The Deep Space Support Array (DSSA) | A FleetComm Initiative

[Ian Doncaster]

I have not found in a topic yet: was it discussed, that each cmdr, who goes with the FC, could store in FC up to thirty T9s full of tritium, instead of mining all the way? (Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not sure, how many ships each commander can take in FC with). These T9s could be then sold back (or abandoned).
Are there other contras in view, alongside of money splash?

Starting from whichever of Sol or Colonia is closer, and assuming you don't take more than 5-6000t of services on board, you should be able to carry enough fuel in the carrier's cargo hold to reach your destination. It's almost an extra billion credits up front for the furthest destinations, and fuel supplies in Colonia might be a bit scarce to start with, but it'll make moving the carrier into place much quicker.

Additional T-9s belonging to other commanders could board with extra Tritium (not limited to 30, just however many friends you can convince...) which can later be transferred to the hold or depot as the carrier's own stocks are used up, but this shouldn't be necessary following their "at least" doubling of fuel efficiency unless you take a lot of outfitting/shipyard stock as well.

As stated above, the additional T-9s must be the CMDR's active ship, because stored ships can't hold cargo. They could fit some mining equipment to the T-9s as well, do a bit of mining for extra Tritium at the destination, call a cheap DBX to the carrier's shipyard, sell the T-9, and head home.

Having surplus Tritium on board the carrier, and having it become a deep space mining centre, gives you an extra possible funding source for it - selling Tritium to mobile carriers passing through.

 

[Qohen Leth]

I have not found in a topic yet: was it discussed, that each cmdr, who goes with the FC, could store in FC up to thirty T9s full of tritium, instead of mining all the way?

Yes you could, with enough people, but it's very boring and unpractical. We call them "drop tanks" btw.

Ninja'd!

 

[Hemulesha]

If you spend that 30 accounts for that T9s I'll take them
You can store your ship but not with cargo

Thanks, i forgot that at a FC it's the same thing. Nonetherless one of my accounts comes along with one of the FCs anyway, with some mine equipment on board. ;-)

 

[Rollo]

Soon™ with UC now available to fit and the veritable infestation of Carriers all around the Galaxy, I think we can say: 'It's exploration, Jim, but not as we know it.'

 

[Snowymonk]

I am sure different people will work out different ways to make this work.

I'll be going 'north' of Sag A.
My thinking was to Neutron Highway to Colonia (to cut out the first leg)
Purchase the Carrier, add-ons and as much fuel as I could before heading out.

My Alt account wil be coming along as Mining support as my main account will be heading back to the bubble to resume 'pottering about' duties

It seamed to work in my head.

If people can spot flaws in my logic, please shout up.

 

[Masta Squidge]

Well, the carriers are not supposed to go home, at all. We aim to keep them there, permanently. They should only go out of service if the owner could not keep supporting the carrier anymore, even with help from the community.

Except for the bit about signing up for a limited term and being allowed to leave eventually.

I would add that we could also consider setting up a commodity sale that leads to negative profit so passerby can helpfully "donate" to carrier upkeep funds by buying and selling back to the carrier. Of course fdev could just enable donations directly....

 

[Dr. Nagi]

Except for the bit about signing up for a limited term and being allowed to leave eventually.

I would add that we could also consider setting up a commodity sale that leads to negative profit so passerby can helpfully "donate" to carrier upkeep funds by buying and selling back to the carrier. Of course fdev could just enable donations directly....

No, that is not the point. Anyone who signed up just for the 1 year we set and to move the carrier again after that period is up did not understand the point of the project.
We set this 1 year as a "trial period" to see if it works and to only get people who actually commit to that instead of "yeah I'm gonna place my carrier there for 3 months".
EDIT: After I talked with Qohen, this is how it goes: We want a 1 year commitment (from those who do sign up), minimum. You can leave after that but it is strongly expected to organise a replacement.

The donations thing was already thought about and there actually is a column on the spreadsheet for that.

