Where do fleet carriers get their fuel from?

[TrollhunterX]

Sounds like a dumb question, I know, but I'm not talking about Tritium. Rather, how carriers with refuelling facilities bought and enabled get the fuel pilots buy when they're docked? Does it just come out of operating costs, since I doubt you have to rock up with a T9 maxed out with fuel tanks, to keep the pumps from going dry?

I ask because I find I have just enough money to by a FC now, and am trying to decide if, with significantly reduced running costs, they're now something approaching a sensible investment, on top of the whole 'I can carry all, or most, of my ships around (or at least in one place), and keep spare modules close to hand' thing?

In the X series space station complexes could be built that earned a profit, and that's basically what a fleet carrier is. Up to this point, every mobile structure upgraded to in Elite Dangerous has allowed for more money to be earned, because that's kind of the point of buying bigger and better, so the concept of the fleet carrier as a white elephant that you grind to maintain, to avoid losing even, has rankled.

It's feeling more like a moot point, when a few stacked MMs provide enough profit to keep FC services going for a month or more, but I'd really like to know if a carrier can make money off its own bat, in maybe the right location?

 

[Starsong]

A carrier can’t make money off its station services. It can, however, make money by mass-trading cargo.

 

[TrollhunterX]

That doesn't seem to be something that many carrier owners try to do. I'm guessing that most people bought the ones currently littering the systems because they could easily afford to (and even though that might be a fraction of the people playing ED, we see every carrier on the Nav panel, instead of one particular instance in a small area), but either didn't try to set up trading, or did and got nothing out of it.

Maybe changing that is a few patches away.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Sounds like a dumb question, I know, but I'm not talking about Tritium. Rather, how carriers with refuelling facilities bought and enabled get the fuel pilots buy when they're docked? Does it just come out of operating costs, since I doubt you have to rock up with a T9 maxed out with fuel tanks, to keep the pumps from going dry?

I ask because I find I have just enough money to by a FC now, and am trying to decide if, with significantly reduced running costs, they're now something approaching a sensible investment, on top of the whole 'I can carry all, or most, of my ships around (or at least in one place), and keep spare modules close to hand' thing?

In the X series space station complexes could be built that earned a profit, and that's basically what a fleet carrier is. Up to this point, every mobile structure upgraded to in Elite Dangerous has allowed for more money to be earned, because that's kind of the point of buying bigger and better, so the concept of the fleet carrier as a white elephant that you grind to maintain, to avoid losing even, has rankled.

It's feeling more like a moot point, when a few stacked MMs provide enough profit to keep FC services going for a month or more, but I'd really like to know if a carrier can make money off its own bat, in maybe the right location?

Magic.

 

[K Olley]

No idea, the fuel is just there, the same as the ammo, limpets, fighters and SRV's.

The only money a carrier makes is the percentage of of Cartographics and the service tariff if set for the above items.

A carrier will allow you to make money easier or will be such a convenience that you will find the money to pay for it. It all depends on your playstyle and what you want to do with it.

What you want to do before investing in a carrier is to look at all the optional extra's and work out which ones will be of use to you, its not worth fitting something that is going to cost you money in outlay, running costs and cargo space if it is not needed. Remember also the lighter your carrier the less Tritium you need for each jump.

Your own ships and spare modules do not count towards carrier weight or occupy any cargo space.

I mine and explore, so am out in the black by myself most of the time, I do not have a Shipyard, Outfitting or Black Market fitted, they are to me a waste of cargo space.

 

[Vandaahl]

Sounds like a dumb question, I know, but I'm not talking about Tritium. Rather, how carriers with refuelling facilities bought and enabled get the fuel pilots buy when they're docked? Does it just come out of operating costs, since I doubt you have to rock up with a T9 maxed out with fuel tanks, to keep the pumps from going dry?

I ask because I find I have just enough money to by a FC now, and am trying to decide if, with significantly reduced running costs, they're now something approaching a sensible investment, on top of the whole 'I can carry all, or most, of my ships around (or at least in one place), and keep spare modules close to hand' thing?

In the X series space station complexes could be built that earned a profit, and that's basically what a fleet carrier is. Up to this point, every mobile structure upgraded to in Elite Dangerous has allowed for more money to be earned, because that's kind of the point of buying bigger and better, so the concept of the fleet carrier as a white elephant that you grind to maintain, to avoid losing even, has rankled.

It's feeling more like a moot point, when a few stacked MMs provide enough profit to keep FC services going for a month or more, but I'd really like to know if a carrier can make money off its own bat, in maybe the right location?

Same as where the stations get it from.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Sounds like a dumb question, I know, but I'm not talking about Tritium. Rather, how carriers with refuelling facilities bought and enabled get the fuel pilots buy when they're docked? Does it just come out of operating costs, since I doubt you have to rock up with a T9 maxed out with fuel tanks, to keep the pumps from going dry?

