ANNOUNCEMENT Fleet Carriers - Content Reveal Recap

[Pengman19]

One question I'm curious to have answered by the devs is if this beta is just to test the functionality of FC, or if they are open to making changes.

There are four changes right off the top of my head they should make:

1. Squadrons should be able to pool money to purchase and maintain a FC. In my squadron, multiple individuals can purchase a FC, but there's no benefit to that, not to mention the annual upkeep for the FC is a hefty 500 million. It makes more sense to have the option to utilize the FC as a shared asset AND this will be more engaging for most owners (and thus the goal of getting player retention is better achieved, or at least getting players to take less breaks from the game)
2. FC should have a bigger fuel tank, or for every unit of Tritium it should be able to jump maybe 4 or 5 times that. 1000 fuel = 5000 ly
3. The countdown and cooldown times should be greatly reduced. 1 hour for each is a major letdown. I don't mind there being countdowns and cooldowns, but when you can travel across the galaxy faster in a Anaconda, it seems odd, especially when you take into account the cost of Tritium. Frontier should want the goal of FC to allow players to explore quadrants never visited and to have player bubbles organically created. It opens the door for truly player systems, where they could be player created planetary bases in systems, player created stations in systems, etc. etc.
4. There needs to be more logical ways to make money with your FC. The tariff system probably isn't going to make anyone money, except something like offering to pay X amount for void opals. You could park outside a hotspot, and pay slightly less than the max going rate, but you're saving CMDRs from making a 200ly trip to maximum their profits (most CMDRs will sell them for 90% of what they could get for em. time = money), stock up, and then you make the trip to sell them at a profit. That's nice.
   
   ** But what about the option where FC can purchase a special engineer. You can invest in one or two special engineers (that have the ability to engineer something BEYOND the current max of existing engineers in the game). This way you are offering something that players CANNOT get anywhere else. This will cause players to actually WANT to visit other players FC to see what they have to offer. In addition to this, FC should have the ability to sell custom ships. Meaning, the owner of the FC (or a fellow squadron member) could customize ship loadouts, with engineered modules, etc., and put these ships up for sale for other owners to purchase them. There are surely some owners who don't have or don't want to take the time grind materials, etc., and would pay a pretty penny for these custom ships. AND on top of THIS, the owners of FC can purchase LIVERY packages that are not available anywhere else, and, owners have the ability to make certain customizations to these packages (such as determining style, color scheme, graphics, text, etc.) They can apply these livery packages / styles to their custom ships. Thus creating a brand that other players may demand, may want.

 

[TheFirstAxel]

Will bulk selling from your carrier to a station be possible, or do you have to manually move 25K of commodities a couple of hundred at a time?

 

[CMDR Andronova]

Here are some thoughts on addressing the fueling and cool down issues people have:

I think we have three issues here that need to be addressed:

1. I can control the fleet carrier from the other side of the galaxy, but if it runs out of fuel, I have to drop everything and go refuel it short of me having a squadron of chums in the area or locate a good samaritan to mine for me. That makes the interaction and use of it clunky.
2. As I cannot fly the FC, and I'm paying a crew to do it, should I have to actually micromanage the fueling?
3. The "2-hour cooldown" which is actually 1-hour cooldown and 1-spool up is overly long.

The solutions, therefore, I suggest would be:

1. One of the modules that can be fitted to the FC is a fuel crew. Upon arrival, they can be sent to collect more fuel. In fact, we have the assets of the support ships... maybe they fly one. I'm paying a hefty upkeep price for the FC and the crew... I'd like to think those engineers can earn their wage by refueling.
2. Let's say they collect fuel at 150T per hour. That way I'm not just blasting across the galaxy like crazy. They can also only fuel the tank itself, so they can't fuel up the FC with 25,000 T, just the tank that holds 1000 T. This also doesn't eliminate the CMDR from refueling as they will refuel it faster from mining, but this allows for it to operate as an FC with a crew while incentivizing the CMDR to help speed it up.
3. Eliminate the cooldown. The 1-hour cooldown. Then retune the Spool up as follows:

• If the module/refueling crew are mining for fuel - 1-hour spool up time, allowing the crew to get back and fuel up the FC.
• If the refueling crew is not mining - or that module is not installed - the spool up time is 30 minutes - to ready the FC for jump (for RPers), to allow notifications to go out across the system the jump is taking place, to allow any CMDR to get back. 30 minutes becomes the standard time. Wear and tear is the standard price.
• If the FC engineer overdrives the engineers, the FC can jump within 15 minutes. This uses 1.5x standard fuel.