 

[Dr. Nagi]

It seamed to work in my head.

If people can spot flaws in my logic, please shout up.

The total amount of tritium available for purchase from stations in Colonia is less than 4000 tons. CMDR Cometborne iirc went ahead to scout that out in the beta.
So that is one flaw. If you want to start from Colonia, you will have to mine.

 

[Mizumono]

Please fill out the form if you have not: https://bit.ly/dssacmdrform

Like i said yesterday I didn´t yet sumbit one and just saw that Acheron is already at capacity. I will relocate my FC to Hieronymus Delta then(submission done), making it the 3rd according to the submissions list. It shall be then renamed to "DSSA Pilgrim's Harbor" as the previous name will not fit imho.

 

[Mengy]

Soon™ with UC now available to fit and the veritable infestation of Carriers all around the Galaxy, I think we can say: 'It's exploration, Jim, but not as we know it.'

I'm looking forward to it honestly.

I mean the distance between carriers will still be sizeable in number of light years, but I think its going to feel much more alive and social out in deep space with the carriers deployed, while still allowing us plenty of room to go find that distant, lonely, solitary sensation too.

And they'll serve as handy meeting points for all explorers and expeditions. This is the most excited I've felt about exploring in Elite for a very long time.

 

[Orvidius]

Exploration has always been "what you make of it" anyway, and carriers only change it if you allow them to. You could still fly forever and never see one. But if you need a place to dock, sell data, replace a destroyed SRV, etc, you can look up which ones are nearest to you. Plus, this will enable social aspects, making natural meeting places.

I'm looking forward to it, personally.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The total amount of tritium available for purchase from stations in Colonia is less than 4000 tons. CMDR Cometborne iirc went ahead to scout that out in the beta.
So that is one flaw. If you want to start from Colonia, you will have to mine.

That seems low - the stations I checked in Beta had similar Tritium levels to their Bertrandite and Silver reserves, which are closer to 100,000 tonnes regionally. Beta also had virtually all stations at None, rather than Boom, which would be expected to cut production somewhat compared with the live game, assuming Tritium behaves reasonably normally on the markets.

Of course, I checked at the start of Beta, so possibly before everyone went around buying up the fuel. There were a lot of carriers hanging around Colonia...

Stock regeneration on Tritium seems to be fairly fast - every two days or perhaps a bit quicker - so I would guess that after the initial rush wears off it should be possible to fuel up a couple of carriers a day, at least.

 

[Cometborne]

The total amount of tritium available for purchase from stations in Colonia is less than 4000 tons. CMDR Cometborne iirc went ahead to scout that out in the beta.
So that is one flaw. If you want to start from Colonia, you will have to mine.

3725 tons to be exact, with one outpost providing 3148 tons, and the 18 others providing the other 577 tons. XA had 7000 tons for sale in beta 1, so almost twice as much as all stations in Colonia together. For comparison, there were several stations with a supply of over 250.000 tons in the bubble within a few LY of the carrier sale systems. And the supply did not drop even when I ferried 20.000 tons onto my fleet carrier.

HOWEVER: The above is only valid as description of the situation as it was during beta 1. There is exactly zero evidence that the supply situation will stay unchanged for beta 2 or production, and that it will stay static once the BGS comes out of its usual post-release wobble. On the other hand, there is also exactly zero evidence that the supply situation will change in beta 2, during the initial roll-out, or as reaction to ... ehm ... "post-release player feedback".

Which is why I am NOT planning to leave on the first day or after one week, but rather after a month or so. By that time, the Tritium supply situation and trend should be clear, we will have more precise fuel usage formulas, people will have found more and hopefully overlapping Tritium hotspots, and there will be hard data on how much Tritium you can gather per hour in an overlapping Tritium hotspot. Until then, I will simply remember my 7Ps.

 

[Qohen Leth]

Every region at 3 is at max capacity. Further signups there will go to reserve list.
Red regions are not available.

