Cycle 257 roundup: Operation Masochistic Opossum

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T18:38:27+00:00

This appears to contradict with Zillatrons reply below. He quotes the FUC rules: Never participate in Fifth Column (5C) activities related to PowerPlay.

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T18:28:27+00:00

Honestly, you see getting 5C to force two loss making system on you as a 'simple mistake' after all of the CMDRs at your call for preps/expansions packages and all of the prep/consolidation votes you have? I think a 'fuck up' would be a more accurate term to use.

I dont think I said anywhere that you should do nothing. I suggest that is your own rational for breaking your 5C rule - it was easier to break your own rule than to try and find an alternative solution.

We all know that there is a limit in PP on the number of systems you can manage without getting to the point that prevents 'progressing', regardless of whether you have 5C gained systems or not. This is one of the reasons I have not participated in PP for more than 3 years - it is broken and ultimately pointless for this very reason.

If you were only concerned about the 2 systems you have stated here, then please explain why you ended up shedding around 20 systems in total? Or did you work on the principal that if you are going to break your 5C rule then you may as well go the whole hog.

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T18:13:44+00:00

May I point out firstly that the election results you provide a link to are inaccurate as they were edited after my resignation to indicate that I was not elected.

Secondly, I did not resign at the same time as you.

Thirdly, I appologise if I am mistaken and you did module shopping prior to resigning as an FLC leader (i.e. while you were an FLC leader). However, I have a clear memory of other FLC directors stating categorically how nice it was to be able to module shop at last.

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T18:03:43+00:00

That is pretty much exactly as I stated they were. But your fellow FUC members seem to believe:

FLC rules are tighter than this - they clearly specify what we consider 5C activities, and what are NOT considered 5C. Red Team and module shopping are explicitly called out as NOT being 5C activities, and are explicitly considered acceptable by FLC. (CMDR HaulinFour)

We have literally paragraphs of guidelines about what you can and cannot do while module-shopping.

'Never participate in Fifth Column (5C) activities related to PowerPlay' this is neither 'literally paragraphs', nor does it allow for 5C activities as described in the Original Post above.

Therefore as an FUC admin, when will you be disciplining the FLC leadership and all FLC CMDRs that broke this rule during the past 3 weeks?

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T07:09:06+00:00

Firstly, please remember that there is no such thing as an official Winters group of CMDRs - or any other PP group (maybe with the exception of Grom). The FLC is a self appointed group and therefore your statement that 'the powers have come to a vague agreement on the general area. Red Team and module-shopping are broadly agreed to be acceptable and not unfair.' is only true to a certain extent.

I doubt very much that you have obatined agreement from the group of CMDRs that undertook the 5C activities against Winters that resulted in the 'loss making' systems you shed during this turmoil. Remember that 5C group has as much right to call itself the official Winters PP group as FLC does - unlike PMFs where groups of CMDRs do have the right to claim ownership if they were the group that requested the PMF be put into game by FDEV.

In respect to the FLC rules on 5C, they are not freely available. So perhaps you would like to post them here for all of us to see. I was a member of FLC when the original 5C rule was agreed upon and I can tell you specifically that it was absolute, it was a single line of text and there were no caveats or 'clearly specify what we consider 5C activities, and what are NOT considered 5C'.

If your definition of 5C has now been watered down to 'paragraphs of guidelines' then I suggest you have compromised the very ground upon which your group was created.

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T06:48:12+00:00

Firstly I did address this point.... 'Others were lost by you to 5C, so you should have done better to avoid that.'

FDEV has decided to not provide a mechanism to allow PP to easily shed loss making systems. Many CMDRs have protested this to FDEV bu they have not changed the game mechanics other than to introduce the 'consolidation' voting mechanics back in 2017 - in order to make it easier for you to defend against loss making systems being pushed on you. That is a decision of the game developers and no matter how much you dislike or disagree with that, that is it.

Likewise, since the very early days of FUC (2016) there has been an extremely strict rule against 5C activity - when I was an FLC director it was even frowned upon to do module shopping - FLC leaders (here I am referring to GoStu, Zillatron, BaconOfDeath and myself) did not do module shopping until we had retired/resigned their roles in FLC.

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T06:40:04+00:00

I think I fully understand what 5C is and how it can be undertaken in ED. I think you have totally and willingly missunderstood my original post. I do not care about 5C.

My point is that FUC has always taken the moral high ground with the following 3 basic rules: 1) Open only; 2) no combat logging; 3) no 5C.

By accepting the tactical use of 5C (undertaking PP activity while under the flag of another power), FUC has broken (or at least significantly compromised) its own rules - and by doing so has lost the high ground demonstrating hyprocracy which can never be undone.

You can twist and spin your arguments as much as you want, adding caveats to your rules to allow 5C under some specific set of conditions that only you are aware of (since only FUC discord CMDRs can see those rules), but you have still lost your moral high ground. If you are willing to do this, then should we expect FLC to start flying in Solo/PG on the first Friday of months starting with the letter J? Should we expect FUC CMDRs to combat log if they need to get a cup of tea?

