Elite Dangerous Powerplay 2.0 Guide
How the galactic power struggle actually works — and how to fight it with live data
What is Powerplay?
Powerplay is Elite Dangerous' persistent galactic conflict layer: twelve powers — each led by a major political figure like Aisling Duval, Jerome Archer or Edmund Mahon — compete for control of inhabited star systems across the bubble. Every commander can pledge to a power and earn merits by hauling cargo, bounty hunting, mining, exploring or fighting in that power's name. Powerplay 2.0 (released with the Ascendancy update in late 2024) reworked the system entirely: every activity in a system now contributes to that system's control points, and territory shifts every week at the cycle tick.
System states and control point tiers
Every system a power controls sits in one of three tiers, based on its cumulative control points (CP):
- Exploited — 0 to 350,000 CP. The entry tier: newly acquired systems start here.
- Fortified — 350,000 to 1,000,000 CP. Fortified systems project a 20 ly support bubble.
- Stronghold — 1,000,000 CP and above. The backbone of a power's territory, projecting a 30 ly support bubble and hosting Stronghold Carriers.
Tier changes happen only at the weekly tick: reach the next threshold and the system is promoted; get pushed below zero and it drops a tier. You can browse every tracked system and its live CP on the systems page.
Reinforcement and undermining
During the week, two opposing scores accumulate in every controlled system: reinforcement (earned by the controlling power's pledges) and undermining (earned by everyone else). At the cycle tick, the net result moves the system's control points up or down. A heavily undermined system can be dragged below its tier floor — or below zero, out of the power's control entirely.
That makes target selection the heart of Powerplay strategy. The vulnerable systems page tracks systems with no supporting Fortified or Stronghold anchor in range, and the cascade analysis finds anchors whose fall would strand many dependent systems at once — the highest-leverage undermining targets in the galaxy.
Support ranges: why Fortified and Stronghold systems matter
An Exploited system doesn't stand on its own: it is held by the nearest Fortified system within 20 light years or Stronghold within 30 light years of the same power. Lose the anchor and every dependent Exploited system becomes vulnerable. This is what makes Powerplay territorial rather than a set of isolated fights — and why a single well-chosen undermining campaign can cascade across a whole region.
Acquisition: taking new systems
Unoccupied systems near a power's territory can be acquired. Pledges earn acquisition points for their power; when two or more powers pass 30% progress the system becomes contested, turning into an open race. The first power to reach the acquisition threshold at a tick takes the system as a fresh Exploited holding.
The weekly cycle
Everything resolves at the cycle tick: Thursday 07:00 UTC. Control point changes are applied, tiers move, acquisitions complete, and reinforcement/undermining counters reset to zero for the new week. The dashboard shows the live countdown, this cycle's biggest movers, and a real-time feed of system updates streamed from the player community via EDDN.
Using EDPowerPlay to plan your week
- Dashboard — cycle countdown, galaxy trends, live activity feed.
- Powers — all twelve powers ranked, with per-cycle territory trends.
- Systems — filter every tracked system by power, state, control points, activity and distance.
- Vulnerable systems — unsupported and low-CP systems, the easiest flips.
- Cascade analysis — anchors whose fall drags dependent systems down with them.
- Mining planner — ring hotspots and sell prices aligned with reinforcement or undermining goals.
All data is crowd-sourced in real time from EDDN: whenever any commander running a journal uploader jumps into a system, its Powerplay state updates here within seconds.
Frequently asked questions
How current is the data?
As current as the community's travels: busy systems update many times per hour, quiet fringe systems can lag behind. Data quality notes are shown on each page — EDPowerPlay is a work in progress and coverage improves every week.
Do I need to install anything?
No — the site is read-only intelligence. If you want to contribute data back, run any EDDN-connected tool (such as ED Market Connector) while you play.
Is this affiliated with Frontier Developments?
No. EDPowerPlay is an unofficial, community-run tool. Elite Dangerous is a trademark of Frontier Developments plc.