 

[TransTechGirl]

As you are oversubscribed for Acheron I'll switch mine to Mare Somnia.

Oh and I've extended my commitment time to 3 years though it will likely be indefinite.

 

[Rollo]

I'm looking forward to it honestly.

I mean the distance between carriers will still be sizeable in number of light years, but I think its going to feel much more alive and social out in deep space with the carriers deployed, while still allowing us plenty of room to go find that distant, lonely, solitary sensation too.

And they'll serve as handy meeting points for all explorers and expeditions. This is the most excited I've felt about exploring in Elite for a very long time.

Yes, quite, I'm starting to warm to the idea. I admit to being skeptical at first, but I was that about Colonia too and the station before and at Saggie (that I ended up helping to build). It's a matter of adjusting to new things and I'm happy for the early times spent in tens of thousands of lightyears isolation anyway. We bagged those 0,0003%!

Now, if only we can have trade routes to the carriers, or at least some sort of supply runs (of an automated sort), that'd be great. Make all raws and commodities mean something, and not just LTD's, VP's and Tritium. There can surely be lot of potential here.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

3725 tons to be exact, with one outpost providing 3148 tons, and the 18 others providing the other 577 tons.

That suggests that someone else had bought most of it up by the time you did the survey - when I logged in very early in Beta 1, Morten's Paradise in Desy had just over 1000 tonnes available, and that's one of the smallest Extraction economies in the region.

Still, a pretty good indicator of what's going to happen in the early days after it goes live, too.

 

[Steyla]

The total amount of tritium available for purchase from stations in Colonia is less than 4000 tons. CMDR Cometborne iirc went ahead to scout that out in the beta.
So that is one flaw. If you want to start from Colonia, you will have to mine.

Actually you don't have to mine. In beta I bought 7,000 tons of tritium from different systems here in Colonia. It took me about a day or so. That might change when the FC is released.

 

[Cometborne]

That suggests that someone else had bought most of it up by the time you did the survey - when I logged in very early in Beta 1, Morten's Paradise in Desy had just over 1000 tonnes available, and that's one of the smallest Extraction economies in the region.

Still, a pretty good indicator of what's going to happen in the early days after it goes live, too.

You are correct, I did the survey of the stations in Colonia during the last weekend of the beta, shortly before the end. At that point Morten's Paradise had exactly 29 tons on sale. The only good supply was at Bonestell Point in Ratraii with the 3148 tons I mentioned.

The check at XA with 7000 tons available was was during the early beta; I even passed through Colonia on the way back but did not think to stop and check the supply. Somebody pass me a dunce cap, I clearly failed my 7P here.

And now for the elephant in the room: Acoording to the information given during the reveal stream and what is displayed in game, Tritium is supposed to be provided by refinery economies. However, all the stations with really good supply I saw (including the 250 kt ones in the bubble) were all extraction economies. I saw several players complaining about poor supply in refineriy economies during the beta. If the supply in production is suddenly limited to refinery economies, things could get ugly.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

And now for the elephant in the room: Acoording to the information given during the reveal stream and what is displayed in game, Tritium is supposed to be provided by refinery economies. However, all the stations with really good supply I saw (including the 250 kt ones in the bubble) were all extraction economies. I saw several players complaining about poor supply in refineriy economies during the beta. If the supply in production is suddenly limited to refinery economies, things could get ugly.

If it's switched to be from refinery economies, it doesn't necessarily change that much - Colonia has about as much economic power in Refinery as in Extraction - though XA and the other deep space stations would lose out, and there's plenty of big refineries in the bubble.

The bubble refineries with any supply at all I suspect are Refinery-Extraction hybrids, which tend to have a relatively small Extraction component (and usually low population) and therefore poor tonnage, so they'd probably benefit from the switch.

(Given that you can mine it, Extraction is clearly the correct economy to produce it, though, and it's the description text which should be changed)