Thinking about a fleet carriers. Any advice from owners ?

[SparcT1]

Hi CMDRs,

Exploring, doing exobiology and mining are my key interests so far.
I feel some limitations however.
When exploring an area I think to myself... "if only I had my miner ship with me".
When doing pure exobiology, I think to myself "...I miss some extra jump range with this SRV bay, shields, etc..."
As having more and more datas/exo species or so, I do not feel comfortable risking a full loss of them in case of issue without traveling several 100s of LY to resell them first. (that one ever happened to me... had to restart all explo/exo from the begining... frustrating! )
So my ideal context would be a fleet carrier, with three ships aboard. One for each role. On which I could closely and safely register and resell my discoveries.
Eventually a trader would be nice to add to the carrier as well.

I investigated this option in terms of cost and budgets, possibilities and constraints.
My conclusion so far is that to be safe in terms of maintenance you need to be sure to achieve at least 10Mcr per week (that may be done in one or two sessions).
Using the explorer to identify locations and possible interest points, then mining (for Tritium but not only), running exobiology trips, I guess it could be achievable and sustainable.

Question then are :

• as a carrier owner, would my ships count as occupied landing pads ? Could not find clear answer on that.
• when something is sold to the carrier, is it transferred to internal storage ? I guess yes, but then how to manage that vs. your own material storage space and global reselling ?
• How to best resell your mined resources, exo species or exploration datas in a way that it helps sustaining carrier weekly costs ?
• most services take an uplift of 25%, 12.5% for the carrier bank, 12.5% for the service provider (geo / genomics / etc...). Why not, but will the materials/species I sell as owner be managed the same ?
• .../...

Well, having a lot of questions, let's summarize :
Do you think acquiring and managing a carrier when being a single player in solo mode is a good idea for doing explo/exo/mining, including in the dark ?

In terms of budget, I guess that having 3x the initial value is a milestone to engage (so at least 15Bcr).
Being currently about half this requirement, having all ships I talked about in my little fleet (except a trader), I just start to think about it so any help/advice would be welcomed.

Any return on experience or advice ?

Cheers,
O7,
SparcT1.

 

[Born Free]

it is viable. i think you can have 40 stored ships max. not sure about the 41st being aboard, since i only have about 20 ships lol.
but this is what i did, and i've made it back up to 6.5bn so far. got distracted by power play. i only have Vista, redemption, bar, repair, universal cartography. you dont need the shipyard or outfitting modules that is only to sell new ships and modules, and let other people outfit and store ships. you can outfit/repair/store your own ships without those modules. my cost is 16.5mil per week unless i make a lot of jumps, then maybe 20m per week.
pro tip: yes you can mine tritium but it takes longer to mine than platinum. waste of time to mine it unless you will be going over 10,000LY outside. last run to the black i just bought 4500 tritium before i left, because i learned this on earlier trips. you also will never need to farm raw materials again, and make sure you sell all the level 1 raw materials before you leave (phosphorus, sulfer, etc) because you will overload and max those out mining in the black. nowhere to trade raw materials way out there.
summary: modules you dont need: shipyard, outfitting, pioneer supplies, secure trading. again shipyard/outfitting is only so others can use those services.
platinum in metallic rings is hard to find. keep a record of those. there is no platinum in "metal rich" rings. it's fake platinum. metal rich, you go poor.
a good starter expedition for platinum is Synuefai HN-Q D6-12 #2

 

[K Olley]

Take a look at my carrier, links in sig. I spend almost all my time out in the black, exploring - salad bashing and mining.

Your own ships and spare ship modules do not take up any weight or space on your carrier, for single player use you do not need a shipyard or outfitting installed,

It is only expo that you loose on bio is paid in full.

You will need to equip refuel, repair, armoury, redemption office, cartographics and vista, armoury supplies limpets and SRV's

To get rid of mined goods jump back to bubble and sell them via a trade ship.

