Frontier's Mistake

[Faded Glory]

I'm not done with the game. Been playing since 2014, play in VR, enjoy flying spaceships.

That said, FC's don't (on the face of it, will look at the beta) seem to have much to offer me, despite the fact that I can comfortably afford one. Shame really.

Somewhat mystified, sometimes disappointed in FD's approach to the game, but that's been the case for some time. But the base game, flying spaceships (especially in VR) is very compelling - just a bit of a shame that there isn't a bit more variety in what we can do while flying them. Still, that's old news.

 

[Old Duck]

It seems that all fecal-storm is focused on the same topic, which is pretty new to me.

Cough ADS vs FSS cough.

This community has never been so united. This time it would be pretty easily for FDEV to manage the situation because the message coming out from the biggest ED communities (this forum, discord, reddit) is pretty clear:

• add universal cartographic for exploration mode.
• reduce the initial cost
• reduce or delete the upkeep cost (or make it as a percentage of the FC services income)
• reduce jumping time

I'm not demanding for any of these things, and only one of those things (cartography services) is on my "That sure would be nice, Frontier, but I can technically live without it" list.

So that kinda shoots down your, "this community has never been so united" claim, does it not? As the very old saying goes, "Speak for yourself!"

 

[Watcher]

I'm basing this more on all the negative feedback I'm reading about Fleet Carriers rather than my own feelings about them. Simply put, I believe Frontier's mistake was to focus solely on content for the "classes" while providing nothing for the "masses". Had the update included something that ALL players could enjoy, be it a new SRV or a new type of SLF (something for shuttling or mining), or perhaps the new ice planets, or a new ship or two (small or large this time), or [insert frequently-requested new feature], then I think there would be less, "That's it, I'm done!" threads. People would still complain about FCs, but at least everyone would have something to look forward to.

Am I wrong? If you're one of the people who are now "done" with Elite, would you feel differently if this update had something for you, even if that something wasn't Fleet Carriers? Even though I'm not angry about Fleet Carriers, I definitely want to see more content for the masses, not the classes*.

* credit to Jack Tramiel of Commodore

I'm not done with E either but I think you're right. I know this is the Fleet Carrier update but be kind of nice to throw the rest of the player base a bone..

 

[npcole]

I think their mistake was not explaining their thinking. I think there’s only one clear design flaw, which is that the jump range is too low (or the spin up spin down time is too high).
They didn’t say clearly who they were aiming at and what the gameplay was supposed to be.
I think the idea that a lone explorer would want one of these is a bit crazy. It’s clearly not what they are for.
But Frontier at no point said, “This is what we are trying to achieve.” People were left to infer it, and most of them said, “but why didn’t you make it for meeeeeeeeee?”

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Thing is, I can cash my expo data at any asteroid base found in most nebula, thus I can already head out and never return. /OT

Just a little point:
There's no asteroid base passed Sag A*.
The far side of the galaxy is 100% uninhabited. If you go to Beagle Point consider that you will only be able to sell your data once you're back to Explorer's Anchorage.
You'd better stay on this side of the galaxy in this case.

 

[Old Duck]

In most nebula? What game are you playing <erm sorry> not playing?

What are you on about now? Speak clearly, not in riddles.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Cough ADS vs FSS cough.

I'm not demanding for any of these things, and only one of those things (cartography services) is on my "That sure would be nice, Frontier, but I can technically live without it" list.

So that kinda shoots down your, "this community has never been so united" claim, does it not? As the very old saying goes, "Speak for yourself!"

Hey I was not quoting you!
I was talking about the complaints that you can find in the communities, never "heard" such a choir

 

[Burke]

Im just gonna leave this here cause this thread looks like a good place.

Imagine if they renamed carriers to "mobile stations" and did sometihng to them to keep them out of the way of explorers. This would allow FD another bite of the cherry so to speak, another chance to get things right while at the same time not taking "carriers" away from whoever they are for. Small medium and large ships that are able to hold one or more other ships can all be grouped under carrier class vessles. This would allow sensible carriers with fighters but also explorers second home thats only able to carrry perhaps one or two small ships. Cause this is what people really wanted isnt it?

