Testing the Fleetcarrier as an Exploration Platform

One option for the newly released fleetcarriers in Elite:Dangerous would be using it as an "long distance Exploration Platform" - so I went out on a short trip, a few thousand lightyears from civilization to test this out.

TL;DR: Not a viable option for me.

The long version: For this test I wanted to play it safe so I went with the carrier filled with tritium fuel to the max. This way I was sure to make it back, if self supply out in the black does not work out. As tritium was sold at very low price in one of the systems controlled by our player faction it wasn't too expensive to do this, so now was so perfect time. 

I decided to chose a direction other than the main routes because my goal was to explore, find new stuff... not to go to the beautiful places already found by others. And not even 1000 lightyears from my starting point I started running into the first undiscovered systems. Great!

So how did I incorporate my Carrier: I always plotted routes <500 Lightyears with my exploration ship. When reaching the end of the route I looked for an interesting system nearby and then ordered my carrier to jump there. While waiting for the carrier to arrive I either scanned rings, mapped planets or landed and collected materials at a geo/bio site.

This was actually great fun and it was nice to have the safety of the carrier in the back, handing in exploration data every 500Ly. But would this scheme be sustainable for a long distance exploration? As much fun it might be, I wouldn't want to get stuck with a carrier far out in deep space.

So first: The financial aspect. Each carrier jump costs 100,000Credits for repairs required afterwards. Additionally it has an weekly upkeep. With my loadout this is about 17MCr per week. This money, I think, can be cashed in when exploring, but requires some intense gameplay. It takes more time out there to cash in this amount, then it does in the bubble. For me personally and my gaming speed and game time per week this would be doable, in the end there wouldn't be much left over probably, but at least the trip wouldn't be a loss. 

Second: Fleet Carrier fuel, Now here comes the problem: A fleet carrier requires fuel to jump. And no matter how rich you are and how much money you are making through exploration, out in the black there is no one selling it to you. So you have to mine it yourself.

I brought a python equipped for mining for exactly this task - I wanted to check what it takes to mine enough tritium to sustain myself on this trip. And couldn't do it. A fleetcarrier jump takes about 200t of fuel (they way I did the trip). I am no expert in mining, so professionals may be faster, but for me that is 2 - 2.5 hours of mining, if I am lucky and have a tritium hotspot in the system. Without I guess it might even be more. This clearly wouldn't be something to do for me every day - after all I am out there to explore, not to mine.

So realitically speaking, when exploring alone and with a fleetcarrier, I think I could sustain about one fleet carrier  jump per week. So it would take a very long time to get to the really far parts. And I am not ready to commit myself to a multi year exploration trip, to be honest. 

That doesn't mean a fleet carrier is not good for exploration. It actually is fantastic. It just not good for "long distance, with limited time and me". Tweaking any of the variables can make it sustainable:

- Do slow exploration, 500Ly a week, investigating everything around before moving on. Actual exploration, instead of racing across the galaxy.

- Stay nearby, so a full tritium tank can get you to where you want to go and back to the bubble - the rest is just a money issue, and we all know this can now be generated quick enough that it is not relevant anymore. And an hour of Diamond mining and selling those, will save you 20-30 hours of Tritium mining. The balance of Low Temperature Diamond mining is THAT broken.

- Don't go a alone, so the tritium supply job is done by many. The carrier does not use more fuel when more commanders are travelling with it and the effort of mining can be shared among those coming. The more people group up, the easier it will get. 

Thoughts on the Odyssey Announcement

Frontier, the company behind Elite:Dangerous, dropped quite a bomb this week. They put out the first announcement of the upcoming "new era" of the game with the "Odyssey" release. Watch the trailer, containing pre-alpha footage from the new game engine:

So the big new thing is what the community calls "space legs", the ability to actually play your commander as a person outside of the pilot or vehicle seat. But there is more in the video that is not explicitly stated there: It seems like landing on planets with an athmosphere would be possible. The graphics of the environment seem to have significantly improved. And I think even the ship models look a lot improved to what they are now. 

I personally am very excited about the improved graphics and the athmospheric landings. Space legs are not important for me personally, but it is a very much requested feature by the player community. And I can see possible ways to have fun with this new gameplay myself. I am somewhat neutral to that change myself at this point in time - how much I will like it will depend much on the details how they can/must be used.

Some players noticed though, that on Steam this upcoming extension is listed without VR-Support and asked on the forums about that. And Frontier answered (which is great in itself, given how quite they were over the last year). The answer is: "No VR support at launch of the expansion". 

Wow, that is a second bomb dropped. This time one that really hit me hard. I love the VR-Experience of the current game. A spaceflight sim is just the perfect environment for the combination of VR and me. And Elite:Dangerous today has it implemented in a great way. Some of the newer features seemed to get not much VR-love (FSS-Scanner, I am looking at you!), but the overall game experience is just mindblowingly good.

But I guess the VR-market just did not develop enough over the last years to still be worth implementing for. It is an understandable decision, commercially, to not implement for what is still a niche market as it seems. It might backfire, if VR grows but in the end it is a strategical decision and in this case it seems to be made against the implementation of VR-capabilities. 

There has been a clarification afterwards, that you will still be able to play the current version in VR, even if the upgrade does not support it, but to me this is pointless. Another important puzzle piece making this game so good is the community. And keeping the VR-Players on Horizon and giving the 2D-Players Odyssey will de-facto split the community - and therefore not be an option.

I assume it will still be possible to fly together, sure. But I also expect there will be an incentive to upgrade (after all Frontier must sell the new expansion, cause that is their business). So I expect, like with the horizons upgrade before, there will be something you need to stay competetive in the new expansion. In horizons it was engineers. Sure you can play without them, but who does, honestly?

Also there will be community events that require the new expansion - and thus those not having it, because they want to play in VR, will be left out.

At this point I am very disappointed by the announcement to ditch VR, as you can probably tell. Will I leave the game because of that? I don't know yet. It is still a long time until the expansion is actually there and we don't know much about it yet. I will have to wait and see. I guess it is still a long way away - my believe in the announced date is not strong.