Will fleet carriers be able to turn a profit selling ships and modules?

[Nickolai]

One key detail I'd love to know is whether the shipyard and outfitting (and even armory) can be profitable, and based on all the statements from Frontier about using these services to make money and cover the upkeep, I think this is what Frontier intends, or at least the picture they are drawing - but the missing info is pricing and this could be make-or-break.

We saw the function for tariffs as a sliding percentage, but I must assume that the carrier owner, when purchasing stock for their carrier's outfitting and shipyard, is paying wholesale prices for the ships and modules. And if this wholesale price is a reasonable amount off retail, that could mean the carrier owner has flexibility and can make a bit of a profit. Could they undercut Jameson Memorial if they wish, but make very little profit? Or, they could slightly undercut normal station prices by 5% and see if that tempts people. Or, sell certain things for full retail, or above retail, if they think they could make money that way in certain locations. It would be a true business, and as somebody who loves management/strategy games, it would be amazing! If this is the case, and I certainly hope it is, this could be an enormous feature.

Most of the talk I see around the forums is how the shipyard and outfitting and armory are useless because why would anybody use a carrier, when they could just go to a station? But this whole time we've assumed that the tariff was a markup pure and simple, and the prices would be more than stations. But that wouldn't make any sense as a feature to put on a carrier, why bother developing it then? I don't think it's the case. Although I'd love confirmation...

 

[Brrokk]

One key detail I'd love to know is whether the shipyard and outfitting (and even armory) can be profitable, and based on all the statements from Frontier about using these services to make money and cover the upkeep, I think this is what Frontier intends, or at least the picture they are drawing - but the missing info is pricing and this could be make-or-break.

We saw the function for tariffs as a sliding percentage, but I must assume that the carrier owner, when purchasing stock for their carrier's outfitting and shipyard, is paying wholesale prices for the ships and modules. And if this wholesale price is a reasonable amount off retail, that could mean the carrier owner has flexibility and can make a bit of a profit. Could they undercut Jameson Memorial if they wish, but make very little profit? Or, they could slightly undercut normal station prices by 5% and see if that tempts people. Or, sell certain things for full retail, or above retail, if they think they could make money that way in certain locations. It would be a true business, and as somebody who loves management/strategy games, it would be amazing! If this is the case, and I certainly hope it is, this could be an enormous feature.

Most of the talk I see around the forums is how the shipyard and outfitting and armory are useless because why would anybody use a carrier, when they could just go to a station? But this whole time we've assumed that the tariff was a markup pure and simple, and the prices would be more than stations. But that wouldn't make any sense as a feature to put on a carrier, why bother developing it then? I don't think it's the case. Although I'd love confirmation...

Hmm, if the carrier owner can get a good discount by buying ships and modules in bulk, there would be room for a profit margin. He would have to achieve high volume of sales though, which seems unlikely.

 

[CMDR Jayce MacLeod]

I dont think so, unless you will be able to make a profit on ship sales, while still being well below the cost of Jameson Memorial or Rui space ports. Seems like it will be a little used feature sadly. We will see during the betas

 

[Ashnak]

...
Most of the talk I see around the forums is how the shipyard and outfitting and armory are useless because why would anybody use a carrier, when they could just go to a station?

I'd put that down to a lack of imagination. You'll have to find a way to make the carrier more attrctive than the station. FD have not prescribed how you do that - it's up to you. A few of the most obvious ways would be:

• the carrier is part of a squadron, and your squadron mates won't begrudge you the 10% surcharge
• the carrier is more convenient to the spot people like to play at that the nearest station. Lots of examples for that.
• the carrier can provide services the nearest station can't provide. Outposts don't have large landing pads, not all outposts offer repair or rearm.

 

[CMDR Jayce MacLeod]

Other services, like refuel rearm restock repair, rest, relaxation etc I'd imagine will be used. I'll make it a point myself to visit carriers in a system if there is one. But buying modules? Ships? Nah, I'm just gonna go where I know they have the complete stock at a 10% discount. Jameston Memorial.