UC should not ever be part of carriers or any other ship.

 

[Old Duck]

Just a little point:
There's no asteroid base passed Sag A*.
The far side of the galaxy is 100% uninhabited. If you go to Beagle Point consider that you will only be able to sell your data once you're back to Explorer's Anchorage.
You'd better stay on this side of the galaxy in this case.

I already do that. The other side of the galaxy is fake (we can't see it from Earth), and if I wanted to play in a fake galaxy, I'd play NMS. At least on our side there's lots of stars and nebula based on actual RL stars and nebula.

And while I do hear what you are saying, if you are at Beagle Point, are you going to travel all the way back to the Bubble to cash in your data, or will you instead head to the closest asteroid base? In other words, if Frontier is leaving out stellar cartography to bring us back to the Bubble, it won't work.

What all explorers should do is buy a fleet carrier and then fill all the popular systems in the Bubble - ShinDez, Deciat, etc. so that nobody else can use a fleet carrier in these hotspots. Then Frontier will gladly give us SC just to get rid of us!

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

And while I do hear what you are saying, if you are at Beagle Point, are you going to travel all the way back to the Bubble to cash in your data, or will you instead head to the closest asteroid base? In other words, if Frontier is leaving out stellar cartography to bring us back to the Bubble, it won't work.

Exactly, I've been to Beagle Point and I actually wanted to stay on the outer rim and explore a lot, but I was terribly scared of losing my data so I got back to SagA* to sell everything. Once I got there I was bored enough to travel back to the outer rim so that ended my exploration trip after DW2.

 

[Old Duck]

Exactly, I've been to Beagle Point and I actually wanted to stay on the outer rim and explore a lot, but I was terribly scared of losing my data so I got back to SagA* to sell everything. Once I got there I was bored enough to travel back to the outer rim so that ended my exploration trip after DW2.

Store your exploration data on the same flash drive that holds your data scans and place it in your remlock pocket where you keep nuggets of iron and lead and composite alloys, and then you'll be all set.

 

[Steyla]

It is.

But after more than 7000 hours, I still find things to do.

I just took my Python to Colonia to gain access to the engineers out there. I didn't really need to do that - it was just something I hadn't done yet.

And that's pretty much how I've always approached ED. There are things I haven't done yet.

If someone can't find something to do in ED, that is sad.

YMMV

Same here. +7000. I am not playing 6 hours a day anymore, as I used to, but I am in game almost every day. Here in Colonia there is always something to do. Most of the time it is for the Faction. Lately I did some mining, I haven't done that for some time. And if it gets rally boring I spice it up with some exploration or ELW hunting. I still have 6000 systems to scan before 'my' sector is done. And FC, Idk yet. I have to see it first hand before I make a decision whether to buy one or not.

Fly/land safe.

CMDR Steyla

 

[kilvenny]

Problems I see are
1) Most People want fleet carriers to transport their fleet - solution is only for the few to have them
2) Implementation has facilities for players to visit but there is no reason for players to visit unless they are desperate.
3) Released after a content drought with thirsty players.
4) No UC facility so no benefit for explorers
5) Spin up/down, jump time, range and fuel requirements make it of no benefit to explorers.
6) Upkeep cost has no balancing revenue opportunity.
7) Frustration of what FC could have been.

Expanding on 7). There was a huge opportunity here to have a scaling fleet carrier that in its basic form had 1 small pad and storage for 1 small ship, scaling up to a large carrier with a raft of facilities that was attractive to players to visit. eg discounting for FC on Ships/modules/commodities so they could be passed on to CMDR's making it attractive to purchase from the FC. Manufacturing/Conversion facilities to produce end items that could be used by CMDR's or sold on to NPC stations.

If even the first part of 7) had been adopted they would have taken the player base with them. Even the second part regarding discounting would have helped. Instead almost no one is happy with this.

