Just wait until you see the insurance and taxes...
Seems like frontier actually doesn't want everyone to have a carrier.. for technical reasons?
- Thread starter CMDR Karrde Sun
- Start date
Stephen,
The capital costs aren’t even the issue for most of us. It is the operational cost, especially the passive upkeep that is charged when you are not playing. A thought experiment illustrates why I feel this is the wrong approach:
Sally is 15 years old and she loves to play Elite. She has put hundreds of hours into the game and has purchased her own fleet carrier. Sadly, a few weeks later she is involved in an automobile accident and her moderate injuries requiring hostpitalization prevent her from playing for a few months. She had no opportunuty to “put money in the bank” beforehand, she was focused on recovering from her injuries. After her painful rehab she is looking forward to playing Elite again, her favorite game. Imagine how she’d feel if she logged in and her fleet carrier was gone, and she only got some fraction of the money left.
Is everyone ok with this?
Instead, if she was charged operational costs when using the carrier, there would be no danger of these kinds of things happening at all. She would return to the game where she left off and start finding ways to earn the credits to get her carrier going again.
I'll just quote this to highlight it for everyone suggesting it might be for technical reasons.
If there's no technical issue, i am truly, in full soberness, completely alarmed that someone in frontier created those upkeep numbers and rationally thought individuals would be able to experience carriers for more than a few weeks.
Just a little bit speechless.
Surely by now you've had a go at the game. I know you have. That's a joke.
EDIT: Thanks for communicating. Not just because i made the post. Please understand we play the game right... there are certain realities that exist that you can't wish aren't true, because they exist in the game right now. Even the design team at frontier can't avoid the reality of the game thats been built right? There's no point in trying, the games been built and we've been playing it.
Last edited:
The numbers I see would have made sense when there was a squadron to pay for it, but it is a bit steep for an individual. I have no issues with the initial cost, or the cost of the add ons (in fact they are cheeper than I expected), but 7.5B, so more than to purchase, while in reality not being able to generate income is a bit nuts.
Soooo, the incredibly high upkeep costs are NOT a means to limit the number of carriers in game?
Then, that means those prices were on purpose, for gameplay balance reasons?
PS: Stephen please note, nothing against you, thanks for communicating, but understand this reality from a design point of view is very concerning.
The problem with FC is even that a player with 100 billions, not have any reason for buy (price of purchasing is not the problem) and maintain one, because it's just a black hole for money that eat credits at all times, and make all your future gaming time mindless grinding just for keep it running. And all the activities that you enjoy doing, with the FC are going to be awfully painful if you need to move the carrier. Please listen to you community and left marketing messages and treat us as humans not consumers. Tell us things!!
Sorry for my English
Last edited:
I can understand them wanting to remove unused Fleet Carriers, but the upkeep prices are just unrealistic. There is just no need for them to be so high.Soooo, the incredibly high upkeep costs are NOT a means to limit the number of carriers in game?
Then, that means those prices were on purpose, for gameplay balance reasons?
PS: Stephen please note, nothing against you, thanks for communicating, but understand this reality from a design point of view is very concerning.
I'm not against the basic mechanics, but think they could be expanded upon a lot, its just the ludicrous upkeep costs.
I have played for years as an explorer and have barely enough to buy one now, not enough to equip it with what I want, and certainly don't get enough out of exploring to cover even the base maintenance cost per week let alone anything else. By the time FC's drop my entire game time will have earned me about 8b credits, once I take into spend on ships and other stuff I will have just under 7b available. I have been around the galaxy several times, spent weeks surveying planets before the surface scanner was available searching for vulcanism and the same searching for biology in various systems right across the galaxy.
Now having explained that, just what do you consider an end game player? Is an end game player measured merely in amount of credits they have accrued and nothing else? This seems bizarre since many players with more experience and game time than myself are also in a similar financial position. And yet players who enter the game and focus on the gold rushes could potentially in less than 6 months from starting have far more in credits than I can ever hope to accrue, simply because they choose to chase the credit. They will be the ones buying Fleet Carriers.
This is such a good point. Being “experienced” (FD’s words from the Lave Radio podcast) doesn’t mean that you have lots of credits because mining requires basically no progression at all except for getting into the first ship that can reasonable mine cores. After that if you just want to grind credits like a crazy person you can even if you do nothing else. Why Frontier would focus on just this group makes zero sense to me.
If that's so, then why did you implement such a deterrent mechanic to push players away from them?
I can understand the numbers, but having them drain my credits when I'm not even playing rubs me (and a lot of other people) the very wrong way.
Edit: like I said in another thread, I would much rather pay upkeep on my own terms (like refuel, repair, and rearm), instead of a passive drain.
Tim Smith
T
Hi all,
Just wanted to say firstly thanks for sharing your thoughts, feedback is the way forward!
We'll be going into more details about upcoming changes that will be made next week, please see here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/feedback-changes-announced-next-week.541345/
Cheers!
Just wanted to say firstly thanks for sharing your thoughts, feedback is the way forward!
We'll be going into more details about upcoming changes that will be made next week, please see here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/feedback-changes-announced-next-week.541345/
Cheers!
Are you out of your ducking mind?
So if the reason for the crushing financial burden of the FCs is not a technical one then why are you willfully punishing players for daring to buy one in the first place?
Surely you understand that several billion credits a year in upkeep is way over the top for such a feature?
I think Frontier got the signal loud and clear lol! It’s their move. All that matters now is the response next week.
Well said. I have 60 weeks of ingame playing. I think thats about 10000 hours. I have every ship and upgrade but i dont play for credits alone. I explore and do the bgs. I used to like galnet and explore storylines and such but they removed that. It seems they are pushing players to one style of gameplay with the credit hunting ....mining.....which i hate to do.
Hi Stephen, as someone who has played since launch I have about 1.6B credits. You said on (I think) Lave Radio that they were intended for 'experienced' commanders. Well, I am an experienced commander but one who only does a little mining and as such I can't see myself ever having the chance to own a fleet carrier, just for the upfront cost alone (maybe in another 10 years) never mind the upkeep. They are priced on earning potential (mining) that is broken in comparison to the other careers and as such if I were to own one I wouldn't be able blaze my own trail, I'd have to be a miner (or do Robigo I suppose) to the exclusion of activities I prefer where I actually have fun playing a game.
Experience has very little to do with being able to own a carrier, but a preference for 1 or 2 particular play styles.
Edit: also, there needs to be a way for explorer to earn the FC upkeep while away from civilisation. Don't force players to come back, let them play the way THEY want to, not the way you think they should.
Last edited:
@ Stephen Benedetti:
Thanks for your response. Please note your writing is clearer than what was presented on the stream. Thank you.
Thanks for your response. Please note your writing is clearer than what was presented on the stream. Thank you.
I can say with certainty I will never be aiming for one. The running cost make it unpalatable. I can't imagine a scenario where the cases that there is both sufficient traffic to the carrier to negate cost while also being willing to pay inflated prices are common enough to support a large number of carriers. This is before thinking about how sure I have to be that I want this thing and the credit sink it represents indefinitely before jumping in due to the decreasing amount returned on decommissioning over time. Nothing about the finances makes sense on these from a player perspective.
Given this and the starting cost being from 5B to over 20B, what sort of expectations did you have for players to adapt to these costs? Were that many players just sitting on tens of billions each? Or were the finances set at an aspirational level, trying to entice players to attempt to amass that much in game wealth where they largely had no need before?
Lastly, are these intended as a wealth cap? An ongoing credit sink or do you actually intent for them to be self sustainable?
Last edited: