Why are there no missions on fleet carriers?

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

The more I think about it the less I think FC mission boards are a good idea - missions all affect the BGS and if they don't it's just a pure trading tool, which we already have in place.

It would also be unfair towards those who don't own a carrier, especially if you could influence factions by remote mission access while not being in the system yourself.

Not even going to mention the programming effort required and avoiding the minefield that is potential bugs as a result of these changes.

Its already unfair though. Whether its a mission or a player flies over and makes the trade same thing (regardless of the requirements for generation).

Yeah most of them do i guess, but as long as your carrier can't be involved in powerplay it doesn't matter? If anything if you were doing powerplay you'd be selling yourself short by forfeiting the positive influence side of the reward. They could just have a null value target faction for all the missions anyway.. or just not generate trading ones.

EDIT: Before you check me, how the other missions are generated are from activity on the carrier and its worked into the upkeep.

 

[Old Duck]

They're missing all sorts of statistics (and an advertising board would be very useful, this could show in the bottom left target window when selecting a carrier, like "buy/sell XYZ @ x credits).

Really hope they'll be added in the future as it's currently pretty bare bones in terms of information given to the player.

I'm planning to write a script just to track my carrier balance over time as a potential indicator if I get any visitors or not. It's not as easy as just pulling up stats in the Codex, as this doesn't differentiate between services I use and services other players use.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Its already unfair though. Whether its a mission or a player flies over and makes the trade same thing (regardless of the requirements for generation).

Yeah most of them do i guess, but as long as your carrier can't be involved in powerplay it doesn't matter? If anything if you were doing powerplay you'd be selling yourself short by forfeiting the positive influence side of the reward. They could just have a null value target faction for all the missions anyway.. or just not generate trading ones.

EDIT: Before you check me, how the other missions are generated are from activity on the carrier and its worked into the upkeep.

I'm just thinking that if we had FC mission boards linked to a system of choice, I could sit in my FC doing donation missions for a system on the other side of the bubble while completing local missions where I'm based at the same time. That'll only work for missions that don't require physical presence but you could still stack them without having to be present locally. I don't know if it'd make a big difference in reality, and I'm not a BGS player but if I was I'd probably not like it too much if that were possible, I dunno.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I'm planning to write a script just to track my carrier balance over time as a potential indicator if I get any visitors or not. It's not as easy as just pulling up stats in the Codex, as this doesn't differentiate between services I use and services other players use.

I noticed on Inara that it tracks passengers on your carrier, what I'm not sure about is whether that's an optional field in Inara or whether the game actively tracks that sort of information. I imagine it has to from a snapshot perspective at least...

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I'm just thinking that if we had FC mission boards linked to a system of choice, I could sit in my FC doing donation missions for a system on the other side of the bubble while completing local missions where I'm based at the same time. That'll only work for missions that don't require physical presence but you could still stack them without having to be present locally. I don't know if it'd make a big difference in reality, and I'm not a BGS player but if I was I'd probably not like it too much if that were possible, I dunno.

Yeah id consider that cheating. I think. Yeah its for your own faction, or the system you're in. If you take a mission for the local system and the carrier jumps off thats your problem because you have to get back to it to turn it in (or abandon the mission).

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

So now ,after hours and days of mining and selling asteroids, I´ve bought a fleet carrier and it´s really nice to have my own base. But except from having it and refueling etc. it´s a bit useless. I would like it if the npc´s would trade, but I read in other threads about this and it seems to be difficult to implement that.
But I really like to do missions sometimes and I think there could be something like a mission board linked to the stations in the system where you can choose and accept the missions and complete them, too (except cargo is needed). In exchange for this a percentage of the mission reward should go into the carrier bank and maybe a percentage to the service itself (like the redemption office if i got that right). The percentage could be varriated depending on only accepting or accepting and completing the mission at the carrier.
I think something like that would be not to difficult to implement und would make the carriers a lot more useful than they are now. So is there any reason that there are no missions on fleet carriers?

Why would there be mission givers on player owned FCs. I have no issue with players giving out missions, but I fail it see why there would be a mission giver on your own Fleet Carrier.

I wouldn't mind there being missions designed for Fleet Carriers though.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Yeah id consider that cheating. I think. Yeah its for your own faction, or the system you're in. If you take a mission for the local system and the carrier jumps off thats your problem because you have to get back to it to turn it in (or abandon the mission).

Either way - I don't really feel the need for mission boards, FC's have already broadened the potential when it comes to mission running... I'm in the sole population system in the NGC 7822 nebula right now, the local asteroid base doesn't have a shipyard nor outfitting, and I can complete pretty much any mission type because I have my entire fleet (and modules if changes are needed) with me. On top of that, because I've been stocking up on all mining materials over the past weeks, I can immediately complete "deliver x tons of Coltan/Bauxite/etc." which is the mission type that pops up there most often. It's great.

