Have Fleet Carriers Killed Community Goals?

Hasaf

Hasaf
First, I haven't run any community goals in quite a while. By that I mean since Fleet Carriers.

As I understand it, Fleet Carriers can now be used to haul goods for cargo oriented Community Goals. Is that the case?

If so, I can not see any way that a single pilot can compete. I remember purchasing my initial T9 during, and specifically for, a Community Goal (The wake that involved fish, as I recall). Since then it has become my favourite ship. However, there is no way it can be competitive with a Fleet Carrier.

Back to my point, I am asking because once I heard about it, it killed all Community Goal interest for me, are Fleet Carriers being used to haul Community Goal goods? If so, is there some other way for regular players to play, or is this just the end of Community Goals?
 

mcdet

M
The fleet carriers can be used to ferry a large amount of cargo at once, but the cargo still has to be loaded into the carrier one shipload at a time and still has to be unloaded at the destination one shipload at a time. Since you have to basically do double the number of runs in order to use your fleet carrier (one run to load it and one run to unload it), the only advantage it offers in completing community goals is enabling the owner to load up on a large supply of the commodity a long distance from the CG system and then jumping all the cargo to the CG system at once. I have a fleet carrier and for most cargo-based community goals that I have participated in, I did not use my fleet carrier at all because it was faster to do it one run at a time in a T9 or a Cutter. The only time the carrier comes in handy is when supplies of the CG commodity are hard to find near the CG system, such as the guardian items CG that happened a few weeks ago.

tl;dr if you want to get into the top 10 commanders, the carrier will probably be necessary, but you will still have to play several hours a day every day for the entire week to stay in the top 10. Otherwise, the carrier is not much of advantage.
 
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xzanfr

xzanfr
Hasaf said:
First, I haven't run any community goals in quite a while. By that I mean since Fleet Carriers.

As I understand it, Fleet Carriers can now be used to haul goods for cargo oriented Community Goals. Is that the case?

If so, I can not see any way that a single pilot can compete. I remember purchasing my initial T9 during, and specifically for, a Community Goal (The wake that involved fish, as I recall). Since then it has become my favourite ship. However, there is no way it can be competitive with a Fleet Carrier.

Back to my point, I am asking because once I heard about it, it killed all Community Goal interest for me, are Fleet Carriers being used to haul Community Goal goods? If so, is there some other way for regular players to play, or is this just the end of Community Goals?
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For bulk delivery CG's there's no point trying to get in the top 25% (50% in popular ones) or over if you don't have a fleet carrier. It's only worth doing the ones that give decals, weapons etc for the lower tiers if you fancy the reward or CG's where you can make decent credits per haul (or you're role playing / helping others).

I just don't bother with them anymore.
 

mcdet

M
Captain Willard said:
I don't bother with trade CG's either after watching carriers strip all stations of cg goods closest to the delivery point before moving outward.
Hopefully FD will bring back outpost only CG's.
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That makes no sense. If the station is close to the delivery point, it would be quicker to just run it directly to the delivery point rather than run it to a carrier and then run it from the carrier to the delivery point. If the source is close to the delivery point, the goods are being bought up by everyone, not just carrier owners. Carrier owners would be prioritizing spots that have the highest supply that are within 500ly of the delivery point (which is basically the entire bubble).

Now if the item can only be bought from outposts, that actually incentivizes fleet carrier usage more, not less, because you can load up the carrier using a Python from the outpost and unload it using a Cutter or T9, reducing the number of runs.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Hasaf said:
If so, I can not see any way that a single pilot can compete
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The threshold to get into the top 10% for the last trade CG was around 16000 tonnes (and that's fairly typical of trade CGs, maybe slightly on the high side). In a T-9 or Cutter you can haul ~800t per run, so that's 20 runs, or 3 a day for the entire CG. That's really not that many if you're actually trying to compete at that level.

Top 10 ... even that only needed about 45000 tonnes last time, or nine runs a day. If you're efficient, then 15 minutes per run should be doable. If you're not willing to spend 2-3 hours a day doing trade runs for a CG, the reason you're not in the top 10 isn't that you don't own a carrier, it's that there's at least ten other players with more spare time than you. And that was true before carriers released and in CGs (warzone, bounty hunt, data collection, etc.) where a carrier is entirely useless.

