Three Suggestions to improve the "Fleet Carrier Spam" problem. Parking Regulation, Nav Panel Filtering, Long Term Storage.

[LlamaRama]

Hello CMDRs!
I have three suggestions for Frontier - my suggestions are simple, would be a huge quality of life improvement.

#1: Fleet Carrier parking regulations in high traffic systems.

For systems in the bubble with high fleet carrier traffic or docking such as:

• Carrier Administration Systems
• Carrier Vendor Systems
• Systems with Engineers

Please include the following regulations to aid all CMDR's:

• Fleet carriers may only be in the system for up to 48 hours before they will either:
  1. Be Forcibly jumped to a random, nearby (25Ly) system at the cost of the owner's tritium, or a fine if there is no tritium.
  2. Are issued a fine by the system authority. Repeated fines will result in a carrier being impounded to the nearest FC Admin/Vendor system, released upon payment of fines, and an impound cost.

Reasoning: When doing engineering runs in a fleet carrier, it sucks when you can't jump near to the engineer because people have their FC's parked on the planet it's on for weeks or months without moving it, to the point where some are in decommissioning.

#2: Filtering of Carriers in the nav panel to "Friends and Squadron Only"

Allow filtering of Fleet Carriers on the navigation panel to "Friends and Squadron Only" adding a single menu option to the filter menu, or a toggle off to one side of the FC nav filter.

Reasoning: This one is a major problem, as trying to get back to your, or squadron mates, the carrier can be a real hassle when there are 40+ carriers in the system. The FC spam clutters up popular systems that aren't permit locked, meaning that they're a pain in the butt when you have to do repeated trips in and around the station. This is especially awful in mining systems and engineer systems.

#3: Allow commanders to "Dry Dock" FC's so that they don't throw them in a random system, or leave them lying around when they aren't being used.

For CMDR's who may be taking a vacation halfway across the galaxy, heading to the California for a holiday, or have decided to play another game while they wait for more content or patches, carriers being left around like trash is part of the problem with fleet carrier spam.

So, if a CMDR is going to take an extended stay away from the game, or just the bubble, we should be able to moor the fleet carrier at a dry dock in say, a "Fleet Carrier Docking" system (Which, you could make into a CG to create them), and they will "disappear" from the game. The crew will be let go in the meantime. Ships, Modules, etc, will all be on the FC, and can be transferred if needed, but the carrier cannot be accessed. All modules are considered suspended, but to prevent rust and general wear and tear the usual maintenance costs apply. (Factoring in the modules being suspended).

This feature could further be extended to force payment of weekly maintenance to not be "automatic" if the carrier is in a populated system* and require logging in and paying your workers by clicking a button. Failure to pay for a month will results in immediate impounding of the carrier, further preventing carrier spam. Thus, players who had billions of credits but haven't logged in months won't lose their carrier outright, but it will not be cluttering up the bubble for other CMDR's.

* The reason for this condition is to allow things like the DSSA and long term mining carriers to continue operations as normal.

Reasoning: This would prevent unintended spam from inactive CMDRs, and is essentially a "forced dry docking" - without interrupting the operations of the DSSA and similar carrier networks. I believe logging in once a week and clicking a button to not be too high a burden for people with carriers buying and selling commodities - they should be checking for market updates and adjusting prices more often than that anyway.

For people with long term shops setup to supply modules or otherwise at a set price, you need only park in one of the many, many unpopulated systems, which are common even in the centre of the bubble.

 

[Zanthony]

Hello CMDRs!
I have three suggestions for Frontier - my suggestions are simple, would be a huge quality of life improvement.

#1: Fleet Carrier parking regulations in high traffic systems.

For systems in the bubble with high fleet carrier traffic or docking such as:

• Carrier Administration Systems
• Carrier Vendor Systems
• Systems with Engineers

Please include the following regulations to aid all CMDR's:

• Fleet carriers may only be in the system for up to 48 hours before they will either:
  1. Be Forcibly jumped to a random, nearby (25Ly) system at the cost of the owner's tritium, or a fine if there is no tritium.
  2. Are issued a fine by the system authority. Repeated fines will result in a carrier being impounded to the nearest FC Admin/Vendor system, released upon payment of fines, and an impound cost.

Reasoning: When doing engineering runs in a fleet carrier, it sucks when you can't jump near to the engineer because people have their FC's parked on the planet it's on for weeks or months without moving it, to the point where some are in decommissioning.

#2: Filtering of Carriers in the nav panel to "Friends and Squadron Only"

Allow filtering of Fleet Carriers on the navigation panel to "Friends and Squadron Only" adding a single menu option to the filter menu, or a toggle off to one side of the FC nav filter.

