Good job you managed to stop playing so long ago then, it would be dreadful if you were still playing, I'd guess
Carrier upkeep
- Thread starter White Wolf
- Start date
Agree. It's a bad mechanic. To pay that much for something to have it just despawn on you? Not cool imo.
Imagine. It was quite dreadful back then. And I'd still have to do all the busy jobs just to catch up.Good job you managed to stop playing so long ago then, it would be dreadful if you were still playing, I'd guess
You were very wise...
The rest of us have such a terrible time in the game, what with 400 billion systems and many more bodies, to have to find, scan, map and sell data from, it will take years, I tell you, years!
Carriers aren't for everyone. They're for people who are playing at a rate that is far above average. Making credits that are far above average. And continue to make credits that are far above average in a game where there ceases to be any use for credits at the point these players are playing. And there are thousands of such players.
if you can't manage to get the credits for a carrier, then you shouldn't have one.
If you manage to get the credits for a carrier, then upkeep doesn't mean anything to you. upkeep is not a hardship. A billion will get you 2 years of carrier play without any need to worry about making more money to cover upkeep. If you can't do that ..then dont buy a carrier. Getting a billion credits is literally something these players can do while being bored during the course of a single year, if not less time. The costs are what they are specifically to deter some people from purchasing it because there are no skill based mechanics in this game for such a thing to be put behind. There's only cost and tedium.
they're not required to play and so you purchase one as a choice. People who complain about the cost are lying to themselves and others in an effort to get sympathetic support to have something they shouldn't have. Credits aren't hard to get. ..you're too much of a newbie yet, or you're lazy or the wrong demographic if you dont have more than you need for what you want to do in the game.
tldr: the carrier isn't for filthy casuals.
if you can't manage to get the credits for a carrier, then you shouldn't have one.
If you manage to get the credits for a carrier, then upkeep doesn't mean anything to you. upkeep is not a hardship. A billion will get you 2 years of carrier play without any need to worry about making more money to cover upkeep. If you can't do that ..then dont buy a carrier. Getting a billion credits is literally something these players can do while being bored during the course of a single year, if not less time. The costs are what they are specifically to deter some people from purchasing it because there are no skill based mechanics in this game for such a thing to be put behind. There's only cost and tedium.
they're not required to play and so you purchase one as a choice. People who complain about the cost are lying to themselves and others in an effort to get sympathetic support to have something they shouldn't have. Credits aren't hard to get. ..you're too much of a newbie yet, or you're lazy or the wrong demographic if you dont have more than you need for what you want to do in the game.
tldr: the carrier isn't for filthy casuals.
I made over a week of upkeep in a Haz Res (collecting mats) using a KWS in around an hour... Tedious indeed
Even with my fully outfitted one (on this account) the 30+ million upkeep isn't exactly difficult to acquire either (given that a FC can be used to 'trade' well over 100 million per hour is perfectly feasible, with a little thought) so even doing a 'small' amount of 'work' can keep the upkeep topped up easily.
Even with my fully outfitted one (on this account) the 30+ million upkeep isn't exactly difficult to acquire either (given that a FC can be used to 'trade' well over 100 million per hour is perfectly feasible, with a little thought) so even doing a 'small' amount of 'work' can keep the upkeep topped up easily.
I get what you're saying, but speaking as someone who can afford a carrier, it's such an enormous game-changer that it's really in FDev's interest to make something similar available to most players.
the two "killer features" in my opinion are:
ability to move your entire fleet to wherever your interest in the galaxy moves
I've been playing since before it was possible to transfer ships. I used to have to buy a hauler, fly back, get my second ship, sell the hauler, then fly my second ship. Ship transfer was a game-changer. Moving your entire fleet on the carrier is a similar game changer.
off-ship cargo storage
I've been playing since before we had module storage. Adding that feature was a game-changer. Off-ship cargo storage is similar. It's more fun (for me, in my opinion) to have a dedicated miner, a small mining ship, that I can hop in for half an hour and hit a few cores, then store the cargo and do something else in the game. And sell the cargo later.
It's in FDev's interest to give mid-level players these two features. I agree with you that fleet carriers, as implemented, should remain an expensive thing for fewer players. But why not have a cheaper option too?
Why not have a cheaper carrier without the possibility of UC or bounties or even letting other people land on it? So long as you don't show it on the system map (a huge mistake in my opinion), why not give people that option?
A billion or so credits for a smaller, cheaper, shorter-range carrier with fewer available services. If it's not on the system map, what's the downside?
If it despawns on you then you will get most of the purchase price back. You knew what the upkeep was when you bought it, if you didn't have enough to keep it going for a while or knew you could make enough to do so then you can hardly blame the game. You can still easily make enough for a weeks upkeep in an hour or so of mining.
As I said in one of the countless other threads... You don't buy a car if you can't afford the insurance.
I'd be interested to know how many CMDRs have had their carriers decommissioned by the game through lack of funds (excluding those who have chosen to decommission it themselves).
I'd be interested to know how many CMDRs have had their carriers decommissioned by the game through lack of funds (excluding those who have chosen to decommission it themselves).
What if my computer blows up? What if I get sick? What if something happens in real life?
That's what scares me from getting a FC. When I buy something, it needs to be mine forever as long as my account exists. Just like my ships. FC's break that persistence, for no reason. So no, it's not a good game mechanic in my opinion. It's not about making credits for the upkeep.
