Please reconsider fleet carriers for solo players.

[IndigoWyrd]

FD could simply introduce different classes of Fleet Carriers... the huge ones requiers a Squadron to maintain.... small ones, that can carry, lets say... 6 ships (two small, two medium and two large), and would not require a Squadron solution to maintain... Would be neat indeed.

I don't see that. I see one type of Carrier, and yes, soloists will see them too. But here's a more interesting question:

If said carrier is visible to a solo player, who happens to be a member of a squadron, specifically, the squadron that operates said carrier, will they be able to utilize it as would squadron members in Private Groups or in Open?

Will this affect the capacity of a carrier? What is the capacity of a carrier for that matter?

On a not-directly-related note, I have to voice a certain level of disgust with those who keep clamoring about "Open Only" anything. This selfish, self-serving attitude is repugnant to me. Your "content" is no more important or less important than anyone else's content. You are no more or less important than anyone else, regardless of what your egos may tell you.

Elite has been an exceptionally spectacular game because it has not, since its inception, catered to or favored one mode of play over another. Trying to change this simply because it's what you want is contemptible at best. If the equality between modes should be lost, I fear for the future of the game, as a vast population of the player base will very likely be lost as well, and I've little doubt that Frontier is intelligent enough to realize this - so ditch the selfish agenda and let the notion of "Open Only" anything die the death it deserves.

 

[Atol]

I am kinda split on this. One hand I agree but other hand no.

 

[Captain Willard]

I wouldn't mind at all If it's for live squadrons only in open and pg.
Squadron only carriers jumping into locked Thargoid areas to attack their bases.
Even better if chances are high the entire squadron is destroyed.
Who wants to live for ever?

 

[Agony_Aunt]

At the risk of dragging this discussion slightly off-topic, there are some things about FCs that bother me...

1. FCs surely have to be Open-only? I play in Solo exclusively and it will be utterly weird if this ghostly Marie Celeste suddenly showed up in my home system with no crew, no ships, no nothing. Contrariwise, look at the salt around Solo players impacting Powerplay and the BGS from the "cowardly shadows" of Solo. Now imagine the salt if FCs allowed a squadron to arrive in a system and deliver a force-multiplier to that gameplay. What could the home faction do to counteract it?

2. FCs must be persistent. How could it possibly work if individual squadron members are flying around a system, destroying local commanders, but then dock with their FC and suddenly disappear? Imagine the (justified) wailing if entire squadrons can combat-log.

3. I don't see a problem if FCs allow squadron members to refuel and rearm, as long as there's an economic mechanic in place to allow that (ie, no free fuel, no free ammo). Anything beyond that becomes massively problematical. So FCs can't possibly have a local market for trading - how would that work? What would determine the buy/sell price if the FC is 20kly from the Bubble? If they're buying, who are they selling to?

4. FCs cannot have an unlimited shipyard. As far as I'm aware, there's no mechanic in the game that allows commanders to be outside one of their own ships. If you're in the game, you're in a ship. The idea that individual commanders would be able to buy an FC and then stock it with multiple ships can't work with the current state of the game, unless FD allows you to transport a ship from a shipyard to the FC. That should be subject to the same cost penalty as normal ship transfers, and it should scale with distance.

5. FCs cannot have a UC franchise aboard. This is such a game-breaking pay-to-win mechanism it can't possibly be justified. If a squadron is 25kly out, it cannot be allowed to turn in exploration data for a 5/10/20ly jump to the FC while non-squadron commanders in the same sector have to jump 20 or 25kly to turn in their data. I believe that happens on the Gnosis but only because the Gnosis is open to everyone - commanders should be able to dock on any FC and use the facilities, or no-one should (including squadron members).

6. There's at least one commander on the forums who constantly refers to FCs as "Capital Ships". This cannot be possible. For the simplest case of balance across modes and gameplay, FCs must be no more than 'carriers' that transport 'fleets'. Unless FD is determined to gift Open multiplayer with illogical benefits, and essentially force players into cooperative Open mode, then a squadron of 25 should have no more benefits than are available to 25 individual commanders.

Maybe you are thinking Fleet Carriers are going to be something different from what FD are likely to deliver?

1) Squadrons can already turn up in force simply by jumping into a system. What difference does it make if they make a planned jump aboard a carrier or just do it from their own ships? FCs will probably be cross mode.