You could also add the following elements for incentivization for directions to take from what they added in-game for wear and tear costs:

• 1-hour Spool = The cost of wear and tear is 25% less than normal.
• 30-minute Spool = Standard wear and tear cost.
• 15-minute Spool = 1.5x wear and tear cost.

Just some more creative thoughts on how to approach this.

 

[GraphiteGB]

Will bulk selling from your carrier to a station be possible, or do you have to manually move 25K of commodities a couple of hundred at a time?

Support ships are gone so having a cargo firm take your cargo and sell it is likely gone... so its back to Offering a Discount to get players to move it from carrier to station or getting your T9 out.. or doing both..
The good thing is using system map to set jump will allow the carrier to be as close to the station as the available free slots allow in that system...

 

[simonwoods]

How about a Science Vessel version of the Fleet Carrier? Designed to roam the galaxy with specific services for exploration...data gathering, biology, geology, spatial phenomenon, new civilisations, cultures. Crewed by people funded by an external body. Keep the hi cost. Keep, if we must, the limit to player only purchase (as opposed to squadron). Limit services - no redemption office, no massive cargo carrying capacity. The ability to carry ships, SRVs (and maybe other types in the future), fighters. Player owner responsible for wear and tear upkeep aspect, but commissioning Ody pays for crew wages.

Therefore, you have something that goes someway to satisfy the exploring community. And perhaps the people who like to carry passengers (maybe a mega liner version).

Perhaps these versions are smaller than the FCs proposed with the trading, bounty, miniarket.

 

[Loophole]

Thank you very much for the Fleet Carriers reveal livestream. It answered many questions, and created many more - I look forward to the beta tests!

The one thing I wasn't really taken with, though, was the fleet-carrier jump-sequence. From a technical and audio point of view it was great, but I felt there was ... perhaps a bit too much Hollywood, and not enough science? What I would have loved to have seen would be something more like this work by Scott Manley: <

Source: https://youtu.be/V7e-1bRpweo
> and <

Source: https://youtu.be/PVO8nvb1o2w
>. If it could be simulated in a sufficiently computationally-efficient manner this would give us a wormhole effect that would look super-cool, and be scientifically accurate (to the limits of our current understanding). If you could also manage to render a view of the actual destination system as a skybox to use for the "far side", then you would even be able to get views of the ringed gas-giant, earthlike, or neutron star that is the destination, through the wormhole! That would be amazing! (and that skybox could be prepared ahead of time during the spin-up sequence!)

But there is one more thing that I would beg you to consider:

Please, please; make it possible for other ships in instance with the fleet carrier to attempt to fly through the wormhole at the same time!

Why would you want do this? Because it would be awesome, and could spawn an entire new extreme sport in the universe of Elite!

Now, this would definitely have to be an extremely risky proposition. Apart from the risk of catastrophic collision with the transiting fleet carrier, the energies and spatial distortion should make such a transit extremely risky:

• Buffeting effects like those experienced in a neutron-star plume
• Ongoing damage effects such as experienced when dropped to normal space in a neutron-star plume
• and in addition, the risk of random module failures due to radiation and spatial distortion, which if it happens to be your drive or power plant, could mean almost certain destruction
• All of these effects should get worse the closer to the "rim" of the wormhole you transited, forcing commanders to fly as close to the fleet carrier as they dare, in turn risking being buffeted into a collision.
• Such transits would only be possible from a second or so before the fleet carrier transits, to a second or so after.

The result would be an extreme sport akin to white-water rafting, except in space, and with radioactive water, and sharing the rapids with a container ship!

 

[TheFirstAxel]

Support ships are gone so having a cargo firm take your cargo and sell it is likely gone... so its back to Offering a Discount to get players to move it from carrier to station or getting your T9 out.. or doing both..
The good thing is using system map to set jump will allow the carrier to be as close to the station as the available free slots allow in that system...

