Is it worth having your ship open to players and enabling restock and other things, and does the carrier therefore pay for it's own weekly fees?

As we say in the PTN, a fleet carrier is a money printing machine. If you're just out for max credits, exobiology on your own FC out in the black is the way. I have also enjoyed arbitrage trading... it makes some money - not a lot, but still a reasonable profit after upkeep and maintenance costs. The main benefit is that it doesn't require a whole lot of interaction. Pay the haulers on both ends and all you really have to do is jump and watch the marketplace. Good to cover your FC costs while away doing something else.

I don't bother with tariffs... it's not enough to matter. I do keep Astrometrics open because most explorers will sell a bit of data as a thank you for being open for RRR business, but even that isn't really needed... between my initial trading, a couple of booze cruises, and my last couple of months of exobiology, my FC is funded well beyond the expected lifespan of this game. (As an aside, I got a really nice note on Inara last month from a CMDR who had taken some damage and found my carrier. While there, they took the opportunity to cash in 37 million in astrometric and 1.1 billion (!) in exobiology data).

Regarding the tritium, as long as you don't have a sell order for tritium active in your marketplace, nobody can touch it.




You didn't ask about this, so feel free to ignore the rest, but here are my real-world numbers for exploration and exobiology. It's a bit over-detailed, but might remove some mystery and angst for new carrier owners reading this. I was really worried about keeping things alive when I first got my carrier, but having the numbers helped me relax. I'm using the average price of tritium when I left on my trip for the calculations (52,680 / ton).

I have RRR, Astrometrics, and Vista Genomics enabled. Weekly upkeep is 12.85 million. I typically make between 1 and 5 jumps per week. My average cost per jump for the last 10 jumps (cost of the tritium + 100k maintenance fee) has been 6.2 million, so in a typical week, I'm spending between 19 and 44 million on the carrier.

When I'm in "Impatient Mode," I use fastest routes, which takes me between 4 and 8 jumps to travel the 500 LY from where the carrier was to where it is. On these routes, I normally find... eh... call it 3-4 planets with bio signatures. Sometimes it's none and sometimes it's a lot more (recently, a single system had 3 planets with 5+ bio signatures each). Assume first discovery on all of these because it's rare I enter a pre-discovered system in my current location.

The least lucrative find is going to be a single-signature planet with a common bacterium. This pays 5 million (1 million for the scan and 4 million bonus for first discovery). I just need 4 of those to cover the carrier for a week + one jump. Fairly often, though, I get multiple signatures or luck into something like a Stratum Tectonicus (nearly 100 million after the bonus). In addition to this, I'll make a couple million on the astrometric data as well, though it's nowhere near as good as the exobiology money.

When I'm using economical routing, it's now 40-60 jumps to get to the carrier, so my profit-per-500 LY leg is way, way higher. I've mostly been playing an alt lately, but still managed to add a billion over the last month. I'm not really trying to max out my credits / hour any more... just doing the things I enjoy.
 
Al in all.. Your FC is NOT a money printer
It just opens some more options for you to print money as you have a storage. Passive income is almost impossible.

I have been selling modules from my FC. It is not enough to say I really make money from it. I have most a-rated modules for my convenience. It seems people find my FC on inara as the closest possibility to quickly obtain a certain module.

Cargo from Missions only can yield good credtis, something like modular terminals but it is a lot of work to put them on sale. You can make extra credits when a special cargo CG drops but again you need to be prepared and able to invest time. Same as the already mentioned EDO engineering mats. I decided to sell all my EDO mats beginning of the year and I got 2 billion out of it.


Ps. I got 100% tariff on all your services. No one seems to care. If you gotta repair.. You repair
 
Your carrier is not going to pay for itself with rearm/refuel, etc.
Actually it seems pretty hard to make it pay for itself. I simply subsidize mine with other activities I am doing rather than trades.
I do leave it open for people with a modest tariff set. Its a pittance to upkeep expenditures.
 
I keep mine open to everyone for all activities/features/modules/etc.

There has been many times I've needed a carrier, be it for purchasing items or just emergency RRR and I've had to go searching for one I had permission to land on amongst a multitude of carriers I didn't. Other than some friend/squadron related actions at that exact time, I can't see why anyone would close access to other players; it does no harm to you and could help a cmdr in need.

I keep my tariffs at 1%*; doesn't make enough money regardless of the tariff, so even as I type this I wonder why I bother with even that. And honestly, the 35-40mil it costs per week to run it is something I can earn running trade missions/selling silver in a cutter in less than 10 minutes, let alone any other in game activity; plus I have enough credits on the carrier for it run itself for well over 2 years.

I do sell some ship modules, but I try to stick to those that don't require/overly benefit from engineering (cargo racks, passenger cabins, scanners, fuel scoops, mining tools). I do actually get a steady sale of those items, but still not enough to pay for the carrier upkeep. Depending on where I am parked, those items can be handy for a quick loadout adjustment to suit the local activities for myself and others.

*Pioneer supplies I run at 0%; not just because I'm a nice guy, but because if you apply a tariff, you can't upgrade your suits on your own carrier due to a "transaction error" bug.
 
If it costs me nothing I do not mind others refueling and repairing. I have the genomics or whatever open so I can sell that stuff and I have cartographics, and the service that pays bounty hunters, codex and whatever else.

I'll open it up to honorable law abiding folks when I get back but will have nothing to do with illegal trade or criminals.

I have exactly 5 shady trades in my stats and that was only to unlock an engineer lol.
 
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