Update 11 Patch Notes

[Raxiel]

So the whole concept of getting a carrier is to get it when you make enough to maintain it to start with?

I guess that works if the purpose of the game is to continue to make money; but for me that like to play as explorer to chart unknown systems and life forms; that would not be feasible. There is no way to make money instantly when you are out of the bubble, right? Even with a carrier I can't sell things I find while exploring on the carrier, since it is mine; and I can't ship what I find to the bubble, while I am out there exploring; so that game loop would be basically precluded to me.

Unless I grind so much money worth to pay the upkeep and then leave; which to me seems a chore to be honest. I would rather have to grind to find materials to FIX my carrier while out there exploring, which would be more engaging and more lore-relevant to be honest...

In that case you install the universal cartographics facility (and Vista genomics if you're doing odyssey plant scanning) and turn in the data for credit as you go.

I don't know if Vista pays out well enough to cover it's fees, but UC definitely does with a few HMC words a week enough to make ends meet. (On that topic, does anyone know if they allow us to un-suspend UC outside carrier admin systems yet?)

 

[Glamdring]

In that case you install the universal cartographics facility (and Vista genomics if you're doing odyssey plant scanning) and turn in the data for credit as you go.

I don't know if Vista pays out well enough to cover it's fees, but UC definitely does with a few HMC words a week enough to make ends meet. (On that topic, does anyone know if they allow us to un-suspend UC outside carrier admin systems yet?)

You can have also immediate credits via VG? Although you said it won't pay enough; but this is exactly what I would do out there... Chart systems, planets and explore for life forms.

 

[Raxiel]

Has been confirmed that you can sell cartographic data on your carrier while out of the bubble? I heard it was something that was possibly coming but have not been playing since the launch of Odyssey to be honest, so I didn't know they added that.

So you are saying that just the cartographic data would be enough to pay the upkeep? I would like to get an idea of how much time it would take, because that seem to be a good reason (if it doesn't take extremely long time) to justify the upkeep. Still dislike the idea but at least is justifiable.

It's been the case for months, the DSSA network is funded in part by the surcharge on the scan payoutsi haven't tried vista, but I've used UC while as far out as Witchead or Guardian space

 

[Neilski]

Has been confirmed that you can sell cartographic data on your carrier while out of the bubble?

Yes, see above (and I've done it myself).

On that topic, does anyone know if they allow us to un-suspend UC outside carrier admin systems yet?

Yes, this works fine.

 

[Raxiel]

Yes, see above (and I've done it myself).

Yes, this works fine.

That's good. I wasn't in a position to get either a carrier or UC for their respective launches as I was still on the far side of the galaxy at the time, but I remember UC being the odd one out because it could be suspended anywhere like the other modules, but was the only one to require CA to reverse that, wasn't clear if it was a bug or design intent due to its utility

 

[Jermanicus]

Bunch of separate points above, but concisely:
Paying real-world money to skip upkeep on a carrier isn't P2W per se, I would agree with that, but it's a step onto a very dangerous and slippery slope. P2W lies at the bottom of that slope. Honestly, as soon as you can pay cash for gameplay benefits, you will have a section of the community who are chilled about that and will use it to good effect and others who aren't OK with it and will lag behind. [edit: and this drives the developers in certain directions...] Bad.

As for grind, I'm honestly not sure what to say to your question. A carrier costs 5 billion. A high-end T9 with A-rated stuff (like the one in my fleet) is ballpark 150 million, i.e. pennies by comparison to the cost of the carrier, and maybe equivalent in cost to a couple of hours worth of reasonably profitable game activity if you really aren't pushing the limits. It's simply not possible to own a carrier and NOT be able to afford a large trade/miner ship. But yeah, grind is bad, and ED has too much of it. I just don't see that carrier upkeep is a high-priority thing to fix in that respect. There must be literally hundreds of things I'd personally prefer they looked at.

If someone can afford a carrier, they can certainly afford the upkeep. ~CR30million a week upkeep is an hour a week's play for me.

I don't like the idea of using irl money to pay for the upkeep - that's Pay To Win. Once we start on that steep, well-lubricated, slippery slope, it's not long before we get pay to get certain ships, certain weapons, etc. etc.

 

[Cori]

I certainly wouldn't be okay with using real money to support the ongoing carrier costs; however, my personal experience so far is that the weekly upkeep for the various additional services that can be installed is far too expensive for the amount of benefit they give. Particularly unimpressive are Pioneer Supplies and the ship purchasing (rather than ship swapping) side of the Shipyard - it's hard to see why you'd ever want to go to a carrier for either.