Making credits out in the black is easy, I am now retired so play a fair bit but I can easily make 2+ billion a week just from salad bashing

 

[Hugh Jardon]

Hi CMDRs,

Exploring, doing exobiology and mining are my key interests so far.
I feel some limitations however.
When exploring an area I think to myself... "if only I had my miner ship with me".
When doing pure exobiology, I think to myself "...I miss some extra jump range with this SRV bay, shields, etc..."
As having more and more datas/exo species or so, I do not feel comfortable risking a full loss of them in case of issue without traveling several 100s of LY to resell them first. (that one ever happened to me... had to restart all explo/exo from the begining... frustrating! )
So my ideal context would be a fleet carrier, with three ships aboard. One for each role. On which I could closely and safely register and resell my discoveries.
Eventually a trader would be nice to add to the carrier as well.

I investigated this option in terms of cost and budgets, possibilities and constraints.
My conclusion so far is that to be safe in terms of maintenance you need to be sure to achieve at least 10Mcr per week (that may be done in one or two sessions).
Using the explorer to identify locations and possible interest points, then mining (for Tritium but not only), running exobiology trips, I guess it could be achievable and sustainable.

Question then are :

• as a carrier owner, would my ships count as occupied landing pads ? Could not find clear answer on that.
• when something is sold to the carrier, is it transferred to internal storage ? I guess yes, but then how to manage that vs. your own material storage space and global reselling ?
• How to best resell your mined resources, exo species or exploration datas in a way that it helps sustaining carrier weekly costs ?
• most services take an uplift of 25%, 12.5% for the carrier bank, 12.5% for the service provider (geo / genomics / etc...). Why not, but will the materials/species I sell as owner be managed the same ?
• .../...

Well, having a lot of questions, let's summarize :
Do you think acquiring and managing a carrier when being a single player in solo mode is a good idea for doing explo/exo/mining, including in the dark ?

In terms of budget, I guess that having 3x the initial value is a milestone to engage (so at least 15Bcr).
Being currently about half this requirement, having all ships I talked about in my little fleet (except a trader), I just start to think about it so any help/advice would be welcomed.

Any return on experience or advice ?

Cheers,
O7,
SparcT1.

My advice is to get one ASAP. It's an essential piece of equipment. The management cost is negligible. A couple of nights mining in Paesia or doing pirate massacre missions in Ngalinn gets you enough money to pay the upkeep for years. You have to decide what services to put in it. don't put too much or else your cargo space will be too low.

You have to figure out how to manage cargo and your market. It's not difficult. Any money you cash in goes to the FC, likewise anything you sell, but you own that account, so you can transfer money to and from your main account. You must leave enough money in the FC account to pay for upkeep, so leave a couple of billion in, then you don't have to worry about it.

You can put all your ships and modules on it. it works just like a station.

 

[SparcT1]

@ All,

Thanks for those advices.
Still have to get my next 7Bcr, end up my current pure explo trip, and I currently think I will give it a try.

Cheers,
O7,
SparcT1

 

[Louis Calvert]

Do you think acquiring and managing a carrier when being a single player in solo mode is a good idea for doing explo/exo/mining, including in the dark ?

Honestly it depends. For pure exploration, (imo) a well equipped Anaconda or Mandalay is all you need. A fleet carrier is slow, expensive, and conveys little benefits over just an exploration/exobio ship.

However - for mining, having the massive carrying capacity and restocking, the ability to swap between your survey ships and your miners, etc. It's invaluable, imo.

So if you plan on all three (or just want a carrier to have Vista/UC wherever you go) it's great - or, you know, just for fun!

In terms of budget...

This was my biggest worry too. But after the purchase price I went off exploring and doing exobio and easily banked enough to now ignore the upkeep for literally years even if I do literally nothing else to earn credits, because the exobio payouts are still just crazy money.

