Fleet Carrier cut

[Timjfjdd]

The service to make money as has been sort of already mentioned, is the Bartender. Just put wanted Odyssey mats up for sale and they will go. For a modestly fitted out carrier, sell five SDPs or a dozen MIs and that is the upkeep for a week (depending on the services).

Steve

Well, if the carrier is far out. Like where it might be whenever its trying to utilise the UC and VG services, then i dont think restocking those mats or people buying them all the way out there is gonna happen much.

And besides, just because there is one way of making money, doesn't mean that such a huge investment like a carrier shouldn't be able to make money in more than just 1 or 2 ways.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Because fleet carriers are expensive and should be able to make the owner money in my opinion.

Well that's not how the devs intended fleet carriers, the opposite is true. Fleet carriers were designed to be a black hole to throw money into, to try and fix the inflated economy somewhat. MMOs do this all the time after some years of players accruing billions of gold/credits whatever.

Of course, you can make money with an FC but it involves playing the game. As for them being expensive, I have all services enabled and my FC will run out of money in 11 years time, and I'm fairly poor as FC owners go.

If you want to make money using Vista Genomics, go do some exobiology because you'll make a lot. Then you'll understand why nobody will ever sell their data on your fleet carrier. Right now there is no incentive to do so. You don't lose your genomics data on dying, and it's not like the old days where you had to worry about interdictions on returning to the bubble, so you won't die anyway. If there's a tariff there will be an actual disincentive and people will just go to a station instead.

Bounties work a little differently because they can be scattered all over the bubble, so sometimes for convenience you'll take a 25% loss to avoid jumping all over to turn in bounties. Although nowdays a station's redemption office will even handle non local bounties for some reason, so Interstellar Factors and FC redemption offices are obsolete for that, but that's another story. If you get your way, FC Vista Genomics will become obsolete as well which is kind of amusing at this point.

Of course your idea would be fine if we can set a tariff to 0%, but why would it work differently from the redemption office which has a fixed tariff? We don't own the Vista Genomics even though we paid for it and even chose the employee, it's a private company setting up shop on our carrier. FD design has a lot of inconsistency to it, but sometimes it's there for a good reason like creating incentive or game balance etc. This is just another example imo. The bug is the service description rather than how the service works.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

Because fleet carriers are expensive and should be able to make the owner money in my opinion.
Im not necessarily saying it has to be done how UC does it. Because i agree its not nice losing a bit of the payout. But the fact that the carriers have such a high weekly upkeep to force players to keep playing, and everything else having such a low return on invest, its annoying that one of the more lucrative activities can't be made profitable for the carrier owner.
In the ideal world i would suggest to just remove the 25% deduction but still give the carrier owner their 12.5%. just like how wing trading bonds give your wing mates a small percentage of profit for free as well. Though i feel like that's even less likely to happen as just fixing the discrepancy between UC and VG. I just feel a little ripped off as a carrier owner who has paid so much money, only to not make any back with a module that specifies ingame it would make me some back.

Look, it is simple. if you don't think it right that people can sell bio data at your carrier - don't let them dock or if you want to fleece them of exploration credits - suspend Vista.

Whatever you decide that's up to you, the vast majority of people out exploring will not thank you for your desire to force the game to steal 25% of their bio data rewards.

We will just save it until we dock at a station.

P.S. So that I can make sure that I never ever dock at it, what is the name of your FC?

 

[Commander Biscuit]

P.S. So that I can make sure that I never ever dock at it, what is the name of your FC?

It's called massive jackal or some furry type name like that.

 

[Timjfjdd]

Look, it is simple. if you don't think it right that people can sell bio data at your carrier - don't let them dock or if you want to fleece them of exploration credits - suspend Vista.

Whatever you decide that's up to you, the vast majority of people out exploring will not thank you for your desire to force the game to steal 25% of their bio data rewards.

We will just save it until we dock at a station.

P.S. So that I can make sure that I never ever dock at it, what is the name of your FC?

Not like it makes a difference, either i dont make anything from other people cause they don't come, or I don't make anything cause its not taking a cut.
I already said earlier that I'm not necessarily saying that I agree with the cut going off from the sellers payout. Imo it should be like the wing trades where the carrier just gets a bonus from it as well.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Imo it should be like the wing trades where the carrier just gets a bonus from it as well.

No carrier service works like that. Why would this work like that? As per your bug report, if a junior employee "fixes" this, it'll just be a 25% cut that even applies to the FC owner.

 

[Timjfjdd]

No carrier service works like that. Why would this work like that? As per your bug report, if a junior employee "fixes" this, it'll just be a 25% cut that even applies to the FC owner.

