Fleet Carrier Fueling Revisited

[Gnauty]

This post is a follow-on to the Fleet Carrier Fueling Broken thread that I wrote on Patch 3 release day. Patch 4 dropped today, so I returned to nearby Tri1 and Tri3 sites to check on Tritium availability.

There is good news and bad news in today's patch. I should also say upfront, that what I am showing here are preliminary findings. It is possible the numbers will change as more data becomes available.

The Good News - Tritium is Back in Tritium Hotspots

It looks as though Tritium availability in a single hotspot is about what it was before Patch 3. In the graph below, the yellow line shows results from today pretty well aligned with the green line which is what would be expected from a Tri1 before Patch 3.

Tritium is present in about 67% of asteroids with a material average of 9.05%.

The Bad News - Overlaps Heavily Nerfed

The Tri3 site I scanned shows that overlaps have been significantly nerfed. As above, the yellow line is today's data. the blue-green line is a Tri3 prior to Patch 3.

Tritium is present in 81% of asteroids with a material average of 11.86%.

This is just 2.81% more than a Tri1 site.

Prior to the Patch 3 nerf, Tri3 asteroids averaged 27.3% Tritium, so this represents a 54% nerf of Tritium availability at the site.

Bottom line, today's Tr3 is a little bit better then a Tri1 and performs significantly worse than a Tri2 prior to Patch 3.

Impact on Fueling Fleet Carriers

FDev communicated in the Forums that they had not intended to nerf Tritium in Patch 3 and that they were satisfied with availability prior to those changes. Patch 4, presumably, is the 'fix'. For fleet carriers mining Tritium in single hotspots, it could be argued that things have returned to pre-Patch 3 levels.

The reality, however, is that fleet carriers operating in the black go out of their way to refuel at Tri2 and Tri3 sites. Single Tritium hotspots tend to be mined as a poor last resort. In fact, Tri2 and Tri3 hotspots are so desirable that entire expeditions have been planned around locating them in strategic areas.

I don't have data as of yet regarding Tri2 hotspots but, if the numbers hold, Tri3 hotspots have been nerfed by 54%. The impact of this around my own FC, the DSSA Callisto, means that fueling ops we have planned for two visiting FCs will most likely take 6-8 days each rather than the 3-4 days it would have taken prior to Patch 3.

A knock-on effect is that player-driven, emergent, gameplay to seek out Tri2 and Tri3 sites is probably not worth the effort and will likely be abandoned.

 

[Just Ice]

I had a bit better results in a semi-weak Tri2

 

[Just Ice]

Could you give us system name / overlap screenshot?
After overlap math has been changed results between different mining spots seem to vary more then pre-patch 3.

 

[Hooplah]

This is sad. I was hoping patch 4 would bring Tritium mining to at least slightly below 'unbearable grind'
and at best plenty to go around in the black. I knew the that 4k Tritium purchase would be nerfed. It is
how Frontier works seeing it over many years.

Maybe a patch 5 is not a good idea as it will probably get worse...

I have enough fuel on my FC for ~42,000LY travel. That will last a long time exploring as long as I don't
go too far away from the bubble. Then eventually it will cost me a billion to refuel again. IF Frontier is
going to support Fleet Carrier deep space exploration then they are not moving in the right direction.

 

[Cometborne]

The Good News - Tritium is Back in Tritium Hotspots

It looks as though Tritium availability in a single hotspot is about what it was before Patch 3. In the graph below, the yellow line shows results from today pretty well aligned with the green line which is what would be expected from a Tri1 before Patch 3.

Hmm, to quote the patch 3 release notes:
"A bug with material distribution in overlapping hotspots was fixed and hotspost themselves we rebalanced. Now, the effect that each hotspot has on the base rarity of a commodity has been doubled. To counter this, hotspots of the same type which overlap will be less effective. The aim of thsese changes is to reduce the massive impact of overlapping hotspots while still ensuring they provide a higher yield than non-overlapping hotspots."

Based on the above, I had expected that a Tri1 would yield better results than it had in patch 2 and earlier, but that does not seem to be happening.

And in related news, the total amount of Tritium available for sale in the Colonia area post patch 4 is still just 25 tons.

 

[Gnauty]

Based on the above, I had expected that a Tri1 would yield better results than it had in patch 2 and earlier, but that does not seem to be happening.

Yes, I've been thinking about that, as well. I didn't want to speculate in my OP, just address the numbers, but it has occurred to me that they may have forgotten the buff before the nerf.

