Here is how FC outfitting/shipyard work in practise.

[XYZ]

I wanted to make exploration/mining fleet carier which will travel to farthest parts of the galaxy being mining base for players at the same time.
So i equiped my FC with outfiting and here is how it looks. Be aware that i can buy only whole pack and cant chose what i need.

Why on skiny rats tails i am forced to buy recon or research limpets is beyond my imagination.
This game mechanic is so stupid i really have no words.
An all of this crap take 3.435 tons of my fleet carier cargo !!!

Btw if someone is interested here is link for first expedition leaving next week:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/nebulon-miner-expedition.552874/

Its easer to see on this example from shipyard which works exactly the same way.
I cant sell lets say 15 T6 lakons coz i am forced to buy this :

Which takes apart from cr over 10.000 tons of FC cargo !
AAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH...........

 

[Drelthar]

Silliest idea they could possibly have had.

I have no idea whatsoever why this design wasn't thrown out as soon as it was suggested.

What game designer seriously thinks their players don't want to choose what they can buy in the game, specifically?

 

[Bottom Hat]

I often wonder if it's a hangover from the squadron design days, as it is dumb for the current iteration.

 

[CptArcher]

It would be much more useful if we could select modules separately.

 

[CMDR Harada]

I am willing to bet that it is somehow related to the station generation algorithm.

If station X rolls option 7, then it sells Lakon cargo ships, and that means they get the package with 5 T-6s, 4 T-7s, and 3 T-9s. Same for all the other options like modules and weapons. If you allowed players to randomly generate and sell whatever they wanted it would play havoc with the DB calls to the backend server(s).

The whole thing stinks of mashing FC's into a pre-existing data format or subroutine that was around long before they were thought of.

 

[RicoMJ]

The whole thing stinks of mashing FC's into a pre-existing data format or subroutine that was around long before they were thought of.

Absolutely. I'm sure it's about re-using souce code to just make FCs like existing Stations and Docks. (Retired software dev here...) Code re-use is an effective way to reduce development time and minimize bug count. And still, it was delayed and full of bugs. Lame!

 

[Katie Byrne]

yeah this is probably my biggest gripe with FC's. I want to sell one type of analytic device so i have to stock literally every other kind of analytic device...

I would love to hold just a small stock of select ships but cannot fit the absurd ship packages onboard

so dumb

 

[Bigmaec]

Yep, that's totally nonsensical.

 

[Drelthar]

I am willing to bet that it is somehow related to the station generation algorithm.

If station X rolls option 7, then it sells Lakon cargo ships, and that means they get the package with 5 T-6s, 4 T-7s, and 3 T-9s. Same for all the other options like modules and weapons. If you allowed players to randomly generate and sell whatever they wanted it would play havoc with the DB calls to the backend server(s).

The whole thing stinks of mashing FC's into a pre-existing data format or subroutine that was around long before they were thought of.

I don't see how this would be the case - you can have random amounts of them and all sorts so it's not like it's just mimicking a station - stations can have way more variety as well. You can only buy one "level" of the outfitting packs, which makes this even more silly, and clearly not related to the way stations work.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If station X rolls option 7, then it sells Lakon cargo ships, and that means they get the package with 5 T-6s, 4 T-7s, and 3 T-9s. Same for all the other options like modules and weapons. If you allowed players to randomly generate and sell whatever they wanted it would play havoc with the DB calls to the backend server(s).

Though there are a lot of NPC stations which sell the T-6 only, or the T-6 and T-7 but not the T-9 ... and then you get ones like https://eddb.io/station/3267 which sell the T-9 but not the T-6 or T-7.

On the Outfitting side, https://eddb.io/station/outfitting/4063 sells power distributors 1ABCD, 2ABC, 3BCD, 4A, 5A, 6A ... biweaves sizes 1,2,3,7,8 ... fuel limpets 1ABC, 3AC, 5D, 7AE ... etc and is hardly unusual in having those weird combinations. (It was literally the first station I checked the outfitting for)

Carrier outfitting is incredibly regimented by comparison.

(And since the package stock levels get depleted and therefore have to be tracked per-item anyway, I can't think of any plausible database schema where this is more efficient than just letting people stock what they want. Now it has to track thousands of items no-one cares about)

EDIT: they should swap the two over - make carrier outfitting "buy what you want", and make stations stock the outfitting packs. Then station stock would be vaguely comprehensible!

 

[Drelthar]

Though there are a lot of NPC stations which sell the T-6 only, or the T-6 and T-7 but not the T-9 ... and then you get ones like https://eddb.io/station/3267 which sell the T-9 but not the T-6 or T-7.

On the Outfitting side, https://eddb.io/station/outfitting/4063 sells power distributors 1ABCD, 2ABC, 3BCD, 4A, 5A, 6A ... biweaves sizes 1,2,3,7,8 ... fuel limpets 1ABC, 3AC, 5D, 7AE ... etc and is hardly unusual in having those weird combinations. (It was literally the first station I checked the outfitting for)

Carrier outfitting is incredibly regimented by comparison.

(And since the package stock levels get depleted and therefore have to be tracked per-item anyway, I can't think of any plausible database schema where this is more efficient than just letting people stock what they want. Now it has to track thousands of items no-one cares about)

EDIT: they should swap the two over - make carrier outfitting "buy what you want", and make stations stock the outfitting packs. Then station stock would be vaguely comprehensible!

Absolutely.

I think they had already made the UI from this original (and utterly silly) design, and didn't want to make a new UI that could handle buying individual items or... something.

I don't know, it's just so bizarre that trying to figure out the reasons for it's implementation is mind boggling.

