Carriers can decomissioned and sold if owners don't meet running costs over time....

VR Golgot · Mar 26, 2020

Source

Owners get plenty of options for how to use them: once purchased, you'll be able to decide which on-board services to open up, such as repair docks, refueling stations and shipyards. Players will be able to trade while using the services, and carrier owners will be able to set tariffs on all goods traded on-board to support weekly upkeep costs. Those costs will include buying Tritium, a new fuel commodity that powers the ships. If owners consistently fall behind on their payments, the fleet carriers might, ultimately, be decommissioned and sold for parts.

Well damn, this sounds a bit F2P-style grindy. Not a fan of having to log in to maintain kit.

Hopefully there'll be a soft edge to this and you can just park it up in a half-promising system. (Was kinda looking forward to a Carrier ticking away making money in the background, not cannibalising itself for lack of it

)

Ach well, we needed some pitchfork fuel

EDIT: Oh wait, hopefully not as bad as first sounds: (can't direct link to the tweet due to swears

)

We've lots of new features to share in our upcoming stream, including how the decommission system works (spoiler: you need to incur on HUGE debt for that to happen). And our devs know that you'd want to go on vacation from time to time!

Still not sure logging back in to a debt is fun times, but guess can wait to learn more.

Lightspeed · Mar 26, 2020

Golgot said:
....... (Was kinda looking forward to a Carrier ticking away making money in the background, not cannibalising itself for lack of it )
.....

Well maybe it's to stop just that .... you have to log in to maintain it, or you don't get the credits provided by visitors.

VR Golgot · Mar 26, 2020

Lightspeed said:
Well maybe it's to stop just that .... you have to log in to maintain it, or you don't get the credits provided by visitors.

Hey, this isn't a park game

Lightspeed · Mar 26, 2020

Maybe something else emerges in the Next Big DLC that makes FC management more comfortable, such as Legs = "buy your own maintenance team"

MadDogMurdock · Mar 26, 2020

Explorer FCs might struggle for income compared to those, say, parked near a mining hotspot.

Andro · Mar 26, 2020

MadDogMurdock said:
Explorer FCs might struggle for income compared to those, say, parked near a mining hotspot.

Hopefully, just like fuel for the carrier, whatever supplies are needed to maintain your carrier (if it isn't just plain credits to pay crew) can be mined if you're out exploring with it.

CMDR Junagu · Mar 26, 2020

MadDogMurdock said:
Explorer FCs might struggle for income compared to those, say, parked near a mining hotspot.

Just need to pick your spot carefully. And do some advertising.

Wrecked · Mar 26, 2020

What the hell? If I spend 5 billion on my carrier, why must I continue paying a fee?

Backelaer · Mar 26, 2020

Wouldn't a handy option be to be able to just 'turn it off' when you know you won't be able to play for a couple of weeks? It doesn't generate any money then, and doesn't have any running costs (or just a small amount).

DMaster · Mar 26, 2020

I hoped i left the era behind me, where i played games that forced me to go regulary online. Is that an attempt to get higher regular player counts?

Raino · Mar 26, 2020

hmmm sounds like "never fly without rebuy"

DMaster · Mar 26, 2020

Raino said:
hmmm sounds like "never fly without rebuy"

Or: Never be a longer time away!

Targun Yssboern · Mar 26, 2020

Extrapolating fighter pilot cost mechanics FC cost will be 'realistic' in a very frustrating and fun killing way.

VR Golgot · Mar 26, 2020

Targun Yssboern said:
Extrapolating fighter pilot cost mechanics FC cost will be 'realistic' in a very frustrating and fun killing way.

Won't somebody think of the downpaymenttttssssss

Yep truth :/

---

Just on this bare info, I'm struggling with why they'd do this. (Giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming it's not actually a shift to F2P style mechanics though

)

I'm guessing it could possibly be a way to inject risk to Carrier ownership, given that they probably can't be destroyed outright in combat (as with Megaships etc). Maybe?

Jmanis · Mar 26, 2020

So, it's:

Grind out mining to get one
continue mining to keep one.

Compelling

Stealthie · Mar 26, 2020

Sorry, what?

We buy a carrier and then there's a chance the game might take it off us again if we don't meet certain maintenance criteria?

I haven't really played much this year because there isn't much incentive.
My incentive to buy a carrier was to dump it somewhere remote for everybody to use.
If that's not going to be possible it'd be very easy for me to forget about ED permanantly right now.

FDev manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again.

SlickPBW · Mar 26, 2020

I think this is just the mechanism to eventually get rid of FC’s that get left idle for extended periods when players stop playing entirely.

Amanojaku · Mar 26, 2020

Fleet Carriers are sounding more and more like a mobile Station, with services we have to grind/pay for.

My interest is waning.....

Lightspeed · Mar 26, 2020

Wanted: Family going on holiday for 2 weeks. Need person able to
(a) walk and feed the dog;
(b) water the garden and cut the grass;
(c) maintain a Fleet Carrier in outer space.

FutronBob · Mar 26, 2020

Depending on how it’s implemented, this mechanic could very, very easily kill all interest in fleet carriers for a LOT of players.

Being forced to play regularly or have your carrier be stowed away (or heaven forbid, lost altogether) is an absolute deal-breaker. I don’t care how many weeks/months away the debt ceiling is. I take frequent extended breaks from the game, and don’t want to be forced to log in and grind at any point. It’s a terrible way to get players to play your game, and I’d rather skip carriers altogether than go along with this.