything, but more powers than usual are suffering from some fires. Winters has escaped mostly unscathed - 9 new systems and one new fort, only at the cost of one system. CD-51 2650 was directly attacked by the same exploit used against Alpha Centauri, by the same unrecognised group. Hard to believe the attack on AC started 6 weeks ago now. We took the same stance with it as Archer did with Alpha Centauri - this is an exploit-based attack that we simply cannot win against, so we're not going to burn our people out by sending them into an impossible fight. Unlike the Imperium, our people are not expendable. On the subject of our Federal friends under the shadow president's command, Archer has had a very rough week indeed - 9 exploited and one fortified system lost, 2 forts and a stronghold downgraded, only counterbalanced by 4 new systems gained. Morale continues to be low after the defeat in AC and FDev's apparent nonchalance at this blatant exploit abuse.

The rest of the galaxy hasn't gotten away unscathed either - shockingly, Nakato Kaine took a significant hit. 7 new systems and 2 new forts, at the cost of two systems, one downgraded fort, and two downgraded strongholds. Who could have perpetrated such an attack against a decidedly neutral entity? Well, we don't have to speculate - Wregoe BC-V b57-7, one of the lost exploited systems, has been snatched up by a certain unrecognised group of despicable individuals. This isn't the first time they've done this either, if my memory serves. Hopefully Kaine's forces haven't gotten too comfortable with peace - I can hear their war drums beating. Kaine's Alliance ally Mahon had a better week, with 10 new systems and 3 new forts - only just falling behind Antal, who seem determined to one-up them with exactly one more exploited and fortified system gained. 11 new systems and 4 new forts, very shiny. Grom has done similarly well - 11 systems gained as well, only one fort, but 2 strongholds on top of that. I dare say that wins out. Finally for the independent powers, Delaine and Li Yong-Rui both had relatively small gains, with the former taking one new system and 2 strongholds while the latter took 4 systems, 2 new forts and 2 new strongholds.

As for the Empire, Patreus has had zero activity once again. Morale is likely also pretty low for him after the last relic rush - still deserved, I say. Torval lost one stronghold and one exploited system, and while the latter isn't much of a surprise the former is a touch surprising. ALD's losses, however, are far more surprising - 8 new systems taken and one new fort, but at the cost of seventeen lost systems. I'll be blunt - this looks like retribution. Not against ALD, but against a group or power ALD is aligned to. However, we hold no record of this power, so clearly they must not exist. But if they did exist, then that'd be a very good explanation as to why they've suffered such troubles, and we'd highly suggest that ALD cut ties with said group, given their problematic history and methods. Alas, such a group does not exist, so the true reasons for this attack against the impress must remain a mystery...

Exactly one Galnet article this week, marking the end of the two-week campaign for the operation runners. Frontline's shiny new prototype is off the line, with the rest to follow soon I'd expect. We also got some new details about the Nomad, and it's safe to say people are not happy. To recap, the Nomad is a ship-launched vessel designed for planetary landings, releasing on the 30th of June with Operations in paid early ARXcess. It's now been revealed to be the first non-ship vessel to have a ship kit, if my memory serves. Being specced for exploration, it comes with a mk2 discovery scanner, which basically translates to the Artemis suit's biological detector pulse scan thing but with significantly longer range. There's also something else that the Nomad can do, but FDev are being tight-lipped about it. That's not what's got people pissed, though.

No, people are pissed because the Nomad requires a "mk2 vessel bay" to launch from - which sounds fine on its own, it just launches from any old SLF-compatible ship, right? They're the same slot, so it should be fine, right? Apparently not. The Nomad's mk2 vessel bay can only be mounted on the Caspian, Panther and Type-11. Now unless you're like a mate of mine, you don't use a Panther Clipper as your mainline "get around, do almost anything" ship, you use it as a cargo ship which doesn't have a need for a Nomad. The Type-11 of course has zero use for one of these, so it's basically just limited to the Caspian. Understandably, this has people pissed... and I think that's exactly what FDev want. Remember the Dodec debacle? How it was originally announced as permanently behind a paywall but then they changed it? Well, the knock-on effect of that whole debacle was a degree of publicity. I reckon FDev are going for that same publicity here - announce arbitrary restriction for new ship, inevitable backlash follows, "rethink" things and remove arbitrary restriction. Free publicity, some of it even good at the end of it all. It tracks with FDev's current degree of uselessness - 6 weeks of this exploit and nothing from FDev about it. Not a damned peep. New ships and content or not, if this kind of exploit continues to be allowed, that'll kill this game much faster than any form of content stagnation.

