Question: Fleet carriers and BGS

[StannisVDM]

Hi there,

This community was very kind to help me out when I was stuck in a remote system and I am hoping it can help me answer some questions now.

I apologize if this has all been explained before!

I recently bought a fleet carrier and am wondering about the commodity market on board and how it interacts with BGS:

1: Are NPCs able to trade commodities on fleet carriers or only players? Do NPCs also use the refuel,repair and re-arm functions?

2: If NPCs can trade commodities on the carriers, if I set my BUY price on Commodity X 10% above the galactic average will BGS recognize this and send NPCs to sell that commodity at my carrier?

3: Assuming 1 & 2; if I had 1000 tons of commodity X and I jump to a system that I know is buying that good, If I set my sell price to 10% below the system average would the NPCs come buy my good on the carrier to sell in the system?

I appreciate any help in understanding this.

 

[Jmanis]

1: Are NPCs able to trade commodities on fleet carriers or only players? Do NPCs also use the refuel,repair and re-arm functions?

Nope, ergo...

: If NPCs can trade commodities on the carriers, if I set my BUY price on Commodity X 10% above the galactic average will BGS recognize this and send NPCs to sell that commodity at my carrier?

... nope and. ..

3: Assuming 1 & 2; if I had 1000 tons of commodity X and I jump to a system that I know is buying that good, If I set my sell price to 10% below the system average would the NPCs come buy my good on the carrier to sell in the system?

...nope.

NPCs don't interact with FCs at all except visually docking.

 

[Pristine_Bump]

Hi there,
I recently bought a fleet carrier and am wondering about the commodity market on board and how it interacts with BGS:
I appreciate any help in understanding this.

This is the more interesting question

 

[kail]

When asked, FDev have repeatedly said that carriers do not impact the BGS in any way.

 

[Jmanis]

This is the more interesting question

It doesn't either. FCs are disconnected from the BGS except for bonds and bounties, which attribute security effects/inf to the faction that issued it, if they're in that system ( so its no different to just handing in at a station in the system)

Note: i could be wrong there but i thought this was tested and confirmed.

 

[Jmanis]

Btw, for someone that knows, is Hydrogen bombing still a thing?

 

[kail]

Bonds & bounties. Yea, that's wrong. Don't cash in either at an FC to impact the faction. Does impact your REP though.. and costs you 25% (like an IF).

 

[Dragsham]

Ah so carriers as we all know can flip a system soon as. Using the usual flip agenda hehe. But it's a shame the commercial side of it has no effect.
Which begs the question why does carriers have the ability to sell ships and modules? We all use shinartra surely they knew that?
Apart from notorious noobs not having their own carrier chock full of the aforementioned what's the point???

Just thought..it's cos their not player designed moreover wing designed and they couldn't be buttocked to change it

 

[Pristine_Bump]

 

[Dragsham]

Missed opportunity for a player based economic influence? Or intentional? My guess is the latter.
Don't wanna upset the whole galaxy's dynamics by having 14000 or more carriers selling ships modules materials and commodities across 30000+ systems. The consequences could be catastrophic hehe. Or....? Idk I'm just curious how it would turn out.

 

[goemon]

Btw, for someone that knows, is Hydrogen bombing still a thing?

last time tested: yes. funfact: looks as if selling for a loss puts faction into boom nevertheless.

 

[goemon]

When asked, FDev have repeatedly said that carriers do not impact the BGS in any way.

yep - important notice here: in itself. commodity market works as a regular market for commodity purchases (so e.g. profit created by selling commodities purchased at a FC setting the sell prices appropriate), while selling to a FC market does nothing (as there is no station controlling faction).

which means, using a FC allows a player to influence the BGS like a station in system without controlling faction.

 

[StannisVDM]

Thank you for answering my questions. A real shame that NPCs don't interact commercially with carriers, it really limits their financial viability and interest as a trader. by limiting it to player interaction all the commodities will be focused mostly around the "hot' mining material at the time. If BGS already takes into account system state and various pricing they have really missed an opportunity here to make this aspect of the game much more interesting and provide us a different avenue to make money beyond just min-maxing mining and trading with our own individual ships.

