Alternative to Mining / Buying Tritium

[Yurika Shirayuki]

I recently bought a fleet carrier and started the process of stocking tritium and generating capital to finance the upkeep on it, and I've been reading other post about how tedious it is to obtain tritium, especially outside the bubble. I can mine 100t, maybe 200t per hour if I'm lucky for a credit cost of 5-10 mil per hour if I were to buy it directly in the bubble at the galactic average price. I realized it's more cost / time effective to just run passenger missions in Robigo, averaging 100-120 mil per hour. That would purchase 1940t - 2330t for the same time investment not factoring having to jump around to markets to purchase the tritium. Even this method can be tedious, and is impractical once you leave the bubble.

There lies the problem, tritium really isn't a commodity it's a consumable. Buying and selling it on the commodities market doesn't really make any sense considering everything else on the market has no consumable use. A fully outfitted carrier has a potential max cargo capacity of 18850t plus the fuel tank for a total of 19850t. I think it would be more practical and make more sense to scrap the current method of mining / buying tritium and change the mechanics of obtaining tritium to the existing mechanic of fuel scooping a star. All it would require is new modules, call them tritium tanks, that act like current cargo racks with the same storage capacity but specifically gather tritium if you have a fuel scoop equipped. And to keep it from being too easy to obtain, the tritium tanks would have 50% efficiency of your fuel scoop. An Anaconda equipped with a 7A fuel scoop, docking computer, supercruise assist, and nothing but tritium tanks for the other optional slots could gather 320t of tritium in 8.5 minutes, or fill a fleet carrier with a capacity of 19850t dead empty in 62 scooping trips, for a total of 8.75 hours of scoop time. This puts my proposed method about even to 17% faster than running passenger missions to buy the same quantity of tritium outright, not factoring transit time to and from the carrier and star, and it solves the problem of refueling when you're out in the black, making fleet carriers true long term operational vessels rather than the current fill the tank and cargo hold, go out to a single destination, then come back to the bubble to repeat the process.

I'm curious as to what the rest of you think, are the existing mechanics fine or do we need something different, and is what I'm proposing an attractive and non-game breaking solution?

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Sounds like a decent alternative, although I suspect that tritium mining is somewhat more viable than your numbers suggest (expert miners correct me please)

 

[goemon]

is impractical once you leave the bubble.

as the total range of a FC with tritium loaded is 130 000 ly, there is no such things as "impractical once you leave the bubble" - there is no place to go by design, where you can't go back to the bubble on a full tritium load.

 

[K Olley]

Mining figures are about right, straight laser 80 - 120t per hour or a SSD miner will get to 200t maybe a little more.

The OP is running a max configured carrier, that gives it the worst fuel consumption, the heavier the carrier the more fuel it needs to make a jump. on the other hand if he is carrying other cmdr's with multiple ships they could reduce the total time needed to mine by a considerable amount If he is not then sell the Shipyard and Outfitting before leaving the bubble, 4750t lighter or more fuel.

I run a mining carrier out in the black, no Shipyard, Outfitting or Secure Warehouse needed so not fitted, when empty 23,850t cargo capacity and will do a max jump on less than 80t of Tritium.

As for me mining Tritium, I don't, or should I say I do not specifically mine for Tritium, In Icy rings I mine for Cores and I laser mine for LTD's and Bromellite, any SD's and SSD's that are worthwhile are also dealt with. I collect enough Tritium and several other commodities this way for my own use.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I recently bought a fleet carrier and started the process of stocking tritium and generating capital to finance the upkeep on it, and I've been reading other post about how tedious it is to obtain tritium, especially outside the bubble. I can mine 100t, maybe 200t per hour if I'm lucky for a credit cost of 5-10 mil per hour if I were to buy it directly in the bubble at the galactic average price. I realized it's more cost / time effective to just run passenger missions in Robigo, averaging 100-120 mil per hour. That would purchase 1940t - 2330t for the same time investment not factoring having to jump around to markets to purchase the tritium. Even this method can be tedious, and is impractical once you leave the bubble.

