Fleet Carrier autorefueling

[Decksmeck]

1 minute per jump, that will be 6 hours for 40000 ly It is 2x faster to mine it relaxed just yet.

True that. I think 40k is well beyond the neutron stars anyway. It would not make sense for the freighter pilot either.

The truth of it is that paying for delivery would not make sense for anyone who prefers or enjoys to mine it themselves. It is really only potentially worth it to commanders that don’t enjoy it and or those that are making money at a rate that mining it themselves costs more than paying for it.

Yeah, 40k, I would think anyone out so far is definitely on their own.

 

[Northpin]

That's not the point, before SA Frontier would have cracked down on players trying to automate it.

The point is that it's automatic, it does not care if you're at your seat or not, and it's something anti-automation players would have went ballistic over. That's what the suggestion is about, your crew performs jumps and maintenance tasks on their own, and it's not a stretch to say they should also be handling fuel themselves instead of needing their commissioner to mine and... "donate" the fuel themselves. Just as you don't need to scan every inch of the hull yourself every week.

I will say just 2 words: Docking computer.

FDev is not against a certain degree of automation that can be seen as a quality of life that can happen during a game session and for a rather limited purpose.
But carrier automation goes well and beyond that, specifically- it goes well into your offline time.

All suggestions about "improvements" to carriers fall into offline automation: Multiple jumps in plotter, Automated fuel transfer from storage to depot, automated refuel when parked at a star, have npc trade to your carrier and all sorts of crap that will have your carrier play the game while you are offline... This seems to be NO GO for FDev

 

[Greasetrap42]

All suggestions about "improvements" to carriers fall into offline automation: Multiple jumps in plotter, Automated fuel transfer from storage to depot, automated refuel when parked at a star, have npc trade to your carrier and all sorts of crap that will have your carrier play the game while you are offline... This seems to be NO GO for FDev

To elaborate: because carriers are persistent AND designed to be used by groups of players... FDev did permit certain automated functions to continue while the FC owner is offline (or doing other activities).

• Complete 1 jump that has been setup.
• Allow other players to perform trade transactions.
• Allow other players to donate tritium.
• Allow other players to pay for access to FC services (repair, refuel, rearm, etc.)
• Allow owner & other players to have ships & modules sent to carrier (ship yard function).

These functions are limited and obviously provided to allow the FC to be functionally useful to other players while the owner is offline.

Giving the FC the ability to auto-mine, auto-fuel-scoop, multi-jump, etc. falls far outside this. Kinda falls into the realm of:

• Why can't the fleet carrier send out combat ships on my behalf.
• Why can't the fleet carrier send out exploration ships on my behalf.
• Why can't the fleet carrier send out pre-arranged trade ships on my behalf?

 

[CMDR ROGER]

• Why can't the fleet carrier send out combat ships on my behalf.
• Why can't the fleet carrier send out exploration ships on my behalf.
• Why can't the fleet carrier send out pre-arranged trade ships on my behalf?

Those don't really fall under "carrier maintenance" like mining Tritium specifically to ensure it does not lose functionality.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Those don't really fall under "carrier maintenance" like mining Tritium specifically to ensure it does not lose functionality.

If I could have a crew of pilots perform pre configured trade routes for me I could make a bundle of credits to pay for tritium and FC fees.

How is this any different???

 

[CMDR ROGER]

If I could have a crew of pilots perform set-up trade routes for me I could make a bundle of credits to pay for tritium and FC fees.

How is this any different???

That's different because obtaining credits is secondary to obtaining tritium. Setting up trade routes doesn't put trit in your hold, nor does it have to.

 

[Greasetrap42]

That's different because obtaining credits is secondary to obtaining tritium. Setting up trade routes doesn't put trit in your hold, nor does it have to.

How is making credits secondary to filling my hold with tritium? Last time I was in the bubble I spent half a billion credits to refill my FC's hold with tritium. My method to keep my carrier travelling through deep space is through spending credits.

My main method for getting credits when in deep space is scaning planets and exobiology. In the bubble its trade. Using suggested ideas from this thread we could use NPCs to do mining, trade, and exobiology for us so we can fill up our FC with tritium.

Edit: Another Current Method: Many cmdrs fill up their FC by posting a purchase price, and other cmdrs visit and directly sell it to them. Again... credits are used to fill up with tritium. Extremely direct approach. Credits = Tritium.

But what if a player is in deep space and can't buy Tritium??? Answer: Figure it out! I have been +25K Ly for over 3 months and I have 19,000 units of Tritium!

 

[Greasetrap42]

Those don't really fall under "carrier maintenance" like mining Tritium specifically to ensure it does not lose functionality.

