General Why I think Fleet carrier upkeep should be removed.

Inara isn't a very complete picture, tbh. It only includes details from carriers that have been docked at by someone who has updates enabled, and there are huge numbers of carriers where docking isn't even possible due to restrictions. I'd be surprised if even half of all existing fleet carriers have valid info on there. Heck, even a quarter; even if someone did dock at one, there's a very high probability the owner has since sold off or suspended their services. My carrier's info hasn't been updated since 2021, and it actually allows docking and has active services!

Help me understand the logic, here: The purpose of upkeep is to keep down Fleet Carrier clutter, right? Abandoned and useless carriers will be removed from the game.

Only, because upkeep exists, players disable their services. This reduces the upkeep down to trivial levels, becoming more of an annoyance to other players than to the owner.
? Are you using Inara correctly? I've been docking at various FCs and it's been at least 90% correct in its docking permissions and service availability statuses. Maybe it is different in the Bubble than in Colonia and in the Black. I look for how recently Inara updated the details, which gives me a clue not to rely on one that are days or weeks old since the last update. Same applies for stations' outfitting etc.


updated FC inara.jpg
 
? Are you using Inara correctly? I've been docking at various FCs and it's been at least 90% correct in its docking permissions and service availability statuses. Maybe it is different in the Bubble than in Colonia and in the Black. I look for how recently Inara updated the details, which gives me a clue not to rely on one that are days or weeks old since the last update. Same applies for stations' outfitting etc.


View attachment 308483

That'll work just fine for finding a particular carrier to dock at, but works poorly for an objective sample of carriers in general. For that, you need to do it yourself, ingame, because the bad carriers are the ones people aren't docking at.
 
What is wrong with you people?
You've got Frontier to make earning cash so easy that it's almost pointless;
You've got fleet carriers available for single player ownership rather than something a squadron needs to work together to get and maintain;
You've got the cost for ownership reduced after they were introduced and now you want to dumb down the cost of ownership completely.

I really wish this game had the ability to add mods so you'll all get everything in one go, get bored and get lost.
I think the issue is that upkeep doesn't do what was intended, namely remove inactive carriers. I can easily load up my carrier with credits for ten years. And yet it's an irritating credit drain. Well actually it's not that irritating; I can easily ignore it and I wouldn't have thought of making a thread about it. It's just another half-baked game feature which doesn't achieve the intended result.

I'd prefer a feature whereby if you don't log in for a month, your carrier vanishes from the galaxy. Anyone else aboard has all assets moved to the nearest available shipyard with a large pad. After that, if you log in again your carrier reappears in the nearest available place to where it was.
 
I can easily ignore it and I wouldn't have thought of making a thread about it.
Yes, you and the grindlords in this forum. Not so much for the average player. It may sound odd around here but it is not normal or trivial to have dozens of billions of credits.
 
Yes, you and the grindlords in this forum. Not so much for the average player. It may sound odd around here but it is not normal or trivial to have dozens of billions of credits.
Sustaining a carrier really isn't that much effort. You can buy Agronomic Treatment for 300 and sell it for 30k one system over, with maybe 10 minutes per run. In a Cutter, that's ~25m in 10 minutes, and enough to upkeep your carrier for 5 weeks. I don't think 2 minutes a week is exactly 'grindlord' status.
 
Yes, you and the grindlords in this forum. Not so much for the average player. It may sound odd around here but it is not normal or trivial to have dozens of billions of credits.
I'm not sure what prompted that, maybe I'm being mixed up with someone else? I never grind in any game.
 
I'm not sure what prompted that, maybe I'm being mixed up with someone else? I never grind in any game.
Just responding to what you said. To the average player credits are not pointless, and people cannot ignore upkeep if they can even think about carriers at all. It's an extremely skewed perspective on what the majority of the players experience when playing the game.
 
I think the issue is that upkeep doesn't do what was intended, namely remove inactive carriers. I can easily load up my carrier with credits for ten years. And yet it's an irritating credit drain. Well actually it's not that irritating; I can easily ignore it and I wouldn't have thought of making a thread about it. It's just another half-baked game feature which doesn't achieve the intended result.

I'd prefer a feature whereby if you don't log in for a month, your carrier vanishes from the galaxy. Anyone else aboard has all assets moved to the nearest available shipyard with a large pad. After that, if you log in again your carrier reappears in the nearest available place to where it was.
I've been playing MMOs, and before that MUDs, since the early 90's. I remember well the hordes of people who waited in UO for a house to "decay," deeds at the ready, only for the home owner to log in and refresh the house on the last day. And this was a subscription service.

