How does one make money with FC nowadays? (after the mining nerf and over 20k other FCs as competition)

[SecretIdentity]

First of all, sincere apologies if this question has been asked a million times and has bored you to death.

So, I'm looking to buy a fleet carrier. I have the costs covered and I'm not overly worried about the upkeep. What I'm wondering though if how do you make money with them nowadays with the mining rebalancing? Previously I've seen that you can easily earn 100k+ per ton of LTD with the buy low and sell high method and with the relatively low number of carriers, miners didn't have much to choose from. But now with the mining nerf, platinum with a profit of 20k-ish per ton with that method, it's not a lot for the amount of work trucking it... With a ship with 700t cargo space, that's roughly 14 mil profit per trip. I can easily get 18 mil+ per trip doing Robigo passenger missions with a much more maneuverable python.

And I've also recently visited a couple of hot mining systems and there are easily over 30 carriers there. So yeah... competition...

So, how does one go about making carriers an actual investment with returns instead of just an expensive personal toy these days? Any reply is greatly appreciated!

 

[Brrokk]

A method I've used is to scavenge things like Thargoid probes, meta-alloys and Thargoid tissue samples and leave them for sale in the carrier at maximum price. Also, mine LTDs and painite and put them up for sale at about half the top prices available (the people who do the legwork deserve a reward).

At the moment I'm stacking up some rare goods just on the offchance that the ones I've chosen will figure in a CG. If this doesn't happen I'll jump to the other side of the Bubble and sell them; the CG will then come up the next week.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I was going to try importing federal ships to colonia to sell with a 20% markup. Never got to it though. Probably competition already doing that.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The method i use is just to play the game. My upkeep is 15 million a week which i can earn easily in an hour just running missions for my faction or doing some bounty hunting.

If I put in a few hours a week i'm well into having a good profit for the week.

 

[Astaran]

Carriers are not money makers per se, but they allow you to make more money with established gameplay. You can park your FC close to a HazRes or in a AX system and just shuttle back and forth between combat and resupply until you have enough bounties/bonds that you can hand in (not on your FC though, because 12.5% are lost).

You can take your FC out exploring and redeem UC data directly without having to bother with a 15k ly trip back to the bubble first.

The FC also allows you to switch between different activites effortlessly and without time lost. Tired of mining? Store your minerals in your carrier, jump the FC to a combat zone and blow off some steam etc

That being said, there are a few smart CMDRs out there who actually make some "passive income" using their FC and the commodity market. But those are probably the exception.

 

[STARFIRE REVMEUP]

First of all, sincere apologies if this question has been asked a million times and has bored you to death.

So, I'm looking to buy a fleet carrier. I have the costs covered and I'm not overly worried about the upkeep. What I'm wondering though if how do you make money with them nowadays with the mining rebalancing? Previously I've seen that you can easily earn 100k+ per ton of LTD with the buy low and sell high method and with the relatively low number of carriers, miners didn't have much to choose from. But now with the mining nerf, platinum with a profit of 20k-ish per ton with that method, it's not a lot for the amount of work trucking it... With a ship with 700t cargo space, that's roughly 14 mil profit per trip. I can easily get 18 mil+ per trip doing Robigo passenger missions with a much more maneuverable python.

And I've also recently visited a couple of hot mining systems and there are easily over 30 carriers there. So yeah... competition...

So, how does one go about making carriers an actual investment with returns instead of just an expensive personal toy these days? Any reply is greatly appreciated!

The way i view and do it is this..... TIME = MONEY

Lets take basic fetch missions as a example...

"get us this or get us that." Its much easier to stock the carrier with large amounts of mission items ahead of time, then shunt said items back to a station in mere moments as opposed to search some system for that mission related item. You already know where those 200 HE Suits are... on the carrier ... or those 300 palladium etc

You can pick said items you prefer in larger abundance with a cutter or T-9 or or just keep a few hundred of each of the more common mission related items. its another form of game play.

-----------------------------------------
Time again is saved as you Jump every ship you own 300 lightyears to that Pirate attack state. instead of wasting time, jumping and jumping. while i wait that 15 minutes for the carrier to jump... i can instead use that time to search the map for other things.... take a shower.... actually make dinner. or in my case... use the second account doing some other project.

---------------------------------

The carrier allows you to store great amounts of mining ore. which in turn allows you TIME... there it is again.... to wait for the best prices AND... pick up lots of good mining missions for the 1000s of ore you might be carrying, which pays more for the same materials than just selling it.

 

[hawknerd]

Give me 100M credits and I will show you how to make 100m Credits.

 

[Exeider]

Carriers are not money makers per se, but they allow you to make more money with established gameplay. You can park your FC close to a HazRes or in a AX system and just shuttle back and forth between combat and resupply until you have enough bounties/bonds that you can hand in (not on your FC though, because 12.5% are lost).