There lies the problem, tritium really isn't a commodity it's a consumable. Buying and selling it on the commodities market doesn't really make any sense considering everything else on the market has no consumable use. A fully outfitted carrier has a potential max cargo capacity of 18850t plus the fuel tank for a total of 19850t. I think it would be more practical and make more sense to scrap the current method of mining / buying tritium and change the mechanics of obtaining tritium to the existing mechanic of fuel scooping a star. All it would require is new modules, call them tritium tanks, that act like current cargo racks with the same storage capacity but specifically gather tritium if you have a fuel scoop equipped. And to keep it from being too easy to obtain, the tritium tanks would have 50% efficiency of your fuel scoop. An Anaconda equipped with a 7A fuel scoop, docking computer, supercruise assist, and nothing but tritium tanks for the other optional slots could gather 320t of tritium in 8.5 minutes, or fill a fleet carrier with a capacity of 19850t dead empty in 62 scooping trips, for a total of 8.75 hours of scoop time. This puts my proposed method about even to 17% faster than running passenger missions to buy the same quantity of tritium outright, not factoring transit time to and from the carrier and star, and it solves the problem of refueling when you're out in the black, making fleet carriers true long term operational vessels rather than the current fill the tank and cargo hold, go out to a single destination, then come back to the bubble to repeat the process.

I'm curious as to what the rest of you think, are the existing mechanics fine or do we need something different, and is what I'm proposing an attractive and non-game breaking solution?

I proposed, as alternative, the possibility of scooping tritium, since beta day1.
But not from stars, but from ice rings where tritium is normally found. In supercruise you would need to travel around the ring like on a highway at a specific speed range and at a specific distance to activate the tritium scoop.

 

[goemon]

as it curently is, the tritium works as an additional costs to jumping the carrier (assuming you buy). mining is for emergencies. i can't see an aspect of that suggestion which would also add to the price of jumping a FC (either a credit cost as for buying tritium, or a time cost as for mining tritium in emergencies). of course one can question, whether jumping the fc should cost CR.

 

[Mrat13]

It would be better just to have low prices. 5-10k prices would be fine, IMO.

 

[DemiserofD]

It would be better just to have low prices. 5-10k prices would be fine, IMO.

Trouble is, that makes mining it even worse. Imo mining should be a viable way of getting tritium, if you like mining.

Right now a casual miner can mine about 200t of Platinum per hour, and sell that at 300k each for about 60m/hour. You can also mine about 200t/hr of tritium, which at 50k each is about 10m/hour.

So if you wanted tritium mining to be worth bothering with, you could increase the yields 6x and still be perfectly fine. This is what I would prefer, actually. Ideally, Tritium mining would be SLIGHTLY slower than alternatives, so you can technically make more money mining Platinum or Osmium, but by the time you save travel time hauling the platinum to the sell location and then buying tritium with that money, the mining is equal.

So just buff tritium SSDs to be the same as LTD ssds. LTD subsurface deposits already release about 5x as much per missile, so it's perfectly possible to do exactly the same thing to Tritium ones and pow, tritium mining is actually worth bothering with.

 

[Ettanin]

Instead of making the tritium trivial and ubiquitous to obtain via fuel scooping, what about adding Tritium as mission reward?

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Tritium mining would be better, but people are doing The Exploit (don't want to name it here) and so FD have crippled the output of subsurface mining to try and keep it under control, since they probably have no way of fixing the exploit. If they'd make it so only Tritium comes out of subsurface, they'd fix the tritium problem and the exploit at the same time.

 

[Yurika Shirayuki]

as the total range of a FC with tritium loaded is 130 000 ly, there is no such things as "impractical once you leave the bubble" - there is no place to go by design, where you can't go back to the bubble on a full tritium load.

130000 ly is a round trip to Beagle Point from Sol, where you would then need to start the process of refueling the carrier from empty before you can head out again. I'm proposing an alternative that would make carriers a true long term deep space vessel that is viable to support solo or with a group, not a round trip ferry. The example that comes to mind is Star Trek, the ships don't head out on a mission and then return to Earth to refuel and wait for new orders. Or real world US Navy aircraft carriers, they can stay out at sea almost indefinitely because of their nuclear reactors, only requiring crew supplies to be flown in on a regular basis. If aircraft carriers had to return to the US after every deployment, it would severely hamper if not destroy the US ability to project their military power across the globe and assist and defend US interests and allies.

 

[Yurika Shirayuki]

The OP is running a max configured carrier, that gives it the worst fuel consumption, the heavier the carrier the more fuel it needs to make a jump. on the other hand if he is carrying other cmdr's with multiple ships they could reduce the total time needed to mine by a considerable amount If he is not then sell the Shipyard and Outfitting before leaving the bubble, 4750t lighter or more fuel.