Yes, just charged in the background from operating costs.

In the X series space station complexes could be built that earned a profit, and that's basically what a fleet carrier is. Up to this point, every mobile structure upgraded to in Elite Dangerous has allowed for more money to be earned, because that's kind of the point of buying bigger and better, so the concept of the fleet carrier as a white elephant that you grind to maintain, to avoid losing even, has rankled.

It's feeling more like a moot point, when a few stacked MMs provide enough profit to keep FC services going for a month or more, but I'd really like to know if a carrier can make money off its own bat, in maybe the right location?

As you say, it's not exactly hard to earn the money for FC upkeep, if you have the ability to earn the money for FC purchase. I just did an easy 10-minute mission for 35 MCr - enough to fund my carrier for another 7 weeks. Since buying my carrier about six months ago, just through casually playing the game I've earned another 3 billion credits - enough to fund upkeep for over a decade...

As far as making money on their own goes:
- in theory, both the bounty redemption and cartographics services can make a significant amount of money from other people selling to them, but you'd be very lucky to turn a profit that way in most cases outside a few high profile spots
- the commodities market can be used to make money, both through efficiencies for you and through providing a convenient sales point for miners for goods you then sell on higher a long way away.
In practice both will generally require active play rather than leaving the carrier "somewhere good" and hoping for the best.

Also don't neglect the potential for cost savings that massively outweigh the upkeep - once you're moving more than ~300MCr worth of ships and modules around, the carrier is much cheaper than ship transfer for doing it, so if you regularly travel around from place to place and want to bring your ships with you then even with the upkeep costs your carrier will be saving you a substantial amount overall compared with using NPC ship transfers.

 

[amigacooke]

You should see the Green Shield Stamps they get though!

Only 40K books to exchange for a Sidewinder.*


* I suspect this is one for the forum grandads (and grandmamas).

 

[TrollhunterX]

Just posting this because I wrote it before knowing there were new (and interesting) comments...


That's one possibility [magic]. I'm waiting for a fleet carrier owner with refuelling enabled to confirm it.

On a related note, regarding what I said about MMs making upkeep more realistic, is it just my imagination, or have rewards dropped sharply in the last week or so? From my recollection, I could earn as much as 40 million for 35-40 pirates killed, but now it's just over 20 mil, and not quite such an attractive prospect.

If I am right about this, I would expect there to be an out roar, after bounty hunting only recently being made worthwhile, so am I wrong?

 

[TrollhunterX]

No idea, the fuel is just there, the same as the ammo, limpets, fighters and SRV's.

The only money a carrier makes is the percentage of of Cartographics and the service tariff if set for the above items.

A carrier will allow you to make money easier or will be such a convenience that you will find the money to pay for it. It all depends on your playstyle and what you want to do with it.

What you want to do before investing in a carrier is to look at all the optional extra's and work out which ones will be of use to you, its not worth fitting something that is going to cost you money in outlay, running costs and cargo space if it is not needed. Remember also the lighter your carrier the less Tritium you need for each jump.

Your own ships and spare modules do not count towards carrier weight or occupy any cargo space.

I mine and explore, so am out in the black by myself most of the time, I do not have a Shipyard, Outfitting or Black Market fitted, they are to me a waste of cargo space.

Thanks. It seems to me that repair services and the armoury are the only essentials for a carrier being used actively, but refuelling gives me the chance, or more of one, to do without a fuel scoop, and free up a module space for something else.

That just leaves the question of how hard it is to restock Tritium, so the FC can be realistically mobile? I keep forgetting to look that up, when I'm online and in a station.

 

[TrollhunterX]

Yes, just charged in the background from operating costs.


As you say, it's not exactly hard to earn the money for FC upkeep, if you have the ability to earn the money for FC purchase. I just did an easy 10-minute mission for 35 MCr - enough to fund my carrier for another 7 weeks. Since buying my carrier about six months ago, just through casually playing the game I've earned another 3 billion credits - enough to fund upkeep for over a decade...

As far as making money on their own goes:

• in theory, both the bounty redemption and cartographics services can make a significant amount of money from other people selling to them, but you'd be very lucky to turn a profit that way in most cases outside a few high profile spots
• the commodities market can be used to make money, both through efficiencies for you and through providing a convenient sales point for miners for goods you then sell on higher a long way away.

In practice both will generally require active play rather than leaving the carrier "somewhere good" and hoping for the best.

Also don't neglect the potential for cost savings that massively outweigh the upkeep - once you're moving more than ~300MCr worth of ships and modules around, the carrier is much cheaper than ship transfer for doing it, so if you regularly travel around from place to place and want to bring your ships with you then even with the upkeep costs your carrier will be saving you a substantial amount overall compared with using NPC ship transfers.