Additional to my above points.... "carrier maintenance" literally costs weekly credits. CREDITS. Without paying the weekly maintenance fee not only does the carrier lose functionality... the cmdr loses the carrier!

Certainly moving a fleet carrier requires tritium. Credits = Tritium. Particularly when filling a carrier with 20,000 units of tritium.

The fleet carrier has costs associated with running it. Similar to the buy-back costs of ships... if a cmdr is not yet comfortable with the costs (credits or tritium)... then they should really think about their choices.

If a cmdr is worried about "losing functionality" of their fleet carrier either because of credits or tritium, they really aren't ready for a multi-month deep space trip. If a cmdr knowingly embarks on a deep space journey that will leave them stranded far from human space... too bad, so sad!

A big part of Elite Dangerous is learning to think ahead: plan and prepare. Whether designing ships for certain roles, figuring out good trade routes, powerplay strategies... etc. ED encourages players to think about their decisions for a better outcome later in the game.

 

[CMDR ROGER]

How is making credits secondary to filling my hold with tritium? Last time I was in the bubble I spent half a billion credits to refill my FC's hold with tritium. My method to keep my carrier travelling through deep space is through spending credits.

My main method for getting credits when in deep space is scaning planets and exobiology. In the bubble its trade. Using suggested ideas from this thread we could use NPCs to do mining, trade, and exobiology for us so we can fill up our FC with tritium.

And your credits don't have to be spent exclusively on Trit, do they? It doesn't relate directly to fuelling your carrier.

Additional to my above points.... "carrier maintenance" literally costs weekly credits. CREDITS. Without paying the weekly maintenance fee not only does the carrier lose functionality... the cmdr loses the carrier!

Don't really care that much, 10 mil is not a headache to obtain and you can put it in your carrier's balance from anywhere at any time.

 

[Greasetrap42]

And your credits don't have to be spent exclusively on Trit, do they? It doesn't relate directly to fuelling your carrier.

Fueling my carrier relates directly to credits. 1 billion credits for 20,000 units of tritium.

Assuring a carrier can meet the maintenance costs for a year (with reasonable & typical services for deep space) is roughly 1 billion per year. Best banked in advance.

If you can't afford the costs of operating a fleet carrier, best to rethink choices.

 

[CMDR ROGER]

Fueling my carrier relates directly to credits. 1 billion credits for 20,000 units of tritium.

Credits is just the means by which you obtained fuel for your carrier. The definition of direct you use is... confusing.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Credits is just the means by which you obtained fuel for your carrier. The definition of direct you use is... confusing.

How is paying for fuel confusing? IRL do you own a car? Do you put fuel in your car? Do you pay for the fuel?

Fleet carrier is exactly the same. I park in a system with a station that sells tritium and load-up with 20,000 units. Enough to last me a long time in deep space. What? You think I'm going to start a multi-month journey on an empty tank? Mine 20,000 units of tritium myself?

Certainly I can augment my tritium reserve through mining. And I do. And if I got stuck in deep space or chose to stay in deep space and never return then I would need to mine the tritium myself. But usually my direct approach is to go to a system that sells tritium and refuel. Credits = Tritium

 

[Greasetrap42]

What I understand from this thread is:

Some cmdrs want to refuel their fleet carrier for free. They don't want to pay for it. And they don't want to go get it themselves through mining.

 

[Jmanis]

I too want 6m credits free per hour.

 

[CMDR ROGER]

How is paying for fuel confusing?

I said your definition of direct is confusing.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

I don't mind moving tritium to the depot manually. It's having to "upload" it to your ship first that irks me (not a lot though ).

 

[SteveWW57]

I don't mind moving tritium to the depot manually. It's having to "upload" it to your ship first that irks me (not a lot though ).

At 750 ton a trip? does not seem onerous. During the tritium CGs we were filling and emptying multiple carriers. We thought of the billions to be made to soften the "grind".

Steve

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

Perhaps the new tech being discovered from Taranis stuff will enable us to fly our carriers like ships - but only between galaxies.

 

[Greasetrap42]

I said your definition of direct is confusing.

Regardless, I fail to see the relevance of your philosophical discussion to the topic of this thread.

What I do understand is you want the travel cost of a fleet carrier to be free of credits or any mining effort.

 

[Schmack]

It all comes down to gameplay. if you try to rationalize based on what would happen IRL, none of us would own carriers. There's no ops happening from these carriers that's not player and/or player group related. The NPCs are eye candy, they do nothing. IRL we'd not be out fighting with the possibility of dying and leaving our crew thousands of light years away from help, and no Lt Commander.

Since it's about gameplay, the carrier ownership provides some level of content in the need to refuel, to find fuel out in the vastness of space and to have some semblance of a living culture that needs to be monitored and maintained vs just another game controlled station floating in space.