Oof. That takes away from some of their use. I guess you gotta do something while the crew plays with themselves for an hour after the jump.

 

[A D]

How about a Science Vessel version of the Fleet Carrier? Designed to roam the galaxy with specific services for exploration...data gathering, biology, geology, spatial phenomenon, new civilisations, cultures. Crewed by people funded by an external body. Keep the hi cost. Keep, if we must, the limit to player only purchase (as opposed to squadron). Limit services - no redemption office, no massive cargo carrying capacity. The ability to carry ships, SRVs (and maybe other types in the future), fighters. Player owner responsible for wear and tear upkeep aspect, but commissioning Ody pays for crew wages.

Therefore, you have something that goes someway to satisfy the exploring community. And perhaps the people who like to carry passengers (maybe a mega liner version).

Perhaps these versions are smaller than the FCs proposed with the trading, bounty, miniarket.

A specific exploration version is a good idea IMO.

However, exploration using an FC is not going anywhere if the owner can't pay the upkeep costs when its parked thousands of light years away in the deep. Not a soul to be found and no way for the owner (or anyone) to sell exploration data to the FC (based on the beta details just released).

Not sure yet how the FC bank account transfer works, but assuming you don't need to be near the FC and can just use the FC management option in your ship to transfer funds, how are you going to earn money in your ship when you are sitting on your FC in the middle of nowhere? Ah, exploration data - see above.

The answer given by FD on this topic appears to miss Obsidian Ant's question. FD seems to be saying a player can park the FC in the deep and use it as a trading post (maybe cool if there was one parked at Beagle Point), but realistically how many players are going to travel to the FC when in the deep, much less trade with it. In any case, they can't sell the exploration data to the FC so it will just be for a chat and coffee?

Even assuming the above changes and exploration data can be sold to the FC, unless it is the owner selling the data (so he can then transfer it to the FC) most of the money will go to the player selling the data - the cut that the FC gets from "tariff" will probably not be enough to wet the sides.

As a general comment, I have to say that at this point I'm not thinking FC's are going to be much fun. I've been eagerly waiting for the release of FC's but ATM there are just too many indications that they will be expensive to buy, costly and work to maintain, nerfed in strange ways and grindy as [biowaste] to use - another example of FD mistaking work for gameplay. I really really hope I'm totally wrong on this, but you only need to read this thread to see how many things look out of shape with FC's from the get go. For Pete's sake, you can't even fly the things and gotta sit there for two hours staring at space just to jump (If you have the grindum fuel), so it's looking like a nope from me.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Why on earth would everyone bring their own fleet carriers. That's just stupid.

I don't think its stupid. I think a Distant Worlds based on everyone taking Fleet Carriers would be a cool idea.

Its perhaps stupid in the context of how we understand they are to be implemented now. Its not stupid if FD reduce the costs.

Your position seems to be FD shouldn't change things and won't change things, therefore live with it.

I'm trying to offer feedback which i think would be better for the game. People might disagree with me. FD might disagree with me. That's fine.

Regardless, i'd still like to go exploring alone with my fleet carrier as well, and in that case, there won't be lots of other people around to refuel me.

 

[Maggie_Oz]

One question I'm curious to have answered by the devs is if this beta is just to test the functionality of FC, or if they are open to making changes.

There are four changes right off the top of my head they should make:

1. Squadrons should be able to pool money to purchase and maintain a FC. In my squadron, multiple individuals can purchase a FC, but there's no benefit to that, not to mention the annual upkeep for the FC is a hefty 500 million. It makes more sense to have the option to utilize the FC as a shared asset AND this will be more engaging for most owners (and thus the goal of getting player retention is better achieved, or at least getting players to take less breaks from the game)
2. FC should have a bigger fuel tank, or for every unit of Tritium it should be able to jump maybe 4 or 5 times that. 1000 fuel = 5000 ly
3. The countdown and cooldown times should be greatly reduced. 1 hour for each is a major letdown. I don't mind there being countdowns and cooldowns, but when you can travel across the galaxy faster in a Anaconda, it seems odd, especially when you take into account the cost of Tritium. Frontier should want the goal of FC to allow players to explore quadrants never visited and to have player bubbles organically created. It opens the door for truly player systems, where they could be player created planetary bases in systems, player created stations in systems, etc. etc.
4. There needs to be more logical ways to make money with your FC. The tariff system probably isn't going to make anyone money, except something like offering to pay X amount for void opals. You could park outside a hotspot, and pay slightly less than the max going rate, but you're saving CMDRs from making a 200ly trip to maximum their profits (most CMDRs will sell them for 90% of what they could get for em. time = money), stock up, and then you make the trip to sell them at a profit. That's nice.
   
