A bit of history: What was the Fleet Carriers update like?

[DjVortex]

Elite Dangerous introduced fleet carriers in 2020. Back then I didn't even know this game existed, much less did I play it, so I didn't see first-hand what the community response and reaction to this was.

Could someone who lived that time retell a bit about what kind of response it got, particularly in these forums? I would assume that this was probably one of the least-controversial and most well-received updates to the game ever. But knowing the ED community... who knows.

 

[Aashenfox]

A few people were a little upset about the costs, but the truth is that we were at a stage in the game where people had consistently abused the various credit exploits that existed (or got incredibly rich by legit means, but mostly the former I think ) and everyone was sitting on billions of credits, so it was intended to be a credit sink. Mining enough tritium in the beginning was rough and the amount of fuel used per jump was adjusted a couple of times, but generally, yeh, it was very well received, it's still something I would find it incredibly frustrating to play without, having a fleet of 20 ships. Probably the best addition to the game over the years. IIRC if you wanted to outfit your carrier with all A parts in outfitting, all ships and all facilities, it was about 15bn

 

[Kzak]

Initially the fuel cost was 1 Tritium per light-year jumped, I seem to remember, but this was not received well by the players. Soon afterwards the fuel costs were dialed down to 250 Tritium for 500 LY jumped, and a while later further reduced to where it is now, circa 125 Tritium for 500 LY, scaled down accordingly for smaller jumps and dependent on the carrier's cargo mass in addition.

 

[metatheurgist]

Can't speak for anyone else but this is what it looked liked to me

 

[Captain N]

My reaction to it was largely, you can't pilot them yourself? Lame!
And 5 years later I still don't have the credits to afford one, but I guess I have myself to blame for that. And oh, other less sleep-inducing games.
Call me when they add the ability to fly your carrier into a combat zone, flip your flight assist off, drift sideways past an enemy station at speeds in excess of 5km/s while letting your thundering capital ship weapons rip. (Not always the best strategy in Infinity, but can you say you have lived if you never tried it?)

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I didn't (and still don't) like the whole idea of offline costs. If they wanted a money sink it could have been for use (per jump) or a higher online cost. If the idea was for cleanup of unused carriers, they could have made it time based instead.

 

[Mr Lindsay]

I dropped the game for a year or so, because I was mad at the 'running costs' recurring even when you weren't using the carrier for anything. I was completely burned on that crap from other games, and had spent hours upon hours of mining just to build up my balance to cover the initial cost.

What brought me back was that at that point I had been working on some AX stuff that I hadn't achieved yet, which I still wanted to finish off... and then I realised that having the carrier would be perfect for moving the AX builds I was testing out from Shinrarta to AX Combat areas instead of spending ages jumping short-range combat ships out there, so I capitulated.

I still think the recurring costs are a bad idea, and the majority of carriers probably have carrier balances that will outlive the game anyway, but to some extent that has recently been mitigated with Colonization allowing for passive income to balance that if you do enough of it.

 

[Kimosabe_X]

I miss the time when Tritium was 4-5K per ton at the beginning...

 

[Rock Hunter]

My memories from that period are that so many Cmdrs were mining VO at huge profits to bank enough credits for the Carrier plus as much surplus as possible - I can’t remember whether ‘The Egg’ was around that time or came later but that’s probably because I wasn’t aware of it until it had been farmed extensively by a large number of Cmdrs and it was all over Reddit and the forums.

In terms of FC reception on launch…pretty much the usual state of affairs. A lot of miffed people because it wasn’t quite what they had wanted it to be or what they believed FDev had promised it would be. That probably started with the whole is it a Squad based or Individual based asset…and then went from there to include disappointment in things like there being no interiors - you just sat in your ship staring at a wall.

I think initially one of the coolest things many found about it was jumping ahead of it to watch it arrive in a system, but that soon wore off - I wonder how many still do that?

