And make them AFFORDABLE!
Small personal Capital ships for small teams please?
- Thread starter Missile Dragon
- Start date
A fully outfitted Cutter costs over a billion credits. How much do you think a capital ship should cost?
what is afforable? be able to buy one after 5 minutes play? 1 hour of play? 10 hours of play? How does this stack against all the exciting stuff you can buy... are these affordable?
I guess it is to much to ask to have reasonable requests that actually contains some tangiable info instead of a generic words without any relation.
What is this? A capital ship for ants?
You mean like maybe the Panther Clipper being a team only ship?
What's with the shouting? You'll scare people who think your idea is good .....
.... never mind.
.... never mind.
A billion, as well.
A fully outfitted cutter is a fully-fledged piece of equipment. Depending on the loadout, it's capable of undertaking many, if not all activities within the game including mining, combat, salvage, exploration... or undertaking singular activities to a very high degree.
By contrast, an FC is a logistic support craft. It's not capable in itself of undertaking any activity and therefore, in the context of the game, is fairly useless in that regard. The sum worth of all the functions and capabilities of an FC bascially make it a glorified hauling vessel, not worth more than about a billion.
If you want to go down the path of RL comparisons, FCs are not analogous to Aircraft Carriers; which by contrast feature way more capability than an FC goes near... where an FC is more comparable to a cargo freighter, or a hundreds-of-thousands road train, while the aforementioned cutter is more akin to, say, an Abrams tank, which has a multi-million pricetag.
The only reason 5 billion was ever accepted as a price was because people prostrated themselves before broken Borann mining situation at the time FCs were in the works.
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You really haven't messed with them much if that's all you see them as. And just because your view is limited doesn't mean they are.
Not really.
I started the game at the end of November 2018
By the end of January 2019 - that is 2 months later i had a Cutter and 3+ billions.
Absolutely no mining involved except the random mining required to unlock Selene.
Much later i discovered Deep Core minining
Then by all means, enlighten me. I've got a pretty comprehensive understanding of what a FC can achieve. If you think there's shortfalls in my understanding, fill the gaps, and I'll happily give you my assessment of the relative worth of those functions.
I'd consider yours and other scenarios an outlier, unless it rode one of the other meta-cash cows. My point being, you don't price items based off what's possible, you base it off the common experience. For example, my income is generally bursty, because occasionally there's a happy overlap between the typical activities I'd do, and a meta-cash cow (such as old-skimmer mission stacking; was a substantial source of income which coincided with attempting to overthrow another faction, but since has been patched out)
I'd be interested to know how you went about that in two months from a perspective of whether that's a common experience, or you're "just that good" (which I'd happily believe and actually expect the latter, but that simply reinforces my point again that it's priced on outlier activities, which is not sound logic)
It's a station
A personal mobile base.
And Cutter is everything you said it is. But but it's not a Station.
My XB's account Carrier is holding most of my modules and 38 ships. And i can have them at my disposal anywhere anytime
I would find it rather weird to have the Carrier priced at 1bn - the same price for a combat Cutter or Vette
Every game loop i played back then, is available today - so nothing grey or patched out in the meantime - but mostly was doing missions.
Credits are not hard to get by if someone is focused on getting credits.
It just requires a bit of dedication in setting a goal and pursuing that goal
Edit: oh, and i was spending way less time on the forums and more in the game back then
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Fleet Carriers are absolutely worth it if you want your own space station with commodities market, etc.
I do think there is a “case” for a non-persistent, personal carrier with no market, no docking for other commanders, no redemption office, etc … that just provides basic ship storage, cargo storage, module storage, ship swap / outfitting and refuel/repair for the owner only. Upkeep would be either zero or very low. But it should still cost maybe 3 billion to make any sense!
That said … it’s not that big of an ask to get to the 5 billion for a “full” FC - especially if you do a few cargo CGs. It took me a long time to get there but it is an end-game asset - if ED can even be said to have an end game!! - and I don’t think a lesser carrier will ever happen.
I do think there is a “case” for a non-persistent, personal carrier with no market, no docking for other commanders, no redemption office, etc … that just provides basic ship storage, cargo storage, module storage, ship swap / outfitting and refuel/repair for the owner only. Upkeep would be either zero or very low. But it should still cost maybe 3 billion to make any sense!
That said … it’s not that big of an ask to get to the 5 billion for a “full” FC - especially if you do a few cargo CGs. It took me a long time to get there but it is an end-game asset - if ED can even be said to have an end game!! - and I don’t think a lesser carrier will ever happen.
And with a minor amount of planning, my necessary ships and modules are also available anywhere, any time, for a nominal fee thanks to ship/module transfers, which is comparable to the fuel/maintenance costs of a carrier, so no real advantage there.
That access is obviously not achievable in the black, but I argue there's no reason to need that in the black; essentially, there are no activities in the black that require refitting, where there aren't fixed station services already available.
Is it convenient? Sure. Is it necessary? Not really. Is it worth a 5b pricetag? Not really.
Incidentally, I find it interesting you consider the carrier being the same price as your combat cutter/vette weird. As I said, an Abram's tank is multiple millions. A cargo ship or road train for carrying multiple tanks costs far less.
Conversely, if RL doesn't tickle your fancy, in EVE, it's very common for combat ships to outstrip the value of dedicated capital-class freighters or even carriers which provide combat and logistic support. Of course, a fully-fitted, best-equipped carrier itself will cost many more times than a high-rate combat ship, but that's the comparison right? A baseline FC is not worth 5b.
Ah, if i remember now you were doing targeting high-value mineral hauling missions... which I know historically we've disagreed on the concept that I see those as being another broken cash-cow (because hauling rewards shouldn't be based on cargo value). Those, massacre stacking, Borann mining, they're all just variants on a theme. So, I'd lump it in with that.Every game loop i played back then, is available today - so nothing grey or patched out in the meantime - but mostly was doing missions.
Credits are not hard to get by if someone is focused on getting credits.
It just requires a bit of dedication in setting a goal and pursuing that goal
Edit: oh, and i was spending way less time on the forums and more in the game back then
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Well just one other area is exploration where they completely revolutionized the game play. Everything from builds to strategies and techniques were changed.
Again... I got the 5b just doing passenger missions.
Hell with just standard hauling you can make close to 100m an hour once you get into the rhythm. So even with that basic sub optimal no effort technique it only takes 50 hours. If you're working with a group just 3 other people cuts that down to about 12.
In what meaningful ways? Considering the lack of any form of content which requires more than a fuel scoop, ADS/DSS and maybe an SRV, I'm not convinced there's 5b worth of value in being able to refit and build, nor do I see any "revolutionizing" of that system by FCs, other than "You can jump 500 LY and reach previously-unreachable stars, which will contain the same, seen before procedural stuff".
Like, are there any specific examples you're referring to? Maybe you're talking about refitting a cargo scoop plus a research limpet for biopsies, but again, any sort of Asp fit could achieve that. Maybe your flagging an issue that a research limpet takes away a LY or two from jump range, but jump range really isn't exploration; it just speeds up getting from A->B, and a ship kitted out with additional gear like research limpets and the like will still exploit distances faster than an FC, without the need to waste money/time on tritium.
Many meaningful ways, just being able to hand in exploration credits without risking the gankers in the bubble makes them hugely meaningful for exploration play, now explorers never need to return to the bubble or indeed any civilised system if that's their desire, if you don't consider that meaningful well, that's your opinion and you are allowed to have it no matter how wrong it is!
Having never been blown up by any ganker on return to the bubble (thanks solo!) after a long jaunt, that's not a big deal at all. Plus, there's plenty of outposts out there to return data to along the way anyway.