An Hour and a half to Jump

[1stCybermykl]

So, this problem has been going on since back in March of this year (2024). Has there been any efforts by FD to increase the server space for carrier jumps. I've got 5K tons of platinum to move and waiting for a jump slot only to wait an additional hour and half is not helping the price of platinum stay where I need it to stay. I'm boycotting all new ship release purchases until they show some love to the carriers.

o7 Commanders

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Yup. I've just got an hour and 10 wait. Joke.

 

[FrozenTomato]

Never bought a carrier. The upkeep price : thanks, but no thanks.

 

[varonica]

server space for carrier jumps

Nothing to do with "space" it's to do with processing requests, you can only queue so many before the time starts increasing, and it costs money, and I mean "real" money to decrease that processing time, probably require upgraded hardware, expensive stuff specially if you are already running state of the art hardware, probably talking millions to reduce the queue length substantially, for a problem that happens intermittently, not going to happen.

 

[Stressfest]

I've had an FC since they were released, never waited longer than 15 mins. If this is to be the new norm, I'll be listing mine on craigslist.

 

[varonica]

I've had an FC since they were released, never waited longer than 15 mins. If this is to be the new norm, I'll be listing mine on craigslist.

Go ahead, because there's always been extended waiting periods following major updates when players move a lot of carriers around, after a few days or a week or so it goes back to the same 15 minutes it normally is. Just consider the initial release of Carriers the normal waiting period was going to be 2 hours with an hour cooldown but that was reduced due to player demand, and this is what we have, a waiting list when things get really busy.

 

[aRJay]

Never bought a carrier. The upkeep price : thanks, but no thanks.

I was somewhat worried about the cost of upkeep when it was announced but later reports and then my own experience showed that for most players who could afford a carrier that cost was not really an issue. Fuel cost/effort is a bit more of a concern.

I do admire people who have the resolve to take a stance on principal though.

 

[Gabriel H]

Star systems were procedurally generated, and in effect are hard-coded at this point. Moving a carrier isn't as simple as a player jumping into an instance of a system, but rather the carrier having to be added into the hard-code so that it is available in all instances. It is as much a software limitation (becoming a hard-coded game object) as it is a hardware limitation (processing time).

When a lot of players want to move their carriers at once, which happens after a major update, the queue time is extended, not necessarily because of the processing time, but to give a buffer time period so that the software can recognise what carriers are where. The number of carriers orbitting around an object are limited. So when you select a new available destination, the system will flag a -1 to availability on the new destination AND a +1 on your current placement.

There is then the matter of where in the new placement your carrier will go, as others will also be moving in and out. It's not just a case of move object, what will basically be happening is your carrier's entire data profile is being copied over someone else's or a blank, while at the same time someone else's is being copied elsewhere, all the while backups being made in case of server crashes or power cuts or any number of things that can go wrong.

It's not just a lot of data to process, it's also ensuring the integrity of the hard-coded data that already exists. That might not seem like a satisfying answer, but it is the price paid for having a 1:1 recreation of the entire galaxy.

Edit: Just to add and emphasise the point: In the background, when a carrier jump happens, in effect content is being added and removed from the game without any downtime or patches on a constant basis. As much as the wait times are annoying, and the bugs are annoying, that feat alone is some pretty damn impressive coding by FDev and worthy of some praise.

 

[Cmdr Snuffler]

Never bought a carrier. The upkeep price : thanks, but no thanks.

Upkeep is peanuts...if you can afford a FC then you can afford the upkeep.
I only have basic things installed in my FC and it's 9mil / week. I made 900 mil with a few hours of exo-biology last month and 700+ mil in a few hours doing goid evacuation missions last week (some were 50mil per mission to take 6 ppl to a rescue ship). For me, this equates to over 2 years of FC upkeep with not much playing time.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Never bought a carrier. The upkeep price : thanks, but no thanks.

My carrier costs merely half a mission reward per week.

 

[varonica]

My carrier costs merely half a mission reward per week.

My carrier upkeep doesn't bother me at all, I just slapped in 10 years worth of upkeep and never bother even looking at it!

 

[Florenus]

Go ahead, because there's always been extended waiting periods following major updates when players move a lot of carriers around, after a few days or a week or so it goes back to the same 15 minutes it normally is. Just consider the initial release of Carriers the normal waiting period was going to be 2 hours with an hour cooldown but that was reduced due to player demand, and this is what we have, a waiting list when things get really busy.

The paradox here is that Frontier obviously does everything in their power to keep the game afloat and make it more popular. When finally it gets more player traffic, servers fail to keep up, authentication servers boil, we get all kinds of snake errors while carrier queue gets longer etc, which in turn discourages lots of players. And it's like that since I remember. Usual advice players have for people complaining is to wait until player numbers return to usual level. I mean... something's wrong with that equation, isn't it?

 

[SteveWW57]

Carrier jump times are a bit like road traffic. Some days the traffic is quiet, especially Sundays and a lot of the time there are no major hold ups. But come rush hour or high pop events and there are lots of delays. Even building better roads does not necessarily solve the problem.