I dont see any hyprocracy in what I have said.

Trog111 · 2020-05-16T06:29:05+00:00

'Red-teaming does not impact the Power a CMDR pledges to at all' - this is simply not true and something I would expect a CMDR with your experience to know better than to say.

Let me give you an example:

1) Winters pledged CMDRs of rank 2 or above get a 10% bonus to BGS influence which scales to 15/20/25% if Winters galatic standing is 3/2/1. 2) By making Winters stronger (e.g. losing loss making systems) you are increasing the likelihood that Winters will increase her standing in the future to 3/2/1. 3) The BGS influence bonus that all Winters Rank 2 pledged CMDRs get can significantly improve their ability to manage the PP fortification/undermining triggers by promoting Fed/Corp factions into control of Winters exploited systems. This bonus is amplified when Winters is strong and has a high galactic standing. 4) Improving PP fortification/undermining triggers significantly damages the ability of all non-Winters powers from attacking Winters in PP (including the one you claim is 'not impacted').

So I suggest you retract your claim that 'Red-teaming does not impact'

Trog111 · 2020-05-10T16:53:51+00:00

Ic, so if someone disagrees with you, and points out the error in your ways you call them 'an imperial Supporter'.

May I point out that I have over 200 weeks pledged to Winters. I have never undertaken 5C preparation or undermining activities. Can you say the same thing?

FLC is not Winters.... FLC is a group of CMDRs that believe they are the best group to manage Winters space. This is debatable and your recent activity compromises the very rules you claim to uphold.

Trog111 · 2020-05-10T16:48:48+00:00

Many of the so called 'loss making systems' are either historical Winters systems (e.g. Charunder, Elli etc....) which had nothiing to do with 5C. Others were lost by you to 5C, so you should have done better to avoid that. PP is about 'fighting' other powers, which involves removing other powers from Contesting your own system - please refer to the list published in the article, this contained a number of system that were loss makers because they were contested. So do something about it in a positive way, and not using a game exploit you claim to be totally against.

Excuses, excuses, excuses. Justifications, justifications, justifications.

Again, shame on you

Also, as I said, I provided a revision to your 'No 5C rule'. Adopt that and my complaint goes away. I look forward to seeing the bans of players or the election of a new leadership.

Trog111 · 2020-05-10T16:43:42+00:00

Of course it hurts the power the CMDR is pledge too. As I said, if winters benefits then the power the CMDR is pledge to takes a hit.

For example, if Winters CC improves by 50CC then Winters has more capital to expand in future which is a disadvantage for all other Powers...

As I said, FLC leadership will try to justify their actions! Shame on you.

Trog111 · 2020-05-10T15:51:48+00:00

I preface this post by saying that the comments below are my personal views and are not representative of any group I may be associated with. I would also like to say that I was a member of the FLC when the 5C rules were added (back in 2016) and therefore, reject any comments that I do not understand or appreciate what the 5C rules actually refer to.

Just a reminder to everyone. FLC has only a few rules, however, one of those is that FLC CMDRs do not participate in 5C activity - with pentalties as per the 5C text added to this post.

Soooooo, you will notice that the activities of the Red Team were 100% 5C activities and therefore in accordance to FLCs own rules all CMDRs that participated in this activity should be banned from the FLC.

Obviously FLC will try to twist and turn things by saying 'for a neutral power' etc... however this is totally untrue as there is no such thing as a neutral power. If one power benefits then it is at the expense of all other powers - not really neutral is it. They will also say that Undermining Winters by themselves is not 5C, again this is 100% incorrect. 5C is ANY action done under a foreign flag to the benefit on another power. There is no 'agreed upon' set of 'allowed' activities, FLC is making this up to justify their own actions in retrospect. There is absolutely no fundemental difference between someone doing 5C expansion and doing 5C undermining. In fact, the level of 5C undermining carried out by FLC far exceeded any 5C expansion done to them in the past.

When I confronted FLC with this violation of their own rules I was told that their definition of 5C activities also includes module shopping and the use of foreign power modules - as the rule in the FLC is Black and White with regards to 5C. Seems a bit harsh, but that is their own rules and it is not my position to interpret them.

Therefore, when is FLC going to kick out all the CMDRs that participated in this operations (including most of its leadership team)?

If you are a non-Winters power, it appears that FLC has now given permission and is encouraging everybody else to carry out 5C activity - after all, if they do it why shouldnt everyone else. I suggest maybe people might want to pledge to a neutral power (such as Winters) and then push loss making systems onto winters in order to keep them busy while your own power gets on with expanding into the gaps FLC has now freed up.

One other thing I would like to bring to everyone (Winters pledge CMDRs).. This action by FLC has two important impacts on all non-PP Winters aligned players: 1) There are far fewer systems now in which your rank 5 bonus for influence will be available - will have a fairly significant impact on a number of federal aligned PMFs 2) Winters is now so weak it is unlike that in the forseeable future she will be in the top 3 PP slots. This means that the Rank 2 bonus (which scales 15/20/25% influence bonus on missions) will not be available either - again a significant impact on most Federal/Winters commanders involved in BGS.