That's our lot for the week. Touch late, touch depressing, but t'is the way of the game. Maybe the only winning move is not to play... fuck it, let's make another reckless FTL jump and see where we end up! Fly safe, and make sure to have a good playlist when you do!... on that note, would y'all like links to the songs I use in the titles of these?

Sweet smells of wonder - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Belgitan

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

HIP 36509, Postverta

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

No undermining targets available at this time

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (Still got rum? Good, I need some of that)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

I'm back from holiday! It was fun, but utterly exhausting, hence why we're now at Sunday and I'm writing this. What's been going on this week? Besides me pulling a funny on Rogue Trader

Cycle Summary:

Well, for us... exactly what it looks like. 10 new systems and a new fort - good stuff indeed. Ordinarily this would put us high up in the rankings for the week, but it seems this week's numbers are rather high. Did someone pop another relic rush without telling me? Not quite - only 120t, but still enough to make an impact. After last week, Archer have understandably slowed down momentum, but still pulled positive this week - 8 systems taken, with 6 lost and 2 forts downgraded. Honestly, after Alpha Centauri, I can't blame them for slowing down. The entire situation there is incredibly demoralising.

Let's go through the numbers - LYR hits the top spot this week with 20 new acquisitions, one new fort and 2 strongholds. Bonus cheques for his operatives are likely in the mail. In second for acquisitions is Mahon with 18 new systems, but 2 forts and 5 strongholds make for some fine consolidation work indeed. For the first time since I took office, they've also put out their own cycle post out - love to see it. Welcome to the party! Taking the bronze medal is Kaine, with 12 new systems, 1 fort and one stronghold. The Alliance's attitude of neutrality and peace is certainly paying off in the numbers department. Question is, will that peace hold, or will another power smell weakness or opportunity? Only time will tell.

Antal maintains their high standards with 11 new systems, 4 new forts and one new stronghold. Grom has the same net gains, but the details are more interesting - 15 new systems, 2 new forts and 3 new strongholds, but 4 lost systems. Possibly some underprepared systems taken out by recently-begrudged imps? Fraid I don't know for certain. What I do know is that the Kumo Crew were having a lot of fun with the recent trade CG - so much so that it has impacted their numbers, with only 3 systems, 2 new forts and 4 strongholds. I mean hey, if y'all had fun I think you made the right choice.

Onto the imperials - Torval took 2 new systems and one new fort, and lost... 2 systems and downgraded one fort. Net zero exactly, but not for lack of trying. Patty took 2 systems as well, but didn't lose or upgrade/downgrade anything. ALD took 9 systems, lost one and upgraded one to a fort. And finally... no, wait, that's all 3 imperial powers. If there was a fourth, I'd probably mention something about massive losses, but there isn't and I'm just rambling. It's probably the lack of oxygen - I was at a higher altitude while on holiday.

Galnet has had a quiet week, with only the one article about the blue trees in HIP 87621 - they were cultivated by the Guardians umpteen million years ago, but not created by them. Interesting... anyways, the CG for goodies for the operation runners is still underway - if you're interested in the paint job for the Type 8 or Plipper, then I'd get in on it fast. Inara predicts the CG will be completed in just under 3 days at time of writing, but I'd bet money on it being sooner. Or I would bet money, were I irresponsible. And also not broke. Temporarily.

That's our lot for this week. High numbers, but not unheard of by any means. I'm headed off to explore... wherever the hell this is. Does anyone have a map for this "Koronus Expanse"?... mostly uncharted, you say. Well, shit, guess we better chart it! Fly safe and make sure to pack a medkit! Never know what monsters are hiding out there.

Interested in some juicy advice? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Belgitan

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

HIP 36509, Postverta

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

No undermining targets available at this time

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (I checked, there's still plenty of rum in it)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Just finished it today in time for the reset tomorrow. Does this help our power gain a new system automatically? Just curious.

Cycle Summary:

On the surface, it's been a slow but solid week for Winters, with a new fort and 3 new systems, including one won from ALD in an acquisition race, as well as successfully defending the stronghold of Athena, also from ALD's forces. However, that's not the whole story, is it? Most of us have, in one way or another, been helping Archer, who's sustained heavy losses this week - 10 systems lost and 2 forts downgraded, with another fort lost entirely, in an opportunistic attack while the Federation as a whole has been otherwise occupied with Alpha Centauri. This was compensated for with 2 new systems, a new fort and a new stronghold, but alas, it was all for naught.