 

[Hamakua]

Hmm, if the carrier owner can get a good discount by buying ships and modules in bulk, there would be room for a profit margin. He would have to achieve high volume of sales though, which seems unlikely.

Obsidian ant touched on it but many see it - Race to the bottom will make profit margins on FC so slim you will be better off mining or doing any activity for 30 minutes than fiddling with the "player economy".

Currently how the game is played no one is going to bother with FC docking/sales because it's a waste of time on a gamble and it's a wast of time for the owner to try and engineer a market.

Firstly, You aren't going to compete with LYR (or better) -15% discounts. The purchase discounts don't just effect price but also rebuy insurance. So unless a player FC can at least match the best available discount, people won't bite/bother.

Second - what will the profit margins be for such endevors by the FC owner. Ok, I got my 5bn+1Bn module FC, shipyard, modules, commodities. Filled to the brim with the latest Meta builds and ships. How long did prepping all that take me? Ok, how many "passive" (it's not passive, it's just front-loaded) cr/hr profit will it earn me - difference between cost and gross? Ok, that profit margin divided into the time to fiddle and set all that up weight against the chance someone will come to my FC and buy that set from me + my margin/tariff take. divided into my front-loaded time investement to set it all up?
what's my cr/hr for all of that?

Yeah, no, I'll just go mine an hour and make 200 million.

Any amount that would warrant putting in the effort to make FC's a player market thing would also break FC's in the economy. FC will never be allowed to compete with pure profit seeking gameplay behavior in the game.

The players with the billions to own an FC know how to get those billions and got those billions by not wasting time on such trivialities as setting up marginally earning second hand ship stores.

FD doesn't understand how this is going to shake out - unless there is something as yet revealed- my suggestion is to make Tritium 100% player driven, not sold in a single station - never sold by NPCs. That would maybe supply the tools to make some FC configurations profitable enough to cover maintenance. - because that market will self-correct and FC protals will compete and race to the bottom for volume and not profit (since passive).

 

[Andy_Pipkin]

With the upcoming Q4 update....who knows?
When the supposed base building is a thing, I might consider offering my FC's facilities to someone way outthere...if they dont mind some upcosts.

 

[Hamakua]

I'd put that down to a lack of imagination. You'll have to find a way to make the carrier more attrctive than the station. FD have not prescribed how you do that - it's up to you. A few of the most obvious ways would be:

• the carrier is part of a squadron, and your squadron mates won't begrudge you the 10% surcharge
• the carrier is more convenient to the spot people like to play at that the nearest station. Lots of examples for that.
• the carrier can provide services the nearest station can't provide. Outposts don't have large landing pads, not all outposts offer repair or rearm.

I'm triple elite. In the entire time I've played this game from launch (I was in closed beta) to today I've spent...

9,815,508 on repairs
1,785,524 on munitions
6,883,924 on fuel
-------------
18,484,956
x.1
1,848,495

Fantastic, I've supplied 1/5th of the stock weekly maintenance cost to someone's FC with the entire expenditure of my entire ED career being triple elite, and billions in earning.

People aren't mathing this out.

My entire expenditure on "Services" at a 100% tariff don't even cover 2 weeks.

 

[Ashnak]

I'm triple elite. In the entire time I've played this game from launch (I was in closed beta) to today I've spent...

9,815,508 on repairs
1,785,524 on munitions
6,883,924 on fuel
-------------
18,484,956
x.1
1,848,495

Fantastic, I've supplied 1/5th of the stock weekly maintenance cost to someone's FC with the entire expenditure of my entire ED career being triple elite, and billions in earning.

People aren't mathing this out.

My entire expenditure on "Services" at a 100% tariff don't even cover 2 weeks.