I know no carrier service works like that. Even though I think they should. But that's a different topic about carrier design and balancing altogether.
Personally I am not a fan of the whole weekly upkeep thing, its designed to keep players playing in what is my opinion, a dark pattern in game design. "You don't play our game enough? You lose your biggest investment currently in the game". But that's just my opinion.

So because I'm not someone who has tens of hours every week that I can spend on this game, and only this game, I am looking for ways to help my carrier be a little bit more self-sustainable. I understand its unlikely to change, especially after it has apparently already been like this since the VG was first introduced. So if they want to keep it like this, they should at least change the description to match whats currently how it works.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

I know no carrier service works like that. Even though I think they should.

It's a shame the issue tracker doesn't handle opinions, so we're at the mercy of whoever decides to "fix" this. You submit this issue knowing how it's likely to be resolved, and know now it will ruin the feature for other players while bringing you no benefits.

So because I'm not someone who has tens of hours every week that I can spend on this game, and only this game, I am looking for ways to help my carrier be a little bit more self-sustainable. I understand its unlikely to change

Yes as you noted, it's not going to change. The carrier isn't a fishing trap you can use to suck up other player's money for no effort. Its upkeep requires playing, no matter which service you are using to generate income. Nobody is going to get their carrier money back through the carrier, it's always going to require you getting something or doing something, and if you can't afford a carrier then you shouldn't have bought one.

By the way, I know someone that only has a few hours a week to play Elite and she upkeeps her carrier just with exobiology right now. In a week she made something like 4 billlion credits. That's years of upkeep. Just do some exo if you're worried about upkeep.

 

[Timjfjdd]

It's a shame the issue tracker doesn't handle opinions, so we're at the mercy of whoever decides to "fix" this. You submit this issue knowing how it's likely to be resolved, and know now it will ruin the feature for other players while bringing you no benefits.

I can see why this might not be desirable either. Honestly like I've stated before, I would like to see a different way of these things handled by the carrier more beneficial for both the carrier owner and seller, even though I don't think that would ever happen anytime soon.
I have taken down the issue report, I didn't realize it would be such a hot topic for so many people. It was never my intention to upset anyone. I was just reporting on what I thought was a bug.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

I can see why this might not be desirable either. Honestly like I've stated before, I would like to see a different way of these things handled by the carrier more beneficial for both the carrier owner and seller, even though I don't think that would ever happen anytime soon.
I have taken down the issue report, I didn't realize it would be such a hot topic for so many people. It was never my intention to upset anyone. I was just reporting on what I thought was a bug.

You should definitely submit a suggestion though, because your idea of how it should work is a good one. Working similarly to wing dividends would be a win-win and encourage players playing together and using each other's FCs.

 

[Jack Winter]

Just to note that a commander that loses his carrier due to not playing is reimbursed a big part of the initial investment..

Coming back to the game one could quickly acquire the required funds to buy a new one.

 

[aRJay]

…

If you want to make money using Vista Genomics, go do some exobiology because you'll make a lot. Then you'll understand why nobody will ever sell their data on your fleet carrier. Right now there is no incentive to do so. You don't lose your genomics data on dying, and it's not like the old days where you had to worry about interdictions on returning to the bubble, so you won't die anyway. If there's a tariff there will be an actual disincentive and people will just go to a station instead.

…

Pretty sure I lost genomics data last time I died a couple of weeks ago, and there is a whole current thread in the suggestions area about protecting that data in case you die when you crash an SRV.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Pretty sure I lost genomics data last time I died a couple of weeks ago, and there is a whole current thread in the suggestions area about protecting that data in case you die when you crash an SRV.

Hmm I'll test this. Maybe there is a difference between ship/srv destruction and on foot "death" which is described as being incapacitated. I think i died seeing what would happen if i dismissed my ship while standing on it.

Edit: Welp, I killed myself in the same way and lost the genomic data. Not sure what happened, whether there was a bug where I didn't lose it, or my memory failed me somehow, (probably the latter). Although the point still stands; Interdictions are very rare now, pretty much only if you have cargo, and the minigame has been trivialized to the point where getting shot is purely optional.

 

[aRJay]

Hmm I'll test this. Maybe there is a difference between ship/srv destruction and on foot "death" which is described as being incapacitated. I think i died seeing what would happen if i dismissed my ship while standing on it.

Edit: Welp, I killed myself in the same way and lost the genomic data. Not sure what happened, whether there was a bug where I didn't lose it, or my memory failed me somehow, (probably the latter). Although the point still stands; Interdictions are very rare now, pretty much only if you have cargo, and the minigame has been trivialized to the point where getting shot is purely optional.

Mine was down to me forgetting that when I came back to the bubble I visited my first spire site (an inactive one) and collected some samples, I lost ships a couple of times learning how to handle a Titan corpse environment while collecting stuff.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Umm, they can, people make billions trading through FC's,

I certainly do!
Secure Storage has made me around 6 billion so far.