And your carrier is always surrounded by very hostile PP ships with some being chonky mass blockers. So if you take off in a trading ship, you are going to need chonky defences to live. Back in FC beta testing I had ATR buzzing about and taking off was a fun exercise as they spanked my modules silly.
General Fleet Carriers are becoming a big issue in Powerplay balancement.
- Thread starter Bard Voronwe
- Start date
Its very much mirroring what happens when your FC enters a system you are BGS hostile with.
It would also make commander owned FCs an action USS of its own.
I agree. FC's should not be allowed to store rares or regular cargo that can affect PP2. So you can fill your ship (say a cutter, t9, etc) with rares. And you can land on your FC, but if you move the rares from the ship into the FC cargo hold, poof, instant useless for pp2. You could still sell the rares for $$$ but zero merits, so zero help to your power.
Also all other merit making activities in pp2 need to be balanced up to the level with rares. I suggest starting with combat first, npc or cmdr, should be 2x to 4x the $$$ and merits
PP2 is beginning to feel like a rares CG... is that what Fdev intended?
Also all other merit making activities in pp2 need to be balanced up to the level with rares. I suggest starting with combat first, npc or cmdr, should be 2x to 4x the $$$ and merits
PP2 is beginning to feel like a rares CG... is that what Fdev intended?
i can only says theres NO SENSE to win a powerplay CONFLICT ZONE without spend a single bullett but just delivering rares the last hour of the cycle.
NO F SENSE and no one can change my mind about
NO F SENSE and no one can change my mind about
Welcome to the world of Elite Mildly Inconvenient.
I think this is another case of people imagining that fleet carriers give an advantage when really the numbers don't stack up.
Delivering via a fleet carrier always means that you have to handle every ton twice instead of once. It's a constant time overhead which can compensate for a long supercruise or many jumps, and make admin easier, but almost always direct hauling is faster.
In the case of rares, the bottleneck is always buying them, and that bottleneck still applies when loading a carrier. The carrier can't get you rares faster, and you still have to unload them.
I tried it once: filling up slowly with Lavian Brandy, Diso Corn etc., and then jumping 500ly to unload. It was slower than traditional loop trading and less interesting.
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Exactly! Put the modules at every 5 levels from L5 onwards or something.
Sure, after L50 or something they’ll be no modules to earn but anyone playing for that long is doing it for the power play not the modules.
The thing is with enough other commanders you can group load a couple of cutters and have them running like a train service. With enough commanders working together and someone who knows what to do you don’t need an FC to overwhelm the opposition.
Of course it does it has been in the game and at the mercy of players for nine days, I am sure there are things out of balance we have barely noticed yet.
OK, but that really is just a PP balancing issue as that many CMDRs could haul rare goods just as fast without a carrier in most cases. Excluding carriers from systems won't fix it.
(Ninja'd)
Yes, it certainly does. This is all that is required to improve the experience. Obsession over carriers, or large ships, or <insert symptom here> doesn't achieve a thing by comparison.
I wasn't interested in power play part of game but I had some hopes when it went live but...
1. My carrier is not being considered as an asset to power I have pledged to. Meaning no extra option such as power contact, no module that allows me to expand power beyond "bubble" so basically it is useless feature as long as I'm away from it.
2. While I can store lots of extra goodies on carrier I have to do it manually which is real pain in the rear end (and I can tell it from times when I have to refuel tritium alone). I'm still waiting for a kind of feature that would allow me to post missions for other commanders to do work for me... or hire npcs for the same thing.
I was expecting to see carriers to play bigger role than small ships flown by players but it is still not here, so my carrier will continue to be mobile base for my ships and nothing else beyond it.
I would love to see power play missions involving carriers that would require me to move it to mission specified system and have it stationed there for a week or so, acting as a base for power play and immediate space nearby to be considered as power space too (meaning I could enjoy the same bonuses there as in power owned system too). The last option alone would make it worthwhile for me to work on merits for rank again.
Right now I'm suspecting that it is correct to assume carriers are being used as a way to get merits fast to unlock access to modules and after that things will cool down and only players interested with power play aspect will continue to use them... if they are not tired of manual loading/unloading loads of goods involved in power play.
1. My carrier is not being considered as an asset to power I have pledged to. Meaning no extra option such as power contact, no module that allows me to expand power beyond "bubble" so basically it is useless feature as long as I'm away from it.
2. While I can store lots of extra goodies on carrier I have to do it manually which is real pain in the rear end (and I can tell it from times when I have to refuel tritium alone). I'm still waiting for a kind of feature that would allow me to post missions for other commanders to do work for me... or hire npcs for the same thing.
