Balancing of the credit income

[Arctarus]

Hello guys,

I've played E since a month now and have to say I really enjoy this game

But there's one point where I see a problem - the credit income is very imbalanced...

Since the start I've done almost everything in Elite - I transported goods from starport to starport with my Sidewinder, I mined with my Hauler, I hunted pirates, beated Elite Anacondas and fought together with a capital ship over Panem with my Viper, I was a pirate in my Cobra, I traded rare goods in my Type 6, explored the way to VY Canis Majoris with my ASP and atm I'm transporting large amounts of Palladiam with my Lakon Type 7.

All of you know that trading makes the biggest profit - over 2 million per hour with a type 7. And you get similar rewards with trading rare goods.

But everything else is just doesn't worth to start with if you want to get bigger ships. You are more or less forced to do trading.

Hauling missions - 20k-40k per hour (that's okay for the first hours!)
Bounty hunting - ~200k per hour in an extraction site
Kill missions - 400k per hour (with a better ship than my Viper it might also be a million)
Combat bonds - ~200k per hour
Pirating - 100k per hour (but I'm sure I did it wrong ^^)
Exploring - hard to say an amount per hour, depends on the visited systems ... On my trip to Canis Majoris I gained 50.000 to 75.000 credits per hour
Mining - 40k within an hour in my Hauler (also okay for Hauler level but even 700k in three hours in a Lakon Type 6 isn't much)

When there's an imbalance in any game the Devs have always three options:

1. Make the better bad
2. Make the worse better
3. Do nothing

I wouldn't say there's a need to decrease the trading profit, it takes already now decades to get a Python.

That's why I would like to suggest the following changes:

Hauling missions - I wouldn't increase the reward for this, it's okay to earn the first few credits.

Bounty Hunting - There're a lot of pirates in an Extraction site with Sidewinders or Cobras. These bring a profit from a few 1.000 credits to 30.000. But there's just a rare amount of bigger ship like ASP or Anaconda with more than 30k bounty. Please let them occur a bit more often. The same goes for interdictions. Except a player in an Imperial Clipper i was only interdicted by Vipers and Eagles. Make space a bit more dangerous.

Kill mission - These missions are all the same - Accept, USS, NPC tells a systemname (which is often even the same like the on my new contract), fly there, USS, face an Elite Anaconda. These beasts are really strong and you need some time to take em down but if you do it right they are no danger...
I would like to see various missions with different rewards, different targets and different difficulties. There should be strong Cobras, ASP, Dropships, Cruiser and Orcas as target avaiable - all ofc with different rewards up to 400k for an Anaconda.

Combat Bonds - I have to say for myself this is the best part of Elite. But the reward of 3.000 per kill is... well not worth it. Although you can kill a lot of bad guys in a short time with the help of the Battle Cruiser the reward should be definetly increased. To get it on trading level there should be an average gain of 20k. And please make a difference between an Eagle (under 10 seconds and boom) and an Anaconda (many many seconds until the boom even with the capital ship).

Pirating - The Black Market should give a bit more profit. (I'm not very experienced here, please add your suggestions)

Exploring - I don't know a lot about the mechanics behind this... I know there will be the Level 2 and 3 (I think atmospheric scans and on surface scans) later which will give you also additional money. But I think the reward for trading data of a system nobody has entered before should be very high in comparison to the guys that come after that first one.

Mining - Well, a lot of mining content like mining robots will be added later... So I would like to wait for this...


I hope Frontier doesn't choose option #3.

Please feel free to discuss and add your suggestins espacially if I forgot smth

 

[EddyRockSteady]

Elite is a Space Trading game first and foremost: Everything else centers around that fact. As a consequence it stands to reason that the most money is to be made through trading.

 

[Tigga]

I measured my pirating last night and I was at 218k/hour profit (after repairs).

If I hadn't been stupid and boosted into somebody, killing me and probably them, it would have been 264k/hour. That's kinda the price of doing business as a pirate though. I also had at least 1 bad hour, because it seemed like 3-4 people in the system were all trying to claim my bounty and I stuck around rather than doing the profitable thing and swapping systems, so on other nights it might be higher.

