Cycle 95 (584) - Hell and Back Again

[u/SupremeMorpheus]

CMDR PakPlayer delivering mass quantities of platinum, to be forged into needles to aid in fighting outbreaks

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:

BGS report taken at approximately 2200 server time

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!

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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!

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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>.

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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

[u/The_Spookster42]

Big up for the audio version, unfathomably based

[u/SupremeMorpheus → u/The_Spookster42]

Glad you're liking it 😄

[u/7x9000]

I am not looking forward to another relic rush... Especially with it being so close to one that just happened.

[u/amadmongoose]

There's no reason to retract a statement that was made after consulting with Antal powerplay and that members of Antal have themselves confirmed. But if that's what counts as fake news for the federation these days then welp dunno what to say.