The only effective solutions I've seen to the problem of "housing spam," which is effectively what ship collection carriers are:
1) Don't make them persistent in shared game space. If they disappeared when the player (or their friends/squad mates) logged out, then they wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem than they are now.​
2) Make them cost prohibitive for a single player to maintain, without doing one of the following:​
a) have them be maintained by a sizable squadron​
b) becoming a profitable in-game business, at which point they stop becoming a problem for other players, and become content for other players instead.​
Of course, Frontier has so utterly broken the credit economy of this game by their constant catering to the Veruca Salts of the Community that 2b isn't really possible. Which is a pity. Like many aspects of this game, Carriers originally had so much potential.
 
2) Make them cost prohibitive for a single player to maintain, without doing one of the following:a) have them be maintained by a sizable squadronb) becoming a profitable in-game business, at which point they stop becoming a problem for other players, and become content for other players instead.

I'd prefer this, myself. If there were parking fees in systems with more than 1 carrier that went up exponentially, that could quickly create the system you speak of. Players without a business or services to counter the costs would remove their carriers from inhabited systems, while the useful carriers would remain there, and even better, would tend to be near the top, where they're easily findable for others!
 
Just responding to what you said. To the average player credits are not pointless, and people cannot ignore upkeep if they can even think about carriers at all. It's an extremely skewed perspective on what the majority of the players experience when playing the game.
Well, when looking at missions I don't check how many credits they pay, I check how many million credits. I can earn enough for several weeks' carrier upkeep in one jump with a few stacked deliveries. I wouldn't call that grinding.
 
We could make them... not in the game. That way they would work as they do and not be a pile of annoying code making issues for the game in general, as well as be something that clogs up the system map.

I've said that from the time we "beta tested" them, and these kind of threads make me realise they still haven't gotten to the point where they have any positive impact on the game. Shame really, so much potential.

:D S
 
Well, when looking at missions I don't check how many credits they pay, I check how many million credits. I can earn enough for several weeks' carrier upkeep in one jump with a few stacked deliveries. I wouldn't call that grinding.
Sure. It's the "after months I finally can afford a Python!" versus "Huh, I earn two pythons per hour?" perspective. Neither is factually wrong, but it's good to be aware of both. :)
 
We could make them... not in the game. That way they would work as they do and not be a pile of annoying code making issues for the game in general, as well as be something that clogs up the system map.

I've said that from the time we "beta tested" them, and these kind of threads make me realise they still haven't gotten to the point where they have any positive impact on the game. Shame really, so much potential.

:D S
Well, whatever you think of them, one thing is obvious: they're popular. I think in niche respects they're a great QoL improvement (I run one for that reason). Just having commodity storage is great. My on-board market makes a steady profit so I must assume other players are finding it useful. I can make things like Painite, Modular Terminals etc. available for engineer unlocks. I can carry small stocks of meta-alloys, Thargoid materials etc. in case they're useful for anyone. And of course I can hop out of one ship and into another.

I hope FD wouldn't take away a game feature that's so well used. What I do think they need is better ways to filter them from the system map and broadcast what facilities and commodities they offer before a player drops into their instance.
 
Well, whatever you think of them, one thing is obvious: they're popular. I think in niche respects they're a great QoL improvement (I run one for that reason). Just having commodity storage is great. My on-board market makes a steady profit so I must assume other players are finding it useful. I can make things like Painite, Modular Terminals etc. available for engineer unlocks. I can carry small stocks of meta-alloys, Thargoid materials etc. in case they're useful for anyone. And of course I can hop out of one ship and into another.

I hope FD wouldn't take away a game feature that's so well used. What I do think they need is better ways to filter them from the system map and broadcast what facilities and commodities they offer before a player drops into their instance.
Agreed. They need a lot of fleshing out though, not just been made easier to ignore.

:D S
 
Only, because upkeep exists, players disable their services. This reduces the upkeep down to trivial levels, becoming more of an annoyance to other players than to the owner.
Do you usually argue in circles like this?

You want to remove upkeep costs because you claim they are just a trivial annoyance, then turn around and claim players disable them to reduce costs.