 

[GJ51]

This is sad. I was hoping patch 4 would bring Tritium mining to at least slightly below 'unbearable grind'
and at best plenty to go around in the black.

Maybe a patch 5 is not a good idea as it will probably get worse...

I have enough fuel on my FC for ~42,000LY travel. That will last a long time exploring as long as I don't
go too far away from the bubble. Then eventually it will cost me a billion to refuel again. IF Frontier is
going to support Fleet Carrier deep space exploration then they are not moving in the right direction.

Adjustments for each patch will be based on how many FCs will still be stranded between the Bubble and Colonia

 

[Orvidius]

I don't know whether to consider this as encouraging or discouraging. I've been waiting for the dust to settle before I consider doing a significant amount of refueling via mining. At least a lot of the damage from Patch 3 has been fixed, even if the overlap nerf is pretty severe. Quite a mixed bag.

 

[the pariah6808]

Pretty pathetic really. I had purchased a FC for the explicit function of exploring in the black... It appears that is now going to be next to near impossible. Bad enough with the credit sink for maintenance, but add this face slap on top, no thank you. For Sale, 1 slightly used Fleet carrier.

 

[catanonia]

Well in Patch 3 they did say the intention was to reduce the overlaps and increase the singles.
I guess patch 4 does what they originally wanted to do.

Also I never remember them saying they would stock Colonia with Tritium.

 

[Spacewhacked]

This post is a follow-on to the Fleet Carrier Fueling Broken thread that I wrote on Patch 3 release day. Patch 4 dropped today, so I returned to nearby Tri1 and Tri3 sites to check on Tritium availability.

There is good news and bad news in today's patch. I should also say upfront, that what I am showing here are preliminary findings. It is possible the numbers will change as more data becomes available.

The Good News - Tritium is Back in Tritium Hotspots

It looks as though Tritium availability in a single hotspot is about what it was before Patch 3. In the graph below, the yellow line shows results from today pretty well aligned with the green line which is what would be expected from a Tri1 before Patch 3.

View attachment 182795

Tritium is present in about 67% of asteroids with a material average of 9.05%.

The Bad News - Overlaps Heavily Nerfed

The Tri3 site I scanned shows that overlaps have been significantly nerfed. As above, the yellow line is today's data. the blue-green line is a Tri3 prior to Patch 3.

View attachment 182796

Tritium is present in 81% of asteroids with a material average of 11.86%.

This is just 2.81% more than a Tri1 site.

Prior to the Patch 3 nerf, Tri3 asteroids averaged 27.3% Tritium, so this represents a 54% nerf of Tritium availability at the site.

Bottom line, today's Tr3 is a little bit better then a Tri1 and performs significantly worse than a Tri2 prior to Patch 3.

Impact on Fueling Fleet Carriers

FDev communicated in the Forums that they had not intended to nerf Tritium in Patch 3 and that they were satisfied with availability prior to those changes. Patch 4, presumably, is the 'fix'. For fleet carriers mining Tritium in single hotspots, it could be argued that things have returned to pre-Patch 3 levels.

The reality, however, is that fleet carriers operating in the black go out of their way to refuel at Tri2 and Tri3 sites. Single Tritium hotspots tend to be mined as a poor last resort. In fact, Tri2 and Tri3 hotspots are so desirable that entire expeditions have been planned around locating them in strategic areas.

I don't have data as of yet regarding Tri2 hotspots but, if the numbers hold, Tri3 hotspots have been nerfed by 54%. The impact of this around my own FC, the DSSA Callisto, means that fueling ops we have planned for two visiting FCs will most likely take 6-8 days each rather than the 3-4 days it would have taken prior to Patch 3.

A knock-on effect is that player-driven, emergent, gameplay to seek out Tri2 and Tri3 sites is probably not worth the effort and will likely be abandoned.

It just doesn’t make sense, devs give us fleet carriers then nerf the hell out of tritium. Thanks for the full tank today but I’d rather tritium get a buff of say 10 jumps per full tank because as it is now it takes way to long to mine the tritium needed to take a trip to anywhere outside the bubble. Tritium needs a buff please.

 

[Spacewhacked]

Adjustments for each patch will be based on how many FCs will still be stranded between the Bubble and Colonia

I agree with this totally, tritium needs a buff of atleast 10 jumps per fuel tank, it simply takes to long to mine it in comparison to buying it. You can’t even leave the bubble so why even have a fleet carrier? I bought one for deep space exploration and I still can’t take her outside the bubble. The dev team still has not resolved this issue the way the majority of their players have recommended. Another fail.