Keeping everything together for engineering and the like is certainly a dagnam consideration, as long as there is room to jump to a system and arrive somewhere halfway practical.

 

[K Olley]

Thanks. It seems to me that repair services and the armoury are the only essentials for a carrier being used actively, but refuelling gives me the chance, or more of one, to do without a fuel scoop, and free up a module space for something else.

That just leaves the question of how hard it is to restock Tritium, so the FC can be realistically mobile? I keep forgetting to look that up, when I'm online and in a station.

I carry in storage a range of fuel scoops, a couple of extra fuel tanks and a fuel transfer limpet controller, but none of my active ships has one fitted, I have also got a couple of inactive ships that I use for extra module storage.

Tritium mining,
straight laser in a ring without hotspot 40 - 60t per hr
straight laser in a ring hotspot 80 - 120t per hr
SSD mining in hotspot 160 - 200t per hr. Python SSD Tritium miner.

I do not normally mine for Tritium, I mine on a regular basis for other materials within Icy rings and collect enough Tritium this way for my own use.

 

[TrollhunterX]

Outstanding!

I'm going to sleep on it for a bit, but the next time I go mining, I might return to this option.

On a tangent, when I started Googling the pros and cons, a lot of early discussions about fuel came up. Many players assumed FCs would have massive fuel scoops and graze suns, like the Destiny in Stargate Universe. That would have been a more amazing spectacle than... watching your carrier wall during a jump.

 

[K Olley]

Mining from a carrier gives you different options compared to non carrier mining, out in the black there are no NPC's to worry about, makes it easier if you have to stop game suddenly you can just park up in a ring and restart easily, your fuel and limpets are nearby along with a large amount of storage space which allows you to collect a greater range of commodities.

Take a look at my carrier, cargo is visible, everything onboard is mined, my rep is at max with a number of fractions in the Colonia area so when I head in to unload I will get rid of a lot of the lower value commodities either via mission board or if I am in a hurry one of the other carriers that is buying and selling via the mission boards, core commodities are being saved for next bubble run.

I have not been to a Metallic ring since I last unloaded so not got the full range on board

Be careful with googling, things sometimes change with updates, its sometimes better to double check for the latest info via the forums.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Galactic Gas Stations.

 

[TrollhunterX]

One of the obstacles to buying a carrier was that I didn't know how to get the class I liked the look of. Basically, Hawkes Gaming's Space Cheddar One. I was assuming that it depended on where you brought the carrier. There's a list of the 13 locations right at the start of Obsidian Ant's video on '17 Things You Should Know About Fleet Carriers' -

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkHkaVINcik


However, last night I lucked out immediately with a G search, and discovered that the different styles are basically skins added to the basic Drake class carrier, like bumpers and spikey bits on ships, also acquired with ARXs (and at 12450 a pop, close to ten times more than I actually have at the moment).

As with ship kits, they don't affect the performance of the carrier at all, so 'Become a Dreadnought in Space with the Nautilus Class Carrier! For those who always want to be the bigger fish' is just advertising bump.

That said, the Victory-Class Carrier ('For the commanders that charge headfirst into the fray, the Victory Class Carrier ensures you're always one step ahead') looks like a Kaiju from Pacific Rim (or Last Shadow, from Avatar?), which is pretty cool.

Lastly, there's 'Fortune favours the bold, and the bold favour the Fortune Class Carrier'. Not so keen on this one, but it means there are three looks to choose from, including the no extra cost default. And at least, I'm guessing, you can add a skin at any time, and not have to go back to a drydock system.

 

[K Olley]

You can buy and change the skins, docking light colours, engine colours etc from the main carrier control page anytime you want, you can also do the same to any of your ships while docked on the carrier just the same as if you are docked in a station.

 

[TrollhunterX]

The last potential obstacle was being stuck with one's first choice of name, and the pressure to choose well, but that evidently won't be a problem.

Fleet Carrier Names... what's yours?

With the introduction of Fleet Carriers and our ability to name them... brings up some 'interesting opportunities to voice our support or otherwise on your Carrier So, What's your's called for starters how about 'What have I done' 'Oh God!' 'Slip of the brain' (suggested by Fake Newts in a...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Susanna]

One of the obstacles to buying a carrier was that I didn't know how to get the class I liked the look of. Basically, Hawkes Gaming's Space Cheddar One. I was assuming that it depended on where you brought the carrier. There's a list of the 13 locations right at the start of Obsidian Ant's video on '17 Things You Should Know About Fleet Carriers' -

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkHkaVINcik


However, last night I lucked out immediately with a G search, and discovered that the different styles are basically skins added to the basic Drake class carrier, like bumpers and spikey bits on ships, also acquired with ARXs (and at 12450 a pop, close to ten times more than I actually have at the moment).

