Fleet Carriers seem to come with quite a few benefit as well as close-to-crippling costs. This is especially the case for explorers that will have to seriously top up the onboard credit account to be able to take them anywhere for prolonged periods of time.
One solution often suggested is to add Universal Cartographics to the carriers, as explorers should then be happy to make up to 150 million/week bagging tags to keep the boats running, as well as mining tritium. That in itself sounds exhausting, but it also come with gameplay, lore and BGS economics issues. In fact, it seems a very simplistic solution to the problem of using carriers for exploration.
The reason for not having UC onboard fleet carriers can be explained as the tech being very expensive and energy-draining to run. Also, UC as a company may not have the interest in spreading the tech around like that, as they probably get their income from the trade network resulting from using their technology. The equipment could also simply be too bulky for most megaships, although we know some ships like the Gnosis were able to carry the equipment. Yet these were faction-backed and flown by committee.
Regardless, explorers will still need means to get their carriers out in the black and pay for them. Maybe this could be facilitated by adapting FDs management game abilities to real world exploration mechanics. In short, let's make it possible for explorers to substitute the credit drain with mined commodities (besides trititum) and materials. The method could go as follows:
Firstly, each facility that can be added to a fleet carrier should get its running costs divided into goods, energy and manpower. The goods could be overall classes and use ratios similar to (but not the same as) the Materials Traders.
To enable this, the number of crew needed to run each facility and their consumables requirements will need to be calculated and balanced for gameplay. This would also make use of the less commonly traded commodities we usually only have need for in missions.
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One solution often suggested is to add Universal Cartographics to the carriers, as explorers should then be happy to make up to 150 million/week bagging tags to keep the boats running, as well as mining tritium. That in itself sounds exhausting, but it also come with gameplay, lore and BGS economics issues. In fact, it seems a very simplistic solution to the problem of using carriers for exploration.
The reason for not having UC onboard fleet carriers can be explained as the tech being very expensive and energy-draining to run. Also, UC as a company may not have the interest in spreading the tech around like that, as they probably get their income from the trade network resulting from using their technology. The equipment could also simply be too bulky for most megaships, although we know some ships like the Gnosis were able to carry the equipment. Yet these were faction-backed and flown by committee.
Regardless, explorers will still need means to get their carriers out in the black and pay for them. Maybe this could be facilitated by adapting FDs management game abilities to real world exploration mechanics. In short, let's make it possible for explorers to substitute the credit drain with mined commodities (besides trititum) and materials. The method could go as follows:
Firstly, each facility that can be added to a fleet carrier should get its running costs divided into goods, energy and manpower. The goods could be overall classes and use ratios similar to (but not the same as) the Materials Traders.
- A carrier will have additional accounts to keep on top of, for expendable goods, food and water.
- When a Carrier is in an occupied system, the running costs default to Credits Only and upkeep is similar to what they are at during the beta (or whatever they end up being).
- The stores are continuously depleted as long as the Carrier is running.
- All accounts are continuously topped up to a set value determined by the owner while the upkeep is paid in full.
- This means the Carrier is buying all its supplies from the local market.
- The storage values can be adjusted, but space more than the standard will convert general storage space to storage space for consumables. Maybe the total storage space should be expanded then, even doubled.
- Commodities can be moved from general storage to the consumables storage, but not the other way around.
- The owner can toggle all or some of the cost categories off, which then requires onboard stocks to be replenished manually.
- This will lower the upkeep costs in credits, but requires the category set to manual to be topped up by the owner of the Carrier.
- The consumables accounts will then deplete at a rate depending on the configuration of the Fleet Carrier, on number and types of facilities added.
- Material banks should also be added to the Carriers then, to allow for storage of common compounds.
- The commodities and materials needed should be very common, and should not necessarily be exactly stated.
- Water and organic compounds can be mined from ice rings.
- Basic ores can be mined from rocky and metallic rings.
- Materials can be gathered from surface outcrops and meteorites, and from general mining operations.
- More valuable commodities can be left out of the equation, but could be used for temporary bonuses of some sort.
- When a Carrier leaves an occupied system, all upkeep except personnel salaries stop and the consumable storage starts depleting.
- The owner will have to top up storage during long voyages into unoccupied space.
- Rate of consumables depletion should be relatively slow, to allow extended voyages - draining a full basic storage without replenishing should take at least a month.
- If any storage is approaching empty, the owner will get warnings from ship officers.
- If any storage is depleted, the crew will abandon the Carrier and the owner will only be able to refuel and jump the Carrier.
- System with small or hostile population may not be able or willing to resupply the carrier, also triggering the consumable storage drain.
To enable this, the number of crew needed to run each facility and their consumables requirements will need to be calculated and balanced for gameplay. This would also make use of the less commonly traded commodities we usually only have need for in missions.
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