Very true - stopped me trying it. I wonder if they have changed things to be more "friendly" - like a mining equipment outfitting pack for example. Many other things changed during my absences so maybe they addressed that.
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Newcomer / Intro Fleet Carrier
- Thread starter DanielKT
- Start date
Very true - stopped me trying it. I wonder if they have changed things to be more "friendly" - like a mining equipment outfitting pack for example. Many other things changed during my absences so maybe they addressed that.
I didn't know that. Laundering stolen goods didn't seem to work for me, maybe I wasn't doing it right.
Fleet carrier, in my opinion, is a critical quality of life upgrade. For all intents and purposes, a FC is a space station that can jump (almost) wherever you want within 500LY every 20 minutes, with the main functional difference being that it won't buy stuff from you, but allows you to store it instead.
I mainly use mine as a drop-off point for whatever I'm doing. It is usually parked next to my favorite core mining site (my favorite pastime in this game), which allows me to get to the ring within 3 minutes of logging in and then drop off my stuff 3 minutes after leaving the ring. All my ships are always right next to me, I don't have to worry about pirates, jump range, what I'm mining, or how far I'll have to go to sell it. I just go to the ring, mine all cores that I come across and drop it all on the FC when I'm done. Then, after multiple trips, if I have a sizeable stock of a single mineral I just jump to a system that buys that mineral for a lot of moneys and make a single 5 minute trip in my hauling ship (python, to prevent bulk tax), returning with 200 million credits and tritium. Then I jump my FC back to the ring and voila.
If I compare that experience with how it went before I had my FC (fly across bubble to where my miner is, fly across bubble to a ring, pick and choose cores to only a single mineral, fly multiple jumps to where the mineral sells well dodging pirates along the way, fly multiple jumps to home base), the difference is monumental.
It also helps when you have a combat CG. Chances are that your combat ship doesn't have a good jump range and having to make 20 jumps to get from your home base to the CG system is annoying as hell, and satan forbid if you decide to switch to a different combat ship while you're there. FC fixes that, you just jump your entire fleet right next to where the CG is taking place (usually 1-2 jumps away from the CG system cause by the time you read about the CG and log in, the actual CG system will be full of carriers already xD). You just take off, pewpew to your heart's content, dock 3 minutes later and jump your entire fleet wherever you want to go next.
As for costs, my carrier has a "survival" setup. If I end up with my FC anywhere in the galaxy and lose my ship, the carrier has everything that would allow me to recover, including exploration ships, shields, FSDs, mining equipment and so on. I also have cartographer installed so I can make money in deep space. I just like the idea that whatever the hell happens and anywhere it happens, I'll be fine. This setup costs me some 35 million a week. Roughly once every 2-3 weeks I make a single 1hr long core mining trip, returning with 200t haul of mainly monazite and musgravite, worth no less than 100 million. Then, once every month or so, I bulk-sell whatever goes for best price at the time, making 200+ million in 30minutes including jumps, which covers the month of expenses.
FC is great. Go get one today.
I mainly use mine as a drop-off point for whatever I'm doing. It is usually parked next to my favorite core mining site (my favorite pastime in this game), which allows me to get to the ring within 3 minutes of logging in and then drop off my stuff 3 minutes after leaving the ring. All my ships are always right next to me, I don't have to worry about pirates, jump range, what I'm mining, or how far I'll have to go to sell it. I just go to the ring, mine all cores that I come across and drop it all on the FC when I'm done. Then, after multiple trips, if I have a sizeable stock of a single mineral I just jump to a system that buys that mineral for a lot of moneys and make a single 5 minute trip in my hauling ship (python, to prevent bulk tax), returning with 200 million credits and tritium. Then I jump my FC back to the ring and voila.
If I compare that experience with how it went before I had my FC (fly across bubble to where my miner is, fly across bubble to a ring, pick and choose cores to only a single mineral, fly multiple jumps to where the mineral sells well dodging pirates along the way, fly multiple jumps to home base), the difference is monumental.
It also helps when you have a combat CG. Chances are that your combat ship doesn't have a good jump range and having to make 20 jumps to get from your home base to the CG system is annoying as hell, and satan forbid if you decide to switch to a different combat ship while you're there. FC fixes that, you just jump your entire fleet right next to where the CG is taking place (usually 1-2 jumps away from the CG system cause by the time you read about the CG and log in, the actual CG system will be full of carriers already xD). You just take off, pewpew to your heart's content, dock 3 minutes later and jump your entire fleet wherever you want to go next.