Has anyone seen -any- players saying "So glad they made it so we can only buy packs, would have been horrible if we could choose exactly what we wanted"

I have seen people saying packs makes it easier to buy in bulk, and sure, that's true - but perhaps you could have packs, and then... you know, allow you to modify the packs, so it gives you a few handy starting points to change the loadout from.

 

[goemon]

it's really stupid.
but, as it wasn't mentioned: you can buy a pack of ships, and buy yourself all ships you don't want to take with you, and resell afterwards. so i got rid of the adders, as my FC should just have a few haulers. lot of clicking though. but less dead weight to ferry.
i don't know, whether that works with moduls (my FC has no outfitting).

 

[Drelthar]

it's really stupid.
but, as it wasn't mentioned: you can buy a pack of ships, and buy yourself all ships you don't want to take with you, and resell afterwards. so i got rid of the adders, as my FC should just have a few haulers. lot of clicking though. but less dead weight to ferry.
i don't know, whether that works with moduls (my FC has no outfitting).

It does work with modules too yeah.

even MORE clicking though... and crazy you should have to do it.
But, if you could buy all three of a type of pack, then you could actually buy everything you wanted, then sell what you didn't... and eventually, with much pain, get to the point you wanted to be stock wise.

Can't though - because you can't have tier 1,2 and 3 of a pack crazily enough.

 

[Watcher]

Silliest idea they could possibly have had.

I have no idea whatsoever why this design wasn't thrown out as soon as it was suggested.

What game designer seriously thinks their players don't want to choose what they can buy in the game, specifically?

I assume that the way things are set up for normal stations is based around equipment sets too and the module and ship selection available is some sort of mapping from station/system/faction/etc economics and other status effects to pre-set sets. FCs being player owned stations make use of the same sets just you get to pick them instead of the mapping system. FD wanting to go with code reuse and commonality kept this over developing a more bespoke system for players. They might also feel that it reduces micro management (our sets are what people want right?) or that it adds some sort of helpful balancing...

That's all speculation on my part but sounds reasonable I think.

Alternatively you can pretend it is all about suppliers having you over a barrel and forcing you to take stuff you don't actually want to get the stuff you do... A bit like with cable TV packages.

 

[Drelthar]

I assume that the way things are set up for normal stations is based around equipment sets too and the module and ship selection available is some sort of mapping from station/system/faction/etc economics and other status effects to pre-set sets. FCs being player owned stations make use of the same sets just you get to pick them instead of the mapping system. FD wanting to go with code reuse and commonality kept this over developing a more bespoke system for players. They might also feel that it reduces micro management (our sets are what people want right?) or that it adds some sort of helpful balancing...

That's all speculation on my part but sounds reasonable I think.

Alternatively you can pretend it is all about suppliers having you over a barrel and forcing you to take stuff you don't actually want to get the stuff you do... A bit like with cable TV packages.

Whatever the true reason which we'll never know - it's a poop filled dumpster fire of an implementation.

 

[Watcher]

Whatever the true reason which we'll never know - it's a poop filled dumpster fire of an implementation.

Better than not having it at all though?
I think my overall feeling is that the whole thing has been done on a relatively limited budget so various corners, like more specialised equipment selection, have been dropped in favour of getting it done.

Not that I'm convinced it was cheap to do, I have a suspicion that quite a lot of work had to happen to make carriers jumping all over the place relatively easily possible. Considering that the game mostly ticks once a week and that is when we'd get things like mega-ships moving about to having what are effectively player owned stations bouncing from system to system constantly and on a few minutes notice - I reckon much pain. So my take is most of the effort went on fixing all that and there was less overall effort available to do everything else. Could be wrong of course, more speculation again. I guess the hope here is that once this is all in place there is a chance it can be improved upon and refined and got to a place where players (and FD) are happier with it. Might take a while but Engineers are mostly agreed to be in a far better place than they were, perhaps the same with various FC elements.

Doesn't make it not painful now of course..

 

[Drelthar]

Better than not having it at all though?

Yeah, but requiring you to hold down the button for an hour to set a sale price for something was better than not at all too.

Also, they could have stuck some arrows on either side of all the items in the "packs" to allow you to alter the numbers of them - that would have been better than what we have now, and doesn't sound too insanely difficult (if it is, there's a huge problem with how the game's built)

 

[ethelred]

This is obvs a suggestion that could have had its one thread but IMHO:-

FC should have the option to buy fabricators/shipyards that take up space and can create different sized modules/ships.

You add decision making then to the outfitting of your FC.

Fabricators of any type consume commodities to create the modules or ships, meaning that CMDRs need to set prices or stock up prior to travelling out.

Ultimately, some FC should be used to create outposts, given enough resources.

Get this, there is a economic model called "supply and demand" that could be used to simulate this!

Ofc I would like this sort of model across the whole galaxy for NPC stations too but I also want enough money to live on the interest of the interest and about 10 extra hours a day, so there we go.

 

[Watcher]

Yeah, but requiring you to hold down the button for an hour to set a sale price for something was better than not at all too.

Also, they could have stuck some arrows on either side of all the items in the "packs" to allow you to alter the numbers of them - that would have been better than what we have now, and doesn't sound too insanely difficult (if it is, there's a huge problem with how the game's built)

I don't disagree
Just trying to understand how we got here.
I don't believe FD want to annoy us on purpose so presumably it is all down to how much effort they feel they can expend and where the cut off for that is.
Still, yeah, you'd think a few more QoL things in the interface wouldn't be so hard or unreasonable to do and getting those out earlier or before people shout about them would be good.
Improvements have been made but some of the omissions have felt a bit odd.

Super curious how this all plays out with Odyssey, will they find the time to not just get the mechanics working but also refine the interface and experience more generally. Presumably yes, a bit, but a lot? Hmm..

 

[Flimley]

I’m going to pen a stiffly worded letter to my local MP about this. !

Flimley