ANNOUNCEMENT Fleet Carriers - Content Reveal Recap

[Bigmaec]

What have they said that gave any indication the station services are tied to BGS? I got the opposite impression. Seems premature to assume a BM on a carrier exempt from faction contacts will have an effect. It would be nice if it did, though, sure.



You can already use large ships by stationing from adjacent systems which, while less convenient, means the 5bil asking price and upkeep costs seem disproportionate to the gains here, which are measured in a few minutes tops. Moreover we've consistently seen that a wing of medium ships clears CZs faster anyway, due to covering ground quicker. It's long been a classic E mistake to assume bigger=better. Admittedly the latter probably depends on your squadron's skill level.

I'm simply not seeing what you're seeing here, maybe your groups operate very differently to mine, but the benefits these carriers will bring BGS-centric squadrons seem extremely limited so far. Although I'm sure a few of our players will get them just b'cos "hey why not?! Thing to own!" it seems a shame that such a highly anticipated (and delayed) feature offers so little to so many playstyles.

Side note, lmao forever that it's not even actually a fleet carrier until you pay extra. Next content patch: litigation minigame against Brewer Corp. Immersive legal costs included.

You seem not to understand what Rubbernuke proposes, which is good in case we ever run into your faction

In my case, we won a lot of wars in Carcosa the last year, and the option to have a fleet base directly next to a CZ is awesome. We do everything in open, I tend to
fly a PvE optimised Corvette into CZs, the ability to swap ships on a whim is amazing, and it's convenient to repair rearm directly there too.
Clearing a CZ with a combination of Larges and Mediums is always the best way imho. Thank god we have some real crazy FdL drivers around glares at @Phisto Sobanii
Game breaking? No. An advantage? Yes. Worth 5 billion? Alone certainly not, but it's a combination of uses which makes this thing nice. And for our small squadron
of 20 CMDRs it's 750k upkeep a week per CMDR if we pool our money. So basically nothing.

 

[Fake Newts]

You seem not to understand what Rubbernuke proposes, which is good in case we ever run into your faction

I misread and thought he meant selling them on the carrier itself, thanks for the catch. Makes more sense now.

Gonna have to agree to disagree about it being worth it as currently advertised, seems like a missed opportunity in the same vein as multicrew to me... but I wish you good luck with them and much enjoyment with pals regardless.

 

[shadowwar]

No cartographics on board means it is going to be useless for anyone who wants to take this monstrosity exploring. Plus you indicate an hour jump start and another hour cooldown. It will take a long time to get this thing out of the bubble. Meh!

 

[Jigsaw]

I wish you'd rather work on content that people can't only use by grinding for virtual money for months and years, like for example the enhanced planet surfaces that you announced two years ago and then postponed indefinitely.

 

[thistle]

I wish you'd rather work on content that people can't only use by grinding for virtual money for months and years, like for example the enhanced planet surfaces that you announced two years ago and then postponed indefinitely.

Worth remembering the fleet carriers are an intermediate small (relatively) update, part of the content the smaller fdev team have been working on while the majority have been working for 2 years on the 2020 "new era" update.

 

[Bigmaec]

Q. How might an explorer fund their Fleet Carrier's upkeep costs?
A. Whilst Elite Dangerous' top traders might want to turn their Fleet Carrier into a trading post that turns a profit, we expect most Fleet Carriers to be fitted in ways that help players do what they enjoy in the game. For example, explorers who have accrued large sums of cash, they'll be able to take a Fleet Carrier and ferry it out to the remote regions of the galaxy and explore never-before seen locations. Equally, explorers could set their Fleet Carrier up as a trading post in a convenient location to turn a profit while they engage in other activities.

They also said we would earn arx by doing what we enjoy ingame though

 

[Mengy]

Then why the fuss over FCs snubbing explorers? Rather than complain thats its not exploration focused keep on using what you have.

The fuss is for just that reason: FDev snubbed exploration players who were looking forward to utilizing carriers in deep space.

Yes we can keep playing like we have for the past two years with nothing new, but by simply adding Cartography to the carriers FDev could make them completely viable for explorers to enjoy too. Just one little addition is all it would take.

It's that design choice by FDev to purposefully snub explorers which has so many people up in arms. Hence, fuss.

 

[Rubbernuke]

What have they said that gave any indication the station services are tied to BGS? I got the opposite impression. Seems premature to assume a BM on a carrier exempt from faction contacts will have an effect. It would be nice if it did, though, sure. (EDIT: on first skim I missed the "storage" part, thought you meant selling on the BM module of the carrier directly not dumping it to system stations. My mistake.)

Although my favourite way to attack a BGS is to murder everything I can, BM goods are by far the most effective. Once you have a store of items you can keep on feeding the monster, and with a wing or squadron that hurt compounds more and more as everyone smuggles. Done right it will be like a chainsaw.

You can already use large ships by stationing from adjacent systems which, while less convenient, means the 5bil asking price and upkeep costs seem disproportionate to the gains here, which are measured in a few minutes tops.

Which is true, but sometimes you need that flexibility. Outside of CZs and doing murder it sometimes is a huge waste of time having to go back and forwards. Specific places and targets will be mauled having an FC to shorten rearming.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Have a look at this Q&A from Stephen:

Q. How might an explorer fund their Fleet Carrier's upkeep costs?
A. Whilst Elite Dangerous' top traders might want to turn their Fleet Carrier into a trading post that turns a profit, we expect most Fleet Carriers to be fitted in ways that help players do what they enjoy in the game. For example, explorers who have accrued large sums of cash, they'll be able to take a Fleet Carrier and ferry it out to the remote regions of the galaxy and explore never-before seen locations. Equally, explorers could set their Fleet Carrier up as a trading post in a convenient location to turn a profit while they engage in other activities.


