All this angst over upkeep on Fleet Carriers - why?

If you had read the threads OP you would know why people object. Different people have different reasons.

I don't mind an upkeep cost. What i will mind is that cost applying while i'm not playing.

Imagine OP, if you care to, taking a break from the game for some months, only to discover your FC has been decomissioned.

How would you feel about that?

Imagine going out exploring with your fleet, taking a break, then logging back in to discover your fleet is god only knows where, your FC has been decomissioned, and perhaps you are left floating in a remote region of space in a ship without a fuel scoop, because the last thing you were doing was mining or derping around on planets in a dropship.

Think about it.

I have read the posts/threads thanks.

Imagine OP, if you care to, taking a break from the game for some months, only to discover your FC has been decomissioned.

How would you feel about that?

Short answer - Well I wouldn't buy one in the first place in that case.

Longer answer - You spent many hours grinding for the 5bn Cr, operated the carrier for a period of time during which you are obviously aware about the upkeep commitment but then you are somehow surprised (and upset) that after losing all interest in the game and not playing for several months... that it's gone?

However there should probably be an option to mothball a carrier, park it in some graveyard facility for a fee and leave it indefinitely with no additional cost until you reactivate it.

Cold stack.
Warm stack.
 
Last edited:
Short answer - Well I wouldn't buy one in the first place in that case.

Longer answer - You spent many hours grinding for the 5bn Cr, operated the carrier for a period of time during which you are obviously aware about the upkeep commitment but then you are somehow surprised (and upset) that after losing all interest in the game and not playing for several months... that it's gone?

So you think you shouldn't partake in the features of Fleet Carriers because you might at some point want to take a break from the game, or real life gets in the way unexpectedly forcing you to take a break?

I don't think any game (key word: game) should force you to keep playing or lose stuff.

The point being that FD don't have to have the upkeep commitment while people are offline. By the same token, it shouldn't be able to passively generate income while offline. Passive offline income is a terrible idea from my perspective.
 
So you think you shouldn't partake in the features of Fleet Carriers because you might at some point want to take a break from the game, or real life gets in the way unexpectedly forcing you to take a break?

I don't think any game (key word: game) should force you to keep playing or lose stuff.

The point being that FD don't have to have the upkeep commitment while people are offline. By the same token, it shouldn't be able to passively generate income while offline. Passive offline income is a terrible idea from my perspective.

That's a lot of "whataboutery" you've got going on there!

I made an edit to the above post as although it may not be apparent I am sympathetic to the root of the complaint, just no the hysterical gnashing of teeth.
 
The point being that FD don't have to have the upkeep commitment while people are offline. By the same token, it shouldn't be able to passively generate income while offline. Passive offline income is a terrible idea from my perspective.
Honestly think we have to see the context before assessing upkeep.
As I said elsewhere if carriers are interacting with the economy, +50,000 carriers is going to require more infrastructure so some sort of pruning makes sense, it is just what form that takes.

But really as I said earlier the only real issue for me at this time is communication, Frontier could just have left that detail out of the press release and presented it in context in the stream, but no they put out just enough detail to cause concern but not enough to clarify and so here we are.
 
Last edited:
@ Cmdr QuantIs Trap

Well I don't agree in that you aren't required to buy a Fleet Carrier, but a DO AGREE in that once you do buy one it's result should be a net positive versus a net burden on your Elite Dangerous business bottom line. When you buy one of these carriers, it should be like you bought Frontier, your now David Braben in space and you have a lot of competent NPCs to help you. You shouldn't have to micro manage the whole business. It fairly apparent that Braben doesn't micro manage his but it's still doing pretty well.
[/QUOTE]

* Please explain* Well I don't agree in that you aren't required to buy a Fleet Carrier
 
Last edited:
Frontier dug their own hole with that one.

Ever since frontier had bad steam reviews, the entire emphasis of development has been to turn things off / give things to people for free with zero effort, remove the challenge, remove the gameplay, basically just leaving nothing.

This has happened for so long and for so many years i think people are conditioned to it and won't accept even the idea of anything challenging anymore.

If a sugar addicted toddler goes mental when offered not sugar, its actually the parents fault. Especially considering that nearly all the nerfs frontier spend development resources on could have been equally addressed via communication / education. They dug their own here.
and i thought the wave of bad steam reviews was due to the not well planned way how to aquire the horizons update (not a DLC but a full game) and the failed standalone CQC spinoff
 
Try playing the game first, and not Elite: Mining please.

Easy and instant my arx. I play daily, am triple Elite, I do BGS and PvP, and I'm far from 5 billion in cash.

Ha! I hate mining. always have and always will. Almost all of my money comes from true exploration. I play daily as well with nearly 4000 hours, give or take a few very short breaks, and still only have half of what I need to buy an FC. Being Elite in any discipline doesn't really mean much these days. It's really not something to boast about anymore.
 
If you had read the threads OP you would know why people object. Different people have different reasons.

I don't mind an upkeep cost. What i will mind is that cost applying while i'm not playing.

Imagine OP, if you care to, taking a break from the game for some months, only to discover your FC has been decomissioned.

How would you feel about that?

Imagine going out exploring with your fleet, taking a break, then logging back in to discover your fleet is god only knows where, your FC has been decomissioned, and perhaps you are left floating in a remote region of space in a ship without a fuel scoop, because the last thing you were doing was mining or derping around on planets in a dropship.

Think about it.
It has to. Think about it. These fleet carriers are persistent and realistically there needs to be a way to remove them after a period of time otherwise there could millions of unused fleet carriers lying around. Having it built into an in-game mechanic in my view is much better then it suddenly vanishing for no apparent reason. These things could potentially lmake money as well as cost money while you are offline. I believe the costs are a balancing factor.
 
For a start 5 billion credits is quite alot then after spending said amount you need to continue to pay upkeep, why?. The whole concept of upkeep is unnecessary.

No it's not really unnecessary, they need removing after a while if folk are not logging on, otherwise they are just taking up a place in the instance so only 31 slots left for everyone else because of an abandoned fleet carrier just sitting there.
 
No it's not really unnecessary, they need removing after a while if folk are not logging on, otherwise they are just taking up a place in the instance so only 31 slots left for everyone else because of an abandoned fleet carrier just sitting there.
They could go the Urban Dead route and just remain there but invisible if the player doesn't log in for a while. And where are you getting the "32 slots" limit from?
 
Now I have a fleet carrier, I arrive in a system with quite a few interesting bodies, I spend a few days exploring the system, taking pictures, checking out canyons, grooving my way through the Brain Tree groves, and suddenly I get a notice that my FC has been decomissioned because I haven't spent enoough time mindlessly jumping from system to system and scanning to keep the money pouring in.
You suddenly got a notice, without any advance warnings first? That doesn't sound right.
Greetings Commanders,

While Fleet Carriers require a weekly upkeep for crew and enabled Fleet Carrier services, there are a number of options which will allow owners to earn credits and cover the ongoing running costs of a Fleet Carrier. There's more to the debt and decommissioning of a Fleet Carrier, and it's not something that should happen if the player hasn't incurred a HUGE amount of debt. We understand there's a fair bit of concern about this but rest assured, we'll be going over this in quite a lot of detail in the upcoming Content Reveal livestream next week.
There are also going to be two public beta periods where you'll be able to test this for yourselves and share with us your feedback.

Thanks for your understanding!
 
Back
Top Bottom