 This is Witchbase news for Friday the 27th of March 2020 I'm CMDR Buur In this week's news Frontier break their silence on fleet carriers We have new details on carrier costs how they work and when you can get your hands on one If you enjoy this video consider subscribing and also click the little bell icon to make sure you don't miss any of our future videos Frontier finally broke their silence on elite much delayed fleet carrier system last night with the announcement of some new details on the behemoth ships a date for the live stream reveal as well as incoming beta tests before the carriers finally go live in June I'll say that again Frontier have confirmed that fleet carriers are arriving in the live game in June You'll be able to test them out before then however with two beta tests the first of which starts on April the 7th for PC players with a second beta test for PCs and consoles in May the much speculated purchase price for the vessels has also been revealed and it's an eye-watering five billion credits Frontier clearly designing these colossal ships to be a significant investment for their owners The carriers come with 16 landing pads of various sizes and will require a new fuel tritium to power their frame shift drives which are capable of jumping the Titanic ships up to 500 light years those jumps can also happen whenever the player chooses but there is apparently a build-up and call-down period between the jumps as part of the announcement across all Frontier's social media platforms they also stated that since the initial carrier reveal last year they have revisited the design of the vessels cookie cutter loadouts and instead opted for a more flexible customization design as with all the other ships in Elite Dangerous they're saying that this design rethink will allow players to make their carrier unique and allow for player-to-player interaction the like of which Elite Dangerous has never seen before the post from Frontier then goes on to say that players will be able to manage their carriers finances by setting tariffs and adjusting the buying and selling prices for commodities traded at the carrier's marketplace it's safe to assume from this statement then that your carrier appears to be designed to make money for you via the commodity market given the use of their phrase and i'm quoting directly here player-to-player interaction like you've never seen before in Elite Dangerous unquote you could speculate that carriers will see the start of a true player-to-player trading system and player-driven economy an email announcement from Frontier later on Friday stated and i'm quoting again fleet carriers provide new opportunities for expeditions and long-range travel the ability to reload refuel and repair for conflicts and campaigns as well as tools and storage for mining operations far from home that last line is of particular interest tools and storage for mining operations the direct implication here as we've speculated before on this channel is that carriers will essentially introduce player storage space meaning you can finally swap to a smaller ship while hanging on to your cargo which will be stored for later use a press release appears to have gone out to gaming news outlets as well that includes one extra detail not mentioned in Frontier's other communiques quote carrier owners will be able to set tariffs on all goods traded on board to support weekly upkeep costs if owners consistently fall behind on their payments the fleet carriers might ultimately be decommissioned and sold for parts unquote perhaps understandably the words weekly upkeep costs and decommissioned did cause a degree of anxiety in the community but as we've stated above and this press release from Frontier seems to support the idea the carriers do appear to be able to make money for their owner meaning in theory at least they could be self-sustaining with enough traffic visiting them in a direct response on twitter to help calm the upkeep and decommissioning anxiety Frontier did respond with the following quote you need to incur on huge in capital letters debt for that to happen and our devs know that you'd want to go on vacation from time to time unquote that statement does seem to imply that you'll need to essentially ignore your carrier and indeed the game utterly for a significant period before decommissioning becomes a consideration but without more clarification on running costs for these vessels it's hard to know for sure any developer worth their salt will know that there is a balancing act between any potential grind to maintain the upkeep of something like a carrier versus the reward for owning one by the same token to make the carrier worth having and feel valuable you'll need to put more than two tomatoes and a bag of cats into it every week given the hints that we've seen in the last 24 hours on what carriers will be bringing it'll be particularly fascinating to see how organizations like the fuel rats operation Ida the East India company and the AXI use them given that Frontier have revisited the carrier design and changed how loadouts are going to work and that they are now finally actually giving details on cost fuel upkeep etc coupled with a clear roadmap on when we can get to try these things out before they actually launch in June it does feel like they're listening to the community and reacting accordingly the beta test will be a fantastic opportunity for the player base to grapple with carriers try everything out and then give constructive feedback on what they like and what they don't like and I for one fully intend to avail myself of that opportunity we're getting further details in a live stream on April the second and then the beta for carriers on pc goes live just five days later if you've enjoyed this video consider subscribing to the channel and be sure to click the little bell icon to make sure you don't miss any of our future videos and if you want to help support the work of this channel you'll also find links below to patreon that's it for now thanks very much for watching we'll be back later this week with more videos until then 07 commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack we very much look forward to seeing you next time