I should add that pirating rares is a lot more lucrative than pirating commodities, though I think the pricing is a bit broken for them. If the pricing is fixed (ie. lowered) then I'm hoping for some black market improvements. Trying not to thread-hijack, but I made some suggestions here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=94159&highlight=

Simply put: black market pricing should be based on the state of the system (why do anarchy systems care whether high demand goods are stolen), and include factors such as rationing (very high demand+strong government => high black market price) and taxation (ie. cigarettes/beer/fuel is taxed heavily in the UK, so there is a (small) black market for them where the seller makes more money than the open market, and the buyer buys for cheaper).


On other professions: I think exploration done for profit is in the 150-200k/hour range fully kitted out, and mining people have reported >500k/hour.

 

[Arctarus]

@EddyRockSteady :
Elite is a space sim that includes also other features than trading. Maybe trading is the most important but that doesnt mean that the other activities should be that underpaid that they are more or less senseless...

@Tigga:
Your blackmarket improvements are very interesting and good
Even those high profits I could only dream of are still way under trading...
500k sounds much but for me its flying my route 2 times and I got even 600k in 1/4 hour...

 

[metatheurgist]

Elite is a Space Trading game first and foremost: Everything else centers around that fact. As a consequence it stands to reason that the most money is to be made through trading.

Nope. DB has said that he doesn't want any one style of gameplay to be more profitable than another. Expect balancing.

 

[Valethar]

If you feel you're making too much money too quickly, I'm sure any number of people would be happy to blow you out of the sky a few times.

Go ahead, load that big pig of a hauler up with the most expensive stuff you can find. We'll be happy to 'balance' your income for you.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Perhaps an obvious question - ignoring DBs words for a moment why does it matter if one role has a better earning potential than another ?

 

[Allant Doran]

Perhaps an obvious question - ignoring DBs words for a moment why does it matter if one role has a better earning potential than another ?

Nobody minds trading making MORE money. People just hate that it makes more money by a gigantic margin. On one round-trip of trading rares, I can make 1 million credits in about 30 minutes In a Cobra. The next best profession, Bounty Hunting, will not net you any more than 200-300k per hour, and that is being generous and assuming great luck and good bounties.

Mining and Exploration are laughable even compared to Bounty Hunting, never mind Trading.


Now, on a personal note, income doesn't matter too much to me. As long as I can run my favourite ships, I'm happy. That aside, the game still feels very strongly divided into two halves right now; The 'fun gameplay' half and the 'making money' half.

 

[Dabba]

Nobody minds trading making MORE money. People just hate that it makes more money by a gigantic margin. On one round-trip of trading rares, I can make 1 million credits in about 30 minutes In a Cobra. The next best profession, Bounty Hunting, will not net you any more than 200-300k per hour, and that is being generous and assuming great luck and good bounties.

Mining and Exploration are laughable even compared to Bounty Hunting, never mind Trading.


Now, on a personal note, income doesn't matter too much to me. As long as I can run my favourite ships, I'm happy. That aside, the game still feels very strongly divided into two halves right now; The 'fun gameplay' half and the 'making money' half.

Yeah I won't be the least bit surprised to see the rare commodity market get hit with the nerf bat again, its still far too profitable. Bounty hunting needs some work, but it also needs a total rework in terms of progression. Elite Condas should be paying out in the millions. They should also be next to impossible to kill with anything short of a geared Python or a Clipper / Dropship with an exceptional pilot. This would allow for more proper ship progression for hunters.

Mining and smuggling both need a complete overhaul, and exploration needs a significant boost to income.

 

[thorn-]

Perhaps an obvious question - ignoring DBs words for a moment why does it matter if one role has a better earning potential than another ?

Because it dilutes the longevity of your game, with your player base.

If the main playing factor of Elite is "trade goods for weeks, buy a bigger ship, and then you can trade more goods for even more money, for an even bigger cargo rack" - then sooner than later, the game will not stay popular. I'm not saying that IS what ED is like - I'm saying that's why the OP's point matters.

Not everyone wants to drive a Fex-Ex truck in space FOREVER. Some people want combat, others want to explore. Both of those groups should also have a way to compete economically (perhaps exploration a bit less, but you get my point.)

If the game's economy (or weapons, or a future lack of specialty ships) prevents a more varied method of player success, then the game will not retain as much popularity as it could.

