ANNOUNCEMENT Fleet Carriers - Content Reveal Recap
- Thread starter Stephen Benedetti
- Start date
One use for fleet carriers is repairing damaged stations outside the bubble. Load up with with what the station needs, jump out and transfer it to the damaged station without making multiple long trips.
Interesting question @Stephen Benedetti
I dont see how that would work; this is simply an upkeep/RP mechanic.
These are a middleman. All the "new features" are copies of existing station services, for the sake of paying upkeep. Except, by virtue of there not being anything actually new and unique, they're always going to be more expensive for visitors and less profitable for owners than actual stations. Instead of selling your stuff to a station, you pass it along to the Carrier's owner, who then does it for you, for much less money. Everyone loses, and there's no way that the Carriers will be profitable enough to pay for their own upkeep - and as that's basically all they can do, they're useless outside of a few niche cases.
This is Multicrew all over again.
This is Multicrew all over again.
So is it possible and can we stop a DOS attack on a fleet carrier? By that say I want all CMDRs to access my FC and allow storage of modules (if I understood that's possible) and the competition decides lets take 10 ships and store as many 1e cargo racks as we can on John's FC up to the limit. What then? What about pad/hanger camping is it possible?
I think we have to jump to a nearby system, then jump back to select a different body. I assume Tritium cost = 1 unit per light year. And it looks like a new carrier comes with 500 Tritium?
This looks like a very interesting update to the game. Congratulations and thanks are in order to the FDev team who have spent a long time and put in a lot of hard work into what is likely to be a great new feature in Elite. I'm really looking forward to the Beta. Before I play the Beta, here's what I think is missing based on what I saw in the live stream.
- I think it's a mistake not to allow a FC to equip a universal cartographics office. I understand the need for FCs not to have an effect on the BGS, but you'd think it would be possible to simply apply the influence gain to a NULL faction such as the Pilot's Federation (as is done with Thargoid combat bonds). I can see universal cartographics being a key service of value to explorers who are far out in the black and who want to offload their exploration data at a FC that's nearby rather than flying all the way back to a station. Also, if the FC owner were able to set a tariff on the sale of exploration data, that would allow both the explorer and owner to benefit -- owner earns credits, explorer offloads data early for naming rights and less risk of losing data if they get destroyed.
- I like the simplicity of managing a FC by simply setting a tariff. However, I think it'd be good if this tariff could also be negative (hear me out). I think it would make sense that a FC owner should be able to buy supplies (ships & modules) for his/her FC at a discount (say 20% off since they're buying un bulk), and then if the FC owner sets a tariff of 0% the ships and modules are sold at normal station prices and the FC owner would make 20% on each sale. However, the fleet carrier could then also offer discounts (similar to how Li Yong-Rui does, or he/she could offer those modules at a premium (i.e. tariff great than 0%), similar to what we see at Ray Gateway station (all modules but at a premium). This is similar to how real world retail works under "wholesale pricing", the manufacturer sells to a retailer at a discount and provides a MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price), the retailer is free to offer the product for sale at either a discount or premium to the MSRP. I can see how FDev would probably want to forbid selling below the wholesale price (i.e. selling at as a loss leader). But I thin this would be a better market mechanic and would allow FC owners to offer deals on modules / ships that would be competitive with what's on offer at stations.
- I like the market mechanics that FDev have implemented because they appear to be simple. A FC owner can issue a standing order to buy a commodity (e.g. Buy up to 3400 tons of Tritium at 10,000 CR/T). It'll be interesting to see what kind of emergent behavior comes from this mechanic. I'm also very curious to see how the Secure Market mechanic works (not many details were provided).
