ANNOUNCEMENT Fleet Carriers - Content Reveal Announcement

[Diziet Sma]

And you don't see anything wrong in that the only useful activity to get a fleet carrier is the use of a single way to play, in the single system in the bubble, with a fluke triple hotspot, propably with a mapped run, in an activity which as the only one of the new mining wasn't nerfed with the last update?

Hey.. I'm just reporting what's working for me.. I'm sure there are other ways to make big money, as SemlerPDX implies in his post above, where he said

So basically, we billionaires (and I assume trillionaires, too) feel sad for you peeps who don't have the experience or knowledge, and therefore earning potential, to play the game for 2 to 4 hours and then afford the most expensive ship in the game and outfit it with all Class A modules.

But I wouldn't know about that.. I'm just a noob here myself.

 

[Bigmaec]

Hey.. I'm just reporting what's working for me.. I'm sure there are other ways to make big money, as SemlerPDX implies in his post above, where he said

But I wouldn't know about that.. I'm just a noob here myself.

I know it's possible, I've already started mining yesterday.
I'm just saying it's stupid to match the price of the FC to the hardcore miners.

(I could also say it was stupid of me stopping doing double painite runs in my Cutter when I reached 2.5 billion, believing that was enough.)

 

[aRJay]

Is it being assumed that all betas are now going to be open?

Well it seems likely, it has been years since the last pay to test one.

 

[Cosmo]

However, if you deny almost everyone access, or effectively give stuff away, or price yourself out of the market, or simply park your FC so far from the bubble that hardly anyone will want to visit, then the maintenance will eventually result in its decommissioning.

The decommissioning is a bad idea, because there will be times when players log out for extended periods until the next major update. In Eve Online capital ships aren't decommissioned after a certain time. Eve Online does have a risk that it can be destroyed in PVP or PVE though. So there shouldn't be any risk of decommission.

Penalizing players and forcing them to do a mind-numbing repetitive grind to upkeep a Fleet Carrier is bad gameplay. To retain players the gameplay must be fun and have depth like a proper sandbox.

 

[Viajero]

Yep I feel the same.

I hear you, and I know it may not help you much in your predicament but this response by Stephen...

Hey @Mengy,

I have seen a couple of people saying that they don't have enough money to purchase a Fleet Carrier and it's worth stating that these huge vessels are a designed to be a massive investment for players who have acquired a large amount of credits. Although purchasing one will allow the owner to customise and manage their Fleet Carrier how they wish, Fleet Carriers are also there to provide services to the wider community, allowing commanders to interact with and utilise in a number of ways.

Whenever we've introduced content to the game, the community has blown us away with what they've done with it, often using it in ways we never imagined they would. Fleet Carriers are going to provide lots of opportunities for owners but also those without Fleet Carriers and we can't see all the ways in which commanders are going to traverse the galaxy together!

For all the details on Fleet Carriers, tune into next week's Content Reveal Stream!

... suggests carriers have indeed been designed to be purchased by those players who have the largest amounts of credits. He also suggests that this does not mean the rest of players can not enjoy their features though.

I do not know if you have played EVE Online but, given the very small ammount of info we have so far about carriers, I would say they are somewhat equivalent to EVE´s Titan ships where even some of the largest player corporations could take months, even years, in order to pool resources and prepare to pilot one (havent played EVE in a while so this may have changed though).

 

[Cosmo]

I do not know if you have played EVE Online but, given the very small ammount of info we have so far about carriers, I would say they are somewhat equivalent to EVE´s Titan ships where even some of the largest player corporations could take months, even years, in order to pool resources and prepare to pilot one (havent played EVE in a while so this may have changed though).

Afaik Eve Online doesn't have an automated decommission penalty for player owned capital ships. Eve has a proper economic loop where the players can collect raw materials, construct their own ships, including Fleet Carriers (capitals), and use them indefinitely until they're destroyed in PVE or PVP. They're more fun, because players can control the movement and location of capitals within a system.

 

[Viajero]

Afaik Eve Online doesn't have an automated decommission penalty for player owned capital ships. Eve has a proper economic loop where the players can construct their own ships, including Fleet Carriers (capitals), and use them indefinitely until they're destroyed in PVE or PVP.

