Fleet Carriers.

[Bigmull]

So you think you want one?Well consider this.
a.It costs 8 billion to buy
b.it then costs around 42,000,000,000 to fit it out and that doesnt include stock either.
c.there then is about a 40,000/ly jump cost in fuel
d.there is about a 41,000,000 WEEKLY upkeep charge
e.there are no Cartographics aboard to sell data etc

I know these are Beta prices so are subject to change,but hell THATS A LOT of money!!!!

 

[Pyrotiger]

Rejoice, it's 5 billion not 8!

I also heard you have to wait one hour between jumps. For me, that was the final nail in the coffin, that went through the hippo's head, who was lying underneath 374 battleships.

 

[Thwarptide]

So you think you want one?Well consider this.
a.It costs 8 billion to buy
b.it then costs around 42,000,000,000 to fit it out and that doesnt include stock either.
c.there then is about a 40,000/ly jump cost in fuel
d.there is about a 41,000,000 WEEKLY upkeep charge
e.there are no Cartographics aboard to sell data etc

I know these are Beta prices so are subject to change,but hell THATS A LOT of money!!!!

Yeah, and they don't even come with built in cup holders.
Even if I had 10x the credits and the cash flow for upkeep....... No way.

 

[Tired Tyres]

It's a very great big NO from me as well. Any form of upkeep cost is totally unacceptable. Instead the crew should take a percentage of your income like the pilots do when you get a fighter in your ship.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Im really not feeling owning a fleet carrier. It seems to me that, even though they are not squadron exclusive, they would be most easily maintained specifically by a squadron. I think i liked the original concept of different types of role specific carrier better.

With all the upkeep costs and initial start up and purchase costs and the fact that if i decide to play a different game for a while i might have my carrier decommissioned, i dont think i will be buying one anytime soon. I think OA said it comes to something like 7 billion a year to keep it running. I've been playing since 2017 and my assets are less than 3 billion.

I feel like i would have to be mining or selling the entire time i play to pay for the carrier. Also, i saw that all the costs are subject to change before it goes live. Lets all hope

 

[Yargulius]

Stop calling them Fleet Carriers.
In the basic implementation they are not.
They are Market places that can be moved at GREAT expense.

 

[Lngjohnsilver1]

Yeah - nah. And as above what Fleet? Carrying where? It's a 'mobile' garage and even then likely not very mobile. ZERO interesting gameplay for me thanks... they could've spent their time and effort on any number of a hundred improvements and we get this...*sigh".

Would've been better with a scalable planetary 'build you own base' and economy model that actually DID fit in with the BGS / NPC's / Missions and Players but hey....

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Theres still the paid dlc for that possibly

 

[[PS5] sound-fx]

I've gone off the idea of owning one now and I'm slightly put off playing now I've seen what I was looking forward too.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

The numbers I've seen suggest 147 million a week (fully upgraded) and 1 hour spin up to jump with 1 hour cool down.

They seem to be implemented with no clear idea of what to do with them beyond maintaining it. Is there anything here for a squadron other than asserting your presence in a system? It just seems like a vanity object. Ok it comes with cargo and increased module storage, but at the cost of more than buying a T-9 per week it's not exactly a solution to that.

Or maybe it's just meant to be a bulk transportation tool for miners?

 

[Badman76]

I've not played online yet but how profitable is bounty hunting in a wing? Could this help pay with some of the FC upkeep costs if 4 cmdrs turned in bounty vouchers at one of the cmdrs FC?

 

[Dillon Fallon]

I've not played online yet but how profitable is bounty hunting in a wing? Could this help pay with some of the FC upkeep costs if 4 cmdrs turned in bounty vouchers at one of the cmdrs FC?

Typically I could get about 4-5 million in bounties without calling it a grind and this without a KWS. In theory that would translate to about 6-7 million on average. The best day I've ever had got me 12 million and that was with KWS.

As a wing of 4, taking the 4 million per day value, you're looking at 112 million per week playing every day, but still leaving time for other stuff (the assumption there is that the FC is for hardcore players here), so in theory you could pay things off this way with only a small daily top up. That's a theoretical worst case value based on maintaining upkeep on the most expensive carrier.

I don't know how much of the bounties turned in goes to support the carrier however.

 

[Snowymonk]

Without being able to play on PC, I have only gone by the twitch and YouTube streams so things may change by beta 2.

I have gone from 'must have' to 'possibly' purchase.

I am hoping that some of the bugs and features are ironed out quickly.
Some issues sound easy to address, others are going to take a while to fix. (if ever)

• I think that the exclusion of Universal Cartographics is an oversight.
• I think that the shipyard should be in the base purchase rather than commoditiy market. I don't have a problem with the ability to sell ships needing to be bought over the base carrier.
• I think that ongoing costs should be lowered (possibly linked to the number of active / non active crew members staffing the extra features that we buy. A flat crew wage per person rather than a variable upkeep costs, depending on the purchased feature.)

As long as it can be fully managed remotely then just making those changes will move it back up to the 'must have' category.

 

[Konan]

Without being able to play on PC, I have only gone by the twitch and YouTube streams so things may change by beta 2.

I have gone from 'must have' to 'possibly' purchase.