It was fun having a deep space carrier, but I wouldn't advocate buying one for anything other than the fun of having a mobile mini station of your own. They are a niche use-case ship, and for me, for the stuff I enjoy, the carrier isn't currently anything but a big personal cargo bay for stuff I can't store normally - which is a shame, but with most services shut down it's only 10mill a week

 

[Felix DiCestria]

My exploration alt's carrier runs at Cr 25 million per week. So 25 bacteria if that's your only income.
That's with bar, Vista, UC, redemption, SY, repair& rearm ( I assume ships will have scoops or scoops will be available for refueling) There's a T9 for moving Trit from hold to fuel tank.
Other than that all the various ships the Alt owns from the Sidey to the Mandy and CbrV.

 

[Mako Kai]

So a few of you mentioned redemption…why would and explorer need this service on his carrier?

 

[LifesAJourney]

To sell codex discoveries.

 

[Anticon]

My alt once had an unfortunate disagreement with a station after spending months out in the black. My ship lost the argument and I went to jail. It cost me at least 3B and more likely about 5B credits from lost exobio and explo data. In that context, owning an FC is just cheap insurance if you intend doing long-distance trips.
I don't bother mining, just buy all the Trit you want before leaving the bubble. Top up at Colonia. You can cover the galaxy.
Exobio pays the major bills and all the champagne you can imagine; explo is just money on top. I tend to work from the FC along a line about 500Ly long, then call the FC to me. While waiting I check adjacent systems. If anything interesting is found along the way I'll check out all the local systems there, but eventually when I rendezvous with the FC I cash in all exo and explo data with no worries about losing as I have once done. Plus all the info is uploaded to EDSM etc so it's available to anyone immediately.
After a while you forget about the cash though, it no longer has meaning - it's the data that matter.
I carry all my fleet with me, just for the variety.

 

[SparcT1]

OK.
I definitely made my mind and will give it a try.
From credits computations, I do not think that it will be a crazy business accelerator (from my exobio/explo/mining interests and activity) but I am sure it won't be a loss of credits.
I do not search to earn tons of them, just enough to play the game the way I like to play it and having fun.
In that respect, having its whole fleet on hand, switching from an activity to another at will depending on context, I think a fleet carrier will be a must have.
Thanks again all for your feedback.

 

[aRJay]

Hi CMDRs,

Exploring, doing exobiology and mining are my key interests so far.
I feel some limitations however.
When exploring an area I think to myself... "if only I had my miner ship with me".
When doing pure exobiology, I think to myself "...I miss some extra jump range with this SRV bay, shields, etc..."
As having more and more datas/exo species or so, I do not feel comfortable risking a full loss of them in case of issue without traveling several 100s of LY to resell them first. (that one ever happened to me... had to restart all explo/exo from the begining... frustrating! )
So my ideal context would be a fleet carrier, with three ships aboard. One for each role. On which I could closely and safely register and resell my discoveries.
Eventually a trader would be nice to add to the carrier as well.

I investigated this option in terms of cost and budgets, possibilities and constraints.
My conclusion so far is that to be safe in terms of maintenance you need to be sure to achieve at least 10Mcr per week (that may be done in one or two sessions).
Using the explorer to identify locations and possible interest points, then mining (for Tritium but not only), running exobiology trips, I guess it could be achievable and sustainable.

Question then are :

• as a carrier owner, would my ships count as occupied landing pads ? Could not find clear answer on that.
• when something is sold to the carrier, is it transferred to internal storage ? I guess yes, but then how to manage that vs. your own material storage space and global reselling ?
• How to best resell your mined resources, exo species or exploration datas in a way that it helps sustaining carrier weekly costs ?
• most services take an uplift of 25%, 12.5% for the carrier bank, 12.5% for the service provider (geo / genomics / etc...). Why not, but will the materials/species I sell as owner be managed the same ?
• .../...

Well, having a lot of questions, let's summarize :
Do you think acquiring and managing a carrier when being a single player in solo mode is a good idea for doing explo/exo/mining, including in the dark ?