You can take your FC out exploring and redeem UC data directly without having to bother with a 15k ly trip back to the bubble first.

The FC also allows you to switch between different activites effortlessly and without time lost. Tired of mining? Store your minerals in your carrier, jump the FC to a combat zone and blow off some steam etc

That being said, there are a few smart CMDRs out there who actually make some "passive income" using their FC and the commodity market. But those are probably the exception.

Yeah mining gets a slight buff to profitability just because it allows you to minimize down time between mining and dropping off, and loading up and selling. A lot of people forget to factor in downtime as part of your Cr/Hr calculations which is why all the YT vids claiming, 200-300-400mCr/Hr are just flat wrong, and as a result we got a nerf because of that screwing over the legitimate numbers, time spent running the minerals to market is time you're NOT mining, meaning your average is going down with every tick of the clock.

People need to clock the time from shooting your first rock and not stop the clock till you get BACK to the belt and shoot your first rock of the next run. THAT's your real total credits per hour.

 

[Astaran]

Yeah mining gets a slight buff to profitability just because it allows you to minimize down time between mining and dropping off, and loading up and selling. A lot of people forget to factor in downtime as part of your Cr/Hr calculations which is why all the YT vids claiming, 200-300-400mCr/Hr are just flat wrong, and as a result we got a nerf because of that screwing over the legitimate numbers, time spent running the minerals to market is time you're NOT mining, meaning your average is going down with every tick of the clock.

People need to clock the time from shooting your first rock and not stop the clock till you get BACK to the belt and shoot your first rock of the next run. THAT's your real total credits per hour.

Plus the time spent on finding a place to sell your Painite/LTDs/whatever people mine these days in the first place. At the same time bounty hunting does not face any diminishing returns (There is a magically infinite amount of pirates throwing themselves into the guns) plus all the engineering materials collected plus the stacking of massacre missions to make even more money

But it is what it is. There will always be some "meta way" to make money in Elite. Right now the goldrush is stacking massacre missions...until the next round of nerfs

 

[DemiserofD]

Another way having a carrier can help you make money is by allowing you storage capacity. For example, when you're mining without one, you pretty much need to focus exclusively on your primary mineral. With a FC, you can just drop everything at the carrier until you find a good place to sell it.

If you want the absolute best way to make money with an FC however, it's probably shuttling to Rackham's Peak when it's in Public Holiday.

Clean out 20000 space for Wine. It takes 6 hours to get to rackham's peak and 2 hours to load it up and 2 to unload it. That's about 10 hours total(though the travel time really isn't spent playing; just about 30 seconds every 20 minutes. I'd do it while working) for 6 billion in profits.

If you count travel time, that's 350m/hour. If you don't count travel time(which you really shouldn't, it's a very tiny amount of effort while doing something else) it's more like 1.5 billion per hour.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Clean out 20000 space for Wine. It takes 6 hours to get to rackham's peak and 2 hours to load it up and 2 to unload it. That's about 10 hours total(though the travel time really isn't spent playing; just about 30 seconds every 20 minutes. I'd do it while working) for 6 billion in profits.

Mama mia!

 

[Cageman]

My core game play is Laser Mining. I have a few spots I move my FC to and then spend 2-4 days mining and storing it on the FC. I mainly mine Platinum and Osmium. It takes little over 2 hours to fill my mining T9 (512t cargospace). I should add that on weekdays I might play for 1-2 hours / day.

On a good day, I can move my FC to a sellspot and sell my mined Platinum (usually around 2000t of it) for 299k/t and Osmium for about 240k/t.

So, no... the FC doesn't pay for itself, however, I use it for cargo storage so that I can sell lots when the market price and demand is right.

As an example, last night, I moved my FC to a system with an Outpost (medium pad) that bought Platinum for 299K/t and their demand was over 120k. I was lucky so my FC got parked 4Mm from the Outpost and no planet in the way. Running my 280t cargo Python between my FC and Outpost was very fast and I sold off 2500t of Platinum...

Total profit: 747.500.000 Credits and it took me little over an hour to sell those 2500t, because the supercruise time was almost instant.

 

[Susanna]

First of all, sincere apologies if this question has been asked a million times and has bored you to death.

So, I'm looking to buy a fleet carrier. I have the costs covered and I'm not overly worried about the upkeep. What I'm wondering though if how do you make money with them nowadays with the mining rebalancing? Previously I've seen that you can easily earn 100k+ per ton of LTD with the buy low and sell high method and with the relatively low number of carriers, miners didn't have much to choose from. But now with the mining nerf, platinum with a profit of 20k-ish per ton with that method, it's not a lot for the amount of work trucking it... With a ship with 700t cargo space, that's roughly 14 mil profit per trip. I can easily get 18 mil+ per trip doing Robigo passenger missions with a much more maneuverable python.

