Some of which are needed to get Guardian modules.
Current State of Carriers
- Thread starter Shabine
- Start date
One could ask: "Why don't you want your combat rank to increase?"
When NPC pirates try to interdict me, I believe their strength is based on my combat rank (I don't know if that's the case, but I think it is). Meaning that when I have the lowest possible combat rank, the NPC pirates are likewise the weakest possible, which means I can very easily avoid the interdiction and be on my merry way. If my combat rank increases enough, I'm assuming at some point those pirates will become an actual pest who succeed in interdicting me and be a real annoyance.
Maybe one day I'll start playing the combat aspects of the game, but not yet.
So why are you gathering Guardian blueprints?
Whilst this is true it doesn't change their ability to interdict you, as far as i can remember it was no easier/harder to fail an interdiction when i was lower rank to the Elite rank i have been for yonks.
They are still not that good against you in a decent ship but i admit that ive been cought out a few times in a trader when stopped by a wing that included two Annies.
But this all adds to the fun imo i dont want the NPCs to be too weak, there has to be a challenge.
O7
For the Guardian FSD module.
It is indeed the case.
Although, as pointed out by @Darrack above, the difficulty in the interdiction game appears to be as easy / tough regardless of the rank of the interdictor. Losing, of course, would mean that you might be faced with a tougher adversary at higher levels.
It may be worthwhile picking up blueprints for other modules too. All reinforcements are useful if one doesn't want to do too much engineering and the Guardian Power Plant is a viable alternative in some builds also.
Combat rank increases so slowly its not worth avoiding destroying something.
Getting combat rank up to Dangerous allows you to unlock the engineer Lori Jameson. This rank doesn't really increase the difficulty level of NPCs by a significant amount. Increaseing your combat rank beyond this takes concious effort. You won't do it by it by casually destroying stuff. Not for a very very long time anyway.
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Edit:
Ptera Olmanova - combat rank expert
Lori Jameson - combat rank dangerous
Maro Quent - bounty vouchers
Mel Brandon- bounty vouchers
Tod Mquinn - bounty vouchers
Engineering improvements to your ship will far exceed the difficulty increase of NPCs, especially below the cmdr combat rank of Elite. Combine that with better ship, improved ship builds, player skill and knowledge. IMO a higher ranked NPC is much easier to defeat than a low ranked NPC when I was ranked Mostly Harmless.
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Took me about 4 years of casually destroying everything (mostly - there were times the table was turned) to get to elite combat... The nice thing is, by the time one gets there so has some of the skill needed to win, or at least run away to fight another day!
Lowkey it actually made piracy slightly less painful too, since instead of having to offload the goods at a station immediately (and the good sell systems might be nowhere near a good pirating system) you can just dump them on your carrier, parked conveniently in an uninhabited system so you don't have to run the authority gauntlet, until you've got enough to be worth the trip.
Having a carrier is like having your own personal space station, that moves. You can rest, repair, rearm, resupply, keep your ships, mods, cargo, all your 'Stuff' on board, you can turn in your combat bonds, exploration and trade vouchers, albeit paying a premium for the convenience but still. You can buy and sell commodities, salvage, on foot materials. You can stock and sell ships, modules.
While not perfect, and there are a few missing features that would greatly improve them, carriers are pretty good in their current form, now they can be made amazing with some tweaks here and there. But still, I wouldnt want to go back to being without one. My carrier IS my home now. I live off it in the same way people before had a "Home Station", now the carrier is that. And you get to name it, and customize it to an extent.
People have a sense of ownership, hence why there are so many.
In terms of gameplay, they trim alot of the redundant flying you will catch yourself doing. Imagine jumping your carrier to the orbit of the same planet that has the CZ you want to fight in, getting back into the fight is literally only a few seconds away, vs minutes. Or you want to do a HUGE trade run, but instead of jumping the same route 10+ times, you make short hops with your unshielded Type 9, load up the carrier and jump your cargo in a single jump, or jump it FARTHER to another market that you wouldnt have done in the first place because it's too far for your type 9. then you unload, sell and make a bunch of credits in a single hop. Explorers can park their carrier centrally in a region they are planning to chart and explore, knowing the drop off for your map info is always a few jumps away.
I've noticed that I often think of the universe no longer in how far X is to Y. I plot my activity from distance from my carrier and decide if I want to move it, or just keep it there. Having a carrier allows you to comfortably create a "center of the universe" that belongs to you and thus have control over. And there it gives you some sense of confidence in that when you go to sleep at night, you know your feet are planted on floor rather than hanging out in the black, if that makes sense.