Point to you - for those items. I'm not triple (and not hunting for combat elite), and my outlay for those three points is less than yours (ammo comes close, but less than 1/10th of your fuel cost).
But you left out the largest chunk: at least I spent 2.3 Bn on Outfitting - much more than what I spent on ships, and still more than the total of my current assets. So, someone who could provide reliable A-rated outfitting in Colonia might even be able to recoup the carrier cost .

 

[Brrokk]

One thing I don't think we've been shown yet: if you've managed to get into a situation where you have lots of good stuff for sale on your carrier and you're the only source for many light years, how do you make potential customers aware? Is there some way to advertise, or do you rely on people dropping in to see what you offer?

 

[wetwire]

Yup, I have been going over and over calculating profits using the carrier market. Just when you think your on to something the player only interaction factors in and the entire plan flys out the windows.

Starting with how much should a Carrier offer on requested goods for its market? +10% over the cheapest selling station while hanging out in that system. No players would never care about earning 10% profit per run from station to carrier in the same system. What if the Carrier offered price was the current market value? mah. maybe a player would preform that trade for giggles once but not in the entire amount the carrier is requesting if its more then one shipment.

Then selling the product. Does the carrier sell for -20% off the best selling stations price? or just +10% over market value? in both cases, again players would not care to make minor profits even if the distance is so close you can barely reach 1 the speed of light before having to throttle back for an encounter.

Ship yard and modules will fall in line with the market as players use the cheapest route, or locations with the most product so they don't have to bounce around looking for equipment. Carriers can not compete with discounts and stock of NPC run stations.

Isolating the carriers from the rest of the games mechanics, markets, and manufacturing puts the Carriers directly into the unusable category because the entire potential profits for a carrier are player interaction driven. Carriers do not produce or add anything a non carrier owner would want and only consume credits.
The exception to this being large landing pads and perhaps (assuming the module is installed) a refueling location when no adequate NPC station is nearby.

 

[Hamakua]

Point to you - for those items. I'm not triple (and not hunting for combat elite), and my outlay for those three points is less than yours (ammo comes close, but less than 1/10th of your fuel cost).
But you left out the largest chunk: at least I spent 2.3 Bn on Outfitting - much more than what I spent on ships, and still more than the total of my current assets. So, someone who could provide reliable A-rated outfitting in Colonia might even be able to recoup the carrier cost .

Hat tip to you.

To be fair.

1,144,621,153 on ships
3,308,485,733 on "outfitting" modules and such I suspect.

Some important points. All of my ships were purchased at a minimum of 15% discount and some with better ones from events.
Same thing with modules.
The vast majority of my module cost are prismatics one of every size, minimum, and the ships bought to store them (back before module storage).

Another reason to ignore module/ship costs other than the discount - very very few are going to bother "Shopping around on random FC's" to see what they have instead of just Inara searching for their ship/module/discount combination and going straight there instead of wasting time.

The only way Modules/ships become a thing that gets sold on FC's beyond outlier memes is if they have a deeper discount than the 15% LYR - and then that then stresses the concpet of profitiability. Because players don't construct their own goods the economy doesn't work/breaks against the NPC economy.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Passive income only from players? That is the most extreme doa feature theyve ever built. Sorry but its true.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

It's a money sink intended to keep people playing the game. I doubt it will turn a profit on its own, and may even be difficult to turn one with active intervention.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Considering noone will know in advance what Ships your Carrier sells - who's going to waste time even checking it out instead of heading to one of the many discount Locations or INARA-supplied nearest Stations?

Based on their own explanation, this Service is intended for your imaginary friends frequently coming onboard your Carrier, where they can purchase different Ships in Deep Space, so you all can go.... wait... well, no idea. Unengineered Type-7 PvP or something? No, I have no idea whatsoever.

