ANNOUNCEMENT Fleet Carriers Update - Patch 3

[Renato Biago]

Was the system: EOL PROU VY-R D4-285 10 B ring ?
(just in case: That was another 'reliable' spot)

The system is EOL PROU PC-K C9-221 Planet 5.

 

[Sysmon]

So with every patch, things break a little bit more. Take the carriers out of the game again, please. You listened to the players before and pushed them out for bug testing of other things. Now look at these results and take them out again to finish their implementation properly. Then we can beta test.

S

 

[OptimumSlinky]

Latest patch caused me to lose weapon UI in combat mode. I still have crosshairs, but can no longer see the weapon ammo/heat or name.
PC, Win10, Radeon 5700 on software 20.7.2.

 

[jacozilla]

Has anyone tried it out yet on hotspots that don't overlap, with other minerals?

I did a single painite hotspot today, and tldr ~35 mil/hr.

Got 100 tons of painite over 2 hr session of mining, sold it for 70 mil at best sell station 10 jumps away.

by old pre-buffed mining standards, It’s not bad. For FC, would take ~200 hrs to earn 7B (5.5 for FC and basic services plus enough cushion for decent maintenance coverage).

for a casual like me at 15 hrs/week, assuming every hour was spent mining which I’d never do, about 13-14 weeks. Half mining, half doing other stuff = 7 months

 

[Morbad]

Wait, are we playing the same game? Progression stopped being associated with credits when engineering dropped. An A rated combat ship is just an easy target now in a CZ or in PvP.

Ive played since release off and on and when I quit playing the last time I had a clipper that was A rated and my multirole ship and an A rated vulture that was my combat monster. When I returned they both felt useless compared to how they were before. I took up LTD mining and got enormous amounts of cash and was able to buy whatever I wanted. It didn't matter much. For them to be really useful I needed to go gather eng mats and guardian mats (which i am still doing).

Engineering materials were likely introduced in an attempt to enforce some limit to the rate of personal progression once it became apparent that the credit pseudoeconomy was already broken beyond repair. They then went about the same process with materials, which have been easy to get in abundance, even without abusing the numerous exploits available, since the end of 2.1.xx.

FCs did reintroduce some relevance to credits, which IMO, was a mistake to do before the credit supply excesses had been addressed.

Looking at your complaints it doesnt seem to me that people actually being able to progress are what you find annoying.

What I find annoying is the level of agency that one's CMDR has in regards to the setting being dependent on broken reward mechanisms more than actual gameplay.

Its the change to your sandbox you don't like, specifically the persistent FCs. That was FDevs mistake, the FCs should go offline when the owner goes offline. Leave them visible only to players who have equipment and ships stored on them or bump that equipment/ships to the last station it was stored at. Yes those fixes offer up some small opportunities for exploits around moving ships cheap/free but clearly having 50%+ of the playerbase being persistent on the galaxy/system map is problematic as well.

Making FC's impersistent would be impractical, for numerous reason, not the least of which would be instancing continuity in PG and Open.

This half MMO half solo thing is kind of the worst of both worlds sometimes. I put 500+ hours in X3 and loved it in a totally empty (of players) galaxy and I had free reign to mod it as I saw fit. What most of us want in these games isnt an MMO, we simply want coop. Give us 4player coop and mods and players would have been ecstatic. But that would mean you couldn't sell skins for a few bucks a pop or (in the case of SC) sell ships for hundreds of dollars each.

This game is online only, multiplayer only, and has a persistent shared world. The modes are just instancing white/blacklists to filter out direct interactions.

An offline mode is something many people, myself included, feel would be of great benefit, but it's been off the table since 2014 and is never likely to be an option.

 

[CMDR_Brantford of FLC]

Welp... more evidence that maybe those of us clamouring for Powerplay changes should be careful for what we wish for ;0

 

[Delaware [GPL]]

Hey Frontier, I loved the game as it was.. This was fun to farm the LTD´s and see all the credits on my Bank account.. Not everyone has the time now to play so much to get the credits for the weekly carrier costs..

I did buy now 4 times " ARX " Credits and now I thinking to not buy these anymore..
Because I dont like the way Frontier did patch the game now !

 

[Lynfeyh Wighnut]

.. I've got no time reading all the posts ... but has anyone yet discoverd, that the bodies in the FSS Scanner are not shown any more?

EDIT: After a Game-Restart it took a while, but then the body pictures showed up again ...

 

[MarkyH]

I'm kinda in the same boat, but I didnt mine - I used the hauling tritium gravy train to earn slower but still decent credits. Problem is I earned just barely enough to buy FC, some optional services, and not much left over for peace of mind to ensure maintenance effectively for long enough to consider 'end of game'.

Either I need to figure out way to keep earning or just sell FC to prevent the ongoing cash drain.

That's the sprit, roll up your sleeves and find those credits, (slaps ur face) your a Goddam Fleet Carrier owner man.

 

[MarkyH]

B-team were tasked with this patch it seems.

No, the boss set a task, "We need something, big, something huge, something so Gamechanging it will keep the forums busy until Odyssey is released without VR in 2021. I want all those No VR in Odyssey posts so far back in pages no one will read them anymore."

Fdev Team , "ok, we have just the thing boss, just the thing" Launch Fleet Carrier Patch 3.