It allegedly takes a while before forced decommissioning due to debt occurs.
When I bought my first FC and equipped it I had less than 100 million credits remaining. The carrier earned a year of upkeep within a week, without me putting much time in to do so, not exactly difficult. (I normally only keep around 200 million on the CMDR account, so tend to transfer excess funds straight to the carrier bank too)
Wait until you are in a position to decide to buy or not, and if you go ahead see how long it would actually take to put a silly amount of upkeep into the carrier 'bank' just by doing the things you find enjoyable, you may be surprised
Why should game changing advantageous abilities be available to -everyone- ? When you play games, do you have access to the best armor, the best vehicle, the most helpful items at the same time you get access to the lowest? Or do you have to put a lot of effort into unlocking those things, or beating some sort of challenge to access them, or make it to some final level?
While i dont see any reason why some reduced tier shouldn't exist... the op is only going to be happy when he can have all of the benefits and none of the downsides. We see this kind of crying and moaning all the time whenever anything is beyond the reach of some casual player because they only want to or can play 2 hours a week and when they do all they want to do is some activity that doesn't net them any credits because it's what they find fun.
Any item that offers something advantageous, needs to come at some kind of proportional disadvantage to make it's use require thought and strategy.
Nonsense FUD. Your computer breaks for a year and you care about some asset in a game? If you're living week to week in a carrier, you are doing it wrong and you shouldn't have it anyway. Upkeep literally doesn't matter to someone who has enough credits to own a carrier. They're not a deterrent to the audience they're for. They're there to eliminate ghost carriers over time and to deter players who maybe might have just enough credits after years to buy one. Carriers are meant for people who play often and money is no object. The idea that some downtime is going to steal their carrier is stupid. The downtime would have to be measured in years.
You won't ever manage to uncover it all. But that isn't so important - I was never a completionist.
I'm not proposing a rule that in every game, every ability should be available to everyone at every level of progression within the game.
But my position here is that the features (fleet transfer and off-ship storage) are not analogous to the things you listed (best armor, best weapons)
My position is that the features are sufficiently important that they should be made available earlier in a player's progression through the game. So if you want to use armor as an analogy, I'm not saying, "every player should have the best armor" - I'm saying "armor of a weaker class should be available earlier in the game.
If I was fdev, I would make off-ship cargo storage available at every station for a small fee, paid when you store the cargo, and capped at a reasonable amount (perhaps less than what you can store on a carrier). Then I would make a very small carrier that doesn't even have a large pad, and only has the ability to support one service (refuel, rearm, or repair) but does have the ability to transfer your ships and modules to it.
And the most important thing: it should not be on the system map. The way they've allowed the map to be cluttered is such a huge mistake.
The advantages far outway the disadvantages after a while if it suits your playstyle, there are plenty of ways of earning extra money using a carrier.
Within a couple of weeks of buying mine I had accumulated enough extra credits from both mining and trading for a couple of years upkeep, buy low sell high, the last column on INARA commodities is Max Profit, 10k of polymers here 5k of grain there, its surprising how fast you can earn that way, mining, some prices were better then but most of the mining that I did was for volume not the very high value rarer goods, I still do this, I don't only mine for top dollar commodities.
I am not buy a long way one of the richer carrier owners but I have now got over 10 billion available and if the carrier was abandoned for a while so what there is over 10 years upkeep before I need to worry
30 million or so a week is peanuts to cmdrs who login alot. But those who have a busy RL will struggle. The fee is relentless requiring time to get it covered.
I can see Ops point truly.
It's not fair I get it.
Kitting out a fdl with wotever and spending a few hours or so once a week in a haz res or something isnt that big a deal.
Personally I stuck 6 bill in the damn things account. and l worry not.
o7
I can see Ops point truly.
It's not fair I get it.
Kitting out a fdl with wotever and spending a few hours or so once a week in a haz res or something isnt that big a deal.
Personally I stuck 6 bill in the damn things account. and l worry not.
o7
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it doesn't feel like this is about letting newbies access to something. This is about letting players who have been playing casually for a long time and have acquired a lot of stuff - able to play with toys that would require them to play non-casually to acquire.
As such, i would see no harm in the below.
Limiting such a lower tier "carrier" to not having a large pad and only allowing the owner to dock, allowing module storage (not module classes not found in medium/small ships) and having this ship have upkeep and tritium requirements. As well, as eliminating the market and only having 1 optional service would make some sense and having a significantly lower commodity storage limit and half the jump range of the larger carrier.
Also, this would not be persistent, but rather tied to the owner's instance if other players are to see it, but they will be unable to dock with it. It otherwise exists as something other players can't see or interact with unless they are sharing an instance with the owner at the location that the mini-carrier is in. It's position is still controlled by fdev servers and it moves the same way as full carriers. Think of it as some kind of USS rather than a persistent station variant.
Something on the order of 1.5-2 billion credits and a half the upkeep amount of the larger carrier. You can only own one or the other, not both at the same time.
This way these guys have limited ability to abuse the bgs or leverage their accessibility to outclass the larger carriers or devalue the larger carriers in any way.
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Occasionally, I'll role play that situation by getting my bank balance to some exact round number (say, 10 billion exactly), then head to some new region of the bubble, buy something like a krait, do some PVE piracy, or take some illegal missions, and see how long it takes me to get back to 10 billion, let alone make a profit.