Personal Carriers not so personal with current pad distribution?

Shiro Akai

Shiro Akai
Purely theoretical excerise as I probably won't be able to afford Carrier but theorycrafting doesn't cost credits, so why not.

As we know, carriers will have 16 pads: 8xL / 4xM / 4xS and judging by the promo material it doesn't seem they will have any more capacity beyond that. I'd like to be wrong but for the sake of theorycrafting, let's assume 16 pads = max capacity and this is what we get. This implies we, as a single CMDRs can have max 16 ships docked at the carrier at the same time. And it would be 8 large ships, 4 medium and 4 small ones.

This got me thinking on which ships I would take with me for a really long and deep space journey. And it struck me that landing pad distribution is somewhat against me. Currently I own 20 ships so with limits above I can't take all of them. No big deal, some of them are just hangar queens, covering same roles or simply collection items. But while I didn't have problem with filling L pads (6/8, 2 remaining free) the major problem arose with S-pads and M-pads in particular.

You see, in ED we have 38 ships:
  • 14 small
  • 15 medium
  • 9 large

See where it is going? While single carrier can load up almost every existing large ship (88%) it can take just 28% of small and 26% of medium ones. With medium ships providing the best ratio size : capabilities, limiting only 4 on carrier seems... odd. Well, I'm speaking from solitary CMDR POV that want to take his private fleet and disappear into void for a few months. I haven't done so previously for I cannot commit to one aspect of a game for longer than few weeks. I need change of subject otherwise I get burn out. Idea of having a carrier which will house few different ships sounds great. I could get into exploring and when bored switch to mining. Then I could travel some more to inhabited place, penal colony would do and run some missions for them. Or do combat.

But different choices require different ships, most of them are medium sized. And that we are limited to have. So in my eyes personal carrier isn't that much personal. But again, pure theorycrafting, based on thumb sucked basis, without any real data. I just hope FDEVs thought this really well and my concerns won't come true.
 

Watcher

W
I assume the weighting towards large pads is to give you more flexibility, as askavir say you can land your small and medium ships there.
Would we be happy sacrificing a large pad or two to buy a few extra medium and small pads? Maybe, I suspect most would prefer the large pads though.
Would we be happy sacrificing a few or all of those medium or small pads for a couple of large ones? Maybe, but again I suspect not.
They've probably found a reasonable balance here. I felt it was a bit large pad weighted to be honest but for increased flexibility it probably makes sense. Of course having just plain out more pads would also be handy but that might get a bit silly, this thing already has space for 16 ships which ought to be enough :)

If FD want to get funky perhaps they could give you the option to customise the number and size of pads you have..

Heck if you want to get funkier you could do something like have a rear drive unit module and a front command deck module - these can split apart to add carrier modules. between them - you then get to pick what modules you want, more bays (pick your types), or other stuff they come up with. Limit the number of modules by drive unit/generator capacity with some sort of option to upgrade - upgrade only available at certain stations. Carriers would then be a bit more visually distinct and it would also let you have an incremental cost - you could by a basic starter carrier and gradually build it up. Probably not having all that though, that doesn't quite fit in with what has been revealed :D
 

Dommarraa

Dommarraa
It really has to be the regular Instance limits like a normal station.
If not, 8 CMDRs on your friends list could land on your Carrier in Solo, log out, and you would not be able to land on it EVER without getting in a Medium/Small ship.
Even removing them from the allowed list could not just dump them into space, as this leads to all sorts of other shenanigans.
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
Dommarraa said:
It really has to be the regular Instance limits like a normal station.
If not, 8 CMDRs on your friends list could land on your Carrier in Solo, log out, and you would not be able to land on it EVER without getting in a Medium/Small ship.
Even removing them from the allowed list could not just dump them into space, as this leads to all sorts of other shenanigans.
Click to expand...

Maybe FDev assume that players will arrange it amongst themselves, rather than trying to grief people who invite them to land on their carrier?
 

yianniv

yianniv
Dommarraa said:
Even removing them from the allowed list could not just dump them into space, as this leads to all sorts of other shenanigans.
Click to expand...
I think FD could create tools that deal with this: A prompt to these unwanted guests to choose a base to send their no-more-welcome ships. And to avoid exploits, the last used base. Possibly free of charge.
 

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
Where has Frontier said that the 16 pad maximum limit implies that the Fleet carrier can only carry a maximum of 16 ships?
Other carriers in game already (such as Gnosis or the emergency evac carriers) has surface landing pads and then the ships are taken internally.

Why would the Fleet Carrier be any different?

I get the reason why there are multiple pads, the pad is booked all the time that the commander is logged in, either on the surface or 'in the hold' but as soon as they log out, the pad becomes free again.

I would like to think that the Fleet Carrier would be able to hold my whole fleet, not just a subset of one. Especially as I am only allowed to buy a single Fleet Carrier.
 