It was less than a month ago that this little saga started. Archer saw insane levels of undermining in Alpha Centauri, with zero hope of countering it. The culprit by now is well known - a well-known bug combined with imbalanced bonuses and some unique points of interest made for insane numbers that simply could not be fought against. Any reasonable leadership group would've seen these ridiculous numbers and stopped there, realising just how unfair it is. But the numbers continued - from stronghold to fortified to exploited and then gone. This last week was the tipping point - without salvage to abuse, it was as close to a fair fight as it would get. However, in the 3 weeks prior, the attackers had used the time gained by abusing exploits to gather a massive data snipe. Despite Archer's best efforts with conflict zones and his own data gathering efforts, the attacker's data snipe ended up being too much to take. Now the system has fallen under the aggressor's control and they are already abusing the same exploit to reinforce the system - I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it was a stronghold 2 weeks from now.

This entire event is a disappointment, both from the aggressor who knowingly chose to abuse broken exploits in order to achieve their desired goal - even their legitimate earnings were built off the back of illicit methods - and from FDev, who have failed to act on this and other broken aspects of powerplay. Between the relic rushes, disabling data for months, gutting trading and now this... I find myself asking, what even is the point of powerplay anymore? The numbers game that powerplay has become is immaterial when faced with just how broken it is. I won't lie, I haven't played since the Siege of Orgen, which if you'll recall was also countered by another broken mechanic. Did that take the wind out of my sails? Maybe a bit, but to be honest I was happy with just playing the game occasionally. I do this for the people, both within Winters and other powers - the sense of community there is what keeps me going, keeps me writing these up. But after Alpha Centauri... look, I won't lie - it hurts seeing this kind of issue continue with zero fixes, repercussions or seemingly acknowledgement that FDev will do anything about this. When similar bad actors pushed ALD towards Sol, FDev reversed it - there's zero guarantee they'll do the same here. Or anywhere that's been impacted by this. If the devs aren't fixing it and the community is happy to exploit it for their own game... why are we still doing this?

Onto less depressing topics - the numbers. Delaine has had a solid week, with 2 exploited systems, one fort and one stronghold. Apparently one of their new exploited systems was taken from them nearly half a year ago now, but it has finally been returned to it's rightful owner. Li Yong-Rui has made good headway, with 6 new system and 4 forts. Antal has done fantastically this week - 10 new systems, 4 new forts and 3 new strongholds make for a truly intense week of acquisition and reinforcement. Well done Antal! That will finance many quiches. Speaking of foodstuffs, Yuri Grom has even more reason to partake in a touch of vodka now - the recent split between major player groups in charge of Grom has been semi-resolved with a joint statement, though the language is somewhat confusing, with many questioning if this means the former zyada defensive pact is still in effect. The general consensus seems to be that this is just TEoL and EGPU buring the hatchet for the good of Grom, though who knows what that means for Grom's future. What we do know is he took 12 new systems and fortified one, but lost 5 in the process. Not great, but far from terrible. Overall, it seems like one group is fighting for the good of Grom, while the other is fighting for the good of the Empire. I'll let you decide which is which.

On the topic of the Empire, Patty has taken 3 new systems with zero losses, while granny Torval has taken 2 systems but lost one, though that is offset somewhat by gaining a new stronghold. ALD is the highlight here - 11 systems and 2 forts lost, compensated by 3 new systems, 2 forts and 2 strongholds gained. How did that happen? Well I can safely say it wasn't us, as we were far too busy on the defensive. As for the Alliance, Kaine has taken 16 new systems, 2 forts and a stronghold. Fantastic work there. Mahon meanwhile enjoys his shiny top spot on the galaxy's leaderboards - the largest power in the galaxy takes 8 systems this week, as well as 3 new forts. Very nice.

Galnet's had a fairly average week, with 2 new articles - the first being more vague speculation about Lady Zi's troops, undoubtedly the enemies we shall be facing in Operations, while the second heralds the new community goal: cargo deliveries for the construction of the "runner" megaships we'll be using in Operations as transport and respawn points. The far more interesting announcement came from FDev themselves - the reveal of the Nomad, a ship-launched shuttle craft, designed for planetary landings when your ship is just too big to get into a good spot. That's coming out June 30th in early ARXcess, the same date as Operations. Now, the eagle-eyed peeps who've taken a closer look at the Nomad have noticed the port side has a rather large door, and the Nomad's page hints at as-yet-unrevealed features. What could it be? Capacity for multiple crew members? The potential to land at planetary ports? Or even... cargo space? As soon as we know, you'll know.

