Mega ships: practical questions

[Van R Flyheight]

So straight away, this is not a question of what will they look like and will they shoot big mega lasers.

No, I'm theorising the simple stuff.

Q1) Cost
Consider that the big 3 cost between 150-200mil and so if a mega ship can house several of these bad boys then it must surely cost at least triple that.
Next I ask though, will these ships be "one size fits all" or will they need upgrades (jump range/carry capacity). If so then let's consider that an A rated Corvette with all the trimmings costs in the region of 700mil. That means that anything below 1bil would seem silly.
How will that get paid for? If one player has to buy this beast and it really costs 1bil then it's out of reach of most players. I have 1.3bil in assets but only 250mil in credits. Will there be a virtual wallet that members of a group pay into and if so, what kind of arguments is that going to cause?

2) Control
I don't mean fancy stuff, I'm pretty sure it'll go from system A to system B and that's about it. I mean who can tell it to do that (canon? Any info?). Will it be just the squadron leader because what if they are inactive or will it be every member because again, the arguments. I think it'll probably be a permission system to allow an inner circle of "officers" but I'm completely speculating.
Lastly, is that cross platform (gnosis?) or does each platform from my wing require it's own carrier.

Either way, this isn't a complaint. Oh wow, am I excited but just really want to know the practicalities. I know these balls aren't crystal but if enough people agree then we might have uncovered the truth.

As a side note, I hope squadrons won't be the death of wings on INARA as I'm working quite hard to bring that thing together. As I mentioned, it's cross platform so I would hate to see us splinter off into platform specific groups.

Leave your thoughts (and genuine knowledge if you are from canon or frontier)

 

[BIGPUNGED2000]

i also have a question how do the fuel the mega ship

 

[Dommarraa]

1. I suspect something like a CG, where all you can do is donate credits

2. FD have an email contact for each Pg, they are the ones who request where it goes via email to one of the community managers. There are rules about jump range. for the Gnosis, every month we give FD the next 4 destination system and body. Can't see this as being how it works when they roll it out, too much admin for fd, there will probably be some sort of out of game interface with access only for the Pg 'owner', but I suspect the restrictions of only moving once per week during downtime will remain.

 

[DNA-Decay]

I haven't been out to see the Gnosis.

Does it interact with the BGS?

Like does it have minor factions from the system it's in?

And I guess the reciprocal question applies.

Does its minor faction appear in the system that it's in?

 

[Badben]

I can't imagine that people will have to go out of game to control their carrier, that would probably be the worst decision FD could make. If FD did that, it would ruin the entire idea of carriers. How they'll be paid for and controlled I don't know, but I don't think it will work like moving the gnosis does at all. They will be a ships that can be flown from system to system, anything else would be silly.

 

[Dommarraa]

I haven't been out to see the Gnosis.

Does it interact with the BGS?

Like does it have minor factions from the system it's in?

And I guess the reciprocal question applies.

Does its minor faction appear in the system that it's in?

Gnosis has been BGS Neutered. It has a separate clone faction that sounds like its the Canonn, but isnt. It is of the new(ish) "Engineer" type of factions that has 0 influence so has no effect in system, nor can it be captured by a BGS conflict.

 

[Dommarraa]

I can't imagine that people will have to go out of game to control their carrier, that would probably be the worst decision FD could make. If FD did that, it would ruin the entire idea of carriers. How they'll be paid for and controlled I don't know, but I don't think it will work like moving the gnosis does at all. They will be a ships that can be flown from system to system, anything else would be silly.

Not disagreeing with you, but Canonn had the Gnosis as a "test" for FD. Seems to me like a test for Carriers, but I could be entirely wrong.

 

[Sapyx]

I haven't trawled through the announcements to see if there's been anything concrete from FD stating how PG megaships will work, so I'm going to go on the basis that they're going to be modelled on the Gnosis. In which case, I suspect the answers to your questions are:

1. They will cost nothing. The Gnosis was free (players even made profit from the CGs constructing it, if I remember correctly). I can hear the bawling already if they make other groups pay for theirs. Apply to become a squadron (by whatever means FD chooses for doing that), and if accepted, your squadron automatically gets a carrier.

2. I would assume that it would be either out-of-game control like the Gnosis is currently, or in-game control via the new Squadron mechanism. My question would be: what mechanisms, if any, will FD put in place to prevent a "hostile" (ie not a member of the PG) from docking there? I assume part of the "squadron" features will be formally "joining a squadron" and it seems reasonable that anyone who "joins" will get a permit to land at the squadron's carrier, which should be implementable in a way not entirely unlike the current system-entry and planetary-landing permits. What is unclear is the mechanism for joining a squadron, then. What mechanism will FD put in place to prevent "fifth column" saboteurs? Logically, the "current membership" and or the group leaders would get some kind of veto on who joins, and it wouldn't simply be like Powerplay where anyone can pledge, de-pledge and re-pledge more or less at will.