Having a carrier vs not, is the same as doing a road trip in an RV vs a Car. You can live out of an RV, and depending on the model, pretty dang comfortably too, or you can try to live out of your car, which can be done but only if you absolutely have to but is generally the massively inferior experience.
I'll likely get a carrier eventually. Just about to break into 2 billion on-hand...with credits so much easier now I got from 1 to 2 rather quickly in the last 12 months. LOL, i'll never afford one and will never grind for it...
ANYWAY
I really like other people's carriers. Makes upgrading my Odyssey gear a little easier and they have come in handy when exploring remote parts of the galaxy.
ANYWAY
I really like other people's carriers. Makes upgrading my Odyssey gear a little easier and they have come in handy when exploring remote parts of the galaxy.
Congrats on the 2 billion, Monk!
Strangely, I really enjoy core mining in this game. Probably more than I should for such a repetitive loop. It's good when I have a couple of hours at night. The house is asleep and I have podcasts or a new Droid Bishop album to listen to, so I find a system where opal/alexandrite prices are popping off and I start earning. That said, it isn't as wildly profitable as it used to be, and a carrier is still a long way off.
I really just wanted to know if having one is something worth working towards, and I'm starting to think I'll end up with one for no reason other than that it's something to actually spend the money on. I'm planning to upgrade to Odyssey this week and start running around on my space legs, and once the novelty of that has worn off in the bubble, it'll be exploration time.
After reading all the responses, I'm starting to feel like exploration is going to be much easier with a carrier. Plus, it would be nice to have all that extra storage regardless of where I am. I started this thread thinking people would be overwhelmingly negative about carriers, but the actual feedback has been quite the opposite.
It may be that the responses here, in the main, have been from players who considered if a FC would be useful to them, rather than just another asset to tick off the list.
Upkeep is minor, in the grand scheme, buying Tritium is the major outlay (for some) if a large distance travelled is their vision.
What I absolutely hate about carriers is trying to travel a large distance quickly. Say you want to travel the roughly 22 kly from the Bubble to Colonia. You need about 44 jumps which will take some 14-15 hours manually jumping every 20 minutes, and numerous fuel transfers using a ship stored on your carrier. There are some macros around to help automate that, but this is apparently against the TOS so risks your account and not a welcome topic on this forum. Note that this isn't really a problem when exploring as you can jump ahead with your exploration ship and then instruct the carrier to follow you. It's really just a problem if wanting to use it for travelling a large distance quickly with no other gameplay inbetween. Maybe there is a good reason for this, but I'm not sure I can think of one. I for one would welcome if Frontier would make it easier to fuel the carrier and to automate a long jump sequence.
Apart from that I think I love everything about my carrier/home.
Apart from that I think I love everything about my carrier/home.
I hear people complain about the upkeep a lot. Maybe if the numbers were what they were in the alpha they'd have a point, but as it is?
The purchase price of the carrier is the same as 10 years of upkeep.
The game hasn't been running for 10 years.
Ergo, if you can afford the carrier in the first place, you can afford the upkeep.
Finally the Holy Grail! It took some doing, but at last it is mine.
Still need to optimize that power generation, though...
One level of engineering took care of that, and quite cheaply and easily at that (have plenty of sulphur...)
These jumps are just incredible. I remember when I started playing the game, a trip from Sirius to Deciat needed like 10+ jumps, and I needed to stop to refuel along the way, and it was an actual voyage I had to prepare for. Now I can do the trip in almost two jumps and it's just a very quick stroll.
I am a cheapskate carrier owner. Unless I pop out for an exploration jaunt, it’s got nothing enabled so it’s 5mill base cost a week - less jumps. But it’s got all my ships (37 yay) and all my modules - 200 grrrr way too low!!!
As posted above anything over 10 jumps and it’s the carrier. I’ve just finished 6 “tip off” missions, these had me jumping up to 450ly between missions, so the carrier single jump was perfect along with the ship reconfiguration to suit the task. Made what would have been a great week of flying all roll up to a good days work.
Edit: For exploration trips I enable Cartography and Vista Genomics.
As posted above anything over 10 jumps and it’s the carrier. I’ve just finished 6 “tip off” missions, these had me jumping up to 450ly between missions, so the carrier single jump was perfect along with the ship reconfiguration to suit the task. Made what would have been a great week of flying all roll up to a good days work.
Edit: For exploration trips I enable Cartography and Vista Genomics.
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