2) They probably will be persistant and not destroyable. It will work the same as if they dock at any station then log off. Or drop into a signal source and log off. Or simply drop out of SC and log off. I don't even drop out, just log off. I guess FCs will sit in their own signal sources. If you can make it to your FC you can certain make it anywhere else to log off.

3) Either a credit cost, like a guild charging its members for services but perhaps at a reduced rate or maybe you need to provide the stocks for the services yourself? Either could work.

4) I can imagine there will be a limited shipyard simply like we have limited shipyard storage with stations. I presume this will be on a per player basis otherwise the largest groups might have problems. I guess there will be more than enough slots per player to allow you to bring a selection of ships for different roles.

5) Actually i'm hoping they do have a UC contact. It will be a nice transformation to exploration and encourage group exploration in FCs.

6) Capital ships or carrier, as i said earlier, i presume they will be in their own signal sources anyway. I doubt you will be able to drop them inside CZs. They might have weapon defenses, in case someone breaks the law inside their area. Maybe they will have megaship mechanics whereby people can make raids against them to steal data or whatever, but those will likely be just like megaships, last person leaves the instance, everything resets.

Now, while i haven't used words like "must" like you have, i think based on FD's history of developing the game, its quite likely how things will be, with possibly some things wrong and maybe FD will add some features to FCs that i think they won't.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Maybe you are thinking Fleet Carriers are going to be something different from what FD are likely to deliver?

1) Squadrons can already turn up in force simply by jumping into a system. What difference does it make if they make a planned jump aboard a carrier or just do it from their own ships? FCs will probably be cross mode.

Agreed. No issues there.

2) They probably will be persistant and not destroyable. It will work the same as if they dock at any station then log off. Or drop into a signal source and log off. Or simply drop out of SC and log off. I don't even drop out, just log off. I guess FCs will sit in their own signal sources. If you can make it to your FC you can certain make it anywhere else to log off.

Agreed. This is also my guess.

3) Either a credit cost, like a guild charging its members for services but perhaps at a reduced rate or maybe you need to provide the stocks for the services yourself? Either could work.

Possibly a commodity need or materials. That would be my guess.

4) I can imagine there will be a limited shipyard simply like we have limited shipyard storage with stations. I presume this will be on a per player basis otherwise the largest groups might have problems. I guess there will be more than enough slots per player to allow you to bring a selection of ships for different roles.

This is one I doubt. If FDev wanted us to be able to move our own personal fleets around all the other moveable megaships would have a shipyard and so would the Gnosis.

5) Actually i'm hoping they do have a UC contact. It will be a nice transformation to exploration and encourage group exploration in FCs.

It's a possibility. Not too sure about it though.

6) Capital ships or carrier, as i said earlier, i presume they will be in their own signal sources anyway. I doubt you will be able to drop them inside CZs. They might have weapon defenses, in case someone breaks the law inside their area. Maybe they will have megaship mechanics whereby people can make raids against them to steal data or whatever, but those will likely be just like megaships, last person leaves the instance, everything resets.

Agreed.

Now, while i haven't used words like "must" like you have, i think based on FD's history of developing the game, its quite likely how things will be, with possibly some things wrong and maybe FD will add some features to FCs that i think they won't.

Yup. We shall see what happens.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

At the risk of dragging this discussion slightly off-topic, there are some things about FCs that bother me...

snip

5. FCs cannot have a UC franchise aboard. This is such a game-breaking pay-to-win mechanism it can't possibly be justified. If a squadron is 25kly out, it cannot be allowed to turn in exploration data for a 5/10/20ly jump to the FC while non-squadron commanders in the same sector have to jump 20 or 25kly to turn in their data. I believe that happens on the Gnosis but only because the Gnosis is open to everyone - commanders should be able to dock on any FC and use the facilities, or no-one should (including squadron members).

And, there is the reason I probably won't get one. I suspect the lack of a shipyard/outfitting will kill the attraction of one pretty fast, as well.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

And, there is the reason I probably won't get one. I suspect the lack of a shipyard/outfitting will kill the attraction of one pretty fast, as well.

I think they will certainly have outfitting, but just no modules for sale, you can transfer them over though, it's the shipyard that I suspect not.

 

[Robert Maynard]

At the risk of dragging this discussion slightly off-topic, there are some things about FCs that bother me...

1. FCs surely have to be Open-only?

Given that no game features are Open-only, why would it be expected that Squadrons would break that mould?

