All this angst over upkeep on Fleet Carriers - why?

I agree!

For example in another space game which has this fleet carriers idea by another name, you purchase this fleet flagship is a gateway to NEW GAME PLAY and more profits BECAUSE along with this flagship comes competent NPCs who help you run it and even support ships which you can coordinate sending them on autonomous missions. Having similar functionality in Elite Dangerous would be F ing glorious!
I hope you are not talking about NMS. God, I never want ED to be anything like that game.
 
from the dev post in another thread, if upkeep isnt done then the carrier can be decommissioned and sold off - that seems quite a punishment to me.

Sold off for parts, I heard. So seems a good chance you'll get a high percentage (if not 100%) of your money back to me, my opinion, wait and see. I honestly like the idea of having to do what amounts to basic maintenance and the idea that you're setting prices is intruiging. If FC's were 'just a megaship you can move about' that would be 'OK' but having no gameplay - aside from grind fuel to move - would seem a missed opportunity to me. Ideal if there's a whole new way to blaze your trail bundled up in it, space station owner anyone? Anyone?
 
from the dev post in another thread, if upkeep isnt done then the carrier can be decommissioned and sold off - that seems quite a punishment to me.
I agree! A fleet carrier should be a fairly self sustaining business at least at a status quo (if configured correctly) like it is in another current space game. If you put more work into it in this other game you'll actually get profits from it. I hope that's how it's going to be on the long term for Fleet Carriers!
 
from the dev post in another thread, if upkeep isnt done then the carrier can be decommissioned and sold off - that seems quite a punishment to me.
That's sounds like reasons to play the game to me. What's so punishing about that? And as we do not know how upkeep, debt and decommissioning works, I have no idea if its a punishment or not. It souns suspiciously like a consequence, which I have nothing against. Games without consequences to seem a bit pointless. Games that are win win win sound a bit boring to me.
 
So you've spent multiple hours grinding 5,000,000,000 Cr to afford a fleet carrier and since FD announced that said carrier would require a nominal amount of regular "upkeep" in the form of more grindy credits or materials many of you have spat the dummy out?

Why?

Heaven forbid a challenge or consequences in this game. Everything must be easy and instant. I for one look forward to having some kind of credit sink and a purpose to log on.
 
I hope you are not talking about NMS. God, I never want ED to be anything like that game.
Yes I am and if you say that, then you're throwing the baby out with the bath water. NMS is not Elite Dangerous and it don't want it to be the same game either. There's no denying, however, that there are some good features in NMS and it's version of carriers is quite good in many ways.
 
So you've spent multiple hours grinding 5,000,000,000 Cr to afford a fleet carrier and since FD announced that said carrier would require a nominal amount of regular "upkeep" in the form of more grindy credits or materials many of you have spat the dummy out?

Why?

Because I didn't grind for it, I spent years exploring the galaxy, finding new places and things, taking my time to check out places, sometimes a week or more on one planet, and gradually over the course of a number of years I have accumulated just enough for a fleet carrier. Now I have a fleet carrier, I arrive in a system with quite a few interesting bodies, I spend a few days exploring the system, taking pictures, checking out canyons, grooving my way through the Brain Tree groves, and suddenly I get a notice that my FC has been decomissioned because I haven't spent enoough time mindlessly jumping from system to system and scanning to keep the money pouring in.

You may want to "grind" to pay upkeep on your FC, but what I want is an FC I can use as a home base as I explore the way I like exploring, and a mechanic that forces me to maybe stop exploring the way I like to explore in favour of exploring in the way that accumulates most money is a negative for me.

There's still a lot that we don't know about FC's so I will wait for the reveal and beta test before giving my official feedback, that's only fair to FDEV.
 
That's sounds like reasons to play the game to me. What's so punishing about that? And as we do not know how upkeep, debt and decommissioning works, I have no idea if its a punishment or not. It souns suspiciously like a consequence, which I have nothing against. Games without consequences to seem a bit pointless. Games that are win win win sound a bit boring to me.
Games do not need to have a consequence due to IRL absence, having such is punishing to players and ultimately a loss to the game.

atm I am not playing elite at all, but went back to a MMO I hadn;t played for 2 years... do you know what I lost? absolutely NOTHING, all my characters, inventory and items were there exactly as I left them.

I know - lets go to another game I havent played for ages... in that game I would have lost NOTHING...

Lets try a third.. or a fourth... or a fifth game - nope everything I had in those games is exactly where I left it, no punishment, no loss of items or progress, no loss of ANYTHING.

Yet now FDev want to take things away from players who stop playing because of lack of content, lack of fun or IRL causing a player to stop playing.... they then come back in 3 months, or 6 months, or 2 years, hell the MMO i'm playing at the moment a player just returned after 9 years and they still had all the items and currency they had when they left.

you take things away from players and it is a punishment, you dont retain players by punishing them and that you keep defending that....well lets leave it there
 
They don't like something they haven't seen or tried yet. Sounds like jumping the gun to me.
Well some people have been here for quite a while and when fdev screws up, they go all the way.