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Interesting that so many people think it'll be free. They surely can't just give you a mega ship. Although if they do then I think the requirement would be that you are a registered player group which stands at 10+ players. So maybe it is similar to minor factions and that's why control will be limited.

Strangely, I kind of hope there is an out of game system for moving it (as well as an in game one). What if as squadron leader, you are away with work or holiday. INARA is fantastic in the way that it allows me to see faction influence in our home system even when I can't get to my Xbox.

 

[Stealthie]

i also have a question how do the fuel the mega ship

Presumably they have fuel-scoops or some other kind of energy collectors so they won't need conventional refueling.

Gotta say, though, when FDev introduce carriers, it might be nice if they give them a mission board where a lot of the missions involve supplying food, industrial equipment and technology in order to repair, restock and re-arm the ship.

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Presumably they have fuel-scoops or some other kind of energy collectors so they won't need conventional refueling.

Gotta say, though, when FDev introduce carriers, it might be nice if they give them a mission board where a lot of the missions involve supplying food, industrial equipment and technology in order to repair, restock and re-arm the ship.

Without trying to detract from the original question too much I will say, specific mission boards would be interesting. Another thread was asking if the ship would mine with you and do pew pew but this would be a much simpler option. A squadron that identifies as miners would get more mining missions or one that identifies as trade will get more haulage missions. Definitely interesting but probably not the case.

 

[Gamatech]

We... already have megaships... a fair number of them in fact.... Are you talking about carrier ships? ..

 

[DNA-Decay]

Interesting that so many people think it'll be free. They surely can't just give you a mega ship. Although if they do then I think the requirement would be that you are a registered player group which stands at 10+ players. So maybe it is similar to minor factions and that's why control will be limited.

Strangely, I kind of hope there is an out of game system for moving it (as well as an in game one). What if as squadron leader, you are away with work or holiday. INARA is fantastic in the way that it allows me to see faction influence in our home system even when I can't get to my Xbox.

The trouble with being "a group with 10+ members" is that it's pretty easy to fake.

There was a group called Emperor's Grace. They were one of the high membership groups on INARA. Their faction name was chosen because it's everywhere in game. They applied for and were granted "Triple Elite" group status. Which is a kind of uh "Community Leader" type thing - you get a channel of communication to Frontier and other things to support your community engagement.

Turns out they were basically a couple of bloke running a whole lot of email accounts to pump up numbers.

Diamond Frogs exposed them, and they lost that status. Still around I believe.

Point is, Frontier don't have the resources to check every group's claims.
And they've been burnt on trust a couple of times.

So whatever they do will "work for everyone".
Small groups and large.

 

[Bondrewd The Novel]

I think that FD will release more than one carrier... they will release (IMO) 3 or even 4 class of carrier.
The class will be different in size and in the ships and pilots that can support, something like:

class TINY - support 3 pilots / hosts 6 ships - total cost 4.500.000.000 credits - can make a jump of 60LY every X time
class SMALL - support 9 pilots / hosts 18 ships - total cost 13.500.000.000 credits - can make a jump of 50LY every X+((X/100)x40) time
class MEDIUM - support 18 pilots / hosts 36ships - total cost 27.000.000.000 credits - can make a jump of 40LY every X+((X/100)x50) time
class LARGE - support 36 pilots / hosts 72 ships - total cost 54.000.000.000 credits - can make a jump of 30LY every X+((X/100)x60) time


control mode: some sort of new interface (similar to the in station interface) based on point and click
that is only my personal idea and feeling.

 

[Mephane]

My guess is that like the megaships, they will be effectively stationary, but can be orders (through ingame commands) to a new location, i.e. system and planet/moon, where they will then orbit. There'll probably be a cooldown on this (e.g. once per day) to keep these decisions somewhat meaningful.

 

[Mrat13]

Don't know how this popped into my head...

You know how the capital ships can sometimes be seen docked to the outside of a station, well what if these squadron ships were the same? In fact why couldn't they be just like the current capital ships, but you can dock to them. It would allow you to drive them back to the nearest port, without destroying them, and, they could use current in game assets on them. In fact, maybe certain models will just be copy pasted versions of the current capital ships, just a player useable one.

Just speculating of course.