Yes, we’ll probably yes for mining but I don’t do that much.

In terms of budget, I guess that having 3x the initial value is a milestone to engage (so at least 15Bcr).

Unlike a ship you are not going to need rebuys, and there are comparatively few ‘modules’ which are nit going to cost more than what they are fitted in. So you you can get buy with less of an over budget if you are in a hurry.

Being currently about half this requirement, having all ships I talked about in my little fleet (except a trader), I just start to think about it so any help/advice would be welcomed.

Any return on experience or advice ?

Cheers,
O7,
SparcT1.

When I bought my FC I had enough credits for Rearm, Repair, Refuel, Redemption, Cartographics and Vista which left me with about half a billion to put into the bank. All that costs me 14.7 million a week plus 100,000 for every jump.

Since then I have explored and exo’d my way to Colonia, done a loop the far side of the nebula and back to Colonia where I used some of the profits from the loop to buy Tritium. I then went to the Core and SagA* returning to the bubble where I bought a new load of Tritium.
I have just started a new exploration run.
I have almost all modules I own on board and most of my ships.
And after putting a buy order in the FC market for Tritium on those two occasions my carrier is only funded for about 15 years.

Despite saying I was going to go exploring since joining in 2016 until I got the FC I had been no further than 5,000Ly until I got my FC.

There are lots of complaints about FCs in the bubble, I was there for almost a year before this departure parked no more than a few jumps from Sol and Shin Dez in a populated minor system with at most five other FCs, you just need to park responsibly.

 

[SparcT1]

Just to let you know : it's done.

"Odysseus" is alive now from no later than few hours.

Selected services are refuel, repair, rearm, universal cartographics and Vista Genomics.
My two key ships are now on-board. "Deep Blue" a mandy for exploration and exobiology, "Gimli" a python for mining.
With just 500 of Tritium I will do a refill up to 1000 + 500 in reserve next.
Also I will need a medium (~30LY) range safe trader, unarmed, light, engineered to be fast and agile enough to escape piracy while being medium sized. (A second dedicated python ? - don't know yet)
I searched and read lot of data before making my mind and agree with @aRJay : I did not needed 15 Billions cr to go.
With a purchase cost of about 5.5 Billions, a weekly average maintenance cost of ~11 Millions (services active ~50% of the time, 2 jumps per week, so ~262 Millions for 6 Months), I gave it a go.
"Odysseus" bank have been increased by 1 Billion for a safety margin (so total investment is about 6.5+ Billions with a bit less than one year of autonomy).
Still I keep 1.5 Billions in cash.
Far more than safe I guess, as yes, a fleet carrier cannot be lost and should not need rebuy (as far as I understood).

Then, next step are re-filling Tritium, defining a route from previous explorations where "Gimli" missed me a lot (I tag any System I visit - have a lot of "for Gimli" tags ;-) ) and then just go .

Last point : as I made my initial decision and headed back to the bubble, "Deep Blue" had to do 57 jumps to reach destination with lot of non scoopable stars. In the unknown, I feared the worst some times... With what revealed being valued as 879 Millions cr data onboard, and two weeks spent on explo/exo, this trip definitely convinced me, should I have had to be. (879 Millions cr represent about 1 year of upkeep...)

So thanks again all for your advice and opinions.

 

[Hugh Jardon]

Just to let you know : it's done.

"Odysseus" is alive now from no later than few hours.