 

[Andro]

On a semi-related note, the people that complained about the apparent removal of the Support Ships that were originally announced with Carriers last August, are the reason why FDev don't like to talk about what they're doing. That's game development guys, things change, and in this case I think for the better. The dev team obviously thought them out more than you and the idea didn't work in practice. I'm not ecstatic about the implementation of Carriers at this point, but I do appreciate the work that was put in.

 

[Kaocraft]

I'm basing this more on all the negative feedback I'm reading about Fleet Carriers rather than my own feelings about them. Simply put, I believe Frontier's mistake was to focus solely on content for the "classes" while providing nothing for the "masses". Had the update included something that ALL players could enjoy, be it a new SRV or a new type of SLF (something for shuttling or mining), or perhaps the new ice planets, or a new ship or two (small or large this time), or [insert frequently-requested new feature], then I think there would be less, "That's it, I'm done!" threads. People would still complain about FCs, but at least everyone would have something to look forward to.

Am I wrong? If you're one of the people who are now "done" with Elite, would you feel differently if this update had something for you, even if that something wasn't Fleet Carriers? Even though I'm not angry about Fleet Carriers, I definitely want to see more content for the masses, not the classes*.

* credit to Jack Tramiel of Commodore

You're sort of right, in the sense that Fleet Carriers are terrible and there's nothing else to talk about. If there were more things to talk about, and those things weren't also terrible, then we would be talking about how terrible Fleet Carriers are as well as how terrible/not terrible everything else is. So: sure, I guess it was a mistake on Frontier's part to not release anything good, interesting, or desirable alongside their bad, boring, and undesirable implementation of Fleet Carriers (which I guess we've all concluded this is the only way they could possibly have been implemented???)

But again I'm gonna compare this to the Open Only PowerPlay proposal a while back. There were tons of people who came out of the woodwork to give it the heckler's veto, even though most of them weren't involved in PowerPlay and had long since dismissed it, because they were opposed to Open content in principle, because of The Sanctity of The Modes, because "the thin edge of the wedge," etc etc. Well, for some, an ongoing upkeep cost, culminating in the confiscation/destruction of your property, happing when you are not even playing, is a dealbreaker as a matter of principle. It doesn't really matter how fast/slow this happens, or how cool/lame the Fleet Carriers are in any other respect; the sheer fact that Frontier is the kind of company made up of the kind of people who think this is an OK thing to put in their game, kinda wipes them off of Artistic Roll-Call forever.

It's a low-class move. It's ugly design inspired by the worst impulses that the games industry has given us, and it degrades the overall value of the game immensely just for being there. I don't know how common this sentiment is amongst other players, but the initial draw for me with Elite was that it had class, it had a sense of vision, and it was invested in building a sense of scope and wonder through verisimilitude and attention to detail. That ship sailed a long time ago, of course, and Fleet Carriers are just one more piece of the new regime, completely in keeping with the overall direction the game has been moving for some time now. It DOES represent a new, unprecedented low point for the game and for the respectability of the devs, though, and for some people it's going to be the last straw.

I would guess that probably everyone who has been a cheerleader for Frontier in the last year and half, will see no issue with this, just like they saw no issue with ARX, or with myriad other earlier changes which upset the rest of the player base. And maybe there are enough people like this, that they are all Frontier needs. But for some people who have begrudgingly accepted or worked around some of the changes they were less than thrilled about in the past, or who have been frustrated or disappointed with the overall direction of the game; this latest update might be either a line in the sand that Frontier has crossed, or else just the latest bit of writing on the wall indicating that yes, this is the kind of company Frontier is going to be, and yes, this is the kind of direction the game is going to keep developing in; so calibrate your expectations (and level of interest) accordingly.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I'm basing this more on all the negative feedback I'm reading about Fleet Carriers rather than my own feelings about them. Simply put, I believe Frontier's mistake was to focus solely on content for the "classes" while providing nothing for the "masses". Had the update included something that ALL players could enjoy, be it a new SRV or a new type of SLF (something for shuttling or mining), or perhaps the new ice planets, or a new ship or two (small or large this time), or [insert frequently-requested new feature], then I think there would be less, "That's it, I'm done!" threads. People would still complain about FCs, but at least everyone would have something to look forward to.