 

[stumagoo]

why should someone who is in a 1M cr vessel be able to make what someone in a 20M cr ship makes..... thats where your "imbalance is comeing from. yes minning is painful and I believe the recovery of resources needs a tweak, but if I am hauling in a viper I wont make 2M cr in an hour so why should I be able to make it by doing anything else in the viper, to make the big bucks you have to outlay the credits first. a basic hauler can do a few hauling missions to set up to do rares and make good cash, it still requires time spent and credit outlay, but will make no more for a 300k kitted hauler than a 300k eagle would make bounty hunting. apples with apples people, can not compare the eraning potential of a viper with that of a python t9 or conda, and if the player takes his python out to kill the big guns he may or may not make big cash not as much, more risk but hey risk is what makes it fun right??????? (yes that was sarcasm)

 

[Antidepressiva]

Why should all professions gain equal profits ?
In real life you also can't gain equal profit through all professions.

 

[SE-Apocalypse]

Elite is a Space Trading game first and foremost: Everything else centers around that fact. As a consequence it stands to reason that the most money is to be made through trading.

Which is totally fine. And it should attract parasites. The biggest problem with pirating is that it takes ages to actually steal cargo because we have no tractor beams or better cargo scoops. If pirating becomes less time consuming in the aftermath you get more pirates, more pirates means a little less profit for traders and a huge boost for bounty hunters as well. By all means with might than even increase to profit of trading even more if the pirate toll becomes too high. A better cargo scoop module or an utility tractor beam slot would as well create more constraints on pirate ship outfits which increase the risk for pirates and help traders to have better chances even after having screwed up in super cruise.
[video=youtube;1nC3KmSF85Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nC3KmSF85Q[/video]


BTW, if you find terran planets than your exploration makes 100k or more. Not all systems are equal.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Nobody minds trading making MORE money. People just hate that it makes more money by a gigantic margin. On one round-trip of trading rares, I can make 1 million credits in about 30 minutes In a Cobra. The next best profession, Bounty Hunting, will not net you any more than 200-300k per hour, and that is being generous and assuming great luck and good bounties.

I imagine that's why FD altered the rares production.

Not everyone wants to drive a Fex-Ex truck in space FOREVER. Some people want combat, others want to explore. Both of those groups should also have a way to compete economically (perhaps exploration a bit less, but you get my point.)

Maybe I am missing something here but where is the competition ?

Does it matter if player X has billions and player Y has millions as long as the individuals are having fun doing what they are doing ? Does it matter if player X spent a few months trading to then be able to afford the "best" combat ship, whilst player Y was exclusively BHing ? (The point here is that the trader will be an inexperienced pilot in a large ship compared to an experienced player in a smaller ship and skill should even it out a little)

Explorers tend to do things for their own needs

Piracy is what it is - there is no rating for that role so it's moot until FD implement it.

Mining is .. well bit of a joke I agree. (Tried it a few times - don't like the returns. You need a large ship for it to be viable and so you might as well trade up for one)

--

Not suggesting things shouldn't be balanced by the way just wondering why there is such competition between the roles being as you can do them all - you're not locked into any 1 and in fact you tend to do several simultaneously. (Well, I do - smash any Empire ship, bounty or not, whilst travelling between systems trading .. Yeah - Empire loves me )

 

[Ouiche]

100% agree with op.

Credit income have to be increased in other area. If players want to haul stuff for hours it's fine by me but we need valid alternatives. With ships of similar price, we need to be able to get the same amount of credits per hour.

I can make more in a ~2 million type 6 trading stuff than in a 30 million asp killing pirates or doing missions.

 

[JeffersonFlight]

Hello guys,

I've played E since a month now and have to say I really enjoy this game

But there's one point where I see a problem - the credit income is very imbalanced...

Since the start I've done almost everything in Elite - I transported goods from starport to starport with my Sidewinder, I mined with my Hauler, I hunted pirates, beated Elite Anacondas and fought together with a capital ship over Panem with my Viper, I was a pirate in my Cobra, I traded rare goods in my Type 6, explored the way to VY Canis Majoris with my ASP and atm I'm transporting large amounts of Palladiam with my Lakon Type 7.

All of you know that trading makes the biggest profit - over 2 million per hour with a type 7. And you get similar rewards with trading rare goods.

But everything else is just doesn't worth to start with if you want to get bigger ships. You are more or less forced to do trading.

