My dream for this game is to be able to live a total nomadic style: operating 100% of the time outside of a mobile base and only ever returning to a port for necessary resupply. Right off the bat, 4.2.0 is the first patch where living fulltime out of a ship is even possible. So that's amazing. We're still a long way from a full nomadic gameplay style, though. The Logistics The mothership in question was a SINGLE Polaris that I was able to keep through the whole cycle, used primarily as ship/item storage and a mobile base for recovering ship salvage. Her ID started with 'ML' so I lovingly named her 'Mother in Law.' My ships that I operated with were a fully attritioned Super Hornet for PvE, a dual rhino Talon with bombs for scouting/PvP, and a pisces parked in my cargo bay for spare transport. I went through many of all these, unlike the Polaris. The Super Hornet and Talon fit perfectly in the hangar bay when positioned opposite to each other and noses out to the sides of the bay. The Polaris only visited port (Lorville) three times: Once to store and save the ship's loadout (more below) Twice to offload bulk salvaged items Loading the ships for the first time was a hassle A friend was required to ferry me back and forth from the Polaris and Everus Harbor because I didn't want to risk tomfoolery from the game by backspacing. It's also a lot faster. I absolutely refused to load the Polaris near Everus simply because I could not open or close its hangar remotely. Too many opportunities for stowaways. You CAN multicrew with this approach, kinda: Bedlogging won't work for your friend. Neither will storing his vehicle aboard your mothership, as this blocks your ability to bedlog yourself Your friends do not have a quantum beacon to your ship But these can both be worked around: If your friend parks a ship with a bed next to the mothership, then that serves as both his bedlogging point for server hopping together, as well as a quantum beacon back to the mothership location. Just don't park too close. Sustainability Bedlogging has been 100% reliable this cycle for me. The game never had an infinite loading screen The items and vehicles aboard the ship always loaded in correctly The Polaris's quantum beacon was reliable 90% of the time. I always tested by flying 25km away to stream out the ship and validating that the beacon still worked. If it didn't, I bedlogged the ship and tried again However, the ships that spawned in with the Polaris DID NOT HAVE QUANTUM BEACONS. Only freshly spawned ships seemed to reliably have a beacon. The Polaris, like most ships, has virtually unlimited storage for food and healing items. I looted any Cruz that I found and kept the bulk on the Polaris Similarly, I kept any looted ammo for guns I used stored in bulk Returning to the Polaris regularly for eating/drinking/re-arming works well and it's a nice respite from being out on a grindy patrol ingame. It really does feel like coming home. It also obviously has 4 T2 med beds, though a single Nursa or Pisces Rescue would suffice for a smaller ship. Unfortunately, there is a severe problem here: Respawning on your ships is totally broken in 4.2.0. If your ship is streamed out, you will only respawn in your home base. For this reason, 90% of my activities this patch cycle were spent in the Hurston system. Salvaging Items and Components I spent the entire first half of this mini-wipe accumulating ship guns. I didn't buy any of the guns I used on my ships except the bombs on my Talon. All of this salvage was found organically and not duped. If I saw a derelict on a patrol mission, I scanned it. If I liked what I saw, I returned to the Polaris (before completing the patrol to keep a quantum beacon) and flew the Polaris in. Occasionally, if the ship was flyable, I'd fly that ship over to strip its useful items and then fly it back to the patrol. In one instance, I found a flyable abandoned Idris that I parked my fighter in, flew it to the Polaris, and stripped it there. I left it in deep space and flew the Polaris away afterwards. I was able to accumulate: 12x Attrition 5's 8x Attrition 4's (could have gotten more but they were not needed) 8x M6A's for the Polaris guns 6x Ardor 3's 4x Rhinos (again, more were not needed) 1x XL1 A handful of decent size 2 powerplants The accumulated items were stored in the Polaris for some time until I landed it in Lorville to offload into local storage. The armory aboard the ship went entirely unused. There is no need to salvage spare guns besides as trophies, which I decorated the captain's quarters with. CIG, replace half this space with the promised XO quarters. Drip Hunting A couple times this mini-wipe, I helped out some org mates accumulate drip. One instance had me