 

[Nadreck]

If Carriers only appear in instances where members of the owning squadron are present (which is the most reasonable way of impelementing them), others won't see a ship "disappear" when it docks with its Carrier. If you're not in the instance, you won't see either the ship or the Carrier. If you are in the same instance as the ship, you will see the Carrier too. In Solo, you will never see anyone else's Carrier: in PG, you will only ever see Carriers owned by members of your PG. And as PG's will need to be catered for, Carriers will never be "Open only" (and as Solo players can create a PG of one, a ban on Solo would be pointless). In Open, you will only see the Carriers of players you are instanced with, not "hundreds", even at popular locations.

Adding UC to a Carrier isn't a big deal, as explorers can carry an unlimited amount of cartographic data anyhow, so they don't need to "run back to the Bubble" to sell it and free up space for more. Space is big, so the ability to cash in sooner rather than later will very rarely lead to loss of first-discovery tags. It provides a backup in case of ship destruction, and a way of seeing your progress rather than waiting ages to see your tags. It would also allow exporers to publicly report an interesting find almost immediately, rather than having to keep it a secret for days/weeks/months to avoid poaching of first-discovery tags.

The force-multiplier argument for BGS work is something I hope FDev will consider, if they try to impose a minimum squadron size for a Carrier. If Squad A is twice the size of Squad B, and A is entitled to a Carrier but B is not, and the Carrier makes the squadron twice as effective in a given operation, then suddenly A is four times as effective as B and gains an unfair advantage.

 

[Rustnsawdust]

i haven't used words like "must" like you have

Apologies... a poor choice of words on my part. I certainly didn't mean it to read like a list of demands, more like thinking out loud about some of the little-discussed aspects of carriers.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Apologies... a poor choice of words on my part. I certainly didn't mean it to read like a list of demands, more like thinking out loud about some of the little-discussed aspects of carriers.

Understood.

 

[EUS]

If these things were pilotable, I'd be the first one trying to ram it though a station's entrance.
Which is why they're to be non-destructible, and jump only flight.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Just docked at Foster Terminal (Colonia). It's a "Flight Operations Carrier", with full facilities. It is parked in a gas giant ring, so materials are not a problem. It has a shipyard, so ship transfer works.

So, a full facility carrier isn't impossible. We simply don't know what Frontier will do.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Just docked at Foster Terminal (Colonia). It's a "Flight Operations Carrier", with full facilities. It is parked in a gas giant ring, so materials are not a problem. It has a shipyard, so ship transfer works.

So, a full facility carrier isn't impossible. We simply don't know what Frontier will do.

Does it move around or does it stay there?

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I think they will certainly have outfitting, but just no modules for sale, you can transfer them over though, it's the shipyard that I suspect not.

Maybe that could be one of the upgrades that owners can aspire to as progression.

 

[ThomasWJames]

I don't know all the details to fleet carriers, but despite this, I'd vote NO on a fleet carrier for solo players. Not sure my reasons are sound or if it would even be possible to enforce, but that's my stance on that.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Just docked at Foster Terminal (Colonia). It's a "Flight Operations Carrier", with full facilities. It is parked in a gas giant ring, so materials are not a problem. It has a shipyard, so ship transfer works.

So, a full facility carrier isn't impossible. We simply don't know what Frontier will do.

Does it move around or does it stay there?

It doesn't move. There's a few others in the region (Damask Rose, Dove Enigma, and the detention centre carrier Odin's Crag) which also have shipyards and don't move.

 

[Factabulous]

There's probably no technical limitation* on moving stations having shipyards - it's a policy decision within fdev, so they could change it if they thought it would improve the game.

Personally I'm not convinced having DW3 being an expedition where all you need is the credits to do a ship transfer to the pre-positioned FC at Beagle Point and then wait a week is a good thing, thought I'm sure others would jump at it.

* well, there would be bugs - like with outfitting on movable ships where the module always shows as being in the system the megaship was in at the time of transfer rather than where the m/s currently is.

 

[joshman72nd]

i could dig a mini carrier that can carry 4-5 ships for solo players 2 large pads 2 meds and 1 small. but thats just me

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It doesn't move. There's a few others in the region (Damask Rose, Dove Enigma, and the detention centre carrier Odin's Crag) which also have shipyards and don't move.

That's what I thought. Unless Fdev do a complete change in how they want things to be, I will.be surprised if Squadron Fleet carriers have shipyards, and if they do I can see them being very limited, maybe 1 or 2 stored ships per commander.