ANNOUNCEMENT Fleet Carriers Update - Patch 3

Problem:
Deep Core Mining
Currently Obsevered Painite
after the Asteroid is Cracked
the Blaster can not lose ANY surface Deposits in this Asteroid
Other Asteroids no Problem with surface deposits.
so the Deep Core mining is for me currently useless as you lose 50% of the Asteroid.
Worked before the patch fine!
So Long

System PC
 
Am I the only one that thinks prices should flux between 250k/ton to a top end of 1m, AND that other types of the new minerals, alexandrite, grandiddididerite etc should be in the mix with LTDs, VOs, painite, all of which should just have the same-ish value?
I mean if you had 6-10 different minerals that were all basically the same value, but price flux made mineral X the one to mine today, but mineral Y is selling for a better price tomorrow, and so on... then wouldn't that sort of spread out the mining fleet? Not just someone found a trip spot for the only mineral worth mining b/c it stands above everything else price wise even on a bad day, and 95% of the people mining are all in the same spot. FC mining fleets need to move, players need to change mining spots depending on the day and mineral prices in order to maximize profits.

And ofc sort out this new mess, that much is obvious lol
 
Problem:
Deep Core Mining
Currently Obsevered Painite
after the Asteroid is Cracked
the Blaster can not lose ANY surface Deposits in this Asteroid
Other Asteroids no Problem with surface deposits.
so the Deep Core mining is for me currently useless as you lose 50% of the Asteroid.
Worked before the patch fine!
So Long

System PC

It's not just Painite. A few of us have had the same issue with Void Opals... crack the rock, the abrasion blaster just doesn't work properly.
 
Am I the only one that thinks prices should flux between 250k/ton to a top end of 1m, AND that other types of the new minerals, alexandrite, grandiddididerite etc should be in the mix with LTDs, VOs, painite, all of which should just have the same-ish value?
I mean if you had 6-10 different minerals that were all basically the same value, but price flux made mineral X the one to mine today, but mineral Y is selling for a better price tomorrow, and so on... then wouldn't that sort of spread out the mining fleet? Not just someone found a trip spot for the only mineral worth mining b/c it stands above everything else price wise even on a bad day, and 95% of the people mining are all in the same spot. FC mining fleets need to move, players need to change mining spots depending on the day and mineral prices in order to maximize profits.

And ofc sort out this new mess, that much is obvious lol




Would also allow fc owners to purchase a variety of different minerals in bulk and move into new areas depending on 'flavour of the day' to offer cmdrs opportunities to get paid for emptying the carriers cargo. Wait for a boom on the next mineral, move on, wash, rinse, repeat.
 
Not a bad thing. All the populated systems are cluttered up with them. Far from opening up the galaxy, as you previously stated, it appears most have just remained in the populated areas.
...
Again, I hope some do. They have become a blight in most systems they are in. Exclusively used for such a narrow purpose.
These problems will not be solved by some players selling their carriers, since the root cause is not players owning carriers. The root cause is that carriers are persistent while most do not have any reason to be. Even if a few - hell, even if the majority of carriers get sold this problem will remain - only Frontier can fix this by making carriers non-persistent by default (give us an option to toggle it on and off with a cost associated with it on - there are some carriers with a legit reason to be persistent, like the DSSA, some with transient needs like carriers who need a refuel. The rest do not).

This was raised many, many, many times in the beta, and ignored.
 
carriers have to be persistent to handle people docked at them. you cannot have a carrier disappearing and causing a problem if a visitor is on baord. plus it needs to remain should the visitor undock and need to come back.

the persistence isn't the problem, the problem was create by the forum complaining it was going to be a squadron asset only. now everyone can have one, and there are too many..

people will sell in a few month, maybe the numbers will be ok then.
and hopefully the mining obsession will die down.... i don't recall elite being rebadged to elite miner.

where are the story lines
 
carriers have to be persistent to handle people docked at them. you cannot have a carrier disappearing and causing a problem if a visitor is on baord. plus it needs to remain should the visitor undock and need to come back.
The game already has a mechanism to deal with this - it's called instances.
 
Am I the only one that thinks prices should flux between 250k/ton to a top end of 1m, AND that other types of the new minerals, alexandrite, grandiddididerite etc should be in the mix with LTDs, VOs, painite, all of which should just have the same-ish value?
I mean if you had 6-10 different minerals that were all basically the same value, but price flux made mineral X the one to mine today, but mineral Y is selling for a better price tomorrow, and so on... then wouldn't that sort of spread out the mining fleet? Not just someone found a trip spot for the only mineral worth mining b/c it stands above everything else price wise even on a bad day, and 95% of the people mining are all in the same spot. FC mining fleets need to move, players need to change mining spots depending on the day and mineral prices in order to maximize profits.

And ofc sort out this new mess, that much is obvious lol

Surely, there shouldn't be much of a difference, price-wise, between anything that is mined or collected.