As for costs, my carrier has a "survival" setup. If I end up with my FC anywhere in the galaxy and lose my ship, the carrier has everything that would allow me to recover, including exploration ships, shields, FSDs, mining equipment and so on. I also have cartographer installed so I can make money in deep space. I just like the idea that whatever the hell happens and anywhere it happens, I'll be fine. This setup costs me some 35 million a week. Roughly once every 2-3 weeks I make a single 1hr long core mining trip, returning with 200t haul of mainly monazite and musgravite, worth no less than 100 million. Then, once every month or so, I bulk-sell whatever goes for best price at the time, making 200+ million in 30minutes including jumps, which covers the month of expenses.
FC is great. Go get one today.
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Most of the replies have concerned in or near bubble ownership, this reply is based on 8K LY out experience.
I play mainly on my own and I'm heading towards Sag A. I'm now at the point where if I run out of fuel I either have to mine it or do a 5K+ LY trip in the type 10 to pick up 400T of it. I do mine Void and LTD so the round trip can be lucrative.
I do recommend having the Universal Cartographics module as this negates one of the Explorers main bug bears, in that returning to the bubble in an unarmed unshielded ship, with 10M+ Credits of exploration data and maybe 100M+ credits of cargo, is a risky business.
If you use Limpets in your mining you will need the Rearm module.
If you running no shields etc you will need the Repair module.
You don't need a refuel module if you scoop.
If you are running EDO then there's plenty of opportunity for first foot fall bonuses, but it does not appear to help your other EDO progression (which seems distinctly weird to me)
You can put modules on ice when you don't use them. I think the upkeep invoice arrives on rollover on a Thursday so ensure your modules are suspended on a Wednesday night.
I play mainly on my own and I'm heading towards Sag A. I'm now at the point where if I run out of fuel I either have to mine it or do a 5K+ LY trip in the type 10 to pick up 400T of it. I do mine Void and LTD so the round trip can be lucrative.
I do recommend having the Universal Cartographics module as this negates one of the Explorers main bug bears, in that returning to the bubble in an unarmed unshielded ship, with 10M+ Credits of exploration data and maybe 100M+ credits of cargo, is a risky business.
If you use Limpets in your mining you will need the Rearm module.
If you running no shields etc you will need the Repair module.
You don't need a refuel module if you scoop.
If you are running EDO then there's plenty of opportunity for first foot fall bonuses, but it does not appear to help your other EDO progression (which seems distinctly weird to me)
You can put modules on ice when you don't use them. I think the upkeep invoice arrives on rollover on a Thursday so ensure your modules are suspended on a Wednesday night.
Realise that this is a couple of months old, but...
If you want a fleet carrier (or maintain one), do first logged exobiology in the black with Elite Observatory and MattG's BioInsights plugin (a real money maker).
I left the bubble on April 13th in my exploration Python with 2.5 billion credits to my name, and headed out on a trip deep into Vulcan Gate and then back again. I FSS'd every system I passed through out there religiously, grabbing every first logged sample over 3 million in value.
I returned at the end of the month with 7.5 billion credits, bought a fleet carrier (with UC and VG modules) for about 5.4 billion and dumped 600 million in the carrier bank. That left me about 1.5 billion. Then I went out again in the FC with all my ships and mods and did more first logged exobiology.
I now have 7 billion credits again, which is enough to maintain my FC for over 8 years...
Overall, in just over a month, I've made 10.5 billion credits.
FSS'ing every system is freaking tedious. But the returns...? Wow...
If you want a fleet carrier (or maintain one), do first logged exobiology in the black with Elite Observatory and MattG's BioInsights plugin (a real money maker).
I left the bubble on April 13th in my exploration Python with 2.5 billion credits to my name, and headed out on a trip deep into Vulcan Gate and then back again. I FSS'd every system I passed through out there religiously, grabbing every first logged sample over 3 million in value.
I returned at the end of the month with 7.5 billion credits, bought a fleet carrier (with UC and VG modules) for about 5.4 billion and dumped 600 million in the carrier bank. That left me about 1.5 billion. Then I went out again in the FC with all my ships and mods and did more first logged exobiology.
I now have 7 billion credits again, which is enough to maintain my FC for over 8 years...
Overall, in just over a month, I've made 10.5 billion credits.