 

[jacozilla]

Think it through game-logic wise (e.g. am not using IRL logic, it's a game, just going by what game world already gives us), and makes complete sense to have a duplicate systems board on FCs.

1. Mission Board on FCs that link to system current in, and simply duplicates access to same missions - e.g. have every faction that exists in that system represented on the FC mission board, any cargo pickup required can be either a) picked up on FC itself or b) require player to go to actual station w/ that faction

A or B depends on game balance desired, but both make sense in that stations load cargo instantly with no cargo load time delay, so what's the difference in having that same magic mechanism load cargo to FC? The other main debate considerations for FCs to even have mission board are:

i) Why would a rep be aboard to provide/payout missions? --- same reason as Cartographic and Redemption agents already aboard and seemingly travel with our FC everywhere in galaxy, even out into deep space. Game logic is consistent, even though our own FC and not some faction/organization, agents of those are perfectly willing to live aboard full time.

ii) How would access to system mission board make sense? --- same way as whatever magic communication system exists that is infinite and FTL with Comms panel emails telling us the very second some event happens, even across systems separated by many LYs. Use that to tap into the faction mission boards on all stations in same system FC is in.

iii) What missions would be offered? --- same as station logic, if there are no factions present like an empty/dead system, then no missions. If factions present, then missions from those available factions only. BGS and system state effect would work just like if mission was taken from station.

In short, there's lots of reasons why you could be against this from a personal opinion re: game balance wise, maybe makes FCs too good, maybe not, etc. But from game logic point of view, that functionality should already be aboard FCs given all the other non-player owned transaction abilities that live and travel with us.

 

[jacozilla]

Why would there be mission givers on player owned FCs. I have no issue with players giving out missions, but I fail it see why there would be a mission giver on your own Fleet Carrier.

I wouldn't mind there being missions designed for Fleet Carriers though.

Same reason as player doesn't run their personal Cartographic or Redemption office and yet those agents are on board, living and traveling with us to whatever destination whim we fancy, including deep space for years. Same logic would apply for missions except even easier b/c a rep would not need to be aboard - simply a computer terminal that taps into the existing system network for missions.

 

[iFred]

Ask the community manager. Oh wait.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Either way - I don't really feel the need for mission boards, FC's have already broadened the potential when it comes to mission running... I'm in the sole population system in the NGC 7822 nebula right now, the local asteroid base doesn't have a shipyard nor outfitting, and I can complete pretty much any mission type because I have my entire fleet (and modules if changes are needed) with me. On top of that, because I've been stocking up on all mining materials over the past weeks, I can immediately complete "deliver x tons of Coltan/Bauxite/etc." which is the mission type that pops up there most often. It's great.

Probably just for the mission content itself more than the bgs impact. It would be fun to take a salvage mission from anywhere, or if you needed a reason some sort of combat training pretense for the local denizens that could spawn a conflict zone or scenario around the carrier.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Same reason as player doesn't run their personal Cartographic or Redemption office and yet those agents are on board, living and traveling with us to whatever destination whim we fancy, including deep space for years. Same logic would apply for missions except even easier b/c a rep would not need to be aboard - simply a computer terminal that taps into the existing system network for missions.

They don't supply missions though and we pay them to be on the Fleet Carrier. They are NPC's we hire to provide us with services. It wouldn't make sense for us to hire an NPC to supply us with missions. Who would the missions be done for? Who can take the missions? Who pays for the missions? What's the point in having mission givers on an FC? What happens in the game world when you complete a mission?

The same logic cannot apply to Stellar Cartographics or a Redemption Officer as they are very different to mission givers, neither of them tell you what to do, all they do is supply a service. What you are asking for is someone that lives on your own FC to ask you to provide a service to them, it makes no sense.

 

[Old Duck]

I noticed on Inara that it tracks passengers on your carrier, what I'm not sure about is whether that's an optional field in Inara or whether the game actively tracks that sort of information. I imagine it has to from a snapshot perspective at least...

I believe this is using the "Docking" journal entry, so that if someone using Inara docks at my carrier, then it will record them as a passenger. This won't show people like me who don't use Inara, which also includes most console players. Actual data about our fleet carrier is fairly limited:

