After much discussion in the past and a couple of betas, Fleet Carriers are now a part of Elite Dangerous. The full patch notes are here for anyone interested but the short version of it is:

• Fleet Carriers cost 5 billion credits
• You can choose who to allow on your carrier
• A variety of services can be added to them as well as tariffs applied
• There is a regular weekly upkeep for them to remain running
• You can use it to store your own ships and modules
• Liveries are available (like ships) to make it even more your own vessel

Plenty of additional changes and fixes are included in the update but carriers are of course the big feature that will have players talking. It’ll be interesting to find out how well they catch on and who will be making the investment as initially it’s going to only be those players who have the credits to buy one quickly while also having enough to absorb the costs while getting established. There’s also a potential land grab coming as players seek to establish their carriers in systems where only a limited number of these vessels are allowed. We’ll see soon enough how it all plays out. 🙂

Elite Dangerous is out now for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.