I was using a worst case loadout, I too run as light as possible only installing the modules I personally need as there are plenty of DSSA carriers and other non-affiliated carriers that are willing to provide the services that I am not.

 

[Yurika Shirayuki]

Instead of making the tritium trivial and ubiquitous to obtain via fuel scooping, what about adding Tritium as mission reward?

That's just the thing, it should (could?) be trivial and ubiquitous to obtain just like the standard hydrogen fuel for the pilotable ships we use considering it's a consumable item. As it is one consumable is readily available as one travels, kind of like stopping at a fuel station when traveling by car, the other requires other methods of gameplay in order to stay operational. Why not just keep it semi-consistent by making the mechanism the same with the larger vessel requiring a more time than the smaller ships via carrier refueling operations by means of fuel tankers so to speak.

 

[Ettanin]

That's just the thing, it should (could?) be trivial and ubiquitous to obtain just like the standard hydrogen fuel for the pilotable ships we use considering it's a consumable item. As it is one consumable is readily available as one travels, kind of like stopping at a fuel station when traveling by car, the other requires other methods of gameplay in order to stay operational. Why not just keep it semi-consistent by making the mechanism the same with the larger vessel requiring a more time than the smaller ships via carrier refueling operations by means of fuel tankers so to speak.

Because fleet carriers are a status symbol of the very rich few and those willing to put up the time and dedication needed to keep and maintain it. This includes procuring tritium.

The credits economy is broken. Hence FDev needed to make it otherwise difficult to keep using it. Mine or buy, your choice. Adding tritium as a mission reward at least puts an alternative to the monotony of either by adding choice to a variety of tasks if you wish to obtain it elsewhere.

If you make it scoopable, you'll turn Elite Dangerous into an idle/incremental game. Something that is not what it really should be if you go by the travel time whinings of phase 1 Odyssey Alpha. Because if you do that, people will demand a buff to the scoop ability.

Fleet carriers are not the equivalent necessity of modern day cars. They are an extension to what you can already do by ship.

 

[Yurika Shirayuki]

Because fleet carriers are a status symbol of the very rich few and those willing to put up the time and dedication needed to keep and maintain it.

Status symbol of the very rich, not so much. Making credits is easy even if the process is repetitive / monotonous. Willing to put up time and dedication... yeah I guess I agree with that. I was just suggesting alternatives and by my napkin math it would require the same amount of time as earning credits through certain passenger missions, but change or not I am committed to investing the time to make it work. Owning a carrier is a milestone / accomplishment and a point of pride, but not something I'd rub in someone else's face because they can't afford one or can't / won't commit the time towards one. I was really thinking more of situations when you're outside the bubble solo where your only option is to mine and production drops off sharply compared to the variety of in-bubble options.

Fleet carriers are not the equivalent necessity of modern day cars. They are an extension to what you can already do by ship.

I wasn't comparing fleet carriers to modern cars, I was comparing pilotable ships to modern cars. Perhaps a better analogy would be fighter jets and other small / medium cargo aircraft and aircraft carriers. Fighters and cargo aircraft can refuel mid air to fly non-stop to their destinations, aircraft carriers can deploy almost indefinitely requiring only crew supplies to be flown in on a regular basis. The only time an aircraft carrier returns to port is for extensive maintenance / refit / overhaul. I'd guess that they are capable of transporting fresh fuel rods by cargo plane and swapping them out with the spent rods, refueling one of the two reactors at a time in order to maintain at least half operational capacity at all times.

I guess the overall point to take away is that life is harder outside the bubble than inside. Always has been, guess it always will be.

 

[Ettanin]

The side effect of the scooping is that it makes you gain something for doing nothing. You can park your ship near the stellar body in a way that interdicting you is impossible because it would force the interdictor to enter the stellar body's exclusion zone, meaning you can earn credits while being AFK (you can sell the tritium to stations). That's bad game design. It would mean that you can farm tritium by AFKing and then sell at the most profitable station.

I do not yet have a carrier (am working on it), but it's clear that FDev did not intend for everyone to have one.

