 It's 2020, barring any as of yet unforeseen delays, Elite Dangerous should be getting the Fleet Carriers update in around June or thereabouts. Whilst not everyone is excited about getting a Fleet Carrier, a great many commanders are. But why? After all, as of this recording, we don't yet really know what you can do with a Fleet Carrier or why you'd want one. We do know that Fleet Carriers can be made role specific. Just to say, you can change your carrier somehow to suit mining, combat, exploration or trade. But over and above the aesthetic changes we've seen, what does that role choice bring to the carrier that differentiates one from another role choice? My point being, there must be some extra functionality that we don't yet know about. As an example, let's look at the mining carrier. Right now, you can build yourself a nice big T9 or cutter mining ship, send it into a ring, refine all your mined ore and fill up the cargo hold. But once it's full, you have no choice but to sell the ore as Elite currently has no large bank system where you can store your refined ore while you head back into the ring to get some more. A mining carrier will let you jump 500 plus light years away and mine in peace, but if you can only fill up with a T9's worth before you have to jump back again, why would you bother? It strikes me that one of the logical extra functions that carriers could bring to mining then would surely be some sort of internal ore storage or even a huge refinery like a mobile factory ship. You would in theory not then have to return to a station to sell until your carrier was full up. That suddenly makes the 500 light year jump much more worthwhile. Fill the carrier with squad mates, all of whom are also running large mining ships and then you're looking at strip mining a system as a fleet with everyone taking a share of the bounty. This is of course all conjectural but you can see where I'm headed. So what about the other carrier rolls? What could they add over and above just using a regular ship? The Gamescom trailer from August last year showed carriers for exploration, mercenary work as well as mining. Could an exploration carrier maybe scan multiple systems at a time like a mobile observatory or even be used to survey systems in one sweep and identify mining hotspots or geological and biological sites throughout a system without the need to scan individual planets and moons? If a storage system is implemented for mining carriers it's easy to see how this could be repurposed for a mass trade carrier filling it up with a valuable commodity before jumping clear across the bubble and then selling for a massive profit. Could a mercenary carrier maybe be jumped directly into a conflict zone before releasing a swarm of commanders? And what of the rolls that Frontiers specifically haven't mentioned? Could we see a huge passenger specific cruise liner heading into the black with fleets of orcas and belugas aboard to handle day trips away from the mother vessel to sites further out in the black? And if trade and mining professions are to start transporting their goods via fleet carrier could we potentially see pirate themed carriers tracking their movements through hyperspace? After all is said and done there is no reason to have specifically themed carriers unless those carriers bring some element individually to the game that the other carriers can't bring on their own. The ability to carry lots of smaller vessels and jump 500 light years is the start of the story but it's not the end. What do you think? Are the rolls just an aesthetic change or are there more to these carriers than we're currently being told? What would you like to see your carrier do and what are your plans in a post-carrier Elite Dangerous Galaxy? As of this recording the fleet carrier update is around six months away and there's so much we don't yet know but one thing is for sure the hype train is about to start rolling and when it does we'll start learning a lot more about how the face of Elite Dangerous will be changing in 2020.