Indeed.
A freind of mine lost his type 6 (with full hold) while we were on skype at the weekend. Insurance gave him his ship back but left him no spare ISK. He sold his sheilds and weapons and within 2 hours was sitting on 2.5 million.
I was sat at a nav beacon in my 2.5 million Cobra, I made 260,000 in the same 2 hours.
Given my play time limitations if I ever want to get a Python im going to have trade, something I have no interest in doing as it just feels like a second job to me.
Why does one career choice pay 10 times more than another?
Speaking as someone who went from exploring (super early phase) to bounty hunting to (just last night) trading, a good chunk of that lucrative nature only really kicks in during the Type 6 and above; I gravitated towards bounty hunting because I just wasn't getting the same cash flow trying to hoof it in a Hauler as I was blowing up Cobras, Vipers, etc, etc. It was only after a few days, (and a lucky streak of taking out three Wanted Anacondas with LOTS of NPC help,) that I raised the two million in total assets (after trading in my Viper) to start bulk trading.
The thing is, it isn't solely about grind, but there are instead two issues that largely explain the income gap.
First, trading is consistent. You find a route, you get x amount of profit, and as long as the supply versus demand ratio remains more or less steady, you will continue to make x amount of profit, whatever that amount may be. The only way to improve your fortunes, as it were, is to explore new potential sources, which MIGHT find you a better route, but might just waste your time; as long as you stick to the same route, though, you'll make the same money. Bounty Hunting, given it seems to greatly rely on random generation insofar as NPC ships go, is significantly less consistent in terms of what you get. I had one day where I lucked out into finding THREE Anacondas, in just one resource field, coming one after another, all with big fat bounties and plenty of NPC allies around to whittle it down. End of the day, thanks to a steady stream of 8-20k bounties in the same region, I made close to seven hundred and fifty thousand credits in the space of a couple of hours, all bounty hunting.
Fast forward to the next day, all I seemed to be able to find were Eagles, Sidewinders, the occasional Cobra or Transport, the bounties low-to-mid, nothing special. Lucky if I cleared even two hundred thousand that entire day. Bounty Hunting, you're at the mercy of whether the server wants to give you a solid stream of bounties. Trading, you know exactly what you're going to get for the amount of time you put in, and if you don't think it's enough, you could always strike out and try to find a better deal.
Second is the theoretical concept of risk, (though, to be fair, interdictions seem to be a lot less frequent now than they were when I first started playing a week ago,) in that if I get blown up in my Viper, I pay the insurance cost of around fifty to seventy thousand, which is a minor ouch, and lose unclaimed bounties, which could be a bigger one. But that's a pretty major if, because my Viper can usually outfight whatever it can't outrun, and if worse comes to worse, I just spam the boost, dodge and weave, and throw chaff like confetti until I can supercruise the heck out of there. The only times I've died, it's literally been because of my own idiocy, a stupid action I did, rather than being bested by the skill of another player or NPC.
On the other hand, if my type 6 gets blown up, I not only pay the higher insurance cost, but I obviously lose anything that was in the cargo hold; when I first started trading in the type 6, it was gold, meaning that death meant I'd be a million in the hole, with a profit of only about a hundred thousand per trip. (I say 'only' because it means it would take me ten trips to safely absorb the losses of losing my ship and cargo.) And given that thing is, and I say this with all the love I can muster, a slow, weak, lumbering elephant that even a marginally skilled played with a mid-tier Cobra could take out, an encounter turning into my death is MUCH more likely if I can't evade the Interdiction. In theory, the high payout is intended to balance the high risk, along with the serious repercussions of things going south.
Now, I said CONCEPT of risk. Because just like any reasonably knowledgeable fighter can take out a ship that outclasses him with sneaky tactics, any reasonably knowledgeable trader can minimize the risk to his ship; in my case, by finding an optimal route with a high return. Unlike the OP, I did it by literally flying around in a wee little Sidewinder with a notepad and looking for a worthwhile route, until I finally stumbled on the motherload, the culmination of hours of searching that was a product more of a lucky break than a predestined outcome. My trading route is just one jump, and after that jump I remain in supercruise in the system for forty seconds, fifty at most, before reaching the station. Twenty one hundred credits roundtrip profit per unit, so after roughly ten minutes it's a profit of two hundred and ten thousand credits.
Sucks to not be able to make that much that quickly in bounties? Yup, probably so. xP But before I found the optimal route, I was doing exposed, bloated runs that could have financially ruined me. Heck, my first flight out, I spent so much on cargo, I had JUST enough left to pay ship insurance if I got killed, and all my cargo ship's gear was E grade, so no trading down for capital. Let me tell you, that three jump trip was the tensest, most nerve wracking time I'd ever had playing this game. x_x Took a dozen runs before I even started to relax.
