ANNOUNCEMENT Fleet Carriers - Content Reveal Recap

[Deareim]

Maybe FDEV, after seeing all of this negative feedback, will make a few adjustments toward what the player base would actually use more often. Maybe they make it so that the prices one could buy commodities, ships and modules at a discounted price, compared to what's available at star/planetary ports? Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any use in owning one as they have been revealed thus far. We could only hope that the feedback from the beta, and this forum, doesn't fall on deaf ears.

I want to give them a lot of credit for bringing a great thing to the game, but I can't. After the delays, surely these things should have been better than what has been revealed.

First time here ?

 

[Calteru]

Sure. The fc:s aren't meant to jump around exploring. They're a platform from where you plan your trips. But let's say I want to put my carrier at the galactic centre. That's about 26 000 ly from Sol or 52 jumps. Or 104 hours minimum.

Ok. Once you parked your carrier you most likely will have it there for a long period of time but I still feel that's just way too long. My suggestion to the devs would be that you could have some sort of add-on to make the carrier an exploration vessel. That would mean shorter cooldowns, maybe ten or twenty minutes. A bit longer jump range. Perhaps 750 ly. However this means you need to have a drawback on other stuff. Maybe less storage space, not being able to sell or buy commodities, higher maintanence cost.

That's a great suggestion! Keep it in mind for the beta!

 

[Calteru]

I am not an explorer but a BGS player but I am feeling bad for them... Why FD has not decided to some specific FC like mining, explorer,.. that would have impact on cost and so on...
I remember seeing some slides about it, why has it changed ?

The reason they scrapped the support ships (the specializations to loadout to which you refer), they said, was because they felt it limited customization options. Basically, you'd buy a support ship and boof, that's it, you get X and Y and Z but T, U, V, and W would be right out because they'd only be available with a different support ship.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Obsidian ant said you should be able to store the stuff in your cargo before you go. So in theory you could make it to colonia without needing to mine.

That would actually be usable i like it.

Yes you can. But you still need to store it up before you leave. There are pros and cons as there should be. But what you wanted it for, it should be perfectly achievable.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

In order:

* Question's a bit malformed -- the OP was referring to their opinion regarding design by committee. To be fair, "Sharknado" did the concept no favors. OP never stated they were being disagreed with directly.

* There are a number of negative views (and a few positive ones) that don't appear to be properly informed. Without calling anyone out by name, some examples include forgetting wealth is a relative concept (what is onerous for some is trivial for others; tends to result in a frame of reference that is a bit more myopic than might be useful), misinformation about jump range (fuel tank's 1000 tons but the fuel is a commodity and can be stored as such) and the perceived difficulty in acquiring fuel (focus seems to be solely on mining for some when it will also be sold at stations). It would be a good idea to remember during this (and, frankly, every) discussion to maybe leave emotions out of it. It's just a game after all. We're not buying real fleet carriers, we won't have real maintenance. It's all just digital non-stuff, same as every game!

* Well... I've seen that particular view expressed in a number of ways. Some of those views were concise, fact-based, to-the-point and eschewed unfortunately-common logic errors. Other views were more rooted in emotion, and some of those were... wow. REALLY angry. I mean, to read a few of these, it's like they were written in the middle of an active torture session and the writers' perceived enemies were inflicting genuine pain and suffering on them as they wrote. One of the most important things to remember in a conversation about game mechanics and the like (esp. ones that aren't even released or finalized yet) is to approach the discussion in a fact-based, non-angry manner. Comments that attack other people, in particular, have no place in a rational discussion about a video game. I'm painfully aware it's not like that, but ideally it should be. Makes discussions quite a bit more productive.

As far as UC being omitted at the start of the beta -- I'm not sure why. I won't know until I get into the beta. But I definitely think it's important to try and go into the beta with an open mind and no preconceived notions, positive or negative.

That's all fair enough, except i would like the person i replied to to give their answer

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Why can a fleet carrier only jump once every 2 hours (1hr cooldown, 1hr windup) but capitol ships can jump into a CZ and then leave within the same oh.... ~30 minutes or less?
Make the cooldown and windup 10-15 minutes. Then it might have some use for explorers. Also if the Ly jump range is a 1-1 with the tritium fuel, that’s going to suck grinding for long distance travel.

500 LY every 2 hours is roughly the same speed as the NPC ship transfer ferries over a long distance.

Even at better than 1-1 it'd take you more than 2 hours to mine the Tritium in deep space anyway, unless you had a team of miners. I think it's more to stop some potential exploits in the bubble which very fast jumping might allow (or perhaps more accurately, to mean that you needed a fleet of carriers which could jump in shifts to get them to work, and if you've got that level of organisation you probably deserve the benefit)

At 2 hours per jump, you could reach Beagle Point in 10 days (say 20, if you aren't getting up in the middle of the night to plot your next jump) - sure, a record-quality buckyballer can do it in about 6 hours, but the Distant Worlds 2 Expedition took about three months. They won't necessarily be much use to a solo explorer, but they've got plenty of use (and sufficient speed) for a group. For explorers who might go on exploration trips for months or years, does it really matter that much if it takes a few weeks to get their carrier into position first?

Or an exploration-logistics group (like the pre-release First Great Expedition was intended to be) could set up a network of carriers across the galaxy, and then you wouldn't need to buy your own to benefit from their services.

if there is no Universal Cartographcs "module", how deep explorers or rescue operations would survive the upkeep?

Set the market tariff to 100% and sell mined goods to it, perhaps? (or even just 50% tariff, if you park it by a suitable deep-space hotspot)

In some ways that's more realistic for a carrier in the middle of nowhere than selling data is - you can RP that the mined goods are being used to repair the ship directly, rather than the credits from the data being somehow converted directly into repairs 50,000LY from the nearest shipyards.