Reasoning: This one is a major problem, as trying to get back to your, or squadron mates, the carrier can be a real hassle when there are 40+ carriers in the system. The FC spam clutters up popular systems that aren't permit locked, meaning that they're a pain in the butt when you have to do repeated trips in and around the station. This is especially awful in mining systems and engineer systems.

#3: Allow commanders to "Dry Dock" FC's so that they don't throw them in a random system, or leave them lying around when they aren't being used.

For CMDR's who may be taking a vacation halfway across the galaxy, heading to the California for a holiday, or have decided to play another game while they wait for more content or patches, carriers being left around like trash is part of the problem with fleet carrier spam.

So, if a CMDR is going to take an extended stay away from the game, or just the bubble, we should be able to moor the fleet carrier at a dry dock in say, a "Fleet Carrier Docking" system (Which, you could make into a CG to create them), and they will "disappear" from the game. The crew will be let go in the meantime. Ships, Modules, etc, will all be on the FC, and can be transferred if needed, but the carrier cannot be accessed. All modules are considered suspended, but to prevent rust and general wear and tear the usual maintenance costs apply. (Factoring in the modules being suspended).

This feature could further be extended to force payment of weekly maintenance to not be "automatic" if the carrier is in a populated system* and require logging in and paying your workers by clicking a button. Failure to pay for a month will results in immediate impounding of the carrier, further preventing carrier spam. Thus, players who had billions of credits but haven't logged in months won't lose their carrier outright, but it will not be cluttering up the bubble for other CMDR's.

* The reason for this condition is to allow things like the DSSA and long term mining carriers to continue operations as normal.

Reasoning: This would prevent unintended spam from inactive CMDRs, and is essentially a "forced dry docking" - without interrupting the operations of the DSSA and similar carrier networks. I believe logging in once a week and clicking a button to not be too high a burden for people with carriers buying and selling commodities - they should be checking for market updates and adjusting prices more often than that anyway.

For people with long term shops setup to supply modules or otherwise at a set price, you need only park in one of the many, many unpopulated systems, which are common even in the centre of the bubble.

I never did understand why every slot around every engineer is taken by unused fleet carriers. You have guys like me with multiple ships that want to jump in with my FC and do some engineering and jump out. I get a FC store for unlock materials, but not 15. Park somewhere else.

 

[Milly]

Is there a reason why fleet carriers that aren't open to public docking (so, Friends & Squadron only) should even be "present" in the public instance? Imho they should be simply invisible to players that can't dock on them and not clutter the system. Declare that the ones that aren't open to docking have encoded beacon and you simply don't get to find them, bingo, like 2/3rds of the carriers stinking about disappear into the vast blackness of space and there's more room for everyone, and it will feel less like fleet carriers actually make up several orders of magnitude more human-constructed mass floating in space than all the "civilization" stations and installations...

 

[coca_fr]

I agree that Fleet Carrier that are there for too long, should be automatically moved to a nearby system.

If system is not full, FC shouldn't be moved. Many Carrier Vendor/Administration or engineering system are interesting as a home base.

 

[Fizzatron]

I don't know whether the system limit is based on server/code, but if it is, making Fleet Carriers invisible may not be a viable solution. However, if that wasn't the limit, I would be happy for Fleet Carriers to have nav beacons that can be turned on and off based on set criteria to help with Carrier congestion.

 

[varonica]

I don't know whether the system limit is based on server/code, but if it is, making Fleet Carriers invisible may not be a viable solution. However, if that wasn't the limit, I would be happy for Fleet Carriers to have nav beacons that can be turned on and off based on set criteria to help with Carrier congestion.

FC's are a variation of stations, as such they use the same mechanism as stations for persistence, they count as a primary object in the ID database, they have their own ID64. There are only a limited number of ID64's available per system, that's fixed and can't be changed, that's what defines the upper limit of FC's per system, other limits exist regarding available orbits around planets and stars, so just making them invisible won't increase the number that can be parked around a planet, the only thing that will do is stop you from parking for no visible reason. Invisible Fleet Carriers will still take up orbital parking slots, you just won't know why you can't park their.

 

[Fizzatron]

FC's are a variation of stations, as such they use the same mechanism as stations for persistence, they count as a primary object in the ID database, they have their own ID64. There are only a limited number of ID64's available per system, that's fixed and can't be changed, that's what defines the upper limit of FC's per system, other limits exist regarding available orbits around planets and stars, so just making them invisible won't increase the number that can be parked around a planet, the only thing that will do is stop you from parking for no visible reason. Invisible Fleet Carriers will still take up orbital parking slots, you just won't know why you can't park their.