You want decluttering of useless carriers in systems, yet your OP calls for reducing their cost so more players that are on the edge of affording one can. Curently the upkeep costs are the only nechanism that auto-removes carriers. (other ideas on how to decultter systems are made, but that is not your OP). And upkeep costs reduce carrier purchases from those that can't afford extra billions of Cr and aren't certain if they can commit to logging in regularly.

You just keep going in these circles. And making a lot of unfounded statistical claims regarding the carriers and the player/owners based on a small sample you visit. Do you actually know the thoughts and reasons of fleet carrier owners that only purchase the minimalist of services? Are you certain that "98%" of them can easily afford upkeep costs but choose not to? The "vast majority" of fleet carrier owners don't want these services even if made free of upkeep cost?

Edit: added quotes to emphazise your claims, not mine.
 
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Do you usually argue in circles like this?

You want to remove upkeep costs because you claim they are just a trivial annoyance, then turn around and claim players disable them to reduce costs.

You want decluttering of useless carriers in systems, yet your OP calls for reducing their cost so more players that are on the edge of affording one can. Curently the upkeep costs are the only nechanism that auto-removes carriers. (other ideas on how to decultter systems are made, but that is not your OP). And upkeep costs reduce carrier purchases from those that can't afford extra billions of Cr and aren't certain if they can commit to logging in regularly.

You just keep going in these circles. And making a lot of unfounded statistical claims regarding the carriers and the player/owners based on a small sample you visit. Do you actually know the thoughts and reasons of fleet carrier owners that only purchase the minimalist of services? Are you certain that "98%" of them can easily afford upkeep costs but choose not to? The "vast majority" of fleet carrier owners don't want these services even if given to them free of upkeep cost?

Edit: added quotes to emphazise your claims, not mine.

Just because something is trivial doesn't mean players won't work to avoid it. If your fleet carrier had a loud squeal when nearby, that would also annoy players into playing the game slightly differently, but it doesn't mean it isn't still trivial, and it definitely doesn't mean it's actually accomplishing its goal.

And since the cost of upkeep is trivial, the removal of it will have no meaningful impact on the total number of carriers in the game.

All of this is simple, straight-line logic.

As for 'unfounded claims', I recently did a survey of fleet carriers in another thread. 66% had an upkeep at the minimum level. 100% had it at or below half.

So yes, I'd say that 98% is a pretty reasonable figure. If anything, that's an overstatement.
 
As for 'unfounded claims', I recently did a survey of fleet carriers in another thread. 66% had an upkeep at the minimum level. 100% had it at or below half.

So yes, I'd say that 98% is a pretty reasonable figure. If anything, that's an overstatement.
Please post you spreadsheet of sampled carrier data. Data must include the owner's current Cr wealth, and average monthly Cr income. I expect this to be a minimum 0f 2% of all carriers (2% is just 600 carriers). If you are unable to present this data then you are making up crap out of your head.

Data must also include the carrier owner's reasoning for minimalist services. If costs is a factor it must be noted.



Edit: Data must also include if the owner plays EDO or just Horizons. This being a major factor. Also if the carrier was purchased prior to an EDO purchase, and the carrier is now unreasonably far away from an administration system for the purpose of adding new services.
 
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Please post you spreadsheet of sampled carrier data. Data must include the owner's current Cr wealth, and average monthly Cr income. I expect this to be a minimum 0f 2% of all carriers (2% is just 600 carriers). If you are unable to present this data then you are making up crap out of your head.

Data must also include the carrier owner's reasoning for minimalist services. If costs is a factor it must be noted.



Edit: Data must also include if the owner plays EDO or just Horizons. This being a major factor. Also if the carrier was purchased prior to an EDO purchase, and the carrier is now unreasonably far away from an administration system for the purpose of adding new services.
After that, I'm sure that system would not be a representative sample, so I'd have to do a second one, and if I'm doing a second one, I really should do every carrier in the bubble.

Which is, of course, nonsense. I've done my study, it has supported my views. If you do not believe my study is comprehensive enough, then you have the responsibility of carrying out your own analysis.

Of course, you don't want to do that, because you know it will prove me right.

But all of this can be summed up as a basic question; do you really believe 2 minutes of work a week is not a trivial amount of effort?

Because there's really only two answers to that question, and one of them is wrong.
 
After that, I'm sure that system would not be a representative sample
Nope, just need a representative sample of actual data to back-up your numerical claims.

You said you made a survey, then present the data. Or present someone else''s data, idc.

Otherwise don't repeatedly post made-up numerical info and state it as fact.
 
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