Elite: Lore

User23543
06 Sep 2019, 3:06pm
Rho TefnutetTo be honest, myself I have never understood Powerplay, as some of its aspects don't really make sense. Why a Federal system would be under control of Patreus, for example? Unless it's widely agreed that Powerplay is not official and not visible to everyone, I fail to see Federal citizens simply accepting Imperial influence inside the systems that are their homes. To me, Powers and Superpowers are existing in their own universes but if someone could explain the in-lore sense for Powers to exists and it allowing very strange combos (like Imperials under Mahon's - so Alliance - control), I would be really glad.


Best way I've seen to make sense of it is how people say things are vs. how they actually are.

Take a real world example from my own country, the United States. We're supposedly real keen on free markets, democracy, and all that lovely stuff? Well, it doesn't take much at all for us to support the worst of the worst when it suits our interest.

Take this fun fact: the top F-14 Tomcat pilot in the world was Iranian.

lol wut? Real life Maverick is Iranian?

Yup, before the Islamic government took over they were staunch allies of ours. We sold them a ton of F-14s and they still have some today. The ace in question became one during Iran's big war with Iraq.

And guess who we wanted to win that war? You guessed it, Iraq. I think we had a falling out with them at some point too...

The endless churning cauldron of bullshit that is politics!
User23543
06 Sep 2019, 3:11pm
PhelboreThink of it like Taiwan. China claims it, but it claims independence (with the support of some other nations). Neither side can stomach the war it'd take to settle the matter. But in the end, for the average guy just trying to survive and eek out an existence, it probably won't have too much effect either way, just a different seal on the tax forms.

P.S. I know even the name is contentious. I live in the US so I hear Taiwan so that's what I used. I am in no way intending to take sides or stir up politics!


I like how Taiwan claims China is the rebellious one.
Tyrran Andor
07 Sep 2019, 8:30pm
Rho TefnutetTo be honest, myself I have never understood Powerplay, as some of its aspects don't really make sense. Why a Federal system would be under control of Patreus, for example? Unless it's widely agreed that Powerplay is not official and not visible to everyone, I fail to see Federal citizens simply accepting Imperial influence inside the systems that are their homes. To me, Powers and Superpowers are existing in their own universes but if someone could explain the in-lore sense for Powers to exists and it allowing very strange combos (like Imperials under Mahon's - so Alliance - control), I would be really glad.


What Xeknos said.

Powerplay is very... special.
Isaiah Evanson
08 Sep 2019, 8:28am
Powerplay is the hamster wheel that everyone hopes will eventually break loose and actually go somewhere, but for the past four and a half years has only led to burnouts and disappointments in terms of development. Which is a shame considering it once bred some of the best player driven conflicts and storytelling that Elite has ever seen outside of Premonition.
Eddo Edster
10 Sep 2019, 10:21am
Phisto Sobanii
PhelboreThink of it like Taiwan. China claims it, but it claims independence (with the support of some other nations). Neither side can stomach the war it'd take to settle the matter. But in the end, for the average guy just trying to survive and eek out an existence, it probably won't have too much effect either way, just a different seal on the tax forms.

P.S. I know even the name is contentious. I live in the US so I hear Taiwan so that's what I used. I am in no way intending to take sides or stir up politics!



I like how Taiwan claims China is the rebellious one.


Well.... technically the current regime in China kicked the current Taiwan regime out of the mainland. So in some ways it was the rebellious one, technically. From a certain point of view, as old Ben would say to Luke. But I think I stirred the hornets' nest enough there.



Isaiah EvansonPowerplay is the hamster wheel that everyone hopes will eventually break loose and actually go somewhere, but for the past four and a half years has only led to burnouts and disappointments in terms of development. Which is a shame considering it once bred some of the best player driven conflicts and storytelling that Elite has ever seen outside of Premonition.
There is just too much flaw to the PP system, they really should had started off with Hudson, Winterscoming for the Feds, Empress and Spacey Blue Princess for the Empire, Mahon and Li-est prices in the galaxy. There is too many PP groups for the player base to support properly; Denton, Utopia guy and Torval is pointless, should had never existed. And then let people semi-organically form groups like Grom, who is well supported because its creation was player driven. One could argue it would be even better if we just have 4 "Powers" and then people just choose a minor power within a power. Winters should hate Hudson like Democrats hate Republicans; but in reality the 2 PP groups work together quite a lot.