I think the point Kilvenny was making was about access to them. In that regard Titans, like carriers, are (or were at least) also aimed indeed for players or corps with very large ammounts of resources or isk and it used to take a very long time to produce and pilot one. Also in both cases other players not actually owning them seem to be able to benefit or enjoy their features.

 

[Neutronium]

Money shouldn't be the only barrier / burden to acquire a FC. PF and SP ranking should also be. OK with a 5Bn price tag for the FCs hull you should at least be elite in one PF's field but lets say you are elite in trading and you want to buid a carrier with modules specialised for explo. Guess what: you can't. You must 1st become elite in explo and then purchase the special explo module and create your explo FC.
Consequently FC should also require you to have at least the highest of ranks with one of the superpowers. A FC should be something that only a superpower should be able to build with a contractor the equivalent of current day multinational conglomerate a galactic size corporation. So a FC whould either be an imperial one build in empire's capital or federation one build in feds capital (or a major military / industrial / high-tech economy system of aforementioned SP) and the buyer should be a well respected CMDR of that SP. So either a king for empire or admiral for federation. Imagine being a recruit or an outsider going with a tone of cash to the empire / fed galactic FC building contractor asking for a FC Not possible kid - get outahere

 

[Cosmo]

I think the point Kilvenny was making was about access to them. In that regard Titans, like carriers, are (or were at least) also aimed indeed for players or corps with very large ammounts of resources or isk and it used to take a very long time to produce and pilot one. Also in both cases other players not actually owning them seem to be able to benefit or enjoy their features.

It's okay to require a big amount of credits or resources to build/buy a Fleet Carrier. It's not good to force players who worked hard to get a FC to decomission it after a certain time if they don't keep grinding to pay upkeep fees. Once a FC or any capital ship is obtained it should only be lost if: 1. it gets destroyed in PVE or PVP 2. if the player decides to decommission it. If there's no proper PVE and PVP FC gameplay then it will be shallow and disappointing imo. The FCs could be discarded like the shallow multi-crew.

Money shouldn't be the only barrier / burden to acquire a FC. PF and SP ranking should also be. OK with a 5Bn price tag for the FCs hull you should at least be elite in one PF's field but lets say you are elite in trading and you want to buid a carrier with modules specialised for explo. Guess what: you can't. You must 1st become elite in explo and then purchase the special explo module and create your explo FC.

A requirement to be Elite for a FC is too much, because the far majority of players don't reach Elite rank.

Consequently FC should also require you to have at least the highest of ranks with one of the superpowers. A FC should be something that only a superpower should be able to build with a contractor the equivalent of current day multinational conglomerate a galactic size corporation. So a FC whould either be an imperial one build in empire's capital or federation one build in feds capital (or a major military / industrial / high-tech economy system of aforementioned SP) and the buyer should be a well respected CMDR of that SP. n So either a king for empire or admiral for federation.

Seconded. It makes sense from an immersion point of view that a superpower only grants a FC license to high ranked players.This gives more incentive for players to reach the highest ranks with a superpower. It's disappointing that we haven't seen any superpower FC designs.

 

[Viajero]

It's okay to require a big amount of credits or resources to build/buy a Fleet Carrier. It's not good to force players who worked hard to get a FC to decomission it after a certain time if they don't keep grinding to pay upkeep fees. Once a FC or any capital ship is obtained it should only be lost if: 1. it gets destroyed in PVE or PVP 2. if the player decides to decommission it. If there's no proper PVE and PVP FC gameplay then it will be shallow and disappointing imo.These FC would risk to be discarded like the shallow multi-crew.

On the operating expense side of things the discussion is still a bit sterile imo because there the info is actually zero.

Funnily enough while l was looking online for the latest on Titans info I found this relatively recent clip where EVE devs regret in hindsight that TITANs had no upkeep fees or operating expenses at all:

Source: https://clips.twitch.tv/KnottyModernMarrowCoolCat

 

[Noobilite]

There is nothing like a game with a thousand none unusual shapes banging against each other at point blank range to shoot their non giant laser beams with no sense of distance or 3d location... It's like they were trying to say something.

It's too bad we can't have an attack carrier. I always wanted a Nyx.