I was expecting to see carriers to play bigger role than small ships flown by players but it is still not here, so my carrier will continue to be mobile base for my ships and nothing else beyond it.
I would love to see power play missions involving carriers that would require me to move it to mission specified system and have it stationed there for a week or so, acting as a base for power play and immediate space nearby to be considered as power space too (meaning I could enjoy the same bonuses there as in power owned system too). The last option alone would make it worthwhile for me to work on merits for rank again.
Right now I'm suspecting that it is correct to assume carriers are being used as a way to get merits fast to unlock access to modules and after that things will cool down and only players interested with power play aspect will continue to use them... if they are not tired of manual loading/unloading loads of goods involved in power play.
This is what I'm doing.
Carrier is at an unpopulated system near Altair.
I'm using a 356t type 8 to go from altair to about 5 or so other rares systems nearby, return to the carrier once im almost, or fully loaded. Rinse n repeat.
Come Thurs early morning (I finish work 3am uk time home by 4am ish), I jump nearby to an aquisition system 200+ly away in my powers border. And using the cutter I dump the whole lot (about 5k rares) on said aquisition system I've targeted.
Net result.. lots of merits. And a boon for my power.
I'm guessing I'm not alone in this tactic.
So fleet carriers defo can make a huge difference especially on Thursday early morning before cycle.
Carrier is at an unpopulated system near Altair.
I'm using a 356t type 8 to go from altair to about 5 or so other rares systems nearby, return to the carrier once im almost, or fully loaded. Rinse n repeat.
Come Thurs early morning (I finish work 3am uk time home by 4am ish), I jump nearby to an aquisition system 200+ly away in my powers border. And using the cutter I dump the whole lot (about 5k rares) on said aquisition system I've targeted.
Net result.. lots of merits. And a boon for my power.
I'm guessing I'm not alone in this tactic.
So fleet carriers defo can make a huge difference especially on Thursday early morning before cycle.
That's what you get by making FC affordable to every player. The first iteration of FC from FD was the most balanced one. Over 150m of credits per week upkeep, to motivate squadrons for it's sustainability. The FC itself was designed to be rare and very expensive to run. It wasn't designed for everyone, but everyone would be able to try sustain it solo. We wouldn't have systems flooded with FCs and FC would be considered more rare and unique type of player assets. Sadly, if there is one thing that is always infinitely worse than FD - It's Elite's community that have zero understanding why things work the way they do.
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They still flip their lid that they are too expensive in both acquisition and mainancence. As seen by the congestion in various systems and the jump queue, clearly they are much too expensive... /s
Quite true. FC as it is now looks like something designed to deploy large number of ships simultaneously (large number of external landing pads alone indicates this) while internal space was set probably primarily to support those ships (I have no idea if originally FC had option to provide infinite fuel and limpets to ships).
I have no use for so many landing pads, probably just like majority of other FC owners but I do like to have access to services it offers whenever I go. I would be more than fine to have single large landing pad.
I do miss certain options like ability to hire NPC pilot(s) or post missions for other commanders (or maybe to have a kind of mission center similar to the one at stations too, with the choice of which ones would be offered on my carrier), power contact, being able to set my carrier immediate space as power space too so all players belonging to my power faction would benefit from bonuses granted by their merit rank in.
I would also love to have more livery options, that would affect more than carrier looks alone (maintenance fee included), like:
1. Explorer mid section: lowest number of landing pads, lowered internal cargo space, increased jump range, tritium refinery with hydrogen tank capable of manufacturing tritium out of scooped hydrogen.
2. Trader mid section: lowered number of landing pads, increased internal cargo space, ability to hire NPC pilot(s) to handle cargo transfer between station and carrier, ability to jump into station space (like 40km away from it).
3. Combat mid section: lowered internal cargo space, lowered number of landing pads, multiple fighter hangar, pilots quarters (hired NPCs, or squadron members), capable of jumping into combat zones (or any other zone in space where combat can happen).
4. Mining mid section: lowered number of landing pads, normal internal cargo space, mining drone control center (operated by NPCs or squad members),
5. Power play support mid section: normal number of landing pads, reduced internal cargo space, power play control center, ability to provide support in power play actions (by providing proper materials and claiming immediate space around FC as power owned space)
6. Passenger ferry mid section: low number of landing pads, lowered internal cargo space, cryo pod section, hydrogen powered FSD, extended navigation capabilities (meaning course ploting and jumping).
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