Selected services are refuel, repair, rearm, universal cartographics and Vista Genomics.
My two key ships are now on-board. "Deep Blue" a mandy for exploration and exobiology, "Gimli" a python for mining.
With just 500 of Tritium I will do a refill up to 1000 + 500 in reserve next.
Also I will need a medium (~30LY) range safe trader, unarmed, light, engineered to be fast and agile enough to escape piracy while being medium sized. (A second dedicated python ? - don't know yet)
I searched and read lot of data before making my mind and agree with @aRJay : I did not needed 15 Billions cr to go.
With a purchase cost of about 5.5 Billions, a weekly average maintenance cost of ~11 Millions (services active ~50% of the time, 2 jumps per week, so ~262 Millions for 6 Months), I gave it a go.
"Odysseus" bank have been increased by 1 Billion for a safety margin (so total investment is about 6.5+ Billions with a bit less than one year of autonomy).
Still I keep 1.5 Billions in cash.
Far more than safe I guess, as yes, a fleet carrier cannot be lost and should not need rebuy (as far as I understood).

Then, next step are re-filling Tritium, defining a route from previous explorations where "Gimli" missed me a lot (I tag any System I visit - have a lot of "for Gimli" tags ;-) ) and then just go .

Last point : as I made my initial decision and headed back to the bubble, "Deep Blue" had to do 57 jumps to reach destination with lot of non scoopable stars. In the unknown, I feared the worst some times... With what revealed being valued as 879 Millions cr data onboard, and two weeks spent on explo/exo, this trip definitely convinced me, should I have had to be. (879 Millions cr represent about 1 year of upkeep...)

So thanks again all for your advice and opinions.

The easiest way to get tritium is to put a demand in your market for however much you want at a fair price, while you do whatever you like doing to make money, though if you're planning to take your FC deep into the black, you might as well start figuring out the best way to mine tritium now.

 

[cmdr chequers]

To sell codex discoveries.

But at 1,850,000 per week is it really worth installing it ?

 

[cmdr chequers]

Just to let you know : it's done.

"Odysseus" is alive now from no later than few hours.

Selected services are refuel, repair, rearm, universal cartographics and Vista Genomics.
My two key ships are now on-board. "Deep Blue" a mandy for exploration and exobiology, "Gimli" a python for mining.
With just 500 of Tritium I will do a refill up to 1000 + 500 in reserve next.
Also I will need a medium (~30LY) range safe trader, unarmed, light, engineered to be fast and agile enough to escape piracy while being medium sized. (A second dedicated python ? - don't know yet)
I searched and read lot of data before making my mind and agree with @aRJay : I did not needed 15 Billions cr to go.
With a purchase cost of about 5.5 Billions, a weekly average maintenance cost of ~11 Millions (services active ~50% of the time, 2 jumps per week, so ~262 Millions for 6 Months), I gave it a go.
"Odysseus" bank have been increased by 1 Billion for a safety margin (so total investment is about 6.5+ Billions with a bit less than one year of autonomy).
Still I keep 1.5 Billions in cash.
Far more than safe I guess, as yes, a fleet carrier cannot be lost and should not need rebuy (as far as I understood).

Then, next step are re-filling Tritium, defining a route from previous explorations where "Gimli" missed me a lot (I tag any System I visit - have a lot of "for Gimli" tags ;-) ) and then just go .

Last point : as I made my initial decision and headed back to the bubble, "Deep Blue" had to do 57 jumps to reach destination with lot of non scoopable stars. In the unknown, I feared the worst some times... With what revealed being valued as 879 Millions cr data onboard, and two weeks spent on explo/exo, this trip definitely convinced me, should I have had to be. (879 Millions cr represent about 1 year of upkeep...)

So thanks again all for your advice and opinions.

Engineer a Sidewinder for exploring around the carrier, some Bio's are in areas that the Mandy cannot land.

 

[aRJay]

But at 1,850,000 per week is it really worth installing it ?

Yes you have to ask yourself if having to find two extra Bacterium per week is a problem for you.
A more serious issue might be the effect on FC capacity and jump fuel usage.

 

[LifesAJourney]

But at 1,850,000 per week is it really worth installing it ?

If you find nothing special - probably not.
If you happen to find something very rare, suddenly the fear of each jump on the way back to sell this info weighs much more than mere 2M Cr.