- I think it's a missed opportunity to not allow FCs to be equipped with a Material Trader. I think there's a niche opportunity for players to park fleet carriers out near the Crystal sites with a Raw Material Trader with somewhat less favorable trading ratios (i.e. worse than the material trader ratios we see at stations). It would also be great to have an Encoded and Maufactured Material Trader out near CEOs / Sothis to allow for easier trading of Modified Embedded Firmware and Biotech Conductors that players earn from doing passenger missions. The problem with Material Traders of course is that they don't deal with credits, they deal in materials which aren't easily converted into credits. Except they are... as mission rewards, if you take the Materials reward over the Credit reward, there's a 500K CR decrease for each Grade 5 Material. So there's already an exchange rate. The solution is simply to allow the FC owner to set a ratio higher than standard and convert the surplus materials in credits that support upkeep of the FC.
- I think it's a bit of a miss to not have a mission board on a FC. That said, I understand the need to not unbalance the BGS. That said, I think it would be a good idea to allow a CMDR to set the local faction that he/she is supporting and then have a mission giver just from that faction on board to offer missions. This could also be a way for FC owners to earn some money for their FC. That is, if a FC owner allows a local faction on board to offer missions, then the FC would earn their tariff on any missions that were completed for that mission giver. This mechanic might make FC a useful tool to BGS players who want to position FCs at convenient locations within systems where they'd like to boost a (single) local minor faction's influence.
After reading what a carrier is supposed to do, I'm kind of impressed. Impressed at how much Frontier hates explorers, that is. Yeah sure, I could either very slowly move my very expensive toy towards the area I want to explore, and spend tons of effort all the time to pay upkeep, or I could just use my normal explorer ship and not do any of that. Hmmm, losing tons of money and moving very slowly, or moving very fast and not lose any money at all. Decisions, decisions.
Explorers can store samples collected by research limpets on FC ... it's about 30k-100k / item in bubble.
However ... jumping times of FC will negate income alot. ...so full cargo will be like 750mils once delivered ...or 3 hrs of mining in bubble
The thing is, that once you have that carrier 750m is fine, there isn't much to spend it on anyway. Kinda like how the income gap right now is only relevant to those who want a carrier but cant afford one*.
*me.
Pretty clear that taking a carrier into deep space will be quite the mission.
Is that really a bad thing though? IMO, probably not. The galaxy has shrunk quite a bit in the last couple of years and who doesn't enjoy a good mission.
Is that really a bad thing though? IMO, probably not. The galaxy has shrunk quite a bit in the last couple of years and who doesn't enjoy a good mission.
Quite a lot of people have expressed disappointment with the FC on the subreddit. It could be saved by adding PVE and PVP features.
For example tomato-andrew said:
I totally agree. What boggles my mind is that they're not doing any NPC interactions with fleet carriers. They're betting heavily on player-to-player interactions, but... players are so few and far between in this game already, this will result in the people who can afford fleet carriers buying and owning them for a while, getting overwhelmed by the tedium, upkeep, and other costs associated with making them relevant, and then decommissioning them.
They don't appear to be critical, or even useful to really any form of gameplay-- miners don't become more efficient, explorer's can't travel faster or sell data at a higher income or receive more accurate scan data, bounty hunting and piracy still requires you go to an actual station and pick up missions... it really just looks like a very uninteractive set of expenses and chores to pick up by people who have more credits and time than sense.
The gameplay loop they expect players to engage in appears to be as follows:
Overall, I see this as a colossal failure in game design. It's really perplexing, because I'm an Elite: Dangerous fan, I love this game, and I have nothing but respect for its makers. I'm not your usual forum boi who just wants to jerk off to yamikz videos.
For example tomato-andrew said:
I totally agree. What boggles my mind is that they're not doing any NPC interactions with fleet carriers. They're betting heavily on player-to-player interactions, but... players are so few and far between in this game already, this will result in the people who can afford fleet carriers buying and owning them for a while, getting overwhelmed by the tedium, upkeep, and other costs associated with making them relevant, and then decommissioning them.