Am I wrong? If you're one of the people who are now "done" with Elite, would you feel differently if this update had something for you, even if that something wasn't Fleet Carriers? Even though I'm not angry about Fleet Carriers, I definitely want to see more content for the masses, not the classes*.

* credit to Jack Tramiel of Commodore

Flip side is, a few months ago we got a big update for new player experience and the damned arx store system, the new player content, whcih excludes "the masses", and is only for the (junior) "classes" never got any flack. But ARX got a lot of peoples feathers ruffled, and in particular that damned arx store button in the station menu. Remember every post was beign written in orange text on here, and people changed their avatars to orange arx button with a red cross? I was one of the campaigners against it being a highlighted colour sticking out like a sore thumb, its still there but at least its the same colour as the rest of the HUD.

 

[Someone from far away]

I'm basing this more on all the negative feedback I'm reading about Fleet Carriers rather than my own feelings about them. Simply put, I believe Frontier's mistake was to focus solely on content for the "classes" while providing nothing for the "masses". Had the update included something that ALL players could enjoy, be it a new SRV or a new type of SLF (something for shuttling or mining), or perhaps the new ice planets, or a new ship or two (small or large this time), or [insert frequently-requested new feature], then I think there would be less, "That's it, I'm done!" threads. People would still complain about FCs, but at least everyone would have something to look forward to.

Am I wrong? If you're one of the people who are now "done" with Elite, would you feel differently if this update had something for you, even if that something wasn't Fleet Carriers? Even though I'm not angry about Fleet Carriers, I definitely want to see more content for the masses, not the classes*.

* credit to Jack Tramiel of Commodore

The main mistake fdev is that not only did the gameplay fc turn out ... bad (I tried to extinguish all the negative when writing this word, in the original version it would sound like ... "disgusting") they announced the details of fc too late, when nothing can be fixed (they don't have enough time for that in these 2 months).
Most likely I will use this case as an example, when I will discuss on forums the harm from late announcements under the aegis of "will be told when it's ready", but of course I will still wait for the announcement of their "new era", but most likely it will be as bad as fc.
And then, you may ask, what is wrong with them?
I'll answer you, the first thing that everyone probably noticed. The rent and maintenance costs are prohibitive.
Absolutely unfeasible fuel consumption system. In fact, all this makes it unsuitable for long-distance travel.
The lack of interstellar cartographics, makes it useless for space explorers.
Further, it seems that those who developed fleet carriers don't quite understand what such a ship is for at all, because otherwise, they probably would have thought it would be a good idea to let the player assign npc pilots to their smaller ships that are docked to fc, and send them on various missions, both combat and research (same system scan), or send them to stations to trade there.
At a minimum, this would give the player the feeling that he is now really running a small fleet.
And so, for now, the only thing that fc is really good for is hanging in the systems and serving as a point of landing for the wrongdoers who are no longer allowed on the station.
Is this the "profitable investment" they were talking about? Looks more like a garbage asset to me.

 

[Vandaahl]

Biggest mistake was the FSS. This, FC's, I would call this progress

 

[Cheese Helmet]

I think part of the issue as stated in the op, and if they did something like “support ships are no longer with carriers but specialized standalone new ships instead” that’d help a lot.
Also the inherent issues in the systems FC are supposed to use are a problem too. Commodities market not having any use for production of anything besides credits, then the spool up and cool down on jumps. Personally I wish PP could be fixed too so FC can be used in that mode for real emergent content, as well as at now limited CGs, or if you could be an AX FC, but that’s dropped off and has always lacked the credit payout it deserves too. It’s just a combination of all.

 

[Red Rocket]

Big mistake is not allowing you to sell UC data from your FC. I think almost everyone interested in getting a FC also contemplated they may like to go exploring with their fleet in tow. Now they find out that not only they have an ongoing cost by they can’t meet that cost when exploring by selling UC data. With only like less than 1% of the galaxy explored I don’t understand why Fdev doesn’t encourage you to go out and gather data. Fleet Carriers cost 5 Billion credits and to hold back such a basic function is unconceivable.