I understand its probably because they want us to play more to work for the credits rather than be able to earn them passively, but honestly player's who have carriers are already your top 10% if not even less who likely have hundreds of hours in the game. give us something!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Bonds & bounties. Yea, that's wrong. Don't cash in either at an FC to impact the faction. Does impact your REP though.. and costs you 25% (like an IF).

People who have tested this (and who I trust to definitely carry out a proper test) have found that bounties cashed in at an FC for a faction present in the system work for influence but at half normal effectiveness.

Bonds also affect war results - again, probably at much reduced effectiveness, but that's harder to measure.

I'm pretty sure that when Frontier said carriers don't affect the BGS, they meant that they are not in themselves a BGS asset, not that they can't be used to affect the BGS.

If BGS already takes into account system state and various pricing they have really missed an opportunity here to make this aspect of the game much more interesting

Yes - you can use a carrier to take big advantage of "buy low, sell high" and how prices change with BGS states by stockpiling and moving goods in bulk ... but ultimately you're still just doing bulk trading so >95% of goods are still worth less that way than the bounty on the pirates they attract. Fun, and why not once you have a carrier and no further need to gain huge amounts of money, but not super profitable in itself.

 

[Jmanis]

last time tested: yes. funfact: looks as if selling for a loss puts faction into boom nevertheless.

That fits with my old experience. Only selling on Black Market caused bust.

Incidentally, what did you test that with? Just that trading drugs (wine, beer, tobacco, narcotics etc) cause bust.... so i wonder if selling those for a loss causes boom XD

 

[goemon]

by limiting it to player interaction all the commodities will be focused mostly around the "hot' mining material at the time. ething!

also, carriers make very good storage for commodities used by fetch missions ("source 18 ton of bioreducing lichen"). i have currrently around 13K tons stored of them, and in total players have traded more than 27k tons out since FC update.

plus the possibility to store batches of osmium or brommelite etc. - mining missions are inf+ heavy.

 

[goemon]

That fits with my old experience. Only selling on Black Market caused bust.

Incidentally, what did you test that with? Just that trading drugs (wine, beer, tobacco, narcotics etc) cause bust.... so i wonder if selling those for a loss causes boom XD

that's something @Dommarraa would have to say

 

[Dommarraa]

My Hydrogen Bomb/Negative Sales were with mundane products - I didnt notice any movement to either Boom or Bust, but I wasnt looking.

 

[goemon]

My Hydrogen Bomb/Negative Sales were with mundane products - I didnt notice any movement to either Boom or Bust, but I wasnt looking.

i did
it's not testing level (so, theoretically other things might have caused the boom), but i consider it as reason to look into it.

 

[Danieros]

I see TDW putting up FCs for unloading goods at stations for pushing them. I'd assume at the very least that trading only looks at the station of goods being sold to calculate the influence gains based on amount/profit per ton. Obviously on the day I get a FC I'd at least test it on a low pop system myself just to see if it at the very least still moves influence (Frontier changes a LOT of stuff without providing us change notes for it). In theory this gives good potential to min/max using data from @goemon very recent research:

• Markets from factions that are in no state may not reach the 2k cr/t cap for profit per ton.
• Even when markets are in states that offer one good that you can sell at >2k cr/t profit, it's not very likely that station will have multiple of these to go for the 150 ton soft cap (especially the 5 of these you'd need for a fully decked out hauler T9/cutter).
• The points above are also valid for loss trading to hurt influence, with the added challenge of existing player market tools not designed towards this.
• Capping out SC distances, so for those 50k+ ls stations there's very clear benefit just shortening the SC trip.

For combat, at the very least you get guaranteed refuel/rearm/outfitting/shipyard and a large pad. Supposing it works, I wouldn't be a fan of delivering bonds/carto data at these just because of the IF tax (and potentially any other penalty since the FC isn't an owned BGS asset). Since you'd have to move the FC to the system you'd be turning these in anyway, might as well as make the extra very short trip to do it at the station for full effect.