 

[Yurika Shirayuki]

The only way to make it so that you don't gain something for nothing then would be to remove the ability to buy and sell tritium so you can't do like you suggested. You can't sell actual ship fuel to anyone, although there is hydrogen fuel on the commodities market that can't be used as actual ship fuel (go figure). That could be a potentially good thing as tritium is intended as and functions as a consumable item, so you really shouldn't be able to profit from it. 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other, my proposal is just a high level overview, I'd leave the finer details of opening Pandora's Box (and breaking the game) to FDev, they seem to have no qualms about doing exactly that then taking 1/2 a year to fix the problem

 

[physical0]

The only way to make it so that you don't gain something for nothing then would be to remove the ability to buy and sell tritium so you can't do like you suggested. You can't sell actual ship fuel to anyone, although there is hydrogen fuel on the commodities market that can't be used as actual ship fuel (go figure). That could be a potentially good thing as tritium is intended as and functions as a consumable item, so you really shouldn't be able to profit from it. 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other, my proposal is just a high level overview, I'd leave the finer details of opening Pandora's Box (and breaking the game) to FDev, they seem to have no qualms about doing exactly that then taking 1/2 a year to fix the problem

It would still be a problem of rewarding players for doing nothing.
The game should reward "engaging" gameplay, not idle gameplay.

Ideally, it shouldn't be boring and repetitive...

 

[Deleted member 38366]

In the past, I made some suggestions concerning the (back in these days) precarious Tritium situation and the unbearable mining grind for any individual CMDR to i.e. fully and autonomously supply the Carrier by Mining only :

• Tritium is a Premium Fuel required to reach specifications (500LY jumprange, 100k/jump Hull Maintenance)
• however, a Carrier could also run off Basic and Standard Fuel instead just as well (reduced jumprange and total range per ton accordingly + higher Maintenance cost)
• this would allow Players to sacrifice jumprange (i.e. only 250LY max on low quality Hydrogen Fuel and 2x maintenance cost per jump), but in turn being able to use Fuel mules to scoop at a Sun and transfer it to the Carrier as a cheaper substitute
• a limited investment of Tritium (50%) and mixing it with 50% Hydrogen Fuel would produce "Standard Fuel", offering 75% of rated Jumprange
• that would allow Carrier owners to have a 2nd choice and alternative to using difficult/expensive-to-source Tritium fuel only and being stuck with it exclusively
• tight Fuel Situations locking Carriers into position (ran out of Tritium Fuel) or generally poor supply areas (Colonia or SagA) would be defused to some extent
• one of the most useless Commodities (Hydrogen Fuel) being sold almost everywhere could be given a real in-game purpose
• can't sell Tritium without running risk of emptying your entire Carrier? Well, you could sell Carrier Basic Fuel or Standard Fuel and still be helpful to others - while retaining your Tritium reserves

In short :

• buy/mine Tritium and use it as 100% Premium Fuel : Carrier offers rated performance, 500LY jumprange, 100k/jump maintenance cost
• buy/mine Tritium, mix it 50:50 with purchased/scooped by Ship and Stored into Carrier Hydrogen Fuel : you get Standard Fuel, 75% of rated performance. 375LY Jumprange, 150k/jump maintenance cost
• buy/scoop Hydrogen Fuel only? You get Basic Carrier Fuel : 50% of rated performance, 250LY Jumprange, 200k/jump maintenance cost
• generation of Standard Fuel (50:50) onboard your Carrier : occurs on your command by the Fuel Depot NPC, with respective Hydrogen Fuel and Tritium from Storage

It'd be mostly in line with Synthesis, except you invest Tritium to generate Standard Fuel (50:50 mix Tritium/Hydrogen Fuel) or settle for plain pure Hydrogen Fuel as Basic Carrier fuel (half the range, 2x the jump maintenance)..

If you needed max. possible Range and Jumprange or want to go someplace as fast as possible, nothing would change - 100% Tritium would still be your best friend.
Can settle for 75% performance? Want to sell it without putting all your Tritium on the line? The 50:50 mix consumed or sold as Standard Fuel would be a thing and useful.
Don't need to go to far places? Hate mining with passion? 2x Hull Maintenance and 250LY jumprange is sufficient? Buy or scoop with a Fuel Mule (i.e. large Ship with large Scoop and extra Fuel Tanks) to keep your Carrier moving.

IMHO that'd be a workable solution that fully retains the old metrics (if you desire maximum rated performance) but also offers viable Alternatives, so you don't end up being stuck someplace or go poor filling up or if you're not a friend of Tritium mining at all - and are willing to live with the downsides.

 

[Mrat13]

Ideally, it shouldn't be boring and repetitive...

I thought that was the whole point of the game?