They don't appear to be critical, or even useful to really any form of gameplay-- miners don't become more efficient, explorer's can't travel faster or sell data at a higher income or receive more accurate scan data, bounty hunting and piracy still requires you go to an actual station and pick up missions... it really just looks like a very uninteractive set of expenses and chores to pick up by people who have more credits and time than sense.
The gameplay loop they expect players to engage in appears to be as follows:
- Player A(the owner) buys a fleet carrier
- That player parks the fleet carrier in a system that they hope to encounter Player B in, to buy and trade commodities with them
- Player B also must want to buy and trade commodities, and be able to remotely know the desired commodities, surplus commodities, and costs associated with doing business with player A
- Player B judges that Player A is valuable for doing business with and then lands on their fleet carrier, and trades, refuels, repairs, and rearms
- Player A receives a cut of Player B's basic costs (which are going to be minimal) and then any profits for trading with Player B. Player B receives the convenience of having another station in the system to land at, and a fair deal on the commodity trade they sought the fleet carrier for.
Overall, I see this as a colossal failure in game design. It's really perplexing, because I'm an Elite: Dangerous fan, I love this game, and I have nothing but respect for its makers. I'm not your usual forum boi who just wants to jerk off to yamikz videos.
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Boy it sure would be nice if we were given some numbers instead of “a high/low cost” in regards to purchasable services and upkeep costs.
Also, how long is it gonna take to get a return on this investment? Four, maybe five decades? I can’t see a tariff on refuel, repair, and rearm paying my 5 billion + services back very quickly even at 100% tariff, especially if there’s a station nearby that people can go to instead that offers missions and universal cartographics. And if I’m selling commodities, what’s stopping players from buggering off to the lowest buy price on EDDB instead? If I’m BUYING commodities from people, and actually want to make a profit from it, why would anyone stop at my carrier instead of just loading up their own and taking it to the highest sell, again on EDDB?
I wanted a carrier for my BGS squadron to use, and I do intend to get one, for the sake of getting one, but right now it feels like it’s going to be a credit sink for me, especially since I wanted it to be a squadron access only combat carrier, for jumping between warzones. I can see this being useful for wars in systems without large pads, or that have wars some ridiculous distance from the star, however, given there will be no BGS effect, we’re only going to be using the carrier to swap to our medium ships and submit our bonds at the relevant station anyway to have the desired BGS effects.
Speaking of which, there was no specific role for warships in that list. I suppose technically it’d be a mercenary themed carrier, but given it will be an IPV carrier permitting IPV members with IPV ships working for the IPV faction that the IPV squadron is tied to - it would be nice to have a dedicated combat role that isn’t “bounty hunter” or “mercenary”.
Also, how long is it gonna take to get a return on this investment? Four, maybe five decades? I can’t see a tariff on refuel, repair, and rearm paying my 5 billion + services back very quickly even at 100% tariff, especially if there’s a station nearby that people can go to instead that offers missions and universal cartographics. And if I’m selling commodities, what’s stopping players from buggering off to the lowest buy price on EDDB instead? If I’m BUYING commodities from people, and actually want to make a profit from it, why would anyone stop at my carrier instead of just loading up their own and taking it to the highest sell, again on EDDB?
I wanted a carrier for my BGS squadron to use, and I do intend to get one, for the sake of getting one, but right now it feels like it’s going to be a credit sink for me, especially since I wanted it to be a squadron access only combat carrier, for jumping between warzones. I can see this being useful for wars in systems without large pads, or that have wars some ridiculous distance from the star, however, given there will be no BGS effect, we’re only going to be using the carrier to swap to our medium ships and submit our bonds at the relevant station anyway to have the desired BGS effects.
Speaking of which, there was no specific role for warships in that list. I suppose technically it’d be a mercenary themed carrier, but given it will be an IPV carrier permitting IPV members with IPV ships working for the IPV faction that the IPV squadron is tied to - it would be nice to have a dedicated combat role that isn’t “bounty hunter” or “mercenary”.
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