 

[Cosmo]

On the operating expense side of things the discussion is still a bit sterile imo because there the info is actually zero.

Funnily enough while l was looking online for the latest on Titans info I found this relatively recent clip where EVE devs regret in hindsight that TITANs had no upkeep fees or operating expenses at all:

Source: https://clips.twitch.tv/KnottyModernMarrowCoolCat

Right, I don't mind upkeep to keep a FC operational. However, automated decommissioning of capital ships is bad imo. If the minimum upkeep is not paid it should be inoperable, not decommissioned. In Eve Online the corporations (player guilds) can produce capital ships a lot faster, because players can pool resources together. They get destroyed in PVP or PVE. This creates new demand for capital ships, because they're important assets in space battles.

 

[Viajero]

Right, I don't mind upkeep to keep a FC operational. However, automated decommissioning of capital ships is bad imo. If the minimum upkeep is not paid it should be inoperable, not decommissioned. In Eve Online corporations (player guilds) can produce capital ships a lot faster, because players can pool resources together. They also get destroyed in PVP or PVE. This creates a new demand for capital ships, because they're important assets in space battles.

"a lot faster" is a very relative term, and depends on the dedication of players. As mentioned above even EVE corps pooling resources and isk required months, some even years depending on size, to produce Titans.

 

[C64Fan]

Relax. It’s not FD’s intention that everyone and their dog should have a Carrier, and rightly so in my opinion, but that doesn’t mean that everyone can’t have fun with them! Everyone can take part in various activities (without being the owner), and as I understand it also benefit financially from them.

My best advice is to take it easy and wait and see. Do the things you like in the game - and don’t grind your brains out just to be able to buy a Carrier from day one.

 

[Martin Afonso]

Sorry but no, sorry. These new fleet carriers are not 5 billion feature worthy.

 

[Viajero]

If not destroyed, then what about being forced to jump out, sorta like Capitals do.

That would be great yes.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

And with this piece of information about maintainence costs on top of this, I think my time with the game is now finally over. As always with FDev, it's a shockingly bad piece of game design, even assuming it works at launch, which given past history, isn't guaranteed...

Difficult to know until we see it. But having reasons to do gameplay is generally a good idea.

Firstly, the only real gameplay loop in ED is "Grind thing, progress bars". Even if you've not grasped the dehumanizing, time wasting effects of such design in the industry yet, it should be obvious that the issue with long term retention in ED specifically is that the repetitive grind eventually causes burn out. Very, very few players ever get to the Anaconda, let alone the 5b needed to unlock a Carrier. The reason Arena and (especially) Multi-Crew and other gameplay adjusting expansions didn't change this was because they were badly implemented, not because people outside the core Forum Dad obsessives didn't want new things to do whilst working towards bar progress.

Grind in ED is a playstyle choice. I have done zero grind in the game and been playing since original beta.

To then add fuel costs as well as maintainence which if not met means you lose the entire investment (or even a fraction of it if you are somehow reimbursed for the "scrap") is just adding even more appalling grind to string out the same old content even further.

Again, we don't know how this works, so why don't you wait a week before passing judgement.

Those who have sunk so much of themselves into the game might no longer recognise the scale, but let's just put that 500ly range into perspective; the original design of carriers was to only update their jumps once per week, like the Gnosis. I don't think it'll be 500ly per week now, but at the very least, there's still an undefined cooldown for the jump. And it needs either mining, or purchasing the fuel to do it. No scooping it as you travel past a star you'd have to pass anyway. In my Exploraconda, I can do 500 ly in 6 or so jumps, or about 8 minutes. You're simply not going to be able to move a Carrier anywhere near as quickly across the galaxy as a normal ship, due to grind for fuel time. Sure, it may mean getting to systems that you can't reach at all for now; but what percentage players even get to the centre of the galaxy with the "faster" travel times now, much less out to where such a range has any sort of meaning?

You have your info wrong. They were never going to jump like the Gnosis. It was jump at anytime as long as you had the fuel to do so.

Now let's put the cost into perspective. I have 2030 hours played, am Triple Elite, and own all the ships in game, with the Big 3 near fully engineered for their respective roles. And even I can't afford the damn Carrier, as I "only" have 1.7b. How much more am I supposed to play the same old content, now with even more bugs, just to have something "new" to do? And then do it again and again just to keep what money I've earned from disappearing into scrap?