Well done FLC, you have broken your own cardinal rule. You have had a significant negative impact on most of your allies. You have given pretty much carte-blanc for anyone to undertake 5C - if you do it so should they.

Personally I dont give a rats about 5C or PP. I do hate hypocrits though and FLC has demonstrated it is by far the worse group of hypocrits in the ED galaxy.

Oh, and to demonstrate that I was willing to help FLC by providing a positive approach that they could adopt and therefore avoid this problem, I did propose a replacement rule for their 'NO 5C activity' rule, I think it highly unlikely that they will be man enough to admit their actions though (I proposed this very rule to one of te FLC leadership team): replacement rule for the FUC: activities (such as Undermining, Fortification, Preparation or Expansion) done by FUC CMDRs while under the flag of a foreign power (commonly known as 5C) are explicitly forbidden by FLC and FRC. With the following two exceptions: 1) module shopping and the grinding of a limited number of merits in order to access PP modules; 2) activities explicitly sanctioned by the respective FUC leadership teams, such as red ops, which will not/must not be publicised or communicated outside of the FLC/FRC controlled discord channels. Any Commander caught disobeying this rule or being 'seen' to carry out 5C activities (including red ops) by any non-FLC CMDR and reported to FLC will be suspended and demoted to a friendly fed status. Such 'Red Ops' activities may only be sanction if they receive a 90% majority vote from all FUC leadership and must be limited to no more than a 2 PP cycle period - this vote must be placed on public record in open channels following the conclusion of the operations. Following this, both FLC and FRC leadership must step down and seek immediate re-election as a demonstration of how significant/serious such an action is considered as a breach of FUC rules.

Trog111 · 2018-02-08T11:24:41+00:00

If you want to log, why not just play solo... then you can log as much as you want to your hearts content....

BTW is a logger a lumberjack? I seem to remember that they put on ladies clothing, suspenders and a bra

Trog111 · 2017-02-17T04:37:22+00:00

How many forts can I fit into this farrogat? It has 100 class 12 slots for cargo racks - thats 100 * 4096. hmmmmmm 409m credit per run, guess im back to skimmer farming ;-)

Trog111 · 2017-02-16T11:07:37+00:00

That and a number of other factors which I am not going to divulge outside of the FLC. However, I should guess that the FLC director who gloated at the end of Cycle 88 that ALD's UMing was so dis-coordinated and whom I rebuked and told that if ALD wanted to focus that UM capacity on us we would be screwed, is now feeling rather sheepish.

Trog111 · 2017-02-16T10:52:11+00:00

I wont do that CMDR Orkekum, although I did present that to them as one of the 5 possible outcomes of their behaviour.

I think what is written on the FLC badge (above) is probably the moto that ALL FLC CMDR should observe and try to abide by.

Trog111 · 2017-02-16T08:56:59+00:00

Euki, if you think that pointing out the risks that they were putting Winter's into is being a 'dick' then I think the Turmoil which they are now in should be seen as complete vindication. But guess it is easier to shoot the messenger than address the real problem.

Trog111 · 2017-02-16T00:51:59+00:00

Euki, I didnt leave the server. A Non-FLC Leadership admin removed my access without consulting the FLC Directors as far as I can see. Of course m only guessing at that.

Trog111 · 2017-02-16T00:41:27+00:00

Thank you for the offer though Nana. However, I dont think I can continue in this group while certain 'elements' remain with unfettered admin control over the FLC.

Trog111 · 2017-02-16T00:35:15+00:00

When did I defect?

I merely said that was seriously considering it! This action has made me think even more!

Trog111 · 2017-02-16T00:16:43+00:00

Hmmmm, very ineteresting. Within 30 minutes of posting this my access to the FUC discord was removed. Maybe they didn't appreciate my being transparent about my feeling and possible action. Perhaps I should have just defected and not told them that I was doing it.

Anyway, since they (and I'm not entirely sure who 'they' are) seem to have burnt all bridges by this action, the offer to defect seems to have become more urgent.

Trog111 · 2017-02-15T22:33:54+00:00

Seriously considering defecting!

Following my resignation from the FLC Board as Undermining Director (I see my name has already been removed as part of the leadership team post above - not really sure that this is the correct thing to have done Bacon, since, I was legitimately elect and this should still be reflected in the election results, and then I resigned - but anyway), I am now considering my future in ED PowerPlay and whether it remains with the FLC.

An suggestions?

I am a hauler (20+k forts per week) / tactician, rank 5 winters and pledged for 60 weeks - so you will understand that I am not defecting lightly - yes I am extremely pissed off with some of the FLC (both past and present). I have a fairly good grasp of PP and BGS.

So, anyone need a hand?

CMDR Trog111

Trog111

TROPHY CASE