Frontier has a
long history of treating the latest
credit exploit gold rush as the new normal when they add a new income streams or mechanics into the game, or when rebalance existing income streams... which in turn either breaks or obviates the parts of the game that has actual depth to them.
When was the last time you diversified the cargo in your ship's hold, to maximize profits as you run missions between stations? 95% of commodities these days are basically window dressing, almost a nuisance that clogs up the commodity market, thanks to Frontier taking a chainsaw to their economic sim. Heck, unless a station is experiencing extreme player activity, like during CGs, you'd never even know that there actually
is an economic sim working in the back ground.
When was the last time you needed to decide between a fuel scoop or other piece of equipment for your non-exploration vessel? Profits these days are so huge, and fuel so cheap, that fuel costs are basically a rounding error in your bottom line. Same with repair costs.
I could go on and on. This game has a reputation for being a "mile wide, inch deep." There's actually a great deal of depth in this game, most of which goes unseen because between 3rd party apps, and Frontier's policy of severe credit inflation, there's no real need to, or even benefit from, plumbing those depths.
The problem of "advancement" in this game was never one of
income, but the fact that when Frontier designed ships and modules, functionality increased linearly, while costs increased
exponentially. A power plant that produces 100% more power can be 800 times as expensive. Unfortunately, to appease the Veruca Salts of the community, instead of fixing costs, Frontier chose to increase income, at first linearly, and later exponentially.
And now we've reached today, where thanks to over five years of credit income inflation by Frontier, an asset was added to the game yesterday that had the potential to be the hub of a player-augmented economy... with only
one commodity, Tritium, that has
any economic value between players who don't know each other. There's only
one service on a Fleet Carrier, Universal Cartographics, that has any economic value to players that are unknown to the Fleet Carrier's owner.
There was
so much potential to Fleet Carriers as the foundation of a player-augmented economy, so much potential for FCs to be hubs for thriving in-game communities, that has been wasted due to rampant income inflation in this game.
And that makes me sad.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
