Fleet Carrier Fueling Broken

Gnauty

Gnauty
I'll assume people are familiar with today's patch, the buff which was announced for hotspots, and the corresponding nerf for overlapping hotspots.

I am part of the DSSA and have a FC parked in the Arcadian Stream orbiting a Tri3 hotspot. Since it's discovery, we have fueled probably a half-dozen FCs, which typically takes our small but dedicated team of miners 3-4 days assuming the FC arrives close to empty.

When the patch announcement dropped, we were naturally curious how the local Tri3 would be affected. In preparation, we ran some asteroid scans through an app called FANK which analyzes asteroid content. We scanned both the Tri3 and a nearby Tri1 to use for comparison. I returned today after the patch to see how things had changed. Here are the results:

Tri3 Site (The Pumpkin Patch)

Before the nerf, Pumpkin Patch Tritium content was averaging 27.3% per asteroid and only 1-2% of asteroids had no Tritium at all. The Tri3 site was productive, but given the quantities of fuel needed to fill a FC (~20,000 tons), it still took several days of mining to fuel one carrier.

Here is an analysis of Pumpkin Patch today:

Tritium average has dropped over 90% to just 2.68% and 76.61% of asteroids have no Tritium content at all.

The graph below shows pre-nerf Trit content for Tri1 through Tri3 sites and the Pumpkin Patch today in yellow.

1594829549972.png



Tri1 Site

I also checked a nearby Tri1 site post-nerf. The Tri1 is slightly better than the Tri3, but still terrible in terms of Tritium content. Average Tritium content per asteroid is 3.29% with 66.67% of asteroids in the hotspot containing no Tritium at all. Here is the content graph:

1594829882404.png



Impact on Fueling Fleet Carriers

Based on the nerfed numbers, it would take us a month or more to mine enough Tritium to fuel a single carrier out it the black. Even this is optimistic, since the 3-4 day mining ops we have done tend to be very intensive periods of activity. I just don't see how that could be sustainable over a period of time measured in weeks or months.

The impact on fleet carrier operations is pretty obvious. If things stand as they are, FCs will only be viable within a round-trip distance of the Bubble and Colonia. Mining ops for Tritium will all but cease and fueling will be limited to whatever can be purchased from station markets.

If nothing changes, RIP fleet carrier as an exploration support platform.
 

_DJ3D_

_DJ3D_
Great analysis Gnauty, very disappointed to see these results. I just found a Tri3 about 9.5kLy NW of XA and prospected last night. Guess all the time spent searching is out the window now.
 

spacemenow

S
I think fueling Carriers should not be as rough as it is now with the post-patch numbers. The ultraabundance of Tritium pre-nerf felt a LITTLE high, but since it was the ONLY way to refuel Carriers in deep space it made sense (it felt less exploit-y than the LTD gush). I am lucky enough to have already parked my DSSA Carrier and fueled it up quite a bit since parking with a nearby Trit2, but other CMDRs will surely be significantly hindered in deep space deployments with this current level of Tritium abundance.
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
Based on the patch notes, it sounded like the x1 hotspots (singles) were supposed to receive a buff, and overlaps nerfed such that they're still better than singles, but not by nearly as much as before. But a straight mining nerf across the board? Ouch!

I already had started exploring within a radius of the bubble for the time being, with the idea that on a full hold of tritium, you can head out about 20-25 kylies and still have fuel to get back. Now this is becoming a bit more imperative.

I noticed also that Inara is showing that stations aren't selling tritium for 4k-12k like before either. The lowest price currently with any significant supply is at about 33.5 k/ton.
 

Monkey Pants

Monkey Pants
Nice analysis Gnauty.

I hope there is a balance pass on this: I am in the Flying Flea nebula with about 5k of tritium - looks like I'm going nowhere for quite a while :)

MP
 

Adel

A
Orvidius said:
Based on the patch notes, it sounded like the x1 hotspots (singles) were supposed to receive a buff, and overlaps nerfed such that they're still better than singles, but not by nearly as much as before. But a straight mining nerf across the board? Ouch!

I already had started exploring within a radius of the bubble for the time being, with the idea that on a full hold of tritium, you can head out about 20-25 kylies and still have fuel to get back. Now this is becoming a bit more imperative.

I noticed also that Inara is showing that stations aren't selling tritium for 4k-12k like before either. The lowest price currently with any significant supply is at about 33.5 k/ton.
Click to expand...
If so, it means that instead of nerfing hotspots, they just took back FC beta 2 settings.
I hope no, really, but before FC release there were no station with 2k/t tritium selling.
Anyway if even DSSA miners are saying that mining rates are too low Fdev HAVE TO worry about this patch...
 

Adel

A
GroG79 said:
Fdev said carriers are not for exploring.. You went and did it anyway which is great! Now lets wait for patch 4 - 11.
Click to expand...
They said the opposite before to launch them then added UC. When did they say that? maybe i missed something :unsure: .
Anyway, as long as there will be no alternative fuel for FC in the black (less effective than tritium, scoopable with time ONLY in main tank and around certain body types) they won't be viable for long term.
And for the people that will say "DSSA" pls note "less efficient fuel", which means that tritium could be more efficient/ly while another type of fuel could move your FC very slowly.
 

Cometborne

Cometborne
On top of this, the Tritium supply has also taken a major hit. The total supply of Tritium in all stations and planetary bases in all the 60+ systems around Colonia is ... drum-roll... 23 tons.
This means that DSSA deployments from Colonia are effectively no longer possible, DSSA deployments from the bubble with anything bigger tha a repair/restock/UC loadout will be limited to the southern half of the galaxy, and the various planned carrier-based expeditions are dead in the water unless the FC owners are willing to make them one-way trips.
I am glad that I already got my carrier into position; my thoughts are with the FC owners who have not set out yet or are now stranded in the black.
 

Martin Afonso

Martin Afonso
FDev just converted FCs in bubble buses and throw them to the sink. "Not for exploration"?. No, they just killed its last great new mechanic for the game. Why would anyone want an insanely expensive truck for moving inside the Bubble?. Many commanders must be reselling its gargantuan credit sinks now that a) tritium offer in stations (including Colonia, as reported) is dissappearing from markets b) mining yields has been thrown by the window and c) there's no quick credit to pay upkeep, and decommisioning costs are piling by the clock.

Also, this is not an "exploration issue" only. They've killed ANOTHER player driven initiative based in given game assets. Well done, FDev. Gnosis part two, Galactic scale now.
 
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Orvidius

Orvidius
I suspect Tritium (etc) getting hit this hard by the nerf bat was probably unintentional, and are caught in the crossfire with an attempt to balance LTDs. But if we assume that this was intended, then what we'll probably see is that exploration carriers will need to be used mainly in expeditions, or else not be moved very frequently. The third option is to explore near to tritium purchase locations (mainly the bubble, but also Colonia). This latter option still allows exploring in about a 25kly radius without needing to mine.

It won't kill carriers for exploration, but it'll make them a lot less practical for solo explorers, or even for small teams.
 

Rudi Raumkraut

Rudi Raumkraut
Orvidius said:
The third option is to explore near to tritium purchase locations (mainly the bubble, but also Colonia)
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Colonia isn't a purchase location anymore. It's dried out... Maybe someone can do the math how long it takes to replenish that 20k in a station for just one carrier...
Also atm its 800m to fill a carrier for one trip you bought for 5b...
So any reasonable long range activity - not just exploring - has died with this (for sure unintended) "patch"

Let's wait for beta 5 :p
 
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