Again, we have no idea how this works and it looks to me that Fleet carriers will have a management game attached to it. Maybe read first post again.

Something which, if the suggestions of being able to set local prices are true, is going to break the game for everyone else.

Local Prices? No, only the prices on your fleet carrier. How is that going to break the game.

Seriously, how does FDev not see this? The only "galactic" content anyone can influence is the local economy. However if players can set their own rates, they'll be entirely independent from the actions of anyone else: Price of goods goes down due to incoming/outgoing trade at Station X? Not to worry, it's a fixed player chosen tarriff at the station in that system. And if it's favourable, why bother with the galactic market? Planet is agricultural? Park an industrial themed Carrier above it to exploit it, or a cheaper Agricultural one to undercut it...

Again, we don't know how this works. I would assume that what you sell in your ship doesn't magically appear from nowhere. But again we don't know yet, so let's wait and see how it works.

And remember, if the trade is going to the station, all the associated swings in reputation, thus influence over Local Faction & Economy disappear. Even if the same factions are on the mobile station (Does the entire population get shot out into space and replaced with press-ganged locals with each jump?) as long as you can undercut the local prices, you have far more influence over someone actively working the background sim, because you'll be taking all of the local trade from every individual arriving there. You've basically recruited anyone trading in that system into doing what you alone would like the system to become.

It may not be possible to undercut without making a loss. Again, let's wait and see on Thursday.

Community Goal active in the system? Oh wait, those have been cancelled, (Less content, more grind pleases the time rich, quality poor) but assuming they were still active, move your carrier, with the goods required into the system and short cut the entire point. Or just boost yourself to the top, if you can deny anyone landing rights but have a nice handy local store of materials for yourself...

Again, let's wait and see how it works. We don't know. You don't know how your carriers get stocked up with goods in the first place.

It's no wonder so many are rubbing their hands at the thoughts of such expensive add ons; someone above is already joking about "peasants", but they do know that very few people will be able to have one, and there are obvious ways to exploit it already becoming clear. Real life may be horribly unfair, but people play games to escape from all of that. It's a spectacular misunderstanding of how to appeal to a wider player base to think of implementing Carriers in this way...

So how are they implemented, have you played the update yet?

(Unless of course, the "rates" are on top of the local price only, you can't undercut them or put up goods that aren't available in that system, at which point we're back to carriers as just replacements for social status via digital e-peen, because no one is going to trade at an always higher price.)

What are you talking about. All they have mentioned are the commodities sale on your carrier. We don't know how this works yet.

I suspect I know why they're doing it though; as the last few years have suggested, I rather doubt the ED engine can actually have much new, decent content added, either through engine limitations, . Giving players direct influence over the numbers already in game is possibly the only "extra" content they could add for carriers, just as engineers was just tweaking your stats, and multi crew was just putting a ship inside your ship. But players shouldn't be getting direct control over the galactic stats like this, and definitely not when it will only be the most obsessive players who can afford it.

And believe you have no idea what you are talking regarding the game engine.

As to the rest, well it's all guess work and assumptions without any concrete evidence to go on.

To be honest, I really don't get your post. It's a whine about nothing as pretty much everything you have said, you have no idea if its true or not and as to grind, that's your choice to play like that.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I'm not saying it's impossible to get 100m cr/hour.
I'm saying that you can only do it by focusing on credits and doing the specific activity for that.
I have a different opinion of how games should be played and how achievement should be gained and I'm not fine with how this has become in Elite. I'm sure some people will enjoy it but I don't see myself coming back for this.

The price was so shocking to me that I still don't even know what FC will be about. I stopped reading when I saw the price

I have nowhere near that cash, but I think the price is reasonable from what I've seen so far. Currently I have only got 150million in cash.

 

[AveCandido]

Many criticisms about price, reasonable ---- other criticisms are reproachful, about FC mechanics ... is it that we are in a forum of fortune tellers? Because the operating mechanics have not been described yet, until April 2, they will be revealed; therefore many critical post mechanics do not see reason.

 

[AveCandido]

The trade that can be done in the carriers will also be with npc's random or will it only be possible with other players?