In this game there is no feeling of investment in terms of money

[rupok]

In most other games when you have large amounts of money, you make MORE money. This game you have large amounts for commodity goods but since your cargo space is so low on every ship you make chump change.

The profit margins are low, and once you do get a huge 80 million CR ship, the repair costs are so astronomical that you find that its just better to use the smaller ships to make less profit because there isn't some chance you get hull damage and have to pay 250k in repairs.

What I am trying to say is that trading and other money making methods needs fixing, there is a huge imbalance between earning potential and spending needs.


Increase the risk if you have to, I would rather be doing more high profit runs and lose millions a few times instead of doing monotonous and boring low profit low risk runs.
Does FD think this kind of grind is fun? Its really not.

There should be more risk for more reward, one example is the smuggling and other criminal activity, they are high risk yet they give less money than just doing legal work which is a very dumb design. Criminal activity should be lucrative yet provide high risk, thats what makes games more fun.

 

[plumdog]

You are right there should be more ways to earn money where the more risk you take the more reward you can gain, and it should be done in ways that would encourage player interaction.

Although currently I do find trading is almost an exponential growth in income, the more you earn the bigger ship and more cargo you can take, and the bigger the FSJ you can equip. You end up doing bigger transactions and more credits / hr. The problem I have with that is it's quite boring gameplay with minimal player interaction, and not much to work towards other than getting a bigger and better ship. Which in and of itself is not really that interesting for the haulers, as they are mostly just a cargo size upgrade at each step.

I would be quite keen to see some more MMO like features for things like progression, territories, capital ships, station ownership out outposts. I understand some people just want to stay true to elite, but really isn't the game basically feature complete now if that was the case? I would like to see this game with a lot more depth, the foundations are a great step to being the best current space adventure available.

 

[Don_Von_Hulio]

I traded for an hour an a half and made about 1.5 mil in a Type 6.... and im having to go to sleep because it made me so bored.

I wouldnt mind farming Conflict Zones if the profit was better. But the best i could do in one whole hour is barely get 80k.

I havent managed to make over 1 mil~ in an hour of missioning, hunting, and scooping (Ive gotten close). Which takes alot more effort than finding a 1 jump route with a 150k~ profit round trip. Trading beats everything right now because its steady income... once you find the route you know what you are gonna get, when everything is literally just random.... mining included. It is funny though that the easiest and most boring job in the game is the most popular and profitable.... and people still say the game is hard. smh XD

We need more of alot of things. Missions having us invade a derelict space base infested with ne'er-do-wells with the choice of massacring them all or playing stealthy and single out the leader. Recon Missions that have us go into a contested area with a large scale battle going on making us fly in close to whatever to take pictures/video data on it for our employers. Protection missions having you fly as protector for some NPC trader or political figure. So many possibilities.... but i feel like by the time we actually get all that stuff it will have been a very long while.

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

I'll agree that the trading system needs work but for me the issue is deeper than purely the profit per hour. Most of the trade goods just aren't worth trading, there's no regionalisation of goods to make longer trips worth while (sort of like rares), I actually enjoyed the travel, route plotting and fitting of a rare trade ship over the short distance max cargo standard trading. Best profits seem to be in the high pop core worlds rather than taking goods out to the fringe.

All of this could be fixed in time of course.

The big ships certainly can make a lot more cash and more than enough to sustain themselves. I've been kicking about in a type-9 for a while and only spent a tiny fraction of what I've earned on repairs, fuel etc. I got plonked between two suns costing me 400K but apart from the odd 20K W&T bill that's all my running costs have been and I've made well over 20mil. Even with the currently weird supply/demand situation it's possible to make good money. I was trading slaves last few days at 1500-1700 per ton for the news event.

Now I'm not saying everything perfect, far from it but there's still good trade money to be made with a bit of luck and some research. Having a big ship really does ramp up the earnings.

 

[Beld]

atleast with trading there is some progression, with combat missions once you can do the assassination missions and hunt down anacondas you've peaked, game over enjoy grinding credits.

 

[rupok]

atleast with trading there is some progression, with combat missions once you can do the assassination missions and hunt down anacondas you've peaked, game over enjoy grinding credits.

There needs to be big scale wars going on where you can participate, battlefield with empire vs feds, something cool like that where multiple ships may be attacking you at the same time.

 

[bassman]

In most other games when you have large amounts of money, you make MORE money. This game you have large amounts for commodity goods but since your cargo space is so low on every ship you make chump change.

I think this is by design, and I think its a good thing as it stops exponential wealth accumulation by players - you need to work to keep the most expensive ships. Agree thats its kind of skewed with respect to trading vs other professions though.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Give it time. Its very early days yet. At the moment we have a barebones game which also needs tweaking.

However, i cannot agree that money making should be exponential. Linear growth, sure. Getting to the big ships and maontaining them should take time and be expensive.

Otherwise in a few weeks we will have players flying the big ships and complaing on the forums they are bored and have nothing to do.

 

[Muthax]

So why don't you go to conflicts zone or Sorbago??

 

[Ethaor]

Otherwise in a few weeks we will have players flying the big ships and complaing on the forums they are bored and have nothing to do.

That's part of the problem though, getting the big ship shouldn't be the end of it, finally being able to afford one of the bigger ship should open a door to a greater amount of activities and gameplay options for the player to enjoy. But like you said the game is just a skeleton right now so there's not much point in earning much money anyway. ED has really only been branded 1.0 to give it an official start, open the return on investment valves and get the press coverage rolling. May the features and content follow soon enough that we can enjoy it for years to come!

 

[Trickle]

I havent managed to make over 1 mil~ in an hour of missioning, hunting, and scooping (Ive gotten close). Which takes alot more effort than finding a 1 jump route with a 150k~ profit round trip. Trading beats everything right now because its steady income

Doesn't help you increase your combat ranking though. 95% of people I see flying round in type 6's are still Harmless

 

[laz001]

In most other games when you have large amounts of money, you make MORE money. This game you have large amounts for commodity goods but since your cargo space is so low on every ship you make chump change.

The profit margins are low, and once you do get a huge 80 million CR ship, the repair costs are so astronomical that you find that its just better to use the smaller ships to make less profit because there isn't some chance you get hull damage and have to pay 250k in repairs.

What I am trying to say is that trading and other money making methods needs fixing, there is a huge imbalance between earning potential and spending needs.


Increase the risk if you have to, I would rather be doing more high profit runs and lose millions a few times instead of doing monotonous and boring low profit low risk runs.
Does FD think this kind of grind is fun? Its really not.

There should be more risk for more reward, one example is the smuggling and other criminal activity, they are high risk yet they give less money than just doing legal work which is a very dumb design. Criminal activity should be lucrative yet provide high risk, thats what makes games more fun.

Agreed. I think FD have taken the wrong direction by trying to limit trade profit by the mechanism of wear and tear.

Better would be a more realistic option that delivering huge amounts of cargo leads to diminishing profit per unit. I.e., profit doesn't quite scale with quantity.

If I sell 1 unit of cargo, I get 100cr for the item. If I sell 50 units, maybe I get 50cr per item. If I sell 1000 units, I get 15cr per unit.