The long road to Fleet Carrier
07 Apr 2023Foxtrot Echo One
After being gone for several years out in the black, a lot had changed upon my return. When I left the Bubble, Engineering was relatively new and allowed me the boost I needed to go to very deep corners of the galaxy. One thing I had not anticipated upon my return was two war fronts and the fact that my old ships just wouldn't cut the mustard anymore.I have spent months re-building and upgrading my personal fleet just to tackle basic tasks such as cargo hauling, human war combat, and anything I could do to generate enough credits to make more credits. Many pilots said, "just do this, credits are easy" etc. Everyone has an idea, after they are already rich. Many don't realize the road it takes to make that kind of money. When I returned, the only Engineer I had access to was Felicity Farseer, over at Farseer Inc in DECIAT. A wonderful older lady, but I needed much higher specifications, so I went on a journey to meet more engineers and boy is the road LONG. I was never a big fan of the Engineer program. It's overly involved, and could really be better served if it were streamlined and the number of items needed for upgrades reduced or refined.
That was really only some of the challenges I faced. We were also in two wars right out of the gate. One in Human space, at our homeworld, and one with of course the Goids. I had to literally build two ships at the same time to participate in these wars, and of course get all of the materials and knowledge I now required to get the ships and credits I need to keep things moving forward. I remember that when I returned, thinking my fleet of 9 ships at the time would be fine were blown to pieces at every turn. My combat flight skills were very shaky at best, and I ended up selling my primary ship called Raza, a beautiful Federal Corvette just to keep from going completely bankrupt. The good news is that now, I have Raza back and she is being properly refit for human combat.
Simultaneously, the Thargoid war was also still raging. I built and modified a ship for AX combat named Xenocaust. A beautiful Krait Mk II ship, that didn't even exist when I left the Bubble back in the day. A lot of work and testing by my AX Fleet Commander, and others in the Vortex Squadron went into designing a ship for our style of combat. Again, I had not ever even heard of Guardians, or Thargoids before my return, so the educational process and time investment was steep.
I realized that with the ship I have currently for AX missions, I could make a lot of money, but I wanted more. I am almost finished with my new AX ship named Xeno-Reaper, which is an Anaconda. This ship should be able to obliterate most Goids without much effort. However this is where I realized that I am going to need just one more thing... A Fleet Carrier.
Where we are fighting currently, stations are sparce, the Goids have ravaged many of the systems in the area. The stations that do exist don't have large landing pads or ship storage so my only hope is to borrow a pad on one of my squad's fleet carriers. The tricky part comes in when we talk about Combat Bonds. If I use a squad's carrier to cash them in, I have to pay a 25% sur charge to get the dividends. That's a huge amount of credits each time I want to unload my bonds. I find this to be unacceptable, so now I have added an additional mission. Acquire a fleet carrier, figure out all the upkeep and module systems and costs, and all issues will be solved. That's my story, and I am sticking to it.
I believe that the original idea of a fleet carrier was to be a "shared" resource for Squadrons, but I am pretty sure that with the reductions in cost and upkeep, most pilots just use them as their primary ship. It really makes sense, even though I don't agree with upkeep all that much. I would still rather have one than not at this point as it will solve a myriad of issues that I am currently facing.
So, I have about half of the amount of credits I would need for a fleet carrier now, and hopefully if all goes well, I will have this part of my journey fulfilled before the Goids overtake the Bubble.
Any suggestions for fast cash besides Biology are welcomed.
Fly dangerous Commanders! o7
-Foxtrot Echo One