As with ship kits, they don't affect the performance of the carrier at all, so 'Become a Dreadnought in Space with the Nautilus Class Carrier! For those who always want to be the bigger fish' is just advertising bump.

That said, the Victory-Class Carrier ('For the commanders that charge headfirst into the fray, the Victory Class Carrier ensures you're always one step ahead') looks like a Kaiju from Pacific Rim (or Last Shadow, from Avatar?), which is pretty cool.

Lastly, there's 'Fortune favours the bold, and the bold favour the Fortune Class Carrier'. Not so keen on this one, but it means there are three looks to choose from, including the no extra cost default. And at least, I'm guessing, you can add a skin at any time, and not have to go back to a drydock system.

About the skins, yes they are expensive in ARX! Over 12k each!

I bought the Nautilus one first but was very disappointed by how small the front spherical dome is. In the screen shots it looks pretty large, but from a top down view, you can see that it's just a little ball stuck on the front of the FC! Definitely a bad buy for me! It looks frankly pathetic! It should be at least twice the size!
My Explora account got the Victory skin, which does thankfully look way better!

I'll answer the OPs questions in a separate post but wanted to answer on the skins issue.

 

[Susanna]

Sounds like a dumb question, I know, but I'm not talking about Tritium. Rather, how carriers with refuelling facilities bought and enabled get the fuel pilots buy when they're docked? Does it just come out of operating costs, since I doubt you have to rock up with a T9 maxed out with fuel tanks, to keep the pumps from going dry?

I ask because I find I have just enough money to by a FC now, and am trying to decide if, with significantly reduced running costs, they're now something approaching a sensible investment, on top of the whole 'I can carry all, or most, of my ships around (or at least in one place), and keep spare modules close to hand' thing?

In the X series space station complexes could be built that earned a profit, and that's basically what a fleet carrier is. Up to this point, every mobile structure upgraded to in Elite Dangerous has allowed for more money to be earned, because that's kind of the point of buying bigger and better, so the concept of the fleet carrier as a white elephant that you grind to maintain, to avoid losing even, has rankled.

It's feeling more like a moot point, when a few stacked MMs provide enough profit to keep FC services going for a month or more, but I'd really like to know if a carrier can make money off its own bat, in maybe the right location?

If you are on the fence about FCs and whether they are a good investment or even whether they have any utility in the game, the short answer is YES, BUY ONE!

Initially, I was mah about wanting a FC even though I had more than enough cash to buy several, if that was possible. I wasn't sure it would fit into my play style as I'm mostly an explorer. I eventually bought one for my 1st account just to see if I would get on with it once the decommissioning costs were mostly removed from the game ... Thankfully I didn't need that feature.

After a month I loved it! Despite the tritium fuel issues! Being able to jump places with all of my ships on hand proved to be very convenient indeed. LTD mining was a thing then too, so storing large quantities of LTDs was Mega profitable and convenient! The FC paid for itself within a week!

I then wanted to buy one for my exploration account and that proved to be a massive boon too! Changing my play style in the end. Two FCs makes it a doddle to move credits around! Both for yourself and other players. One guy recently, who got himself into trouble by flying without a rebuy, I was able to help by gifting him a Bn credits in a couple of hours for example to get him back into the game.

In the black, I jump then explore in a sphere around the FC, with a small jump if I find a great ring to mine. Rinse and repeat, rather than flying in a straight line. I've come to like this change in method a lot. I can switch ships as needed depending upon what I find from a T10 high gravity planet drop ship to a miner to a fast surface flyer.

The only grip I have is that we still don't have a fuel scoop for the FCs. This is the only limiter in my book. You basically have to buy several to many thousand of tons of tritium in the bubble, depending upon the extent of your trip in the black (a good estimate is around 100t per 500 Ly jump, 110 if you want to be on the safe side). While you can mine for tritium in the black, it's very time consuming and soul destroying unless you simply love mining! I've mined a few hundreds of tons while in the black while in icy rings but it's basically a non-starter for me. If I mine, then I'm mining to buy tritium back in the bubble. This effectively limits your range as an explorer... One guy recently posted here on the forum that he was 47,000 Ly out and would pay for people to ship him tritium... 16,000 tons of it to get back to the bubble! A very hard sell! Basically, mining for an hour for every jump is a nightmare! Don't do that!

As for running costs of 10mil/wk (basic services like fuel, repair, rearm online plus cartographics suspended), they are fairly trivial! Spend a couple of days bulk trading in the bubble and you'll earn several years worth of running costs... And that includes the tritium costs! I can make 500mil in an afternoon.

TL;DR despite their travel limits due to tritium storage and no fuel scoop, they are a 'no brainer'! Definitely buy one!