 

[Penny Umbra]

So this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/fleet-carriers-patch-3-known-issues.550912/ has not been lived up to.

 

[Straha Yeagar]

I agree with this totally, tritium needs a buff of atleast 10 jumps per fuel tank, it simply takes to long to mine it in comparison to buying it. You can’t even leave the bubble so why even have a fleet carrier? I bought one for deep space exploration and I still can’t take her outside the bubble. The dev team still has not resolved this issue the way the majority of their players have recommended. Another fail.

Well, you can take it out of the bubble. Many people have, and even did so prior to todays patch.

Carriers can even be used for deep space exploration bases without too much trouble.

What carriers will struggle with is getting to the far reaches quickly. And they will struggle even more with the return trip.

Now, mining a few hundred tritium per week is easily doable as things are right now without any grind. Paying for carrier upkeep, and even turning a profit is easy with just a couple hours exploring a week. A way to get a couple hundred tritium a week through passive means would be fantastic.

Rushing to Beagle point and back in less than a month in a carrier would be brutal. A year long voyage to Beagle point and back would be entirely doable without any massive grind.

These are mobile fleet carriers. Not super exploracondas.

 

[Gnauty]

So this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/fleet-carriers-patch-3-known-issues.550912/ has not been lived up to.

That's certainly the way I look at it. I suspect the devs just got the Tri1's up to pre-patch 3 levels, checked the box, and moved onto the next bug.

 

[Straha Yeagar]

View attachment 182820

So this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/fleet-carriers-patch-3-known-issues.550912/ has not been lived up to.

I wish they would have been a bit more clear in their wording as it applies to tritium mining rates, and deposit percentages, because I am concerned that those notes mean something totally different to the devs than they do to the players.

They only said locating and mining. They didn't say anything about yields. Well, tritium is being found in tritium hotspts now, so locating it is back to where it was, and as to the actual process of obtaining the tritium from the rocks, it appears that the SSD bug has been fixed so that got the process of obtaining it back to before they broke that in patch 3.

 

[Spacewhacked]

Well, you can take it out of the bubble. Many people have, and even did so prior to todays patch.

Carriers can even be used for deep space exploration bases without too much trouble.

What carriers will struggle with is getting to the far reaches quickly. And they will struggle even more with the return trip.

Now, mining a few hundred tritium per week is easily doable as things are right now without any grind. Paying for carrier upkeep, and even turning a profit is easy with just a couple hours exploring a week. A way to get a couple hundred tritium a week through passive means would be fantastic.

Rushing to Beagle point and back in less than a month in a carrier would be brutal. A year long voyage to Beagle point and back would be entirely doable without any massive grind.

These are mobile fleet carriers. Not super exploracondas.

I won’t leave the bubble with mine, I don’t like to spend hours and hours week upon week doing nothing but mining tritium just to get there and back again. Atleast you could do is give tritium a buff to where we can get 8 to 10 jumps out of a full tank.

 

[Phill P]

A knock-on effect is that player-driven, emergent, gameplay to seek out Tri2 and Tri3 sites is probably not worth the effort and will likely be abandoned.

On that note, while again it showed the ingenuity and creativeness of players when it comes to finding ways to do things, it was based on a bad premise that I would rather have addressed and fixed.

Making single hotspots so bad that double hotspots became the de facto benchmark for gathering rates was wrong headed to begin with. Coupled with the comparatively low 38% content limit it makes a single hotspot a complete pain to get a good yield from in any kind of timely manner. Single hotspots are the most common so they should have been a better starting point. It was something players should never have had to adapt to in the first place. It should be ok to mine in a single hotspot, not the absolute chore it is now, and faster in a double or triple either due to more abundance or higher percentages per rock.

The fact that players found a way to make it immersive, engaging and generated "emergent gameplay" from it is a testament to them, but they should never have had to. This is absolutely on the devs for not thinking it through properly and basing an entire activity on such a poorly considered premise.

 

[LifesAJourney]

I did one load yesterday in a heavily overlapping double hotspot. 150 tons costed me 45 minutes and 40 limpets. Laser/surface/subsurface mining. Max tritium content I saw was 17+%, most rocks 0-3% (maybe 15 prospected, though, so the result may be far from statistical reality).

I'd say it's a tiny bit better than a single hotspot from two patches back. Fortunately, obviously better than after the previous patch.

 

[alterNERDtive]

So this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/fleet-carriers-patch-3-known-issues.550912/ has not been lived up to.

At this point that doesn’t even surprise me anymore.