Watcher

W
Snowymonk said:
Where has Frontier said that the 16 pad maximum limit implies that the Fleet carrier can only carry a maximum of 16 ships?
Other carriers in game already (such as Gnosis or the emergency evac carriers) has surface landing pads and then the ships are taken internally.

Why would the Fleet Carrier be any different?

I get the reason why there are multiple pads, the pad is booked all the time that the commander is logged in, either on the surface or 'in the hold' but as soon as they log out, the pad becomes free again.

I would like to think that the Fleet Carrier would be able to hold my whole fleet, not just a subset of one. Especially as I am only allowed to buy a single Fleet Carrier.
Click to expand...

To be fair they haven't but the way the pads are positioned on the surface suggests that you get to land on a pad and possibly take up the bay inside but there isn't otherwise any repositioning of the ship. Also, if the carrier could accommodate more ships why have this many bays at all? I mean you might get a lot of local activity around the carrier but most commanders wouldn't see anywhere near enough to justify 16 active pads. You could get away with one or two of each type. Still, you are quite correct, we haven't had specific confirmation that 16 pads means 16 ships total.
 

GraphiteGB

GraphiteGB
Snowymonk said:
snip
Click to expand...
Theres no ships storage space from the Wire diagram that was shown of the carrier... the carrier also is shown not to have any space to fit ship storage as the ship would be out side the carrier hull or if large ship cut in half by the carrier hull...
Edit Extra info to ninja post above...
 

Shiro Akai

Shiro Akai
askavir said:
Medium and small ships can land in large pads.
Click to expand...


Bigmaec said:
This.
I mean, we had this in how many of the what? 67 fleet carrier threads? In about 10?
o_O
Click to expand...

Hmm.. I didn't dive that deep into those threads and somehow missed that memo. In that case situation looks bit brighter tho I still could use more M-pads. Oh well, can't have everything, I guess.

Thanks for pointing this out, one learns all the time.
 

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
GraphiteGB said:
Theres no ships storage space from the Wire diagram that was shown of the carrier... the carrier also is shown not to have any space to fit ship storage as the ship would be out side the carrier hull or if large ship cut in half by the carrier hull...
Edit Extra info to ninja post above...
Click to expand...

I hope you guys are wrong.
As was said above, the are 38 ships available to buy in game (37 in PS4). Curent shipyards can hold 40 ships.
If I am buying a fleet carrier, I would like it to carry my fleet.

:(
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
Shiro Akai said:
Hmm.. I didn't dive that deep into those threads and somehow missed that memo. In that case situation looks bit brighter tho I still could use more M-pads. Oh well, can't have everything, I guess.

Thanks for pointing this out, one learns all the time.
Click to expand...
It works on regular stations and outposts as well. If you bring a small ship to an outpost and both small pads are taken you can land on the medium pad.
 

Sylow

Sylow
Snowymonk said:
Where has Frontier said that the 16 pad maximum limit implies that the Fleet carrier can only carry a maximum of 16 ships?
Other carriers in game already (such as Gnosis or the emergency evac carriers) has surface landing pads and then the ships are taken internally.

Why would the Fleet Carrier be any different?
Click to expand...

Just my line of thoughts. You quite likely can store as many ships as you want, just like on other megaships around. The limitation of pads rather might rather matter in a very unusual situation. This would be when the carrier is not used by a single player moving his fleet around, but in the unlikely case that a squadron might actually use it in the intended way of being able to travel together.

This might make the "now everybody docks, we jump to the target system, launch and wreck havoc" procedure a little harder. Although not by much I would guess. It just would mean that people would dock and log off, till everybody who wants to come along is docked. Then you and launch, so the disconnected people can reconnect.

Watcher said:
To be fair they haven't but the way the pads are positioned on the surface suggests that you get to land on a pad and possibly take up the bay inside but there isn't otherwise any repositioning of the ship. Also, if the carrier could accommodate more ships why have this many bays at all? I mean you might get a lot of local activity around the carrier but most commanders wouldn't see anywhere near enough to justify 16 active pads. You could get away with one or two of each type. Still, you are quite correct, we haven't had specific confirmation that 16 pads means 16 ships total.
Click to expand...

I actually think that what we saw there was a concept artist fail. Wanted to make good looking graphics and thought that putting the pads so close next to each other looks impressive. Little did they ponder about the implication of internal storage of that picture. I mean, when I looked at that, I even before thinking about the internal storage already noticed that the picture did not include any space for the sliding doors our current landing pads have. Opening one pad on the art we saw there would immediately block two other landing pads.

I am quite certain that if FD hasn't noticed the issue yet based on forum feedback, they will run into it in one of their earlier builds and change things. I mean, megaships are already modular, so I guess in the end they might just be a bit bigger than first planed, to provide the necessary space to carry all the promised landing pads.

So yea... concept art vs. final product. There always are some differences. We will see how things will turn out. I just expect landing pads to get some more space to avoid clipping problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom