Fleet carrier cost now too high, or are we expecting a general source of income to be pre-nerf painite level?

[Crook]

I came back to the game in september, with an eye on a corvette. Did the rank grind, then switched to painite mining. At 1.9Bn, I bought the vette. Having about a billion or so left over is ok, but post painite nerf the income is about 1/3 of what it was. Fleet carriers were introduced to give the billionaires in the game something to do, but has the ladder now been raised up on them a bit? I would like to see the FC base cost move to about 2-3 billion, or do we expect a new goldrush somewhere else, with condas in a conflict zone blowing up for a million or two after a combat buff?

I'm not really all that interested in a FC, but one day I might. If the credits per hour don't flow at the same rate as before, isn't that pushing the playerbase into a slower grind? I mean, I know it's FD's thing, but is that the intention or are you expecting a balanced solution?

 

[Factabulous]

I'm expecting FC to drop in price. But not until more balancing has been done.

 

[Zieman]

Fleet Carriers are an "endgame" asset, not something you buy on a whim after using an exploit for a few days.

 

[Crook]

Fleet Carriers are an "endgame" asset, not something you buy on a whim after using an exploit for a few days.

When painite mining, I enjoyed the idea that I could sell at a FC for a loss. That seemed quite 'emergent' and entrepreneurial to me. I'm hoping that FD do more like this - bases maybe in Odyssey (second update) or outposts. Face it the interface for an outpost would be similar to a FC, and they have the interiors thing going on with odyssey, so a blend of the two is owning outposts...

So the next endgame asset might be outposts, then bases. My cousin Galen might own a moon one day........

 

[Jmanis]

Fleet Carriers are an "endgame" asset, not something you buy on a whim after using an exploit for a few days.

Oh, they aren't? Oops...

 

[Nadreck]

There are still various ways of making money. I spent about 11 billion on 2 Carriers, but I only mined about 2 billion of that. The rest was a combination of exploration, passenger missions, and trade.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

You'd need to pay me to take on a fleet carrier.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

They are too expensive, I think ... on the other hand, given the current commodity price spreads, bulk trading should peak at 200M/hour, missions are looking at least that good, mining is still going to pay 100M/hour at least, probably more if you do mapped Painite/Osmium/Platinum combination mining.

Now, sure, the ways to do that haven't yet been dissected, analysed, reduced to something simple enough for a famous youtuber, and then widely publicised in words of one syllable. So if you have no personal initiative then this probably isn't a good week to buy your own Fleet Carrier. Try again in a couple of weeks when the thinking has been done for you.

The lesson of Frontier "nerfs to earnings" is that, in general, earnings end up equal or higher after they've been done. This one is no exception.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Yeah that makes sense.

How badly was it nerfed? oh wait 600k? Could be worse. At that rate you'd only do mining if you were going to enjoy the experience.

Oh wait.. sounds good to me.

Also id really like to know about 200 million per hour sandbox trading. The last few times i've checked everything unusually interesting had zero stock or the price had evolved unfavourably away. There is that place with missions but i doubt that hits 200 even with perfect rng. 100-150 at peak rolls sure.

 

[Speedcuffs]

When painite mining, I enjoyed the idea that I could sell at a FC for a loss.

What does this mean?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Also id really like to know about 200 million per hour sandbox trading.

There are 50k credit spreads (Inf Failure gold suppliers, for example), so at 5 runs an hour + 800t hold that ends up at about 200M/hour. Not reliable, very much dependent on finding your own routes, so I think most of the time it'd be half that, but considering that sandbox trading used to have trouble getting over 30M/hour back in May it's still a sizable buff.

The last few times i've checked everything unusually interesting had zero stock or the price had evolved unfavourably away. There is that place with missions but i doubt that hits 200 even with perfect rng. 100-150 at peak rolls sure.

I saw a pair of wing missions at a station just now for 50M each to bring in 800-1000t of readily purchasable cargo. With a full wing of haulers, they could be completed in a single ~12 minute round-trip, for 100M each. Even allowing for the need to find more of those missions and that perhaps not being wholly reliable, I'm pretty sure that'll go over 200M/hour.

(I suspect this is going to get dialed back in the next few weeks because it really is too good - enjoy it while it lasts?)

 

[GoldenSilver484]

Fleet Carriers are an "endgame" asset, not something you buy on a whim after using an exploit for a few days.

Hey, remember when you could make over 15 billion credits in a few days mining Subsurface LTDs, even without using the "egg" and the SLF reset bug?
Good times...

Anywho, completely unrelated, what's this "carrier upkeep" thing I see so many threads about?

 

[Zieman]

Hey, remember when you could make over 15 billion credits in a few days mining Subsurface LTDs, even without using the "egg" and the SLF reset bug?
Good times...

Now that you mention it, I may have a vague recollection of reading about that in the forums. Haven't bothered with mining since I last unlocked an engineer who needed some to be done, so only thought 'sigh, another exploit' about that.

 

[Tifu]

I'm expecting FC to drop in price. But not until more balancing has been done.

I'd prefer smaller & more focused megaships to be available. Science, exploration and bulk cargo vessels come to mind.

It makes sense that FC's are more expensive, warships always are.

 

[Crook]

What does this mean?

You mine a bunch of painite, and instead of hauling it 150LY for a price of 900k you could sell it to a local FC for 650k. You lose income but you gain time and there's less chance of interdiction, so overall you make a profit / hour that's acceptable, and the FC also makes an acceptable profit. Everyone wins, and it feels like you're interacting with others more.

 

[Nadreck]

Anywho, completely unrelated, what's this "carrier upkeep" thing I see so many threads about?

A weekly maintenance fee for owning a Carrier. 5 million or more, depending on what services are installed (typically 10 million and up). Payable every week, even if you don't use it (or log on).

 

[goemon]

When painite mining, I enjoyed the idea that I could sell at a FC for a loss.

how do you sell mined painite for a loss?
i'm fiddling with my FCs commodity market, put somehow i can't set negative prices, so people could pay me for taking on their zero purchase commodities...

 

[Biff Stryker]

Fleet Carriers are an "endgame" asset, not something you buy on a whim after using an exploit for a few days.

I am with you on that, although I have a little different view on that opinion. I think of the "egg" that people were mining and even to an extent menu logging to harvest mats true exploits.

I had more of a plan than a whim to obtain a FC. I don't really agree that doing an activity in the game that is purposefully a game mechanic really an exploit.

i.e. mining and selling a commodity at the highest prices or selling at the most cost effective way to turn a profit in a certain amount of time. I was making roughly an average of 160 million credits every 2 hours give or take. Throw in in some loss and your overhead to operate at that tick and it took me about 80 hours to get to 6.2 billion. That amount of time involved (for me at least) would not really be considered an "exploit". Now that I have done it I most likely wouldn't do it again lol. I wouldn't call it an exploit, I'd call it insanity.

I look back at the Borann LTD rush and I am of the opinion now that if you actually mined and sold without mapping or using an egg, you are a legit.

 

[G4RY]

Fleet Carriers are an "endgame" asset, not something you buy on a whim after using an exploit for a few days.

I called this in another post. I wonder how many of these threads are incoming...

 

[zimms]

First, Frontier should turn FCs from stations into POIs. So many smaller and bigger problems stem from this decision. Just my 2c.