FSS'ing every system is freaking tedious. But the returns...? Wow...
Interesting. How much does that end up being per hour of gameplay? If it's significantly more than 150mil/h then I might be interested.
It would depend on what you find Bios run from 1,000,000 per sample to just over 19,000,000 and of course first log bonus is an additional 4 times that.
So finding a system with two planets with the highest values would get you over your 150,000,000 target in relatively little time but not every system will be that rewarding.
There are guides to high paying sites I am sure but you wouldn’t get the bonus payout.
At the end of the day it is only credits, so the important consideration should be do you enjoy it.
I wouldn't say that what I did in the timeframe I did it in was 'enjoyable', as it was a deliberate mass money making exercise. But you could spread what I did over a longer, more sensible, period and enjoy it.
Exobiology in the black is naturally a bit hit or miss. I might have a run of systems with nothing, then get one containing three stratum tectonicas, which amounts to just under 300 million with first logged. 150 mil/h is possible in some cases. you just need to hit 30 mil in base value and get the 5x payout.
At the point I am now, if I ignore the 7billion and just went off and collected, say, 40 mil base value on first logged samples once a month (very easy) I cover the monthly carrier upkeep three times over with change. For me, that's great. Now I can relax and enjoy it.
Exobiology in the black is naturally a bit hit or miss. I might have a run of systems with nothing, then get one containing three stratum tectonicas, which amounts to just under 300 million with first logged. 150 mil/h is possible in some cases. you just need to hit 30 mil in base value and get the 5x payout.
At the point I am now, if I ignore the 7billion and just went off and collected, say, 40 mil base value on first logged samples once a month (very easy) I cover the monthly carrier upkeep three times over with change. For me, that's great. Now I can relax and enjoy it.
I'm still interested in the bucks per hour quota. To me, everything becomes tedious after a short while. I can't imagine doing any activity this game offers for more than 3 hours straight once every few days, regardless of what it is, but I would be willing to put some effort if the payout is worth it. At this time, my favorite money maker that is actually somewhat fun is core mining that yields some 120mil/h, and I do it about once a week or two. However, when the CG was around for collecting data materials for Winters/Hudson, I did an 8 hour marathon of Jameson's crash site visits to fund a carrier (~500mil/h). I was physically sick of the game for the next month, but it was worth it.I wouldn't say that what I did in the timeframe I did it in was 'enjoyable', as it was a deliberate mass money making exercise. But you could spread what I did over a longer, more sensible, period and enjoy it.
Exobiology in the black is naturally a bit hit or miss. I might have a run of systems with nothing, then get one containing three stratum tectonicas, which amounts to just under 300 million with first logged. 150 mil/h is possible in some cases. you just need to hit 30 mil in base value and get the 5x payout.
At the point I am now, if I ignore the 7billion and just went off and collected, say, 40 mil base value on first logged samples once a month (very easy) I cover the monthly carrier upkeep three times over with change. For me, that's great. Now I can relax and enjoy it.
Exobiology is a tedious and annoying thing, driving around the planet to find the next same-colored poop on the ground that is far enough from the first was fun for the first time I tried it and that's it. Add to that the time wasted on FSS, cruising and landings/takeoffs. Me not wanna do that, unless it pays 300+mil/h. Then I'm interested. Can it?
Are you sure about that - did your math really checks out?
I mean, i dont want to rain on your parade, but those numbers were hard to reach even in the golden age of Void Opals core mining
Now, i'm not saying cracking cores is not fun, it definitely is. But now that activity is somewhere at the bottom list of making credits activities.
I mean, my numbers are quite straight:
- Finding a core, cracking it, collecting everything - that takes about 10 minutes.
- Which means one can crack like 6 cores per hour, 7 tops.
- And each core gives like 15t (tops, sometimes the yields are lower)
- So we get to 100t per hour tops - when Void Opals were selling for 1.6 millions, it was nice enough. Now nothing sells that high anymore and selling any core products for more than 800k per ton is really really rare and due to really small demand, it cannot happen in big quantities
- But then it's not enough to get 100t of something. You need to go out and find a market were you can sell that stuff, a market that has to fulfil certain conditions (enough demand and proper combination of BGS states to get the required bonuses) - and this is quite a time sink
I have a video of myself doing an average core run, take a look.
I couldn't bother to voiceover, so use captions.
Yea, but that shows nothing that gets remotely close to 120m/h
More like 60-70 m/h, if even that much.