But when it was new yeah, the battles between Hudson and A Lavigny-Duval was epic, until people see little point in battling with little reward and generally is just economic warfare anyway.
Tyrran Andor
26 Sep 2019, 8:13pm
Powerplay was pretty cool for the short time that it actually influenced the game's story.
Scubadog
27 Sep 2019, 9:25pm
We had a similar discussion going over in The Silverbacks area. We were pondering how minor player factions really see no benefit to expanding. You end up having to spend a lot of time just managing the influence and state in each system. But for what? Other than "Yay, we conquered systems". But what if you got discounts on ships and modules in systems you control? Or even commodities? They could do something similar within the Power Play. If you're aligned with a superpower, you might get more protection, discounts, reduced fines and better bounty payoffs. There are ways they could enhance "belonging".
Tyrran Andor
27 Sep 2019, 10:38pm
ScubadogWe had a similar discussion going over in The Silverbacks area. We were pondering how minor player factions really see no benefit to expanding. You end up having to spend a lot of time just managing the influence and state in each system. But for what? Other than "Yay, we conquered systems". But what if you got discounts on ships and modules in systems you control? Or even commodities? They could do something similar within the Power Play. If you're aligned with a superpower, you might get more protection, discounts, reduced fines and better bounty payoffs. There are ways they could enhance "belonging".


I think that the intention behind Elite was to drive home the sense of being a nobody in an uncaring universe- you as a commander are merely one of a multitude of independent pilots, expendable and in no way special. This personally works well for me, but at the same time there's something to be said for giving players the ability to claim ownership of their piece of the pie. Roleplay alone only gets your typical player so far, after all.
Jubei Himura
28 Sep 2019, 2:44am
I second Tyrran's notion.

The universe don't care about you, me, or the damn people who think they're in high places. You 'n I ain't special. We just got lucky enough to get through the Pilot Federation's checks and tests, and they (in their infinite wisdom or stupidity) gave us our first private ship. We made the rest happen through the choices we made since sittin' in the chair.

But, like the man said, that only takes us so far.

OOC: I hope that we can have something to call home in the game. Be that an apartment in a station, to base building. But I still miss the days where players and player groups influenced the story. That really felt nice.
Ren Solsen
01 Oct 2019, 12:44pm
With Powerplay there are many issues... I wish each power had its own bubble and that all powerplay gameplay would be on the edges of that bubble where they would clash. The wars in the frontier systems should be epic and aligned CMDRS should receive wealthy benefits for participation. There is no sense in having a federal system in empire space and vice+versa.

For minor factions, there should be a support tier like in powerplay so that you could truly belong to an MF. Now it is just innocuous roleplay.
Blackvertigo1
13 Oct 2019, 1:16pm
Did you know fusion reactors in ships are actually salt reactors?

A real fusion reactor would emit a lethal gamma ray burst if you put said salt into the reactor core.





Just sayin'.
BadBogey
14 Oct 2019, 4:23pm
Blackvertigo1Did you know fusion reactors in ships are actually salt reactors?

A real fusion reactor would emit a lethal gamma ray burst if you put said salt into the reactor core.





Just sayin'.


Nonsense Sir
Amar Epsilon
14 Oct 2019, 7:33pm
A few questions on Bounty Hunting....

So I imported my data into Inara, and according to the Data... I have destroyed some 3000+ ships in the game and collected said bounties. Now, I know other commanders have undoubtedly destroyed more and collected far more, my question is what happens to said crew of the destroyed ship? Do bounty hunters scoop up the pods and that's how we cash in on the bounty, are we cashing in on the pilot's ID or the ships ID? If the pilot's are killed on ship destruction, can we infer that the most profitable bounty hunters are now the very monster's that they sought to hunt? (Nietzsche)

Two Quotes that influenced this question

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. - Nietzsche

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter. - Hemingway
Isaiah Evanson
15 Oct 2019, 1:12am
The crew is dead. Likely they were apart of said crew in the commission of violent and heinous acts that earned them the bounties in the first place, therefore if the bounty hunter becomes a monster of any sort, it's the sort that kills other monsters.

Godzilla. With guns.
Ren Solsen
15 Oct 2019, 1:44pm
My thought on the killing is that when a ship is destroyed, occupants can deploy the escape pods. As we do, or else we would be dead every time.

Pods might have a stealth mode when launched so they are not hunted again immediately. After a while, a closed protocol beacon turns on for the pickup. A pilots federation run enterprise is collecting the pods following their own closed beacon protocol. Bounties are most likely a ship id and location so that the pilots federation can give credit to the hunter while bringing rescued felons to justice.

People can send an open rescue request as well. That's what you see on rescue signals.

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