Seems like frontier actually doesn't want everyone to have a carrier.. for technical reasons?

[MaceByte]

Hey @CMDR Karrde Sun,

Sorry if there's been any misunderstanding here! The cost of the Fleet Carriers in the beta is to reflect the actual cost of a Fleet Carriers when they go into the live game in June. There is currently no technical issue known with everyone owning one, and in this beta we were trying to focus on reviewing the affect that Fleet Carriers will have when they enter the live game. Naturally, since they are an end game goal, not everyone would potentially get one at launch but certainly over time we hope that many Commanders get the chance to own their very own Fleet Carrier!

Hello Stephen,
Theses FC are truly Fantastic in many ways, however we're extremely sad how high the WEEKLY maintenance costs are. If while you're away from the game, you can loose your FC??? Plus, AI's land on it and buy fuel/repairs, and you receive no sales commission to support the FC operations of the FC??? That doesn't match the attempt to make it real. Frontier needs to step back and understand, most people have personal and/or professional lives that cannot be traded for living online in a game. Game is the key word here. Not life, not reality, a game. Truly the best game of all, until the FC release as is in the Beta, but a game. If these weekly fees are continued in the game's standards release, it's extremely obvious that we'll be playing something else.... along with our hundreds of followers. Didn't Frontier guys look at No Man Sky??? They give you a freighter or at worst case cost their less than their larger ships. Frontier should have something in between the Beta, and NMS. Our bi-weekly steaming show used to host Elite D Sunday nights. Due to no extra credits given in the Beta, we are not hosting Elite, and may never if the FC remains as is when permanently realeased.
Again, we're all, very, very, very sad... Especially after meeting so many great Frontier employees at the VIP dinners in Boston over the years. These cost issues in the Beta do not match how wonderful your people are. Thank you for taking the time to read this. With Kind Regards, MaceByte.

 

[CMDR Darth Vater]

There is currently no technical issue known with everyone owning one, and in this beta we were trying to focus on reviewing the affect that Fleet Carriers will have when they enter the live game. Naturally, since they are an end game goal, not everyone would potentially get one at launch but certainly over time we hope that many Commanders get the chance to own their very own Fleet Carrier!

Currently I know, everyone should be able to own the Carrier and park it everywhere he wants. As a playergroup or superpower dominating systems I have got no tool to get rid of an enemy ship parked in front of my head quarter. If someone has got the cash to park it there, it stays there. Forever, if the upkeep is gone. Even a capital ship I can fight against - and it will jump away within minutes. Somehow I have got the feeling no one thought about that.

I'd like to know the Game Design behind the Carriers. How to play with the GUI. Sorry, pun intended: I am a ship's commander, I hoped I will get another bridge, at least - and hopefully a good use of my 3 (three!) NPC crew commanders I can't see anywhere in my ship and I don't want to fire because then I have again two empty slots someone thought they should be filled.

If I as an imperial King own that mobile station, will I be treated as such? Or will the station crew "ants" shoot at me - their unbelievable wealthy boss, killer of tens of thousands of npcs - for loitering like a homeless hobo and fine me like a filthy gunslinger when I open fire in the no-fire zone?

Why the crew uses the engineer station's flight assistance voice? And is not according the owner is imperial, federal, neutral ...

Like I said: I'd like to see a concept which includes other existing aspects of the game like powerplay or player groups or allegiance or ranks or Crew Member ...

 

[Ganogati]

IMO, a lot of the worry about everyone having a carrier is a bit overblown. Will "everyone" (except me) run out and buy one at first? Probably. But I'd bet good money the vast majority of those people will sell it not long after because unless you actually have a purpose in mind for it, it doesn't exactly look fun.

What will the vast majority of people in this game do with an FC? I can't even think of a use for it, unless you can store materials and whatnot in it like a bank; then I might see taking it out to the boonies and mining, then bringing your loot home with you. But if your storage continues to magically follow you from ship to ship? Then other than transporting a bunch of ships across a long distance like some sort of ferry, I really don't think most people will even know what to do with their FC.

I see a BUNCH of FC purchases when they come out, and a BUNCH of FCs getting sold back in like a month lol. After that, a small subset of players who actually have use for them will own em, and the rest of us will just bum off of their carriers whenever we can.

 

[KW001]

IMO, a lot of the worry about everyone having a carrier is a bit overblown. Will "everyone" (except me) run out and buy one at first? Probably. But I'd bet good money the vast majority of those people will sell it not long after...

As they are now, I dont see anyone buying one without a concrete plan for its use, or massive piles of cash to burn. Carriers depreciate in value and continue to drop the moment you buy them.

 

[Staarlord]

From everything that's happened so far.. the only possible reason for fleet carriers being the way they are is that due to technical issues, frontier actually don't want there to be too many fleet carriers around.

StuartGT (great spot, thanks) linked this very insightful clip over on reddit:

Steven B implies that they know the system will break if.. fleet carrier numbers push the system in some load condition.. but also that they aren't planning to (or cant?) fix the issues, because they're balancing it so it won't happen? Why would it not be realistic for everyone to have one? We're all going in with the exact opposite assumption.. that everyone will get one because carriers are for us. Or "the extreme edge cases" that they aren't going to handle actually are not edge cases...

