 This month finally saw the much anticipated release of the elite dangerous personal fleet carrier system Prior to its release the hugely expensive player owned and operated capital class vessels were on occasions somewhat maligned and misunderstood Even when they made it into the public beta It was often difficult to see where the huge vessels might find a place in the game Understandable really beta is beta and no matter how hard you try You're never really going to play the beta in the same way that you play the live game Now that carriers alive, however It's a very different box of chickens with the benefit of some newly acquired in-game Experiences and no small degree of hindsight. It's very easy to see where the carrier fits in and where its true value lies I got my own carrier BP FC the burrs cave just five days ago It's modestly outfitted hosting just refuel repair and rearm facilities currently, but already I can't imagine going back to the game without having it at my beckon call More importantly for those that don't yet own a carrier themselves You can make significant use of someone else's carrier and we're starting to see them used by the wider player Population to facilitate the distribution of player wealth more on that in a moment Before carriers launched the initial answer that always sprung to my mind when faced with the question But what do you do with them was usually some variant of it'll be hugely useful in our factions BGS work And I'm very pleased to say that our player minor faction has already had valuable usage From a couple of carriers in just a short amount of time This past weekend we had conflict zones in a system that had only small and medium Landing pads available and as in is often the case the combat zones themselves were spread out across the system Valuable time in the combat zones was maintained as the refuel repair and rearm facilities for multiple large Combat vessels were now just seven to ten light seconds from the targeted combat zone coupled with the advantages of fielding large combat vessels in the first place and the benefits become clear The simple act of a carrier's proximity is able to keep more firepower in play for much longer For an active player minor faction. It's an obvious use but an important one On Friday afternoon one of our community members announced that he was moving his carrier 1500 light years to a well-known raw material gathering hotspot far outside the bubble And if anyone wanted to join they were welcome to come along The carrier was scheduled to leave around 11 p.m UTC on Friday and would be leaving to return to our home system around 1700 UTC the following day Personally I'd been keen to gather some much needed materials for some time But ironically the jumps needed to get to a time efficient site Coupled with my almost permanent need to be in and around the bubble for various burpit channel reasons Usually means it's a somewhat problematic pursuit for me Suddenly with a carrier and a generous community member doing the driving It was a much more attractive proposition and for me the journey down to the gathering site was akin to an overnight sleeper service Once I had free time on Saturday afternoon I was able to spend around four hours happily trundling around the system and I finished the day maxing out four Individual material slots then while I ate dinner the day trip carrier brought me and the other commanders on board back to our home system It was a really nice emergent mutually beneficial fun community event That would have been utterly impossible without a carrier We're now planning on making the engineering materials road trip a semi regular thing within our community I've also discovered this weekend that low temperature diamond mining can now be an occasional impulse thing Rather than a huge commitment of time with a carrier in tow You can do a spot of mining and then finish when you want to finish Afterwards rather than dashing to sell the goods and reclaim the valuable cargo space You can now just store the mining vessel and the diamonds in the carrier and move on to some other activity Selling the diamonds at a time and indeed a price that suits you On the subject of easier movement of people and goods through the galaxy My carrier is also now apparently some sort of space-based version of uber Our son is also an avid elite dangerous player It's a family habit it seems and he acquired a second account this weekend while the game was on sale on steam Having completed his training in the pilots Federation locked starter zone He was keen to move out into the wider galaxy I asked him if he would have used for a lift to our player minor factions cluster of home systems After all there's a bunch of friends there completing very well-paying wing missions for the BGS His face lit up Whilst familiar systems and friends he'd become used to were of course reachable with some effort as a new account It would have been no small amount of jumps to reach the familiar constellations of home Not any more though 15 minutes after the conversation had taken place BPFC the burrs cave arrived in an adjacent system and picked up its newest son 20 minutes after that he was back in familiar skies Surrounded by the support structure that only a player minor faction and squadron can bring 7 out of 10 would use this service again apparently Over the last week I've been hearing similar stories from all over the game as well The launch of carriers has seen the beginnings of a player economy spring up The enormous wealth needed in the game to own and run a carrier has actually triggered a trading meta That sees non-carrier owners cooperating with their wealthier counterparts to facilitate easy trade routes spanning the bubble where everybody involved Makes a significant profit from just one commander owning a carrier trade carriers offering top-dollar prices have also sprung up in abundance around the new LTD mining meta system facilitating the sale of a miners low temperature diamonds at a reasonable price without the trawl and inherent risk of traveling back to the bubble Perhaps the ultimate irony of all this is that players who were perhaps struggling to make the money to buy a carrier for themselves Are now being aided and having their quest for the carrier Facilitated via the use of the carriers themselves We've also heard tales just this weekend of carriers conducting module unlocking tours of the Guardian sites roundtrips to the bubble's many engineers site-seeing tours out to places like Barnards Loop and at least two commander rescue operations now being Conducted using multiple carriers as mobile rescue platforms One carrier doing the rescue one carrier bringing some requested Outfitting to the stranded commander and one carrier to refuel up the other two carriers This kind of operation really tickles my logistical jollies Indeed in our discord server We eventually had so many reports of carriers now doing things that we created a my carrier is doing a thing channel So that commanders wishing to advertise and recruit for their carriers thing could do so without it being buried under the usual torrent of chat And all of this is of course happening in the shadow of the DSSA initiative Over 100 carriers now being prepped and fueled to put at least one permanent outpost in every sector of the galaxy Surely the ultimate group carrier thing Despite some initial doubts and the occasional wobbly moment in the early beta Introduction of the personal fleet carrier appears to have been a massive success Concurrent player numbers on the steam platform alone are through the roof to levels not seen in the game for years The community at large has an infused buzz around it and the sheer volume of events and emergent activities being Facilitated by this new tall in the commander's arsenal has been hard to keep up with what a fantastic problem to have If you enjoyed this video remember to hit the like button and also consider subscribing to the channel that stuff really helps us Smaller content creators. That's it for now. Thanks very much for watching We'll be back later this week with more videos until then oh seven 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