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

.. I've got no time reading all the posts ... but has anyone yet discoverd, that the bodies in the FSS Scanner are not shown any more?

Can you explain a bit more please? I just used mine and it seems ok but I’m not the most observant person.

 

[ifthisworks]

So it does seem like any hotspots don't actually contain the item they are meant to? I was in a ltd hotspot and found none. Painite hotspot, and found none. Void opal, none.

But they seem to have stopped the exploits on triples etc by removing all mining materials from hotspots except the useless one? I only tried 4 hotspots, all of them single hotspots. I would test more, but I have 200 LTD in my hold and attract lots of pirates.

 

[MarkyH]

You can make 35 mill easy from robigo passenger running

Less the cost of fleet carrier fuel, one does not fly anywhere out of system these days you know, like "poor" people have too.

 

[CMDR lego addictus]

.. I've got no time reading all the posts ... but has anyone yet discoverd, that the bodies in the FSS Scanner are not shown any more?

yep, FSS is broken, not showing any bodies, just FC's

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Single spot of TRITIUM (not other names) works exact as yday. x2 and more are probably broken.

I made a test run into a 2x Tritium Hotspot. A good one, 100% embedded.

• lots of Surface Deposits
• lots of SubSurface Deposits
• only very few Strip Mining opportunities (similar to 2x LTD Hotspot, although not as bad)
• -> apart from the visible lack of standard Asteroids for Mining Lasers to work on, seems okay
• (core mining obviously broken, Abrasion Laser fails to work on Asteroid Fragment Surface Deposits after cracking it)

This is what got for 100 Limpets :

 

[alexzk]

Abrasion blaster gets bugged if u did SSD on rock.

Just had rock with trit SSD + crack VO. I did SSD on that, then cracked - cannot use blaster there now.

 

[CMDR PlatypusBiscuit]

Trading

• Fixed a problem with the Low Temperature Diamond commodity not decreasing its demand level as players sell commodity units to a market that demands it when the faction controlling that market has any state active in that starsystem.

I read the patch notes in detail and had no idea this was coming because you modified them at the last minute and didn't post it to Steam! Nice bait-and-switch. Honestly, this last-minute MASSIVE trading nerf looks like a targeted attack by Fdev on their playerbase, and on FC-owner miners in particular who have stored up a few thousand Low Temperature Diamonds in their holds hoping to sell them later at the usual rates. Now I'm stuck with over 4000 of them that I've bought from other players at 1,400,553 per, putting me at an enormous loss since I'd invested almost all my remaining credits. I've talked with others in the same situation.

Additionally, how can anyone be expected to handle the upkeep of a Fleet Carrier, let alone any optional services, when the cost far outstrips any method of credit-earning in the game? If you're going to completely wreck mining, the only viable way to earn enough credits for upkeep, at least add a way for the carriers to break even at a minimum. You're alienating your most dedicated playerbase. I was planning to spend some ARX customizing my FC and taking it on a long exploration expedition, but with my credits being effectively stolen by this patch, not to mention the now extreme rarity of Tritium, I'm glad I didn't waste any of my hard-earned money customizing something I'll hardly be able to use.

I've been waiting to try Star Citizen since it's still in alpha, but if Elite continues in this direction, it might be the time to switch. And I think a lot of people feel the same way.

 

[Noveske]

My alt is right now in Colonia. According to Inara there are no Stations selling reasonable amounts of Tritium to fuel up a carrier. I tried some lasermining in a double trithotspot an the yield was .... well .... not good
Hopefully the markets (bgs) will fix itself about that, otherwise will be kind of a challenge to fill the tank

This is far and away my biggest concern. I have 5000t of trit on board right now which should keep me going for a while. But if I seriously can't buy full T9 loads of trit at a station and ferry it back and forth to fill the hold then that essentially locks my FC inside the "bubble". I was hoping to take it out in the black for some FC based exploring. Now if I do I'll be sure to offload all my modules and most all of my ships first so I can just decommission it out in the black instead of trying to refuel it or carry enough fuel to get it back.

Do they not have a beta build process at all? Or do they just test changes on live?

 

[znôrt]

Making FC's impersistent would be impractical, for numerous reason, not the least of which would be instancing continuity in PG and Open.

oh irony! there would be every reason, practical or otherwise, for fleet carriers not to be persistent just like any other ship. if only they were ships!

that was just bad poetry, now to logic, i'll contest that statement: there is no continuity between pg and open for ships and that doesn't seem to raise any concern. carriers are not persistent for the sake of any continuity but because they were specifically intended to be persistent. so other reasons. if they were practical, judging by the success of them i'd say being practical for decoy and monetization would look like it was the main driver.

in practical software terms it doesn't look good if this is to be the groundwork for any future extension of persistent gameplay. good that base building has been ruled out ...

 

[MarkyH]

and on FC-owner miners in particular who have stored up a few thousand Low Temperature Diamonds in their holds hoping to sell them later at the usual rates. Now I'm stuck with over 4000 of them that I've bought from other players at 1,400,553 per, putting me at an enormous loss since I'd invested almost all my remaining credits. I've talked with others in the same situation.

Oh man, oh wow, this popcorn is getting way way to Salty to even eat. that's classic. Kind of makes my Fleet Carrier Tritium trading profits nerf of 35k a ton drop, from 48k to 13k, seem something not to really get annoyed about.