And I've also recently visited a couple of hot mining systems and there are easily over 30 carriers there. So yeah... competition...

So, how does one go about making carriers an actual investment with returns instead of just an expensive personal toy these days? Any reply is greatly appreciated!

Fill your FC with these...

Goodbye EDDB

Goodbye EDDB

eddb.io

Then find a good high price 'zero demand' station...

You'll make around 100mil/hr. Takes me around 5hrs total to fill my FC and unload it for around 550mil profit per cycle.

 

[SecretIdentity]

The method i use is just to play the game. My upkeep is 15 million a week which i can earn easily in an hour just running missions for my faction or doing some bounty hunting.

If I put in a few hours a week i'm well into having a good profit for the week.

But I'm not talking about affording upkeep though. I don't have problems making money normally. My problem was making money USING fleet carriers.

Yeah mining gets a slight buff to profitability just because it allows you to minimize down time between mining and dropping off, and loading up and selling. A lot of people forget to factor in downtime as part of your Cr/Hr calculations which is why all the YT vids claiming, 200-300-400mCr/Hr are just flat wrong, and as a result we got a nerf because of that screwing over the legitimate numbers, time spent running the minerals to market is time you're NOT mining, meaning your average is going down with every tick of the clock.

People need to clock the time from shooting your first rock and not stop the clock till you get BACK to the belt and shoot your first rock of the next run. THAT's your real total credits per hour.

Yup, exactly! That's why I only use videos for their methods and calculate the rates myself with a stopwatch, fully accounting for all of the downtime.

Another way having a carrier can help you make money is by allowing you storage capacity. For example, when you're mining without one, you pretty much need to focus exclusively on your primary mineral. With a FC, you can just drop everything at the carrier until you find a good place to sell it.

If you want the absolute best way to make money with an FC however, it's probably shuttling to Rackham's Peak when it's in Public Holiday.

Clean out 20000 space for Wine. It takes 6 hours to get to rackham's peak and 2 hours to load it up and 2 to unload it. That's about 10 hours total(though the travel time really isn't spent playing; just about 30 seconds every 20 minutes. I'd do it while working) for 6 billion in profits.

If you count travel time, that's 350m/hour. If you don't count travel time(which you really shouldn't, it's a very tiny amount of effort while doing something else) it's more like 1.5 billion per hour.

Hot damn!

Wait, does Rackham's peak really buy Wine for 300k per ton during public holidays?! If so, how is the demand? Also, by 'public holiday', is it all of the dates in this list? Are there more? https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Holiday Nevermind, I figured this out.

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, I'll be on the lookout!

Fill your FC with these...

Goodbye EDDB

Goodbye EDDB

eddb.io

Then find a good high price 'zero demand' station...

You'll make around 100mil/hr. Takes me around 5hrs total to fill my FC and unload it for around 550mil profit per cycle.

Interesting... How often does that happen?

 

[Agony_Aunt]

But I'm not talking about affording upkeep though. I don't have problems making money normally. My problem was making money USING fleet carriers.

Fair enough. I don't make money with my FC although it supports my money making activities. For example, parking it next to a CZ so I can get back quicker to repair and rearm.

 

[Sysmon]

Sell it. Should bring in a pretty penny.

S

 

[K Olley]

I will come back to the bubble and have a boot sale

 

[Kissamies]

It's more of a hobby than a serious money maker, but I sell engineer and tech broker unlock commodities. Some of those can only accessible by mining, others by missions, and some are just from faraway stations. Many people just skip those steps and come to buy them from me. The things that just fly off my shelves are Modular Terminals and Bromellite.

 

[Eraden]

Seriously, anyone who is still trying to focus on Painite/LTDs is probably doing it wrong. Platinum is where the big money is. Find yourself a system that has a Platininum hotspot or better yet, a double hotspot, and then go buck wild. Painite and LTD prices fluctuate a LOT but Platinum is pretty darn steady.

 

[yianniv]

Some systems in boom, I think extraction or refinery, offer wing palladium transfer missions for around 30mil. The quantities are between 2,5-6 thousand tonnes. If you have a FC, you can accept the mission, set up a purchase order in your Secure Warehouse (not your market), pick up the palladium and sell it at your FC at a minimum, and then find a good place to sell it. It's all profit, regardless of the money you pay to the FC because it's you paying yourself.
The palladium gets "cleaned" when it's sold to your SW, so no stolen flag. Just remember to sell all palladium to your SW prior to abandoning the mission, because any remaining quantity will be "stolen".

Also, if you take all palladium from the source port, you don't incur any fines when abandoning the mission.