I am hoping that some of the bugs and features are ironed out quickly.
Some issues sound easy to address, others are going to take a while to fix. (if ever)

• I think that the exclusion of Universal Cartographics is an oversight.
• I think that the shipyard should be in the base purchase rather than commoditiy market. I don't have a problem with the ability to sell ships needing to be bought over the base carrier.
• I think that ongoing costs should be lowered (possibly linked to the number of active / non active crew members staffing the extra features that we buy. A flat crew wage per person rather than a variable upkeep costs, depending on the purchased feature.)

As long as it can be fully managed remotely then just making those changes will move it back up to the 'must have' category.

The exclusion of cartographic services was not an oversight...but intentional by design. Theyre afraid of it affecting their baby....the bgs.

 

[Snowymonk]

The exclusion of cartographic services was not an oversight...but intentional by design. Theyre afraid of it affecting their baby....the bgs.

Someone will need to explain to me how it will affect the BGS

Current UC:
Find something, scan some planets, travel 200ly, approach a station (aligned to a faction) and cash in your scans.
You receive credits for cashing in
You receive ARX for exploration
Station receiving the scan data gets a BGS boost.

FC UC:
Find something, scan some planets, travel to a FC (current system location can be used to determine the 200ly value if it still needs to be maintained) and cash in your scans
You receive credits for cashing in
You receive ARX for exploration (or not if FC = true for example)
FC is not aligned to a particular faction in the system so BGS affect = zero.

This might be an issue if the total exploration = BGS affect was a zero sum equation but it isn't. There is a lot of space out there not yet discovered and unlikely ot be discovered in the lifetime of this game and cashing in exploration data in any one system has no bearing on the information being viewed in another.

 

[KW001]

I've not played online yet but how profitable is bounty hunting in a wing? Could this help pay with some of the FC upkeep costs if 4 cmdrs turned in bounty vouchers at one of the cmdrs FC?

Even solo its possible to make hundreds of millions in a night, but its circumstantial and can require a bit of initial leg work. Ideally, you've gotta find the right group of systems where every faction in a system (preferably two systems so you've 10+ factions to pick missions from) will be handing out pirate massacre contracts, with each faction targeting the same pirates in the same nearby system (I prefer doing the missions in a HAZ, so I always double check the target system has one. Others Ive chatted to about cross-faction stacking pirate massacres prefer killing the target pirates in signal sources that spawn specifically for the mission). This allows you to have a stack of missions you can all complete in one go. For example if Ive got 5 factions offering missions in System A, and 5 factions in System B, then I'll accept two missions from each faction so I reach the 20 mission limit. I try to keep the total kill count required by each faction roughly even, depending on how long I think I'll be playing for.

I stumbled on that kind of situation a week or two after the 3.0 update, as I was passing through Pleiades Nebula, and its how I made virtually all my money for two years (I hate trading, and have only mined whats necessary to unlock engineers). The only downside was that it took 18 minutes to reach the HAZ where I completed the missions, but the money was great so I didnt really mind heading down there for a few runs a couple of times a month. Once combat payouts got a buff, I averaged about 140-150 million an hour (thats including the travel time collecting/handing in missions, and the trek out to the HAZ in the target system). Unfortunately over time the pirates the local factions were targeting (it was Ant Hill Mob, down in Maia) continued to lose influence in the region and the pirate massacres had pretty much dried up when I was last playing back in December. I did have a backup group of massacre contract systems (grabbed the missions from stations in LHS 277 & Momoirent, target system with the pirates is Mbutsi) conveniently close to Shinrarta Dezhra where the money could be pretty decent, but it was nowhere near as consistent. There were fewer factions to pick from and they werent often all offering pirate massacres at the same time. Payouts from however many missions I was able to stack each run ranged anywhere from as low as 30, up to 100 million an hour, but not often higher than 70 or 80 per hour (Thats actually not that bad for a solo player, but once you get used to 150, you're used to 150). Because of the 18 minute supercruise trip down in Maia, I could never manage to convince any of my mates to join me, and by the time I moved to LHS 277 & Momoirent, pretty much all my mates had stopped playing Elite, so Ive always done those missions solo and have absolutely no idea how much you might be able to make with a wing of cmdrs. With a full wing, if you manage to find a good group of systems like Pleiades Nebula used to be, I imagine you could make over a billion in 3 and a bit hours.

I havent played in a while so its entirely possible the amount of missions on offer in those systems has improved (or gotten worse, I suppose) and you might be able to make some good money. If you feel like checking it out head to Jahn Dock in Momoirent and Rowley Port in LHS 277. Pirate massacres targeting Mbutsi Jet Syndicate are what you're looking for. Only 20 or 30 light years from Jameson Memorial. And If an almost 20 minute supercruise doesnt bother you, the Maia/Ant Hill Mob stations are listed in the link below (old post I made on reddit a year so ago). There are more systems/stations to pick missions from down there, but if you cant find two where every faction has the massacres on offer, its not worth the time (or maybe you're not fixated on 150 million an hour and it might still be worth it). I was considering reinstalling Elite and going to have a check myself, but reading the details on fleet carriers tonight has reminded me of one of the reasons I stopped playing.


Ant Hill Mob Pirate Massacres

edit: typos.