EDIT SEE 3 POSTS DOWN
tl;dr Will a CM please reply to this message and let the community know what is being done to address the issue of not being able to jump fleet carriers.
First I would like to say I have being playing Elite Dangerous since 2014 and I love it. I used to work in IT support so I have cut FDev a lot of slack in the past regarding issues with the game but this problem really is an own goal of the worst order.
For context I have spent over 24 hours, trying at all hours of the day and night, to jump my carrier.
Just in case anyone at FDev is unsure; a "Fleet Carrier" carries stuff from one place to another. That is the whole point of a "carrier". If I had spent over 8 billion credits on a "Glorified shelving unit" then I would have no problem that it was unable to jump its joyful way around the galaxy as shelving units, generally speaking, stay pretty much in the same place. But I did not.
Was it not blindingly obvious to FDev that when you introduce a much desired cool new feature, a very significant number of players are going to pile into it like nothing before? I don't know the exact figures but given we have been told that over 8000 new colonies have been created, I believe the term "a very significant number" is not an exaggeration.
And was it also not blindingly obvious to FDev that if you introduce a feature that requires players to shift millions of tons of cargo around the galaxy then their transport vehicle of choice was probably not going to be, for example, a Hauler?
Surely it was obvious that fleet carriers would become a core method of transporting cargo, even over short distances yet alone to the fringes of the bubble, and so the demand for carrier jump slots would increase by orders of magnitude? Especially in the light of past experience from Community Goals and so on?
The whole point of having cool features in the game, such as fleet carriers and your own star system, is to attract more players to the game. And if you are going to attract more players then you are going to need more hardware to support this.
I pretty certain the lack of jump slots is a software issue where the fleet carrier jump process has been deliberately limited to stop it overwhelming the rest of the game. But when you introduce a feature such as fleet carriers you are, presumably, intending to expand your user base. Therefore it would make an incredible amount of sense to design any process involving the new feature that you limit, to be easily extensible so that when your dreams of loads of extra users comes true, with a metaphorical flick of a switch you can easily increase the capacity of your limited areas to keep all your new users having tons of fun so they tell their mates how great it is and you get even more users etc. etc. etc.
As opposed to, for example, driving your player base insane when they cannot use one of the major features of the game!
It would be an act of great, well, stupidity, to design such a critical part of the system as a closed box because even a child would be able see that, sooner or later, it will all end in tears.
And this problem is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT going to go away such as with a community goal. There are 400 billion stars in the ED Galaxy and the player base is not going to be content until they have built a space station in every last one of them. OK, possible exaggeration, but players continuing to expand the bubble is going to be a major feature of Elite Dangerous FOREVER! And fleet carriers are going to become an ever increasing part of that effort FOREVER!
So FDev, throw your suffering player base a bone, are you working on solving this problem or do you believe this is an "acceptable" part of the ED experience going forward?
Just asking.
tl;dr Will a CM please reply to this message and let the community know what is being done to address the issue of not being able to jump fleet carriers.
First I would like to say I have being playing Elite Dangerous since 2014 and I love it. I used to work in IT support so I have cut FDev a lot of slack in the past regarding issues with the game but this problem really is an own goal of the worst order.
For context I have spent over 24 hours, trying at all hours of the day and night, to jump my carrier.
Just in case anyone at FDev is unsure; a "Fleet Carrier" carries stuff from one place to another. That is the whole point of a "carrier". If I had spent over 8 billion credits on a "Glorified shelving unit" then I would have no problem that it was unable to jump its joyful way around the galaxy as shelving units, generally speaking, stay pretty much in the same place. But I did not.
Was it not blindingly obvious to FDev that when you introduce a much desired cool new feature, a very significant number of players are going to pile into it like nothing before? I don't know the exact figures but given we have been told that over 8000 new colonies have been created, I believe the term "a very significant number" is not an exaggeration.
And was it also not blindingly obvious to FDev that if you introduce a feature that requires players to shift millions of tons of cargo around the galaxy then their transport vehicle of choice was probably not going to be, for example, a Hauler?
Surely it was obvious that fleet carriers would become a core method of transporting cargo, even over short distances yet alone to the fringes of the bubble, and so the demand for carrier jump slots would increase by orders of magnitude? Especially in the light of past experience from Community Goals and so on?
The whole point of having cool features in the game, such as fleet carriers and your own star system, is to attract more players to the game. And if you are going to attract more players then you are going to need more hardware to support this.
I pretty certain the lack of jump slots is a software issue where the fleet carrier jump process has been deliberately limited to stop it overwhelming the rest of the game. But when you introduce a feature such as fleet carriers you are, presumably, intending to expand your user base. Therefore it would make an incredible amount of sense to design any process involving the new feature that you limit, to be easily extensible so that when your dreams of loads of extra users comes true, with a metaphorical flick of a switch you can easily increase the capacity of your limited areas to keep all your new users having tons of fun so they tell their mates how great it is and you get even more users etc. etc. etc.
As opposed to, for example, driving your player base insane when they cannot use one of the major features of the game!
It would be an act of great, well, stupidity, to design such a critical part of the system as a closed box because even a child would be able see that, sooner or later, it will all end in tears.
And this problem is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT going to go away such as with a community goal. There are 400 billion stars in the ED Galaxy and the player base is not going to be content until they have built a space station in every last one of them. OK, possible exaggeration, but players continuing to expand the bubble is going to be a major feature of Elite Dangerous FOREVER! And fleet carriers are going to become an ever increasing part of that effort FOREVER!
So FDev, throw your suffering player base a bone, are you working on solving this problem or do you believe this is an "acceptable" part of the ED experience going forward?
Just asking.
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