   ** But what about the option where FC can purchase a special engineer. You can invest in one or two special engineers (that have the ability to engineer something BEYOND the current max of existing engineers in the game). This way you are offering something that players CANNOT get anywhere else. This will cause players to actually WANT to visit other players FC to see what they have to offer. In addition to this, FC should have the ability to sell custom ships. Meaning, the owner of the FC (or a fellow squadron member) could customize ship loadouts, with engineered modules, etc., and put these ships up for sale for other owners to purchase them. There are surely some owners who don't have or don't want to take the time grind materials, etc., and would pay a pretty penny for these custom ships. AND on top of THIS, the owners of FC can purchase LIVERY packages that are not available anywhere else, and, owners have the ability to make certain customizations to these packages (such as determining style, color scheme, graphics, text, etc.) They can apply these livery packages / styles to their custom ships. Thus creating a brand that other players may demand, may want.

Very good ideas, nice to seem something well thought out and positive in amongst the flotsam of whining.

 

[Lyvan Kitaen]

On the upkeep: 10m doesn't seem much for those who can afford it, for those who don't mine their heart out, it's too much.
10m is a well paying passenger trip. VIP class!
Assassination missions don't pay more than 2m a pop.
And how many crew member am I exactly paying here? even at 10'000 CR/week, I'm pretty much hiring 100 CEOs and managing directors to do grunt work and refill gas tanks.

I hired an SLF pilot that I've had for maybe 3 months. I trained her from harmless and now she's elite, so she gets a 10% cut of my profits. She's made 325 Million credits in that time (none from mining BTW). That's enough to pay 32+ weeks of the upkeep of a base FC. She's just one crewmember. I would say that makes your FC crew a bargain in comparison.

 

[Lyvan Kitaen]

I really could have used a FC with that community goal a few months back where the turn-in station was 160K ls away from the jump-in point.

If CG's ever come back. I could definitely see a use for collecting rarer commodities far away, then jumping in, and unloading 24K of stuff.

 

[Lyvan Kitaen]

According to the reveal video they charge Arx for all Fleet Carrier cosmetics. Basic cosmetics should be free, because players like to customize their FC as Alliance, Empire, Federation or Independent. This could be unlocked while playing. Additional cosmetics can be purchased.

They don't do that for regular ships, why should they do it for FCs?

 

[Cosmo]

They don't do that for regular ships, why should they do it for FCs?

It's boring to only see the same FC designs. People like to roleplay as a superpower without spending extra money. By making a few cosmetics available in-game for free the FC will be more fun to use and players have additional incentive to reach those goals.

 

[Brrokk]

Sorry, we don't have crossplay across platforms. Unless there's some magic brewing behind the scenes that's going to be a part of this that they haven't discussed, player assets are unique to the platform. If that weren't the case, then we'd be able to see each other regardless of platform and wing up and stuff. We just can't do that at present.

Yes, but I would have guessed that carriers are more akin to stations than player assets, and those have the same states on all platforms. Well, it will be interesting to see.

 

[Patrick_68000]

These fleet carriers seems incredible.

The development complexity must not be an easy task.

--------------------------------------------

 

[simonwoods]

A specific exploration version is a good idea IMO.

However, exploration using an FC is not going anywhere if the owner can't pay the upkeep costs when its parked thousands of light years away in the deep. Not a soul to be found and no way for the owner (or anyone) to sell exploration data to the FC (based on the beta details just released).

Not sure yet how the FC bank account transfer works, but assuming you don't need to be near the FC and can just use the FC management option in your ship to transfer funds, how are you going to earn money in your ship when you are sitting on your FC in the middle of nowhere? Ah, exploration data - see above.