I did like 60+ billons worth of mining back in the days (on 2 accounts) which included both cores, in the beginning, but then laser mining proved more profitable
And these are 3 sessions back in April/May 2020.
The minutes (session time) were counted from dropping into the ring to selling at the destination station (no carriers back then), random laser mining LTD (first 2 i think they were LTD in April 2020, the 3rd one was definitely LTD in Borann, in May 2020) - so no mapped mining which i really despise.
Core mining was not able to get close to 200 million/h, not even at its peak.
Anyway, my favorite Core Miner was (and still is) the Clipper.
It's just perfect for the role - fast, maneuverable and quite roomy (192t cargo and still able to boost to 600 with that loadout)
And it was named Rico KABOOM
And these are 3 sessions back in April/May 2020.
The minutes (session time) were counted from dropping into the ring to selling at the destination station (no carriers back then), random laser mining LTD (first 2 i think they were LTD in April 2020, the 3rd one was definitely LTD in Borann, in May 2020) - so no mapped mining which i really despise.
Core mining was not able to get close to 200 million/h, not even at its peak.
Anyway, my favorite Core Miner was (and still is) the Clipper.
It's just perfect for the role - fast, maneuverable and quite roomy (192t cargo and still able to boost to 600 with that loadout)
And it was named Rico KABOOM
Yea, but that shows nothing that gets remotely close to 120m/h
More like 60-70 m/h, if even that much.
I did like 60+ billons worth of mining back in the days (on 2 accounts) which included both cores, in the beginning, but then laser mining proved more profitable
And these are 3 sessions back in April/May 2020.
The minutes (session time) were counted from dropping into the ring to selling at the destination station (no carriers back then), random laser mining LTD (first 2 i think they were LTD in April 2020, the 3rd one was definitely LTD in Borann, in May 2020) - so no mapped mining which i really despise.
Core mining was not able to get close to 200 million/h, not even at its peak.
View attachment 356529View attachment 356530View attachment 356531
Anyway, my favorite Core Miner was (and still is) the Clipper.
It's just perfect for the role - fast, maneuverable and quite roomy (192t cargo and still able to boost to 600 with that loadout)
And it was named Rico KABOOM
View attachment 356532
This video of mine has me mining 200t of minerals within less than 1hr, takeoff to landing on my FC. If I had bothered to drop at a monazite/musgravite hotspot overlap, those 200t would be 70% monazite/musgravite on average. Over the past 2 years I was consistently able to sell those at 650k per ton in the bubble. Even if you drop the estimate to 550k per ton to account for the 30% serendibite, benitoite and alexandrite, which don't sell as high as the former two, you get 200×550k = 110M worth of produce per hour. That's a low estimate on all accounts:
The efficiency calculation comes from the assumption that I do multiple such trips for 200t each and then do a single carrier jump to where what I have most of sells for most, takes me less than 30 minutes to do a carrier jump, three rounds of hauling 200t per trip (wanna dodge the bulk tax so I use my python) and then queue jump back while I log off.
Final calculations (low-average estimate) is:
If I bump that to more reasonable estimates per my experience (600k per ton, 55 mins per run) you get 110M per hour average, and I can do better.
- I can do a run in less than 1hr, more like 54min on average, least I had is 47 minutes for 200t
- I can get more than 70% of the high value stuff, best I had was ~135 monazite, ~45 musgravite, 20ish tons of others on a double monazite hotspot overlap.
- I could sell for way more than 550k per ton average. If you have a carrier, you can dump your produce there for weeks and only sell when prices are good.
The efficiency calculation comes from the assumption that I do multiple such trips for 200t each and then do a single carrier jump to where what I have most of sells for most, takes me less than 30 minutes to do a carrier jump, three rounds of hauling 200t per trip (wanna dodge the bulk tax so I use my python) and then queue jump back while I log off.
Final calculations (low-average estimate) is:
- 600t worth 550k average over 3hrs
- 600t trading trip, cashing in 600×550k=330M in 30 minutes.
If I bump that to more reasonable estimates per my experience (600k per ton, 55 mins per run) you get 110M per hour average, and I can do better.
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Yea, but you're not getting 200t of musgravite per hour, you get different materials that you have to sell in different stations, usually ferrying them in medium ships to avoid the bulk sale tax - overall complicating the logistics part of the job.
While the carrier makes a good buffer, i still find the quoted 120m/h a bit farfetched
Anyway, if this works for you - that's just great.