The fact that on the exegious beta stream the system loaded up with carriers crashed provided the final evidence. Hmmm.. yeah. Sounds like world of pain for the next few months while players wrestle with frontier on gameplay vs what technical work is required to make it happen.

They should have just said something, i personally wouldn't have asked for carriers if they just admitted they're impossible to build for individuals.

This is why they don't always or all need to be online. Just let people have carriers and let dedicated wings maintain trade stations.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

IMO, a lot of the worry about everyone having a carrier is a bit overblown. Will "everyone" (except me) run out and buy one at first? Probably. But I'd bet good money the vast majority of those people will sell it not long after because unless you actually have a purpose in mind for it, it doesn't exactly look fun.

What will the vast majority of people in this game do with an FC? I can't even think of a use for it, unless you can store materials and whatnot in it like a bank; then I might see taking it out to the boonies and mining, then bringing your loot home with you. But if your storage continues to magically follow you from ship to ship? Then other than transporting a bunch of ships across a long distance like some sort of ferry, I really don't think most people will even know what to do with their FC.

I see a BUNCH of FC purchases when they come out, and a BUNCH of FCs getting sold back in like a month lol. After that, a small subset of players who actually have use for them will own em, and the rest of us will just bum off of their carriers whenever we can.

The UI is horrible, mostly to cater to game controllers. But I believe you can setup buy orders for your stuff, jump back.

Then sell it back to yourself.

 

[Ganogati]

The UI is horrible, mostly to cater to game controllers. But I believe you can setup buy orders for your stuff, jump back.

Then sell it back to yourself.

lol! Not quite how I imagined it, but that works I suppose.

 

[Staarlord]

How is this supposed to be paying for itself?

In order for that you'd need to put it a special location that drags in visitors.
Visitors that are ok selling you goods below market value, and buying above it.

We are talking about a group here who would normally travel a hundred ly for 1% bump in profit.

Only scenario that comes close would be mining out of the bubble.
But the bubble is far from drained as is.
So why would they accept getting 50% for their payinite?

And if you find such a spot, just having customers means it can't be secret, so within a day there would be about 3000 fleet carriers orbiting the same little rock.

No.
The market feature of this thing is dead.
And anything else wouldn't put a dent in the fuel costs let alone upkeep.

The only value these things have is as a mobile base, where you store ships and slowly move around the bubble.

But upkeep is far too much of a hassle. Making just using stations the clever option.

The rest is as a cheat.
For handing goods or credits around for RMT.

I expect the very week if not the day this goes online we'd have eBay offers of "pay 15$", and you get a few hours window to dock with carrier x, join his squadron and withdraw x cash from it.

I haven't fully tested this since all my squadron mates have quit ages ago.

I have no idea what the design team at FD has been smoking but it's got to be some good stuff.

For the last few years now they have purposely disregarded the core of their own game chasing some MMO concept.
Fleet carriers has one feature.

Carrying a fleet.
This whole rubbish around making them into mobile stations is beyond moronic.

If I spend all the money that we know people, have they can literally make a mobile Jameson's memorial with this.
That's just ridiculous.

Too right. I made the comparison once. "When was the last time an aircraft carrier set up shop in the middle of the ocean with a 'we are open' sign?" Let player trading take place at bases and stations.

 

[varonica]

This is why they don't always or all need to be online. Just let people have carriers and let dedicated wings maintain trade stations.

Unfortunately they do because they are cross mode, they appear in all game modes simultaneously, and to do that they use the same mechanic as stations, therefore they are restricted to certain mechanics, there can't be more than a certain number in a system or they exceed the number of available ID's for the system, there can't be to many in orbit around a single body or they exceed the number of letters available for orbiting bodies. These are the curcumstances that can cause problems in a system, if you hit these limits other FC's wouldn't be able to jump into the system.

They can't vanish when the owner logs out because anyone parked in the carrier will either not have access to their ship, or it will be ejected into deep space who knows how far from a reachable system, trolls will troll given the opportunity. If they made them log off when players logged off they wouldn't be cross mode, so a player could park one next to a station belonging to an enemy faction and transfer 25k tons of goods, so even if they vanished there would just be complaints of a different nature.

So it's actually far more complicated than saying they shouldn't be online all the time.

Personally a small FC with a limited landing and storage, maybe 8 ships and 3k tons, no market, limited shipyard, no ship or module sales, owner only landing permission, repair, re-arm and re-spawn, no cross mode, would solve a lot of things for a lot of people, and since owner only landing you could make them vanish when the owner logs off because only his ships would be in it. Leave the big FC's for those large groups who want a mobile platform for squads and things.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

lol! Not quite how I imagined it, but that works I suppose.

I'll have to correct myself a little.

I found earlier today a new "transfer" button in the cargo inventory to that allowed to move stuff over to the carrier in a much easier way.

 

[CMDR Davanix]

The argument of "everyone owns a fleet carrier is bad" in a galaxy of 400+ billion systems is pathetic...... They already have to grind their hats off for the carrier and the modules.... This is just a way ti keep people playing when really what they missed is an opportunity to keep current players playing with fun..... 2+ years for this? Seriously? Not to mention you "changed it" no you removed features people might actually enjoy ahemm support ships, its all just an excuse for their ability to make the game any better its all gone stale now they missed the chance and will be over taken by those they made look miniature at one stage