Fleet Carriers: How to make them worth playing and balancing to be no sitting Duck
- Thread starter ALEX CAOS
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- balancing fleet carrier
I like most of what you posted, but I think 5 billion is too much. I think 1 billion is a much better price and makes it more accessible.
You're not the spokesperson of FD. It is a mistake to make them non-damageable and useless for PVP emergent gameplay. The FC should appeal to PVE and PVP players. Many people like both.
Indestructible and non-damageable FC are boring, because it limits the possible utility and interaction with the FC. It would also create a late-game problem, because there's a lack of money sinks. So players would keep accumulating billions, trillions of credits after acquiring a FC due to few expenses.
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You use the word "mistake"...
"Mistake" measured by who's metrics?
You are quite correct, however. I never claimed to be the voice of FDev. But I have a brain. I used that brain to analyse and scrutinise the news from FDev that Carriers would be "indestructible". My own conclusions from this are that FDev are not focusing Carriers as some PvP combat extension or mechanic.
I would applaud you if you came up with a differing conclusion using your brain to analyse the situation as it stands, rather than what you personally might want it to be. That'd be cool.
There are a couple of open questions that heavily influence whether or not carriers will be good for anything.
We already know that carriers will be invulnerabel (its obvious that they have to), so direct combat is out.
The first important question is: Can we jump to a planet/moon or just to the main star? If its 'mainstar', then it'll be very hard to find a purpose for them. Mobile repair base for explorers would be the only thing I can come up with.
The second question is: Will we be able to store ships there? The list ob services features: Repair, Rearm and Restore. If 'shipyard' isn't there... uhh, I've got a bad feeling about that. Both the Gnossis and the Rescue-Ships have no shipyard as well. (Wait, did they even mention 'outfitting'?)
The third question is: Can we store commodities there. A mining carrier without the option to store mined goods would be completly pointless. But storing commoditites has never be possible at all, till now. So I'm a bit sceptic here as well.
If the answer is No to all three, then carriers will be personal outposts with very bad services sitting on a selectable mainstar. And that would be pretty pointless.
But if the annwer is Yes to all three, then the could be really, really nice.
We already know that carriers will be invulnerabel (its obvious that they have to), so direct combat is out.
The first important question is: Can we jump to a planet/moon or just to the main star? If its 'mainstar', then it'll be very hard to find a purpose for them. Mobile repair base for explorers would be the only thing I can come up with.
The second question is: Will we be able to store ships there? The list ob services features: Repair, Rearm and Restore. If 'shipyard' isn't there... uhh, I've got a bad feeling about that. Both the Gnossis and the Rescue-Ships have no shipyard as well. (Wait, did they even mention 'outfitting'?)
The third question is: Can we store commodities there. A mining carrier without the option to store mined goods would be completly pointless. But storing commoditites has never be possible at all, till now. So I'm a bit sceptic here as well.
If the answer is No to all three, then carriers will be personal outposts with very bad services sitting on a selectable mainstar. And that would be pretty pointless.
But if the annwer is Yes to all three, then the could be really, really nice.
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I would like to see extra fuel tanks from the outfitting screen become more useful. Using a reverse fuel transfer from smaller ships into the carrier as a means of refueling it.
An anaconda stripped down to nothing but fuel tanks and a size 6 fuel scoop would hold around 438 Tons of fuel. Assuming a carrier requires something like 1,000 Tons of fuel, would mean taking your refueling ship out to the local star about 2 - 3 times, cooking your ship for 8 mins while you top off each time.
Sure beats having to find some element in deep space that you synthesize as fuel.
An anaconda stripped down to nothing but fuel tanks and a size 6 fuel scoop would hold around 438 Tons of fuel. Assuming a carrier requires something like 1,000 Tons of fuel, would mean taking your refueling ship out to the local star about 2 - 3 times, cooking your ship for 8 mins while you top off each time.
Sure beats having to find some element in deep space that you synthesize as fuel.
Storage of cargo?
Unlikely.
Extremely unlikely, in fact.
Go to rares location; take rares; transfer to Carrier; get more; Fill up carrier (how much tonnage?); jump 500Ly... Profit.
Extremely unlikely that will be a thing possible in this game.
Of course I could be wrong, but you see my analysis.
I don't see particular any reason why storage of ship modules would be "exploitable" and therefore outfitting has a reasonable chance of appearing!?
As for location - this is an unknown. All that has been released is only one Carrier per Instance. That doesn't mean if a Carrier is present in a location you can't go there, just that they can't meet in normal space (which begs the question - they might not be able to supercruise within a system, because that might allow more than one per game Instance - so perhaps orbit in the main star in system is a restriction imposed by this one per instance condition?!
That's what I'm thinking as well.
But to put it a bit more positive: Storage of cargo would give them a purpose. I woulnd't call that an exploit, but rather a reasonable utilzation.
I don't expect it to be possible though.
But without storage of cargo: What are the trade and mining carriers good for?
Edit: At a second though I think it could work, They could just 'ban' rares from carriers (just like they ban you from buying more than a handfull), and could balance carrying normal market good via the grindines of the carrier fuel
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I'm just wondering if they'll be available to other people you allow to dock on them while you're offline.
Nobody really needs a mobile parking lot, we have ship transferring for that. What would be useful is a way to plop a landing pad for yourself and others at a location where there wasn't one before.
Nobody really needs a mobile parking lot, we have ship transferring for that. What would be useful is a way to plop a landing pad for yourself and others at a location where there wasn't one before.
I'm in perfect agreement with the other two, but arent personal, portable space stations exactly what the Carriers are?
I think they'll just be mobile garages , not so much space stations ... somewhere to park up and refuel maybe even rearm but personally i think that will be about all. If theres ability to buy ships etc then what good will stations be?.
I wouldn't want to go so far as ship buying myself, but I expect them to have some services of the space stations depending on loadout, such as turning in bounties if you have the bounty hunting facilities and so on.
There are lot of things that can be improved. The original Elite didn't have many features of ED. The game shouldn't be stuck in the past. There are many people who like both PVE and PVP. The FC should have features for both.
I agree that the game is far from perfect.
Why the sudden tangent about "stuck in the past", though? Maybe it's some reference to multiplayer being "for PvP," in your view? Or perhaps "mainly for PvP combat"?
The point I'm making is that I'm only taking the stated facts from FDev and deducing directly from these facts that FDev themselves don't consider either of those things to be what ED is designed to accomplish or accomodate.
Whether I agree with that deduction is neither here nor there. The facts of the Carriers being: indestructible and; only one per instance - leads to the direct conclusion that Carriers are not coded to be some form of extended PvP combat opportunity. Does your analysis differ from mine, and (regardless of whether you desire this to be true or not) if so, why?
Look at how many people used advanced multicannons what with their crappy synthesis requirements... I’ve never seen anyone ever.
Some take the concept of "Elite" to the extreme, and then add "exclusive" to the description of it.
Since these aren't ships we can "fly" I don't see a reason to have the price above 200m. If every commander can have one, why make it so only those who spend their time grinding out void opals and such can afford one? I'd think FD would be targeting new users, and that bait of "grind your way to a fleet carrier" vs "here's a fleet carrier, now grind your way to ships to fill it" seems inefficient.