And now ask yourself, where all these false expectations "fuss" might be coming from...

Explorers can move their FCs to places and explore? Whats your point?

Plus, explorers who one way jump to places can do the same with carriers, just with consequences this time- or have a buddy tanker to hitch them out Black Buck style.

 

[Bigmaec]

Although my favourite way to attack a BGS is to murder everything I can, BM goods are by far the most effective. Once you have a store of items you can keep on feeding the monster, and with a wing or squadron that hurt compounds more and more as everyone smuggles. Done right it will be like a chainsaw.



Which is true, but sometimes you need that flexibility. Outside of CZs and doing murder it sometimes is a huge waste of time having to go back and forwards. Specific places and targets will be mauled having an FC to shorten rearming.

Yep. Think of locations with a long supercruise travel.

 

[alexzk]

Not sure what the problem with CZ - I insta win it alone on my mk-2, big ones, because they do nice mats drops. Also spending time to collect mats there ...

 

[Bigmaec]

Not sure what the problem with CZ - I insta win it alone on my mk-2, big ones, because they do nice mats drops. Also spending time to collect mats there ...

It's not a problem, it's a question of efficiency and speed. And doing tens or twenties in a row to absolutely stomp any opposition in the first two days already...

 

[Rubbernuke]

The fuss is for just that reason: FDev snubbed exploration players who were looking forward to utilizing carriers in deep space.

Yes we can keep playing like we have for the past two years with nothing new, but by simply adding Cartography to the carriers FDev could make them completely viable for explorers to enjoy too. Just one little addition is all it would take.

It's that design choice by FDev to purposefully snub explorers which has so many people up in arms. Hence, fuss.

So explorers who invented an ideal exploration ship in their heads now know its not what they thought it would be. Plus, unless we knew what the exploration support ship did, its pure guesswork that you've been 'snubbed' and this was done for a calculated reason (which I'd be interested in knowing to be truthful).

The fuss is for just that reason: FDev snubbed exploration players who were looking forward to utilizing carriers in deep space.

Even without UC, FCs can still be used as they are, just not how you wanted it to be used.

Yes we can keep playing like we have for the past two years with nothing new, but by simply adding Cartography to the carriers FDev could make them completely viable for explorers to enjoy too. Just one little addition is all it would take.

I doubt it. Once you have UC then its mining and supporting the ship.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Not sure what the problem with CZ - I insta win it alone on my mk-2, big ones, because they do nice mats drops. Also spending time to collect mats there ...

Its also being able to park an FC anywhere in system. CZ miles out around a distant ball? No problem. Jump to it, and save the potentially 100s of Ly.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Over 200 hours to reach places like Beagle point, if my math is correct. Which means about 2 month if you play 4 hours each day. I guess any Sidewinder would be faster. It's like introducing a pea shooter for PvP and then claiming "hey, you can shoot at people with it, what's your point?".

Who said moving a station is or should be fast? Towing an oil rig takes time. If you want to get somewhere fast, use a fast method to do so.

 

[Bigmaec]

Over 200 hours to reach places like Beagle point, if my math is correct. Which means about 2 month if you play 4 hours each day. I guess any Sidewinder would be faster. It's like introducing a pea shooter for PvP and then claiming "hey, you can shoot at people with it, what's your point?".

The speed I don't see as a problem, just slowboat until at your destination, surveying everything around you.
But the lack of UC I see as a grave mistake. I see no gamebreaking problems in having UC available locally.

 

[alexzk]

So explorers who invented an ideal exploration ship in their heads now know its not what they thought it would be. Plus, unless we knew what the exploration support ship did, its pure guesswork that you've been 'snubbed' and this was done for a calculated reason (which I'd be interested in knowing to be truthful).



Even without UC, FCs can still be used as they are, just not how you wanted it to be used.



I doubt it. Once you have UC then its mining and supporting the ship.

It has 0 reasons to move it out of bubble. Because only they may do - collect things a lot, which are exactly same outside as inside.
And about in-bubble ... limited usage, like park near CZ ...because you still don't need to collect things a lot, except unlocking engineers which is 1 time collection.

 

[Fake Newts]

Not sure what the problem with CZ - I insta win it alone on my mk-2, big ones, because they do nice mats drops. Also spending time to collect mats there ...

The question of carrier usefulness - sometimes CZs are far away from stations, and/or the stations in system don't have good facilities. Best case scenario carriers look like they may reduce the amount of time you have to spend in supercruise. Stopping off at NPC stations will still be necessary to collect missions and drop bonds though.

Again, IMHO, while this is situational QOL, it's fairly minor and offset quite heavily by the apparent demands of running a carrier.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The speed I don't see as a problem, just slowboat until at your destination, surveying everything around you.
But the lack of UC I see as a grave mistake. I see no gamebreaking problems in having UC available locally.

I've got nothing against UC being added, but I'd feel FD have caved if they make FCs instatravel. It has to have downsides being invincible.

 

[Rubbernuke]

It has 0 reasons to move it out of bubble. Because only they may do - collect things a lot, which are exactly same outside as inside.
And about in-bubble ... limited usage, like park near CZ ...because you still don't need to collect things a lot, except unlocking engineers which is 1 time collection.

Hey, thats cool. I just hope if you have a PMF you are ready for the pain they can cause.

And if you are exploring, its like an ED version of a Winnebago motorhome. Not fast, but has a toilet wherever you go.