I'm still salty regarding core mining and mining in generally since they nerfed it in the summer of 2020 only to buff combat payouts 3 months later and then to keep buffing certain activities culminating with last years Exobio payouts increase for an activity that needs nothing more than an unengineered dbx and a g1 artemis to make stupid amounts of credits
Had it been 200t of just musgravite which I often sold for over 700k per ton, my estimate would be in the range of 130M/h or more. I have taken the variety of minerals into account, I keep stacking them all until I have ~600 tons of something and it sells for a high price. Then I make a single jump into orbit of the same body where the station is that buys the thing. From there it's just several short supercruise trips taking 7 minutes each to cash in. Most often the trip is to sell musgravite for 700k per ton or monazite for 650k, more rarely it's to sell benitoite or the other minerals for 500k per ton. The 550k per ton I quoted is a total average.
I will be logging in later today in a system where there are 5 moons with possibly 15M per moon so that’s 75M as it is a previously undiscovered system I will get the first finders bonus on that which makes 375, and non of the Bios are particularly valuable. But I am a slow player so will probably not find and cash in everything in an hour or less. However, as like you, I have my carrier all I have to earn is 15M per week for upkeep plus more when I need to fund fuel again, I am therefore much more interested in enjoying the game than chasing credits.
So yes you could easily make the values you want but probably not often enough to make it worth doing as you don’t like the activities involved.
Unless you have an alt account (or more) or already have a FC then the exobiology wealth-gathering is not going to fit with that idea. You have to travel well away from the bubble (you want the first discovered bonuses [boni?]) so in effect you have to be spending all your playing time doing the bio-hunt.
Exobiology isn't really quantifiable in terms of credits per hour to be honest. And, as has been mentioned, it's something that requires a level of commitment, since you need to head out at least 1KLys (and away from commonly travel paths) to reliably hit systems that nobody else has set foot in for the bonus. Further is naturally better though. For someone like me who loves tripping the void fantastic and exploring, it's a natural progression. But it isn't something you just pop off and do when you're at a loose end, so to speak.
Like most things, it's horses for courses, and is down to what you enjoy. For someone who's first love is combat, for example, it's going to be boring. Personally, even though I've done combat, I'm the other way around. I enjoy losing myself in the black and seeing what's out there. And, with an FC and Vista Genomics installed, you're self sufficient money-wise. Take your mining gear with you as well and you're set.
Anyway, my reason for commenting in the first place was just to clarify that maintaining a fleet carrier with exobiology is easy, and can be extremely lucrative. If your plan is to use your FC to get out there and do long journeys (which many do), exobio is a very good way to pay the bills and cover tritium purchases when convenient. You will have money to spare.
Well, you can live off just FSS. Assuming 15 million credits per week upkeep, that's just 5 earthlikes plus some junk and you're good for a week. I more often than not returned from my exploration trips (never made it over 10kLY out of the bubble, jumping 200 times is too boring, even on neutron highway) with ~200 million credits after about 3 days (prolly ~12hrs game time incl. travel) exploring.
And I'm not a combat fan. Tbh, this game was interesting as long as there was something new, an actual new experience, to discover/unlock.
- Learning core mining was fun cause there's so much in it (PWA quirks, using all thrusters available to quickly detonate and clear a core asteroid).
- Unlocking engineers was fun cause it allowed builds that are unviable without engineering, like my reverski all-rail krait.
- Exploration was fun as long as there was something new to see, like short-orbit double black holes or double neutrons or planets/moons on orbits so short that you can literally see them move across the sky. Planets with 20+G or planets with 4 stars in the sky (get rekt tatooine, ye noob). Dual earthlike planet systems (as in, two earthlikes circling each other, sharing orbit around the star). Once I've seen all that and every next system is at most just as interesting as one I had already seen, I've lost interest.
- and exobiology was fun for 5 minutes, cause there really is nothing in it; you just have smears of different doodads on the ground to look for. Sometimes they look like mushrooms, sometimes like cactuses, sometimes like literal poop, but it's always completely inconsequential as to what they look like, none of them have any special features. At least scanning planets required you to aim probes lol.
That said, I'm willing to partake in a boring activity, even for a longer while, if it pays well enough. 300mil/h average over, say, a 20h-long effort incl. transit would suffice to make me interested. I have a capable asp explorer for long travels with some 75LY jump range so I'm good.