That said, I only use my carrier as a personal base of operations. It might be different for entire wings or squadrons.

Still, I would urge Frontier to seriously take another look at the operating costs.

 

[Glamdring]

If someone can afford a carrier, they can certainly afford the upkeep. ~CR30million a week upkeep is an hour a week's play for me.

I don't like the idea of using irl money to pay for the upkeep - that's Pay To Win. Once we start on that steep, well-lubricated, slippery slope, it's not long before we get pay to get certain ships, certain weapons, etc. etc.

How is pay to win? You already bought a carrier; what else is to "win" ?

On the escalation aspect I agree; if people start to sink in money for something like upkeep paying with real money, the next step is ships and modules. Look what happened with expansions: people started to pay for one and they made others

 

[Glamdring]

I certainly wouldn't be okay with using real money to support the ongoing carrier costs; however, my personal experience so far is that the weekly upkeep for the various additional services that can be installed is far too expensive for the amount of benefit they give. Particularly unimpressive are Pioneer Supplies and the ship purchasing (rather than ship swapping) side of the Shipyard - it's hard to see why you'd ever want to go to a carrier for either.

That said, I only use my carrier as a personal base of operations. It might be different for entire wings or squadrons.

Still, I would urge Frontier to seriously take another look at the operating costs.

To be clear I didn't want to support the concept of paying with real money the upkeep... I wanted to pay ONCE to get some sort of pass to never pay upkeep anymore.

In the same way someone could buy a cosmetic on the shop, or bought in the past the expansion pass to get them all for free once released, having another pass that remove the need to pay upkeep for the carrier would not be much of a change in the end. But I understand that some people are concerned by the idea of buying something that takes time, because that remove the "achievement" for the ones that can afford it. I personally could care less of what others do and how they get there (play 24h a day, pay someone to play the game for you; use real money...whatever it is), but it seems that the majority of people do care and want to be sure that nobody buy their way into such service with real money.

Points of view in the end; but curious to see it coming from people spending for cosmetics or in-ship ornaments One thing is for sure: Frontier will never remove the upkeep for reasons they tried to justify too many times at this point.
As long as vista genomics and cartography pay enough once out of the bubble, to cover the costs, I am fine with it

 

[ChasingSol]

Glamdring, it's common in MMO's, they're called gold sinks. Frontier decided that for the privilege of having a fleet carrier you have to pay an upkeep. If you can't afford the upkeep, then you don't get to have a fleet carrier. It's a game mechanic. Paying real money for game mechanics to change is exactly what pay-to-win means. This is not the same as a cosmetic item.

 

[Cori]

Glamdring, it's common in MMO's, they're called gold sinks. Frontier decided that for the privilege of having a fleet carrier you have to pay an upkeep. If you can't afford the upkeep, then you don't get to have a fleet carrier. It's a game mechanic. Paying real money for game mechanics to change is exactly what pay-to-win means. This is not the same as a cosmetic item.

MMOs have gold sinks to control the game economy; that's not really needed for ED as it doesn't have one, at least in the same sense. There's not really any need for a gold sink.

 

[Glamdring]

Glamdring, it's common in MMO's, they're called gold sinks. Frontier decided that for the privilege of having a fleet carrier you have to pay an upkeep. If you can't afford the upkeep, then you don't get to have a fleet carrier. It's a game mechanic. Paying for game mechanics to change is exactly what pay-to-win means. This is not the same as a cosmetic item.

Pay to win is a term used to describe someone using real money to get an advantage over other players. This is very common in free to play games coming from areas like Korea and China, where people gain something that cannot be acquired by other means except via purchase with real money or an incredibly long grind based on lootboxes and low chances to get the item/character/whatever it is.
Also P2W is aimed at games that are usually competitive/PVP in nature.

If you buy your game and play it, there is nothing to win. If you play against others and you don't pay upkeep, there is nothing to win. If you can explain to me what "winning" means, in the context of a game that has no score and no end, I would really appreciate. Buying a special gun in Destiny 2 for example is pay 2 win, since you get an advantage over other players and the game is PVP centric for most part. Which is why Destiny does not allow you to use real money to buy weapons. That is the main difference between real P2W and everything else.