flying the Polaris to Pyro and using the Talon to scout Jackson's Swap while my friend used his Prowler Ute to buy the drip in bulk (dropping the box at the shop first, landing nearby, transferring items into the box, and then scooping the box back up with the Prowler). We were able to successfully evade nearby fighting players due to our stealth. We planned to use the Polaris for a nearby respawn point (before I realized this wouldn't have worked), and then we used the Polaris to store the precious drip on the journey back to Stanton. And, of course, we celebrated with a couple Cruz Luxes in the galley after a job well done. Hostile Player Activity Because of the working ship quantum beacon, the Polaris was able to remain perfectly safe in deep space. The one close call I had was when I flew the Polaris to a weapons testing site to loot the components of a derelict Corsair. A couple players showed up (almost certainly for a PvE mission) in Guardians. I did not stick around to see if they were Qi's. I hauled ass out of there, not wanting to risk an interdiction. That was exhilarating. If the ship's med beds worked, I would have engaged in far more PvP (especially in Pyro). The plan would have been to park the Polaris in deep space near a combat zone and have it prepared with a couple PvP built fighters. This would have allowed me to do followup attacks almost instantaneously if I got killed. But since I always just respawned back in Lorville, this plan was canned quickly. Pro Tips Park your mothership in deep space, hangar open, with the open hangar facing the sun. This gives you the easiest time docking and undocking. ALWAYS test the beacon works before jumping away Try to keep at least two means of returning back to the ship for redundancy. Normally I'd suggest double-checking the beacon works before you leave, and of course making sure your spawn is set. But the spawn doesn't work, so your second means would be to double check that you can physically see the location of the ship in your HUD. Worst case, you can slow-boat it home. If you want to keep your ship alive, AVOID STORING IT IN HANGARS LIKE THE PLAGUE. The one time I almost lost the Polaris was when I had to store it to save the loadout. Lorville stopped allowing me to retrieve ships afterwards. Luckily I found a compliant server after a few server jumps. Only ever 'store' your ship by bedlogging. Leave healthy space between your fighters or snubs. They always came back when I bedlogged, but sometimes their positions get jostled around. If they're too close, you're gonna lose some wings. A MPUV-Tractor helps remove large husks of destroyed ships from your hangar (too large for the tractor rifle). In case of accidents. Assume whatever you keep aboard will be lost at any time. Even if it's a Polaris or an Idris, it's still a ship. Ships can explode or be deleted by the game at any time no matter how hard you try to keep them alive. Transfer valuable things you find to a station ASAP. Turning off the mothership's engines will spare your ears from the constant humming. What Needs to Happen Next Features that exist (or existed) but need fixing: Med bed respawning needs to work as intended: not unlimited range, but definitely more than 25km Ship beacons for ships spawned inside the mothership need to function Crew mate bedlogging Features that need to exist: A server selector. If I know with certainty that my mothership is in server blursed_memes, then I should be able to rejoin blursed_memes and find its location any time I want. ITEM RECOVERY T1, specifically the feature that allows us to save our locker contents and customizations to insurance. Remote opening and closing of ship doors/hangar A better reason to loot components and ships. Engineering might solve some of this, but having to go out and find things to keep my mothership operational will almost complete this gameplay loop. Working food processors that only need a bulk material restock at the start of a wipe cycle. Med beds can be used for food and drink, but this is cheesy, and should require similar bulk material to function. Repairing snubs and fighters leaves a lot to be desired. We can patch superficial damage and maybe some thruster health, but there is no way to reattach lost wings or other body panels. Racks for storing multiple missiles and ship weapons. As is, the cargo grid for these items is exactly one unit high, and wastes 80% of the cargo space Rearming ballistic ammo Refueling snubs and even the mothership itself The ability to leave quantum beacons in space so I can return to the mothership with my fighter and bring a light hauler or the mothership itself. Ability to load and offload cargo for Polarises at LEOs without having to go to Lorville