(But if necessary the owner could make a quick trip to Explorers' Anchorage or Colonia, sell a page of systems, and fund it that way)

 

[UberMeg]

For exploration Fleet Carriers it would be nice to make a cut from Commanders selling their exploration data. I worry that the upkeep might be a stretch too far on those distant carriers.

 

[Calteru]

That's all fair enough, except i would like the person i replied to to give their answer

...oh. Well. My sincere apologies (and I do mean that) for providing an out-of-turn response that apparently wasn't worth discussion. You have my word it will never happen again.

 

[Winterwalker]

Set the market tariff to 100% and sell mined goods to it, perhaps? (or even just 50% tariff, if you park it by a suitable deep-space hotspot)

Agreed, I think there are ways to make that work without carriers acepting Cartographics. For me it would be nice feature if you carrier could Back Up your cartographics data though. Then you can grab your iEagle and go canyon running without worrying about a crash.

 

[Jumpin' Jack Flash]

Hi Folks

I watched the Carrier live stream yesterday, thanks to FD in general for putting together the video and explanation of how Carriers will function in the present game world

I must admit I was a bit surprised that there would be no direct trading with NPC's, and was even more surprised that there would be such a large amount of credits needed for the general upkeep of the Carrier on and off line, even in it's basic form.
I'm not a casual player, I play the game most days now that I'm retired, so yes, I 'could' probably buy the Carrier and also gain enough credits in the week to finance it's running costs.
Then I asked myself, do I want to be tied into the game this way?

I'm still debating that answer, but I think I'll probably pass on using this feature in the game, it's too much of a responsibility personally for me to be 'fun'.
I play mostly in solo, but I do occasionally play in open, so in retrospect I probably wouldn't use it much anyway.

One Question...if I'm offline / playing solo, is the Carrier like other player ships in this mode, invisible to other players?...I suspect it is but just thought to ask.

Jack

 

[Calteru]

For exploration Fleet Carriers it would be nice to make a cut from Commanders selling their exploration data. I worry that the upkeep might be a stretch too far on those distant carriers.

Right now, a couple of days of mining LTDs can provide a lot of cash -- if a miner is diligent enough, probably a sum that can last for an entire year of operating in the black (red?).

I'd love to hear why the developers chose to leave UC out. There had to be a reason since it seems like the kind of feature that would be standard.

 

[Calteru]

One Question...if I'm offline / playing solo, is the Carrier like other player ships in this mode, invisible to other players?...I suspect it is but just thought to ask.

Jack

Hi Jack! Yes, your FC will be visible across all game modes, and (I believe) also while offline. However, FCs are just as indestructible as stations. No harm will befall it at the hands of pirates, should you choose to get one.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Also frontier, your last faq item about the beta is appreciated, but also alarmingly naive.

If we raise feedback again, there is some expectation that the feedback is either discussed by a developer, or some change in your best judgement is made to the spirit of the suggestion.

You do NEITHER during the beta process, and this does nothing but generate strong, negative anger towards you by creating a false expectation by using the term beta. Either act like a beta as to industry standards, or be very clear up front on what is in scope for change for the final release. What you're asking us to do is far worse for your target of a successful launch.

Just in case.. its not just a bunch of passive timid irrelevant forum explorers you're dealing with this time. Everyone else and reddit seems to agree.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

...oh. Well. My sincere apologies (and I do mean that) for providing an out-of-turn response that apparently wasn't worth discussion. You have my word it will never happen again.

I said "that's fair enough" meaning i had no qualms with anything you were saying and had nothing to add in response to it.

 

[Winterwalker]

I'd love to hear why the developers chose to leave UC out. There had to be a reason since it seems like the kind of feature that would be standard.

Probably because upkeep by Jump - Honk - Scoop isn't very challenging?

(Cartographics Data Storage / Back Up would mean something though o7)

 

[Agony_Aunt]

500 LY every 2 hours is roughly the same speed as the NPC ship transfer ferries over a long distance.

Even at better than 1-1 it'd take you more than 2 hours to mine the Tritium in deep space anyway, unless you had a team of miners.

My issue here would be, if i'm out exploring, i'd like to spend the time between jumps exploring the local area, not mining to make the next jump.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Probably because Jump - Honk - Scoop isn't very challenging?

(Cartographics Data Storage / Back Up would mean something though o7)

So now we get jump, honk, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, jump

 

[Winterwalker]

So now we get jump, honk, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, jump

Let's put it this way, Beagle Point is epic again?

 

[Quantis Trap]

Fleet carriers have 8 large, 4, medium and 4 small pads, but it sure would be nice to know the max number of ships which can land. Is it 16?

I saw this:

Q. How many landing pads are there, and will it be possible to store ships on Fleet Carriers?
A. Fleet Carriers have 16 landing pads for the owner and fellow commanders to use. If the Fleet Carrier has the Shipyard Service, commanders will also be able to store their ships onboard (these ships do not use up any additional capacity, the Shipyard handles this for you). The landing and storage of ships acts in the same way as regular starports.

Does that mean that you can dock unlimited ships?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Also frontier, your last faq item about the beta is appreciated, but also alarmingly naive.

If we raise feedback again, there is some expectation that the feedback is either discussed by a developer, or some change in your best judgement is made to the spirit of the suggestion.

You do NEITHER during the beta process, and this does nothing but generate strong, negative anger towards you by creating a false expectation by using the term beta. Either act like a beta as to industry standards, or be very clear up front on what is in scope for change for the final release. What you're asking us to do is far worse for your target of a successful launch.

Just in case.. its not just a bunch of passive timid irrelevant forum explorers you're dealing with this time. Everyone else and reddit seems to agree.

They have changed and added things because of beta in the past. I see no reason why it won't be the same this time.