We, the commanders or whatever we call ourselves, and the NPC's, mine the rings of every planet that has them, in every system that has them. The various 'stuff' available from rings, belts, moons, etc, the bubble should be drowning in all the minerals, literally.

If that isn't the definition of a post-scarcity society, I don't know what is.
 
These problems will not be solved by some players selling their carriers, since the root cause is not players owning carriers. The root cause is that carriers are persistent while most do not have any reason to be. Even if a few - hell, even if the majority of carriers get sold this problem will remain - only Frontier can fix this by making carriers non-persistent by default (give us an option to toggle it on and off with a cost associated with it on - there are some carriers with a legit reason to be persistent, like the DSSA, some with transient needs like carriers who need a refuel. The rest do not).

This was raised many, many, many times in the beta, and ignored.

Well, yes, that is one option but I would suggest that simply limiting the number allowed in any one POPULATED system to something like 5, is a better approach. It feels as though it would be easier to implement. I thought one of the benefits of the FC's being persistent is that a weary traveler might stumble upon one way out in the black, might want to sell their UC data, maybe get a hull repair (if they do not carry the required tools to do one themselves) then move on. Great for the explorer, great for the FC owner who makes a tidy sum on the transactions but likely to be rare (I admit). So a CMDR who has. carrier out in the black is unlikely to pay costs every week for the one a month or so explorers that might get a use out of it.

To agree with the point you make though, I read someone saying that they were in a populated system with tons of carriers that were set to refuse docking to anyone. So they don't have to be persistent. Shouldn't be, in fact.
 
carriers have to be persistent to handle people docked at them. you cannot have a carrier disappearing and causing a problem if a visitor is on baord. plus it needs to remain should the visitor undock and need to come back.

the persistence isn't the problem, the problem was create by the forum complaining it was going to be a squadron asset only. now everyone can have one, and there are too many..

people will sell in a few month, maybe the numbers will be ok then.
and hopefully the mining obsession will die down.... i don't recall elite being rebadged to elite miner.

where are the story lines


A good solution would be to create a light version of non-persistent FC with less upkeep to motivate people to switch to this version of FC. 90% of players will likely switch to something cheaper.
 
They were a long time reaching for this one. Mining has been in boom for a year at least, when FC's were introduced that exponentially increased the profits available. I think they should have done what they did today, the day they released FC's.


I don't have an FC, and I don't want one in the manifestation they achieved for release, either, so I've no axe to grind when I agree with this :)

TL;DR

Frontier put themselves in a really awkward position with letting mining profits accumulate for so long, and trying to address this now is too late to do without fallout, from both the people that have carriers, and the people that don't have them.​
They should have thought this through far more than they appear to have done, and from a much earlier point in time.​
The real difficulties that have arisen here have seemed to be like a slow-motion train-wreck from the start.

1: FCs announced, with some nebulous talk about them being "expensive" and "only affordable by a very few"
2: Borann mining rush started, with the discovery that mining LTDs wasn't throttled in the same way as VOs were

It's at that point, that someone at Frontier should have either said

"This is fine, we really intended everyone to have an FC anyway, let them mine"​
or​
"Hold on a moment... this is going to ruin the game mechanic and intention of allowing only a few carriers to be available"​
But they didn't. So the mining continued, and some people accumulated multi-billions worth of credits.

3: The FC announcement of the cost of the carriers and the upkeep came out. Mining intensified.

Again, this could have been an opportunity to think carefully about what was going on, and what the outcomes would be, but it didn't happen.

4: Upkeep costs reduced, patch finally delivered after 2 betas. Mining continues, credits accumulate for those people continuing to mine
5: Carrier explosion. Tritium trading added to LTD mining profit options. More credits for people taking advantage.
6: Eventual throttling and attempts to control mining and tritium credits with FC-patch 3.

Net end results:

a: Fleet Carrier infestation causing performance issues, and poor sysmap representations.
b: Major imbalance between credits of those who mined, and those who did not, leading to:​
i) One tranche of players with an FC and billions in the bank, in some cases enough for 11 years worth of FC upkeep.​
ii) Another tranche of players who are probably where the original intention of Carriers was, which is several billion away from owning an FC if they want one, and probably now put off trying to get one at all, due to the time involved that is necessary.​


Frontier are in a bit of a cleft stick at this point:
For the people that didn't take up mining, with the reasonable expectation that Frontier's silence on the matter was an implicit approval of the mining economy, the sudden removal is going to look like an unfair move that punishes them whilst "rewarding" the players who did take advantage. And I can't see how that looks good, from any angle.​

If they didn't take some action to stop the mining / tritium profits though, the carrier infestation was going to get worse, especially at mining sites, and the performance problems would degrade further.​
If they try to redress the balance by taking away assets and credits from the players that did take advantage though, that is going to be "somewhat unpopular", and in Sir Humphrey Appleby terms, "a courageous move"

Any which way, it looks like they don't know what they are intending for the game to be, and reactively panic managed the whole release.
 
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