 

[Kzak]

I dropped the game for a year or so, because I was mad at the 'running costs' recurring even when you weren't using the carrier for anything. I was completely burned on that crap from other games, and had spent hours upon hours of mining just to build up my balance to cover the initial cost.

What brought me back was that at that point I had been working on some AX stuff that I hadn't achieved yet, which I still wanted to finish off... and then I realised that having the carrier would be perfect for moving the AX builds I was testing out from Shinrarta to AX Combat areas instead of spending ages jumping short-range combat ships out there, so I capitulated.

I still think the recurring costs are a bad idea, and the majority of carriers probably have carrier balances that will outlive the game anyway, but to some extent that has recently been mitigated with Colonization allowing for passive income to balance that if you do enough of it.

The running costs of a fleet carrier might seem bad, but then you can look at e.g. the current CG and realize that the minimum contribution for the weakest party (Li-Yong Rui currently) will take maybe ten minutes and give you 60 million credits, enough for 12 weeks of basic carrier upkeep.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The running costs of a fleet carrier might seem bad, but then you can look at e.g. the current CG and realize that the minimum contribution for the weakest party (Li-Yong Rui cirrently) will take maybe ten minutes and give you 60 million credits, enough for 12 weeks of basic carrier upkeep.

For some of us, its not the amount that is the issue. The amounts are pretty trivial to cover. Its the principle of losing money while not playing the game. Its reminiscent of mobile games which reward you for logging in every day, but instead you are punished for not logging in.

 

[Darrack]

It was quiet simply a game changer, for exploration you could now plonk a base anywhere you wanted out in the black.
This meant you could take a break from scanning/picking flowers and do a spot of mining or even use ships that would normally be a bit of a pain to explore close systems.

It changed hauling CGs, you could stock in bulk and either sell on to other players or transfer to the receiving station.

For colonisation its been a must for anyone (like me) building stations 400LYs out.

Weekly running costs are not an issue, you can easily get enough credits in a few hours mining, combat or doing passenger runs.

There were issues with jumping in the early days but overall my experience was extremely positive.

I don't think i could ever go back to not having a carrier.

O7

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

A few people were a little upset about the costs

And some still are. A lot.

With the current state of the economy, fleet carriers are easy to support. My personal memory is: They always were if you played regularely. They were not if you didn't, but it was not too difficult to reach a stage when you carrier was financed for months if not years.

After the release it took me a few months to get the credits needed to buy, outfit and finance it for a while. I made all of the credits doing core mining, but I didn't work or grind towards it, I put cash aside every time I played. Carriers were introduced in spring, I think (April? May?), I bought my carrier in October or November 2020.

They were definitely a game changer, as for one they probably replaced having a "home station" for many players; it did for me, I live on my carrier now. Having your fleet with you everywhere you go is very convenient.

The other game changer was that a lot of players seem to have forgotten that their ships have jump drives too, and now complain that their 15 ly jump takes 20 minutes instead of 20 seconds,

 

[Robert Maynard]

At the time that Fleet Carriers were introduced there were, as there still are, some players who bemoaned the fact that Carriers had not been restricted to Squadron ownership - forgetting that each and every Squadron starts with a single member (and that Frontier had confirmed [while Carriers were still expected to be Squadron assets] that the Carrier would not be lost should Squadron membership fall below an arbitrary [and, from memory, never stated] number).

If Carriers had remained Squadron assets then it is likely that we'd have a greater number of single member Squadrons - as it is highly likely that many players would want to be the one directing the Carrier and not subject to the whim of the Squadron Leader.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Development-wise the game had been rather quiet prior to the Carrier release. Initially they were going to be a squadron thing and would involve deciding what role the carrier would have at the start, they would also have looked like the Stronghold Carriers. This got watered down to the single player, jack of all trades carriers we have now.
Complaints were in all directions; too expensive, too cheap, spoil the system map, too much upkeep, rented, other players control them, some aren't open to notorious cmdrs, not all of them offer all services, they offer too many services, it's too hard to buy one for a casual player, they make the game too easy, ATC doesn't roll out the red carpet every time I stop to change ships, carry too much cargo, don't carry enough cargo... All the good stuff.