"FLEETCARRIER":{ "FLEETCARRIER_EXPORT_TOTAL":3800, "FLEETCARRIER_IMPORT_TOTAL":1889, "FLEETCARRIER_TRADEPROFIT_TOTAL":1212195462, "FLEETCARRIER_TRADESPEND_TOTAL":9079786, "FLEETCARRIER_STOLENPROFIT_TOTAL":0, "FLEETCARRIER_STOLENSPEND_TOTAL":0, "FLEETCARRIER_DISTANCE_TRAVELLED":"10676 LY", "FLEETCARRIER_TOTAL_JUMPS":45, "FLEETCARRIER_SHIPYARD_SOLD":0, "FLEETCARRIER_SHIPYARD_PROFIT":0, "FLEETCARRIER_OUTFITTING_SOLD":3, "FLEETCARRIER_OUTFITTING_PROFIT":0, "FLEETCARRIER_REARM_TOTAL":12, "FLEETCARRIER_REFUEL_TOTAL":88, "FLEETCARRIER_REFUEL_PROFIT":449, "FLEETCARRIER_REPAIRS_TOTAL":31, "FLEETCARRIER_VOUCHERS_REDEEMED":1, "FLEETCARRIER_VOUCHERS_PROFIT":5550 }

Best I can do is calculate the changes to these numbers over time, subtracting my own contributions, to get an idea if anybody is interacting with my FC in a meaningful way. Sadly, one of the most important stat for an explorer, Universal Cartography profits, is missing...

 

[777Driver]

More importantly, why are there no traffic reports on fleet carriers?

Keep in mind that station traffic reports are not about docking. It is about ships that have passed through the system. They would have needed to create a docking report for Carriers, something I did expect, but never got my hopes up.

 

[jacozilla]

They don't supply missions though and we pay them to be on the Fleet Carrier. They are NPC's we hire to provide us with services. It wouldn't make sense for us to hire an NPC to supply us with missions. Who would the missions be done for? Who can take the missions? Who pays for the missions? What's the point in having mission givers on an FC? What happens in the game world when you complete a mission?

The same logic cannot apply to Stellar Cartographics or a Redemption Officer as they are very different to mission givers, neither of them tell you what to do, all they do is supply a service. What you are asking for is someone that lives on your own FC to ask you to provide a service to them, it makes no sense.

as I said though, for mission board access re magic FTL comms system, you wouldnt even need to have mission faction reps aboard, just a data link to the in system mission computers.

think about it - when we dock at station, are we physically talking to faction reps? Nope - just using the computer systems to obtain missions from wherever those reps are based. Given the FTL nature of ED comms, those station reps for all we know don’t even reside in the station but their faction homeworld

so missions available on FC would need nothing more than the same magic comms system that a faction rep uses to instantly notify us thousands of LY away some mission criteria changed, incoming enemy ship notice, etc

as I said, perfectly fine to be against idea from balance POV, maybe would make FCs too OP, but there is no valid game logic pov.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I suppose the tricky thing with tying a mission to a carrier is you'd get all sorts of potential issues with mission completion if the carrier then jumped.

I notice the mission boards aren't enabled on Sadler's Song, either, and that only moves weekly.

More importantly, why are there no traffic reports on fleet carriers?

I'd be working a lot harder to buy my own if you could get system traffic reports on them (no, really)

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

as I said though, for mission board access re magic FTL comms system, you wouldnt even need to have mission faction reps aboard, just a data link to the in system mission computers.

think about it - when we dock at station, are we physically talking to faction reps? Nope - just using the computer systems to obtain missions from wherever those reps are based. Given the FTL nature of ED comms, those station reps for all we know don’t even reside in the station but their faction homeworld

so missions available on FC would need nothing more than the same magic comms system that a faction rep uses to instantly notify us thousands of LY away some mission criteria changed, incoming enemy ship notice, etc

as I said, perfectly fine to be against idea from balance POV, maybe would make FCs too OP, but there is no valid game logic pov.

Any 'game logic' that could be applied to FCs having access to system mission boards could also be applied to ships.

 

[DragonIV]

Honestly, I don't care much for impacts to BGS. But a mission agent (or mission computer) on the FC? Sign me up!

 

[Old Duck]

Keep in mind that station traffic reports are not about docking. It is about ships that have passed through the system.

As an explorer, this would be enough for me. I'd like to know if anybody is passing through my system. Now I suppose the biggest problem with this is that carriers can jump multiple times in a day, so for a carrier, perhaps docking traffic should be the focus rather than system traffic (especially if docking traffic accounts for all modes and platforms).

 

[jacozilla]

Any 'game logic' that could be applied to FCs having access to system mission boards could also be applied to ships.

Quite true. Since our ships themselves receive FTL comms quite fine, no game logic against ships w/ mission board access via remote comm terminal either.

Balance decision wise, they are 2 separate debates for though -
a) would FCs having in-system access to local mission board be too OP?

b) would individual ships having in-system access to local mission board be too OP?

Same game logic allows both with no hand wavium other that already exists re: game tech. The balance scenarios are different though - you could reasonably answer sure, why not to both ; no to both ; or one but not the other.

My point wasn't arguing to convince anyone what their conclusions ought to be re: whether FCs should have mission board access, merely there is no game reason they can't.