I see a tiny chance of folks being able to purchase and slap together some makeshift Mining Rigs though, if your Carrier parks conveniently near some nice Hotspots in Deep Space and your Commodity Market permits that. Exploration friends, maybe on an Expedition, that'd work.
That is... IF anyone trusts you and your Carrier not to make an unannounced jump, leaving these guys in non-Fuel Scoop equipped, unengineered Mining Rigs stranded in the middle of nowhere

No seriously, I have no idea why anyone would do that on a regular (= profitable for you) basis.

Now hauling a whole bunch of unavailable Ships and Equipment into Colonia to sell might be profitable - but would it be worth dragging the Carrier over 22000LY and back?
Versus you making some nice Mining runs right at home?
Nope, no chance in hell or heaven. Even if you could, noone would pay the +1000% tariff it would take to make it worthwhile for you as a seller. Just doesn't work.

 

[Staarlord]

One key detail I'd love to know is whether the shipyard and outfitting (and even armory) can be profitable, and based on all the statements from Frontier about using these services to make money and cover the upkeep, I think this is what Frontier intends, or at least the picture they are drawing - but the missing info is pricing and this could be make-or-break.

We saw the function for tariffs as a sliding percentage, but I must assume that the carrier owner, when purchasing stock for their carrier's outfitting and shipyard, is paying wholesale prices for the ships and modules. And if this wholesale price is a reasonable amount off retail, that could mean the carrier owner has flexibility and can make a bit of a profit. Could they undercut Jameson Memorial if they wish, but make very little profit? Or, they could slightly undercut normal station prices by 5% and see if that tempts people. Or, sell certain things for full retail, or above retail, if they think they could make money that way in certain locations. It would be a true business, and as somebody who loves management/strategy games, it would be amazing! If this is the case, and I certainly hope it is, this could be an enormous feature.

Most of the talk I see around the forums is how the shipyard and outfitting and armory are useless because why would anybody use a carrier, when they could just go to a station? But this whole time we've assumed that the tariff was a markup pure and simple, and the prices would be more than stations. But that wouldn't make any sense as a feature to put on a carrier, why bother developing it then? I don't think it's the case. Although I'd love confirmation...

A shipyard seems useless. I can't think of a single place one would wish to position themselves where someone would say, "yay there's a shipyard nearby, I'm going to buy a Conda, so I don't have to go all the way back." The reason being that a fully E-rated ship way out in the middle of nowhere is likely more useless than the ship they got there in. I think the tarrifs you set on repairs, refuel, and restocking and maybe modules will be your cash point. Especially if you can stock things like Guardian FSD boosters and SRVs etc. etc. You set the tariffs, so if you're way out at Sag-A and you want someone to fork out 400% repair costs? You can because you're the closest most convenient place and that person may be on the verge of losing all their exploration data. But as far as ship purchasing? Most people will just wait till they're back to Shinrarta, or some high tech industry, so they can buy their shop, outfit and easily engineer aspects of it.

 

[wetwire]

That is... IF anyone trusts you and your Carrier not to make an unannounced jump, leaving these guys in non-Fuel Scoop equipped, unengineered Mining Rigs stranded in the middle of nowhere

LOL
"Cargo at maximum capacity"
Alright good, lets get out of this ice ring and...
:: Dark tentacles reach out around the nose of the carrier as bright lightning arches and crackles around the space distortion::
Wait! im not onboard! Request docking . Request Docking!
::The Carrier vanishes in an unmistakable shock wave of sound being sucked into the void, then suddenly silent::
Frack you!
I hate my life....

 

[Quantis Trap]

As currently specified, there no way it will be profitable.

It seems like every new content feature Frontier adds never really works the way they designed it. Therefore, it always takes monumental work on the part of commanders and third parties to find some esoteric use.

 

[Drelthar]

Nah, only way to make money would have been to allow people to sell things players actually want - like fully kitted out ships, engineered modules and all.

Course, can't do that, someone might not have to grind if that was allowed - against Frontier law that.

 

[wetwire]

Maybe if you stock your carrier full of Asp Scouts! those are selling like hot cakes.

"Yup, any moment now the customers will come.. any moment.."