From what we know so far, it seems that Carriers will require 1 ton of fuel per lightyear jumped (unless shorter jumps are more fuel-efficient, as with the FSD), have a 1,000t fuel tank, and have up to 25,000t of cargo storage (minus what is used up by installing upgrades, so only a barebones Carrier will have this amount). We can buy fuel from Refinery economies, or mine it from icy rings in "surface and subsurface deposits".
So we face the rather daunting prospect of mining thousands of tons of material if beyond refuelling range from a station. Perhaps manageable for a large group (which may have been Frontier's intent), but not practical for a lone player. But fortunately we are not alone, the Carrier has a crew.
My suggestion is that when the Carrier is parked in orbit around a planet with icy rings, the crew should be able to go forth and mine fuel at a modest rate. Maybe 1 ton per 5 minutes per person, where the Carrier always has one person to do this, but our NPC copilots can also help. We can have up to 3 of these, but currently there is no good reason to have more than 1: but if they can quadruple the speed of the fuel-gathering process, that becomes a good reason!
At the maximum rate of 4 tons per 5 minutes, it will take about 20 hours to fill that 1,000t tank, so a player could log on once per day to transfer the fuel to the cargo hold. The crew should be paid for this, at a rate comparable to buying the same amount of fuel at a station, so it isn't "free fuel" and can't generate revenue unless sold at a markup. And fuel-gathering is suspended during hyperdrive spinup/cooldown, so a Carrier that is jumping a lot won't be gathering fuel.
Of course the player can also help mine fuel, and a large group could mine it a lot quicker. But otherwise it doesn't seem reasonable that the Carrier is totally dependent on the captain taking out a mining ship and zapping ice chunks while everyone else onboard does nothing at all.
So we face the rather daunting prospect of mining thousands of tons of material if beyond refuelling range from a station. Perhaps manageable for a large group (which may have been Frontier's intent), but not practical for a lone player. But fortunately we are not alone, the Carrier has a crew.
My suggestion is that when the Carrier is parked in orbit around a planet with icy rings, the crew should be able to go forth and mine fuel at a modest rate. Maybe 1 ton per 5 minutes per person, where the Carrier always has one person to do this, but our NPC copilots can also help. We can have up to 3 of these, but currently there is no good reason to have more than 1: but if they can quadruple the speed of the fuel-gathering process, that becomes a good reason!
At the maximum rate of 4 tons per 5 minutes, it will take about 20 hours to fill that 1,000t tank, so a player could log on once per day to transfer the fuel to the cargo hold. The crew should be paid for this, at a rate comparable to buying the same amount of fuel at a station, so it isn't "free fuel" and can't generate revenue unless sold at a markup. And fuel-gathering is suspended during hyperdrive spinup/cooldown, so a Carrier that is jumping a lot won't be gathering fuel.
Of course the player can also help mine fuel, and a large group could mine it a lot quicker. But otherwise it doesn't seem reasonable that the Carrier is totally dependent on the captain taking out a mining ship and zapping ice chunks while everyone else onboard does nothing at all.