The answer given by FD on this topic appears to miss Obsidian Ant's question. FD seems to be saying a player can park the FC in the deep and use it as a trading post (maybe cool if there was one parked at Beagle Point), but realistically how many players are going to travel to the FC when in the deep, much less trade with it. In any case, they can't sell the exploration data to the FC so it will just be for a chat and coffee?

Even assuming the above changes and exploration data can be sold to the FC, unless it is the owner selling the data (so he can then transfer it to the FC) most of the money will go to the player selling the data - the cut that the FC gets from "tariff" will probably not be enough to wet the sides.

As a general comment, I have to say that at this point I'm not thinking FC's are going to be much fun. I've been eagerly waiting for the release of FC's but ATM there are just too many indications that they will be expensive to buy, costly and work to maintain, nerfed in strange ways and grindy as [biowaste] to use - another example of FD mistaking work for gameplay.

I completely agree. There are many issues and FD need to really think again. I have put in another post how costs could easily be covered with some imagination on FDs behalf, including being able to sell cartographics, but also from selling tickets to interested NPC parties: scientists, tourists, geologists, biologists, etc.

 

[Apocalysse]

In my opinion FDev, must think of stop grinding.
It's nice that the FC need a new fuel, it's not nice that mining that will require hours of mining.
It would be better that this new fuel will come out from some type of star class, and require a new type of fuel scope mounted on normal ships. That FS, will fill a 500t cargo in about 20 min, after you have to return to your FC, 10 min preparation for jump and a cooldown that will be every 10LY, 1 min cooldown (so you if you made 100LY jumps are 10min CD, but at 500Ly are 50min cooldown) but you can made 2 consecutive jumps that lead a longer cooldown of 10Ly for 1,5 min cooldown (so for 1000Ly will be 150min CD), a little cooldown of 5 minutes between them and a preparation of 15 min for the jump.
In that way you can accomplish several things:
=> You can see in advance the star that can provide you fuel
=> You don't have to grind, only to go around a star
=> The Jump time is fair enough for moving in the bubble and exploration
=> The Jump time is fair enough when you need a very long jump for reasons

My 2 cents ^^

 

[Kuif]

In my opinion FDev, must think of stop grinding.
It's nice that the FC need a new fuel, it's not nice that mining that will require hours of mining.
It would be better that this new fuel will come out from some type of star class, and require a new type of fuel scope mounted on normal ships. That FS, will fill a 500t cargo in about 20 min, after you have to return to your FC, 10 min preparation for jump and a cooldown that will be every 10LY, 1 min cooldown (so you if you made 100LY jumps are 10min CD, but at 500Ly are 50min cooldown) but you can made 2 consecutive jumps that lead a longer cooldown of 10Ly for 1,5 min cooldown (so for 1000Ly will be 150min CD), a little cooldown of 5 minutes between them and a preparation of 15 min for the jump.
In that way you can accomplish several things:
=> You can see in advance the star that can provide you fuel
=> You don't have to grind, only to go around a star
=> The Jump time is fair enough for moving in the bubble and exploration
=> The Jump time is fair enough when you need a very long jump for reasons

My 2 cents ^^

I agree, in my opinion this jump mechanics is the biggest flaw in the Carrier. Mining for fuel looks like a big grind, although I have to wait for the Beta to be certain about this. I'm not sure what the thinking is behind the hours of waiting to jump, giving the CMDR's on board the change to jump ship before they are 500 LY away? If the visiting CMDR is sleeping he could find himself waking up in the black several 1000's of LY away from the bubble stuck with his Sidewinder without scoop.

If it turns out that you have to spend several hours to prepare a carrier to jump then I feel another open letter heading up to this forum. But let's see what the Beta will tell us....

 

[Navin'del]

From my understanding, choosing one of the three support vessels meant you could not have the abilities offered by the other two choices. So if you picked Exploration, you got UC but didn't have commodity capacity or combat contacts. If you picked mining, no combat contacts or UC. If you picked combat, then everyone felt sorry for that person because what are you gonna do there?

It likely also meant a static upkeep cost with only the option (likely onerous) to change support vessels. Imagine having to change support vessels every time you wanted an ability not offered by your current support vessel.

Well, that would still be better option than now, at least for some of archetypes that got totally shafted in this change (looking at you, exploration...)