I too have have seen this play out before and it almost always plays the same way. Badly. On occasions when it's gone well, the community has screamed bloody murder on the forum, heavily attended the betas, given good feedback and bug reports AND AND AND Frontier has actually listened. If all that happens, this may end well.

EVERY OTHER TIME when it hasn't gone well one of those things hasn't happened.

So pardon us while we react based on what we seen in the past!
 
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Games do not need to have a consequence due to IRL absence, having such is punishing to players and ultimately a loss to the game.
If it makes money when you are offline would you be complaining. Have you not thought that the upkeep could be a balancing factor?

atm I am not playing elite at all, but went back to a MMO I hadn;t played for 2 years... do you know what I lost? absolutely NOTHING, all my characters, inventory and items were there exactly as I left them.
You know happened to me LOTRO. I didn't play for two years, didn't pay for the upkeep on my home and it was taken away. That's life. I spent a lot of gold on that house, but it's a game. It's not real money and I'm not going to be upset about it.

I know - lets go to another game I havent played for ages... in that game I would have lost NOTHING...

Lets try a third.. or a fourth... or a fifth game - nope everything I had in those games is exactly where I left it, no punishment, no loss of items or progress, no loss of ANYTHING.
Well, most MMO housing needs upkeep. That's life. But what's good about this one in ED is that you can get rewarded as well.

Yet now FDev want to take things away from players who stop playing because of lack of content, lack of fun or IRL causing a player to stop playing.... they then come back in 3 months, or 6 months, or 2 years, hell the MMO i'm playing at the moment a player just returned after 9 years and they still had all the items and currency they had when they left.
Sigh, again you do not know how it works. If these things are persistent, there has to be a way for them to be removed otherwise there could be millions of these things littering up the galaxy. As long as you get most or all of your money back I see no issues.

you take things away from players and it is a punishment, you dont retain players by punishing them and that you keep defending that....well lets leave it there
Again we do not know how it works. As to defending, I'm not defending anything. It may be crap, it may be great, I don't know and neither do you.
 
I too have have seen this play out before and it almost always plays the same way. There have been one of two times it has actually ended ok. On those occasions, the community has screamed bloody murder on the forum, heavily attended the betas, given good feedback and bug reports AND AND AND Frontier has actually listened. If all that happens, this may end well.

EVERY OTHER TIME when it hasn't gone well one of those things hasn't happened.

So pardon us while we react based on what we seen in the past!
I've been here since original beta, does that count?
 
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Again we do not know how it works. As to defending, I'm not defending anything. It may be crap, it may be great, I don't know and neither do you.
I agree ... even though that comment wasn't directed at me.
We should probably save our salt for when it matters most ... but we never do ... and that's fine.
I just hope people will still care enough to help when the betas roll around.
I also hope Frontier actually listens and makes changes during and after the beta like they did ONE TIME! Maybe that lightning will strike again!
 
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I do agree, why get upset now, wait until we have the details and can assess the change in context. (Assuming Frontier is able to provide context)

But to be honest I just see this as another communication fail from Frontier.

There's no reason this detail could not have been left out and instead be presented in context on the stream. Seems pretty straightforward, then all this is side-stepped. But instead no it had to go in a press release with just enough detail to cause concern, but not enough to clarify.

5 years in you'd think Frontier would have a reasonable feel for the community by now, but no I guess that's too much to expect isn't it.

This is all speculation but I am kinda hoping there's a whole level of carrier management mini-game in there, so it's a long road to getting a carrier but once you do a whole new side of ED opens up. If this is the case then I'm probably fine with the upkeep thing.

On why this has to be there at all, my feeling is that Frontier have a history of wanting to minimize DB cruft. Given carriers are almost station like and could have other interactions in a system, this really is just a way to prune unecessary data. Possibly a request from the DB team due to worries about having to process data for 20,000 carriers half of which belong to players who have left the game.
 
We pay for up keep on our ships.

We buy more ammo, we repair damage and in some cases we buy fuel... there is literally nothing new here.
The new thing, as far as I understand, is that upkeep costs will be incurred whether you login or not

For me, this will be the deciding factor. I tend to play Elite between October and March, as the warmer months are taken up by track days and car maintenance. When I boot the game after my summer hiatus, everything is exactly where I left it. My ships and credit balance have not degraded in any way.

That said, I will certainly wait to hear full details before making any kind of judgement
 
If you had read the threads OP you would know why people object. Different people have different reasons.

I don't mind an upkeep cost. What i will mind is that cost applying while i'm not playing.

Imagine OP, if you care to, taking a break from the game for some months, only to discover your FC has been decomissioned.

How would you feel about that?

Imagine going out exploring with your fleet, taking a break, then logging back in to discover your fleet is god only knows where, your FC has been decomissioned, and perhaps you are left floating in a remote region of space in a ship without a fuel scoop, because the last thing you were doing was mining or derping around on planets in a dropship.

Think about it.
 
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