General Fleet Carriers are becoming a big issue in Powerplay balancement.

[kofeyh]

People outside of BGS and PVP enthusiasts didn't play PP 1.0, outside of for earning the modules. By all means, reinvent PP 1.0, but Frontier dropped it for a reason. Imma dip from this convo as it's basically just arguing people should play in a very narrow way, despite arguing people are currently playing in a very narrow way, which is a bit too whiplash inducing for me.

No offence intended to anyone. Have a good one!

 

[Rubbernuke]

That was just a mock-up. This time we literally have those in game already.

I know, but the concept was there. The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle and you'd need to balance missions with other activities while balancing between activities themselves.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

I know, but the concept was there. The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle and you'd need to balance missions with other activities while balancing between activities themselves.

I agree than in an ideal scenario missions should be the thing that gives you more merits by far. But some people would find a way to exploit stuff either way by accumulating single activities done over and over again.
But again. We are going off topic. Main issues right now is carriers being broken and snipe-prone. We have even more activities that could be sniped. And I think one of the main intent of Fdev was to kill sniping, which is a very unfair mechanic considering time zones, btw.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

About sniping: the very fact that some actions can be redeemed and some other can't makes the first actions much more Powerful than the others, killing even more the balancement. Another thing that must be addressed and that Fdev should have thought about before release.

 

[Shadow75]

Double post

 

[Rubbernuke]

I agree than in an ideal scenario missions should be the thing that gives you more merits by far. But some people would find a way to exploit stuff either way by accumulating single activities done over and over again.
But again. We are going off topic. Main issues right now is carriers being broken and snipe-prone. We have even more activities that could be sniped. And I think one of the main intent of Fdev was to kill sniping, which is a very unfair mechanic considering time zones, btw.

We could just press the nuclear button and restrict FC jump times- helps FD with server load too (at the expense of screaming commanders )

Or just press the button and sit back....

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

While I acknowledge there’s ongoing balancing issues, I think Carriers add tactical options and that’s not a negative.

Solo loading and discharging a carrier is barely any more effective than doing it the old fashioned way. Although it is (slightly) less easy to oppose.

But if you can get organised and shift large quantities of cargo into a system, then good on ya! If you can’t get organised enough to stop another power because they’re using carriers, that’s a you problem not a carrier problem.

The more innovative gameplay to push the advantage of your power the better! Emergent gameplay is always a good thing.

I think the principle of coordination is one most will agree is a positive. The problem appears to be "sniping"; deliberately waiting to offload until it's so close to the tick that there's no possible way for the opponent to react in kind. It basically becomes an "I win" button.

 

[Rebel Yell]

PP 1.0: haul XXX from A to B with the ship
PP 2.0: haul XXX from A to B with the carrier

You see the point?

 

[Rebel Yell]

Edit: in order to effectively snipe you have to dedicate a lot of resources into one system, leaving others potentially vulnerable.

Not a lot, 6hrs of combat merits are ERASED by 30mins of rares.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Maybe its time to allow FCs to be pirated.

 

[Nowski]

Never knew Fleet Carriers were in fact bike sheds. File them with the other PP2 bike sheds, I guess.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

Maybe its time to allow FCs to be pirated.

Here's a shovel, better use it to dig a shell scrape before the 'All Modes are equal' Forum Consensus suddenly shift their positions on this one thing because someones able to reach out and touch them beyond the veil of mode choice.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Maybe its time to allow FCs to be pirated.

BOOM!

 

[Rubbernuke]

BOOM!

Someone had to say it

Here's a shovel, better use it to dig a shell scrape before the 'All Modes are equal' Forum Consensus suddenly shift their positions on this one thing because someones able to reach out and touch them beyond the veil of mode choice.

I'm still heavily entrenched on Powerplay Hill- let them come

LET
THEM
COME

 

[alexzk]

The easy solution would be basically to make all commodities useless Powerplay-wise if they pass through a fleet carrier, this would solve both the rare merits buff and the low-income-trading merits buff too.

As an alternative another solution for at least rares (and the one that makes more sense considering the game as a whole) would be to make rares impossible to stock into fleet carriers as powerplay commodities used to: I think that rare trading was never meant to be done "by volumes", instead by "strategy" with routes and time loss.

And proper solution would be to declare Carrier as embassy. So if system power and carrier power match, then trading works as any station there, otherwise it is ignored.
Also it would give all bonuses, like selling UC / bio data in the Void would boost power in general.

 

[Bard Voronwe]

And proper solution would be to declare Carrier as embassy. So if system power and carrier power match, then trading works as any station there, otherwise it is ignored.
Also it would give all bonuses, like selling UC / bio data in the Void would boost power in general.

Basically your proposal in a thread pointing out that fleet carriers are currently breaking the game is to make them even more broken?

 

[Rubbernuke]

Basically your proposal in a thread pointing out that fleet carriers are currently breaking the game is to make them even more broken?

Thinking about it some more, it is possible to limit FCs in PP, considering that FCs are really rented franchises of Brewer and not really 'yours'. Brewer might go 'welp, not our fight' and declines a commander who is pledged from doing PP things with it (like rares).

 

[alexzk]

Basically your proposal in a thread pointing out that fleet carriers are currently breaking the game is to make them even more broken?

Why ? The root problem is that carrier inherits current system now so user has system station which is not controlled by NPC so it breaks the whole idea.
While it has to inherit user's alignment in PP. So user will not be able to manipulate it.

For example if such a carrier navigates to the enemies' system it gets blockage. You cannot travel to it any more.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

Thinking about it some more, it is possible to limit FCs in PP, considering that FCs are really rented franchises of Brewer and not really 'yours'. Brewer might go 'welp, not our fight' and declines a commander who is pledged from doing PP things with it (like rares).

Makes sense to me, no FC deployment in Rival Powers systems of fortified or greater

Or.... if one is in there in Stronghold level, you are treated to a cutscene of the Stronghold fleet smashing it back to the stoneage.

 

[Factabulous]

Thinking about it some more, it is possible to limit FCs in PP, considering that FCs are really rented franchises of Brewer and not really 'yours'. Brewer might go 'welp, not our fight' and declines a commander who is pledged from doing PP things with it (like rares).

Yeah, I was thinking the same as I'm parked in Diso next to the Rares port with a big HOSTILE on my UI wondering why I'm being protected by the locals.

Plus it would really annoy all the right people