If I buy a game and use the cheats to skip part of it, you may question why I even play the game, but if that how I want to use the product I spent my money on it, so be it Don't tell me you never used cheat codes from magazines to get through a game; and if you never did it, that is up to you; whatever float each person's boat is totally acceptable; as long as you do not take away something from other players, by having an unfair advantage

 

[Glamdring]

MMOs have gold sinks to control the game economy; that's not really needed for ED as it doesn't have one, at least in the same sense. There's not really any need for a gold sink.

Yes, that is because most MMO are based on the concept of exclusive items and fear to miss out. How much the price was, for that ship in EVE where only 2 of them were left in the whole game? An insane amount of money... Real money. Gold sinks are there for whales to spend on it, and for people with FOMO; it is part of the monetization system of many products, and among them, games.

ED is not like that, nor other online games are like that for most part; so the comparison is only superficially relevant, applied to the context of a pass to skip to pay upkeep.
Maybe you forgot limited paint jobs in ED; or the fact that you cannot buy the expansion pass anymore (it was available in Beta and they sold it again in another occasion; can't remember); so it is not like ED is not selling already limited and exclusive items in the end.

I would be against buying ships for real money; SC is already doing that and it is breaking the game since everyone start with the small base ship unless you buy with real money a bigger ship. Once again, when you get to the point where you are spending 2B for a carrier; what is the issue in skipping the upkeep? How does that affect other players?

 

[ChasingSol]

You are advocating for getting something of value in the game (more credits by not paying upkeep) by exchanging real money for the privilege. It's the very definition of pay-to-win.

 

[Glamdring]

You are advocating for getting something of value in the game (more credits by not paying upkeep) by exchanging real money for the privilege. It's the very definition of pay-to-win.

That would apply if there was something more to buy, once you get a carrier.
You cannot buy engineering materials with credits, so once again, what is the advantage here that you get by having more credits, that is breaking the game and changing its balance? It seems that most people are saying that it takes you very little time to come up with the upkeep money; so where is the value? Few minutes?

 

[ChasingSol]

Because your real money gives you an advantage in the game.

 

[Glamdring]

Because your real money gives you an advantage in the game.

Can you please state what advantage? I may have more money than you now; does that change your perception of the game or how you play the game with others? If we want to talk semantics it is one thing; if we want to look at facts, that is another thing.

 

[ChasingSol]

Do you play in open or solo?

For the sake of argument you play in open. You now have more credits to buy a better ship because you're not paying upkeep on your fleet carrier. That gives you an advantage.

Is that clear enough on why it's pay-to-win, even if it doesn't fit YOUR playstyle?

 

[Glamdring]

Do you play in open or solo?

For the sake of argument you play in open. You now have more credits to buy a better ship because you're not paying upkeep on your fleet carrier. That gives you an advantage.

Is that clear enough on why it's pay-to-win, even if it doesn't fit YOUR playstyle?

I play 90% solo and 10% open, when my friends are online and we play together.

For sake of argument let's use your scenario. If I can afford 2B carrier I already have the best ship(s) in the game, prepped with the best I can buy at the space stations (leaving engineered components out for sake of simplicity, since you can't buy materials for engineers). Once I have already everything the game has to offer in terms of firepower, range and hull, what else do I need the extra money for? What if I do not make large sum of money at all because this is how I play? In solo mode it is not even a problem; and to be honest, it is not a problem even in open.

You are forcing YOUR definition of P2W on others. Please go online, google "pay to win" and try to open your horizons to include the possibility that your current understanding of P2W is not necessarily the only one.

P2W has fundamentals:

• need to give you an advantage over other players, that is measurable and objectively applicable to every player.
• need to be tied to items or perks that cannot be acquired otherwise (limited run items/perks for example), or that require a disproportioned amount of time to be achieved (max level perk for 2.99 versus grind 8 hours a day for 2 weeks for example).
• There must be a "winning" scenario (obtain a limited title/status, a monetary compensation or a recognition in a public event/tournament)

Each of those can be applied to one or more cases, and they are quite wobbly in terms of absolute terms; but in general, there are some games that are more clearly P2W than others; so YMMV.

And if the upkeep is for reasons like immersion; then all ships should have upkeep. If the upkeep is to limit the number of carriers out there in the game, then that is the very definition of a limited item; so the damage is already done right there, if a person can't grind fast enough 2B to get one

 

[ChasingSol]

There's no interpretation of pay-to-win to be made. Either you're getting an advantage of some kind, which is indisputable, or you're not. It's black and white. You can't say "well, it's not a very big advantage". That's not how definitions work.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion. o7