As others have said, carriers are at best marginally useful for trade CGs, which is better than they do for most CG types. Where they excel is at the CGs where there's several hundred - or several thousand! - LY between the source and destination systems, because a carrier with a full hold, carrying a bunch of players with full cargo ships, has a much higher tonnes/LY/hour than a single ship. In a short-range CG like this where it's mostly the loading and unloading, that advantage disappears.
 

SlickPBW

S
No. I have a FC but never use it in a community goal. I participate in most CG’s and I usually have no problem getting into the top 10%.

FC’s can give an advantage in some CG’s but usually it’s not significant when you consider having to do 2x the number of cargo runs; yes they can be shorter but it’s still 2x. Also parking is a pain so usually there’s more time wasted waiting for a stall in the CG system or jumping to a parked carrier in a neighboring system.
 

forbiddenlake

forbiddenlake
No.

I used to use my FC for the trade advantage. But parking is awful and if you don't get a close parking spot you still have to deal with supercruise travel time.

Now I just use my Type-9 to go to a close station, like always.
 

maehara

maehara
Any trade CG I take part in, I’ll finish top 10% in. Only one I’ve used a carrier for was a rare goods one, because it made sense for that.

Your common short-haul ones, like this week, carriers are entirely pointless. Round-trips in a Cutter is faster.
 

Captain Willard

Captain Willard
mcdet said:
That makes no sense. If the station is close to the delivery point, it would be quicker to just run it directly to the delivery point rather than run it to a carrier and then run it from the carrier to the delivery point. If the source is close to the delivery point, the goods are being bought up by everyone, not just carrier owners. Carrier owners would be prioritizing spots that have the highest supply that are within 500ly of the delivery point (which is basically the entire bubble).

Now if the item can only be bought from outposts, that actually incentivizes fleet carrier usage more, not less, because you can load up the carrier using a Python from the outpost and unload it using a Cutter or T9, reducing the number of runs.
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So sorry no. I started a CG early because it was great credits. Later on I'd make a run 1 jump each way and started seeing 10,000t drop in supply every run.
Looked at system map and 10 carriers are parked.

Another no is outpost to outpost only CG's. Which I always favored.
 

CMDR Serra

CMDR Serra
When I use a FC for a trade CG I load up at a far away station and bring goods closer to the destination and sell at a modest profit.
If you want the cheapest goods for the maximum profit within single jump range then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.
 

GraphiteGB

GraphiteGB
Nope
You put on HBO/HBO max, add SCA, ADC and GFSD booster size 4 to T9 or cutter....
Then do loops the same as every cargo CG before FC ever released while watching tv...

13 loops later your in the 10% bracket allready...
But you only need 25% for the CG decals this week ... which is why people have stopped only after 9 runs currently...
As with every Cargo CG the Later in the week you start the fewer days you will have to assign those runs over and the more distance you will have to jump in a T9... Not arriving thursday or friday hits way more on progress

Not assigning real life time to play will affect position way more...
 

Cmdr. Numa

Cmdr. Numa
Captain Willard said:
I don't bother with trade CG's either after watching carriers strip all stations of cg goods closest to the delivery point before moving outward.
Hopefully FD will bring back outpost only CG's.
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People would use their Pythons to load/unload their carriers, while non-carrier pilots would also be restricted to Pythonsor smaller. Same difference, just overall slower than T9/Cutter.
 

Maolagin

M
I would also contribute the observation that, carriers have actually improved trade CGs for a significant set of non-carrier-owning players too. Folks who just want to get on the board and make a moderate profit, can hop in at the busier play times and usually find a carrier or three looking for haulers to help unload. More so for the long range goals of course, but even in this one I'd expect there to be adverts in the system chat looking for haulers to unload membranes from the other side of the bubble.
 

Hasaf

Hasaf
Maolagin said:
I would also contribute the observation that, carriers have actually improved trade CGs for a significant set of non-carrier-owning players too. Folks who just want to get on the board and make a moderate profit, can hop in at the busier play times and usually find a carrier or three looking for haulers to help unload. More so for the long range goals of course, but even in this one I'd expect there to be adverts in the system chat looking for haulers to unload membranes from the other side of the bubble.
Click to expand...

How does one ask if any carriers want help loading and unloading?
 

Maolagin

M
Hasaf said:
How does one ask if any carriers want help loading and unloading?
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Many ways. System chat is a good place to start. If you want to go beyond casual operations there's fleet carrier focused reddit and discord venues. Asking in the community goal thread on these here forums sometimes works too. But start with system chat, since if anybody answers it's real time so you know the info is up to date.
 
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