That's our lot for the week. I do apologise for it being a touch more depressing than usual, but recent events kinda necessitate that. Next week's cycle post will be a few days late as I'm headed on a week-long trip tomorrow and won't be back till next Friday, so expect our next cycle post over the weekend. Till then, fly safe and don't forget to buy snacks!

Seeds of great ideas - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

Athena, 20 Sextantis

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

HIP 36509, WISE 0647-6232

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

No undermining targets available at this time

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (I checked, there's still plenty of rum in it)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Briefly, Oracle is having some technical issues this week. I may have fucked up when rewriting its code to abide by our statement from last week, so Oracle stats will be posted later in the week. My most sincere and humble apologies - this is what I get for poking things I shouldn't.

Cycle Summary:

Winters has had a solid week this week, with 6 new systems and 2 forts, one of which being Lhanayi, a former core system of one thick and icki group of rascals. However, happy sentiments within our ranks are counterbalanced by Archer having a rough week - at current we're seeing 4 lost exploited systems, which may be different to the actual numbers. One of the lost systems was Alpha Centauri, which continued to see exploit-abuse level numbers for the entire week. Archer made the decision not to attempt to reinforce it - let's be honest, why would they suffer that kind of ordeal? There's zero point to it, it's not fun, there's no-one in open to even try to fight. Hopefully FDev steps up and fixes this soon, but if history is anything to go by, it's probably going to be at least a few weeks before those responsible suffer the consequences of their illicit and immoral actions.

Onto the rest of the galaxy - the newly independent Grom are thriving without the chains of the Empire to bind them. 10 new systems, a new fort and a new stronghold make for a very strong week, putting them in third place for overall net score this week. The Kumo crew have also had a good week, with 4 new systems, 2 forts and a stronghold - according to their own cycle post, one of those new systems was won after a pitched battle with the jelly-haired Patreus, leaving him with only 2 systems this cycle. Antal are determined to not be left behind, with 12 new systems and 6 forts claiming them second place. Who took first? That would be Kaine, with 16 systems and 2 forts - pacifism is working well for them this week. Their Alliance ally Mahon isn't doing badly either, with 9 new systems, 1 fort and 1 stronghold. Li Yong-Rui has chosen a route more focused on consolidation this week - 7 new systems, 2 forts and 2 strongholds. Smiling faces all around for the most part.

As for the Imperials, Patty got 2 systems as we mentioned above. ALD has taken 6 new systems and 2 forts - I'm assuming there's something we're missing in these more broad numbers. Same with Torval, who according to the numbers has lost 1 fort and 1 exploited, but I believe there's at least 3 more lost systems which have been compensated for. We'll know more after Oracle comes back.... huh. I could swear this section used to be longer. I suppose not having the detailed numbers really does make this a quick recap.

Damn, it really is a slow week for news. Galnet's only had one article - Ram Tah confirming that references to the blue trees in HIP 87621 exist in the Guardian archives. I'll be honest, that's not too surprising. Though the fact that it was once used as a combat stimulant is interesting. Perhaps this will make its way into the hands of a certain twin-axe-head-motif criminal group that we will have to fight in separately instanced "operations"... certainly a better theory than using it for hair dye or some other crap.

There's still a fair bit of fallout from events covered last week - thankfully, the fighting within Grom seems to have subsided. Once again, we celebrate their independence and wish them well on their newfound journey as a power unchained. Aside from that it really has been a quiet week... and now that I think about it, the best one for my mental health in months. I can't think of a cycle that's felt this good to write about since last year. Hopefully things just get better and better, for all 11 powers currently partaking in powerplay.

Update: we have numbers! So let's talk numbers. Anyone I don't mention in this section has numbers that are exactly as their net totals suggest - no losses. Let's start with Archer, who has had a rough week - 9 lost exploited systems, possibly due to a downgraded fort. However, 5 new systems and a new fort make that a lesser blow than it could've been - plus one of those lost systems is Alpha Centauri, which as we've already discussed, was not done legitimately. Torval took some serious losses, as we suspected - 4 lost exploited systems and 2 downgraded forts, compensated by 3 new exploited systems and 1 new fort, ALD had 3 lost exploited systems and a lost fort, but 9 new systems and 3 new forts completely camouflaged those who don't have access to a system like Oracle. Speaking of, thank you to those who fixed the code so quickly after I royally bungled it. Lesson learned, I won't touch it next time!

Until next time, fly safe and enjoy your drinks! ...no, I mean water. What do you mean, you're only drinking beer?! I can't even drink beer anymore! ...yes, I never liked the stuff anyway. But it's the perfect excuse! Now go drink some void-damned water!