Ahh, that's what I wondered. Thanks for confirming. I wonder what the basis is for those limits, I assume it's not just some arbitrary number. It also makes me wonder what the Elite database would look like rendered in something like Excel, though I doubt it could handle it?

 

[Rebel Yell]

Engineers systems should be permit locked, problem solved.

 

[IcewindZG]

Forced movement of inactive carriers seems more usable and drydock would help eliminate random unusable carriers. No need to lock the system away if you instead have a time limit of being there.

 

[varonica]

Ahh, that's what I wondered. Thanks for confirming. I wonder what the basis is for those limits, I assume it's not just some arbitrary number. It also makes me wonder what the Elite database would look like rendered in something like Excel, though I doubt it could handle it?

The last 9 digits of the 64 bit number is set aside for use by solar systems, I think I remember one digit being reserved so that leaves 8 bits, but whether it's the full 9 or only 8 bits that leaves us with a maximum of either 256 or 512 primary objects in a system, that includes stars, planets moons, asteroid clusters, stations etc. The number of rows required to store would need to handle a minimum of 400 billion rows, so no, not going to work at all in excel!

 

[gorankar]

I have always been for a system that allows the FC to stay for a max of 10 days in a 20 day cycle in a system over 80% full. If the system is near full, you got to go somewhere else for 10 days out of 20. Obviously the numbers could be tweaked.
Combine that with a few mothball systems where they can move FC that have been abandoned by their owners for a certain amount of time, and I think there would not be too much issue.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

What if upkeep depends on the system parked in. In-universe, carriers create trade for the controlling faction, and systems without them offer concessions on upkeep to encourage their presence, lowering net upkeep. Upkeep implies some notional use of local services to keep the crew and vessel fed and in good order, and popular systems cash in on their popularity, increasing upkeep. If you're parked there for good financial reasons, you'll stay there, if parked for no reason, you'll do a quick jump to somewhere that isn't bleeding your resources.

 

[Fizzatron]

What if upkeep depends on the system parked in. In-universe, carriers create trade for the controlling faction, and systems without them offer concessions on upkeep to encourage their presence, lowering net upkeep. Upkeep implies some notional use of local services to keep the crew and vessel fed and in good order, and popular systems cash in on their popularity, increasing upkeep. If you're parked there for good financial reasons, you'll stay there, if parked for no reason, you'll do a quick jump to somewhere that isn't bleeding your resources.

You know, this could be the solution. Free parking for x amount of time then after that a parking tax that increases every once in a while to prevent Fleet Carrier loitering in systems with over x amount of carriers already present? There would be a cool down period for it to reset to prevent carriers hopping out and back in. It could be a good way to ensure there's slots available for those who need them and general turnover.

 

[varonica]

So far everything I have read hear has already been posted in previous threads, I mean it's nice but gets boring after a while, but how about something new every now and then?

For instance if your Fleet Carrier is parked in one spot to long it gets attacked by thargoids, or maybe it starts suffering from fatigue and stuff stops working so you have to keep moving it to be able to use it...you know, innovative stuff.

 

[Tikanderoga]

FC's are a variation of stations, as such they use the same mechanism as stations for persistence, they count as a primary object in the ID database, they have their own ID64. There are only a limited number of ID64's available per system, that's fixed and can't be changed, that's what defines the upper limit of FC's per system, other limits exist regarding available orbits around planets and stars, so just making them invisible won't increase the number that can be parked around a planet, the only thing that will do is stop you from parking for no visible reason. Invisible Fleet Carriers will still take up orbital parking slots, you just won't know why you can't park their.

How do you know all this background info?

What defines the ID64? Is that from the stellar forge?

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

You know, this could be the solution. Free parking for x amount of time then after that a parking tax that increases every once in a while to prevent Fleet Carrier loitering in systems with over x amount of carriers already present? There would be a cool down period for it to reset to prevent carriers hopping out and back in. It could be a good way to ensure there's slots available for those who need them and general turnover.

Well, okay, but that wasn't my idea. I'm not talking about a time-based premium, which is an artificial tax for out-of-game reasons. I'm talking about one based on how crowded the system is, that can be explained away by in-universe factors and creates a downward pressure on that crowding.

 

[Fizzatron]

Well, okay, but that wasn't my idea. I'm not talking about a time-based premium, which is an artificial tax for out-of-game reasons. I'm talking about one based on how crowded the system is, that can be explained away by in-universe factors and creates a downward pressure on that crowding.

Sure, I thought I got the gist of it, but I also think part of the issue are the systems that are just perpetually crowded. An ingame reason to stay there could be exploited to keep things as they are. I never mentioned the lore part of what would function as the ingame justification, but it wouldn't be difficult to make one up.