 

[Aashenfox]

And some still are. A lot.

With the current state of the economy, fleet carriers are easy to support. My personal memory is: They always were if you played regularely. They were not if you didn't, but it was not too difficult to reach a stage when you carrier was financed for months if not years.

After the release it took me a few months to get the credits needed to buy, outfit and finance it for a while. I made all of the credits doing core mining, but I didn't work or grind towards it, I put cash aside every time I played. Carriers were introduced in spring, I think (April? May?), I bought my carrier in October or November 2020.

They were definitely a game changer, as for one they probably replaced having a "home station" for many players; it did for me, I live on my carrier now. Having your fleet with you everywhere you go is very convenient.

The other game changer was that a lot of players seem to have forgotten that their ships have jump drives too, and now complain that their 15 ly jump takes 20 minutes instead of 20 seconds,

I'm not a fan of running costs either to be honest, my carrier has spent 2bn credits in existence tax now, and I've never been one to grind for credits, I'm only worth about 14bn total since the beginning of the game, credits have just never been something I ground for. I'd prefer if you could simply pause all services and then you can't even land on it, so you could do that before taking an extended break from the game. Hey if no activity in 6 months, fine, sell it off automatically for me.

I'm also not a fan of the lengthy jump cooldowns and warmups, I really don't see why it couldn't be 5 minutes instead of 15. Just seems so arbitrary and long.

Credits are at least easier to make than ever before.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I'm also not a fan of the lengthy jump cooldowns and warmups, I really don't see why it couldn't be 5 minutes instead of 15. Just seems so arbitrary and long.

It has been stated before by Frontier that the current jump times are not arbitrary, but the technical limit their system can do. Probably also the reason why jump times skyrocket at peak times and why Frontier funneled that into that rather strict queue system.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Development-wise the game had been rather quiet prior to the Carrier release. Initially they were going to be a squadron thing and would involve deciding what role the carrier would have at the start, they would also have looked like the Stronghold Carriers. This got watered down to the single player, jack of all trades carriers we have now.
Complaints were in all directions; too expensive, too cheap, spoil the system map, too much upkeep, rented, other players control them, some aren't open to notorious cmdrs, not all of them offer all services, they offer too many services, it's too hard to buy one for a casual player, they make the game too easy, ATC doesn't roll out the red carpet every time I stop to change ships, carry too much cargo, don't carry enough cargo... All the good stuff.

If everyone is unhappy, it seems they found the perfect compromise

 

[Robert Maynard]

I'm also not a fan of the lengthy jump cooldowns and warmups, I really don't see why it couldn't be 5 minutes instead of 15. Just seems so arbitrary and long.

The interval between jumps was, from memory, an hour when first introduced. Players complained (shocker, I know). The interval was reduced significantly - and it's still too long for some (again - shocker!).

I expect (but don't know) that the minimum interval has something to do with guaranteeing that the movement of what is effectively a type of station, with its market, across the servers that run the galaxy has completed by the time that the Carrier jumps. Then there's the increase to that interval when "too many" Carriers want to jump at the same time, likely to do with the capacity of whatever system is used to propagate Carrier movements to the game's servers.

 

[Shurimal]

I remember the Low-Temperature Diamond craze in Borann before carriers launched When they did, ³H hotspots were added to icy rings and all the hotspots were re-shuffled, and Borann triple spot was no more.

I didn't buy my carrier until January 2023--never have been much of a credit grinder--but it has been an invaluable tool. Upkeep is no problem for me; I have a simple guideline: whenever I reach 1,1 billion in my personal account, I transfer 1 billion to the carrier. With all the services (except secure warehouse) installed I have more than 11 years of upkeep in the bank.