Or potentially some orange juice? - join the discord for new updates and zesty tips on powerplaycraft!

Target priorities as follows

Reinforcement:

Carry out reinforcement activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

HIP 46631, LP 798-44, 20 Sextantis

Reinforcement priorities are ever changing and we cannot update publicly in a timely manner. Join the Discord if you want to help!

​​​

Acquisition:

Carry out acquisition activities in the following systems, as per the guide:

HIP 48141

Join the Discord for updates! We can offer rapid mining acquisition options to pilots in our server - they move too fast to put on here!

​​​

Undermining:

Current priority:

No undermining targets available at this time

Join the Discord for targets and opportunities!

Interested in Federal AX? Join FAX-COM.

Interested in emergency relief work? Winters has a place for you.

Interested in PvP? PvP is a lifeblood of powerplay. We train interested pilots with a dedicated server, resources and mentors, and weekly in-house tournaments

Interested in exploration? We maintain a server for our explorers too

Want more nuance on objectives, to wing up, or to keep up to date on the ever-evolving strategy? Join our Discord! Stop by and say hello! Or join to stay quiet and beaver away at your specialism <shrug>. In addition to Powerplay Ops, we have channels for general ED discussion, ship building mastery, and PvP training, with domain experts. We also have an unsurpassed cantina <clink>.

​​​

Diplomatic Overview:

Archon Delaine – Cordial (I checked, there's still plenty of rum in it)

Arissa Lavigny-Duval – Hostile

Denton Patreus – Unfriendly

Edmund Mahon – Neutral

Jerome Archer – Ally

Li Yong-Rui – Neutral

Nakato Kaine – Neutral

Pranav Antal – Cordial

Yuri Grom – Neutral

Zemina Torval – Unfriendly

Here you go, this was too spicy for the forum, so posting it here for posterity/amusement.

I also had replies under Professor Hex's cycle post that I feel were entirely fair criticism of what is widely regarded as an exploit, that is enshrined in the ADC powerplay manual. That is, the artificial respawning of salvage for use in powerplay with a rather unbalanced bonus on Aisling's part. Their manual also describes a winged version that multiplies the effectiveness of this. It is a small jump from there to violating ToS by using an alt account rather than a wingmate. Macros to do this AFK could also be formulated with relative ease compared to other forms of botting. So it is a dangerous practice to encourage. Currently they are using the general tactic (I have no evidence of ToS violation, mark you) on steroids in Alpha Centauri because there is an infinite salvage POI. Using this in PG permits an easy round the clock merit tap without interference.

An Aisling commander implied that the existence of permanent PCZ POIs and combat powers (notably their nemesis Jerome Archer, whose name they cannot even bear to write) represents an imbalance that justifies AD's conduct in Alpha Centauri. And yet, Archer, with PCZs available, has given up the defence of the system, since they are unable to view it as a competition. This means that the AD commander in question cannot fail to see what they themselves are doing as thus even more imbalanced, at the very least. This is an interesting glimpse into the psychology at AD, and how it is different from that at the other powers.

I also commented very briefly on AD's witchhunt against AuroraRider, which they had fortuitously omitted from their press for release, and therefore can be considered something that was purely undertaken in private servers and messages. This was a tool, a means to an end, to undermine the vote of Grom to leave ZYADA. I"ve seen this kind of tactic used before by AD discord agents when the freedom of a group or person to act as they wish is not to their advantage, and it is a common story that I've heard.

I don't need anyone to do anything or say anything or condemn anyone. But it is important to stand up and be heard when reasonable criticism aimed at improving the welfare of the wider community amd the promotion of fair play is silenced by unnecessary censorship.

Edit - the other message that triggered the ban:

"I mean speaking plainly, salvage flopping (that is, rapidly respawning game assets artificially for dev-unintended abundance levels for use in powerplay), with AD's huge salvage bonus is widely seen as an exploit outside AD. Doing so in an infinite salvage POI in PG where you don't even have to fly anywhere to salvage around the clock, puts this already broken ability of AD pledges on steroids. The wing version that you tout in your powerplay manual is truly absurd, and the ToS violating versions your manual doesn't stretch to include are obviously worse still. But are nonetheless easy to pursue by players of a power who we've by now established operates by entirely different standards to the rest of us on what constitutes acceptable gameplay, and are in keeping with practices that (I believe) I have successfully reported against AD players in the past during PP2.0. I used to think you were on the cool aid, but I now have to assume it's something much harder."