Hauling missions - 20k-40k per hour (that's okay for the first hours!)
Bounty hunting - ~200k per hour in an extraction site
Kill missions - 400k per hour (with a better ship than my Viper it might also be a million)
Combat bonds - ~200k per hour
Pirating - 100k per hour (but I'm sure I did it wrong ^^)
Exploring - hard to say an amount per hour, depends on the visited systems ... On my trip to Canis Majoris I gained 50.000 to 75.000 credits per hour
Mining - 40k within an hour in my Hauler (also okay for Hauler level but even 700k in three hours in a Lakon Type 6 isn't much)

When there's an imbalance in any game the Devs have always three options:

1. Make the better bad
2. Make the worse better
3. Do nothing

I wouldn't say there's a need to decrease the trading profit, it takes already now decades to get a Python.

That's why I would like to suggest the following changes:

Hauling missions - I wouldn't increase the reward for this, it's okay to earn the first few credits.

Bounty Hunting - There're a lot of pirates in an Extraction site with Sidewinders or Cobras. These bring a profit from a few 1.000 credits to 30.000. But there's just a rare amount of bigger ship like ASP or Anaconda with more than 30k bounty. Please let them occur a bit more often. The same goes for interdictions. Except a player in an Imperial Clipper i was only interdicted by Vipers and Eagles. Make space a bit more dangerous.

Kill mission - These missions are all the same - Accept, USS, NPC tells a systemname (which is often even the same like the on my new contract), fly there, USS, face an Elite Anaconda. These beasts are really strong and you need some time to take em down but if you do it right they are no danger...
I would like to see various missions with different rewards, different targets and different difficulties. There should be strong Cobras, ASP, Dropships, Cruiser and Orcas as target avaiable - all ofc with different rewards up to 400k for an Anaconda.

Combat Bonds - I have to say for myself this is the best part of Elite. But the reward of 3.000 per kill is... well not worth it. Although you can kill a lot of bad guys in a short time with the help of the Battle Cruiser the reward should be definetly increased. To get it on trading level there should be an average gain of 20k. And please make a difference between an Eagle (under 10 seconds and boom) and an Anaconda (many many seconds until the boom even with the capital ship).

Pirating - The Black Market should give a bit more profit. (I'm not very experienced here, please add your suggestions)

Exploring - I don't know a lot about the mechanics behind this... I know there will be the Level 2 and 3 (I think atmospheric scans and on surface scans) later which will give you also additional money. But I think the reward for trading data of a system nobody has entered before should be very high in comparison to the guys that come after that first one.

Mining - Well, a lot of mining content like mining robots will be added later... So I would like to wait for this...


I hope Frontier doesn't choose option #3.

Please feel free to discuss and add your suggestins espacially if I forgot smth

Some things need buffs, but you need to stop viewing everything as so linear. There is more than one benefit for doing other task then trading. Its not all about credits in the other task. Though that being said it would be nice to have a increase in the credits they produce.

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100% agree with op.

Credit income have to be increased in other area. If players want to haul stuff for hours it's fine by me but we need valid alternatives. With ships of similar price, we need to be able to get the same amount of credits per hour.

I can make more in a ~2 million type 6 trading stuff than in a 30 million asp killing pirates or doing missions.

Why does every thing you do need to produce the same as trading? Shouldn't people be rewarded for going the extra mile?

 

[metatheurgist]

Perhaps an obvious question - ignoring DBs words for a moment why does it matter if one role has a better earning potential than another ?

The galaxy would be real boring if everyone was a trucker. I doubt there will ever be total parity but the disparity right now is immense.

Why does every thing you do need to produce the same as trading? Shouldn't people be rewarded for going the extra mile?

Trading isn't going the extra mile. Trading is like falling off your seat and landing into money. It takes a lot more effort to be a pirate or a bounty hunter and those are probably the least rewarding and most high risk jobs atm. Granted they're a lot less dull.

 

[Alatar]

To everyone making the "trading makes the most money in real life" argument:

1) Elite is a game not real life, games should be balanced so that all players who like different playstyles can have as enjoyable experiences.

2) "Trading" in real life makes tons of money if you're an employee at goldman, not if you're a truck driver like you are in elite.

3) The whole concept of ED isn't a trading game, it's a "blaze your own trail" game where people aren't supposed to be forced to do one activity if they don't want, while not being punished for it.


Anyway the real problem is that trading is the only "profession" that scales with bigger and more expensive ships. Every other profession stops scaling around the time you hit a cobra/viper and after that profits in non trading activities can actually go down due to maintenance costs. Imagine a hypothetical scenario where you started with 4 cargo space in a sidewinder, got to 20 in a cobra and got 30 in a type9. That's what scaling in other activities is like at the moment. Due to this it's pretty much required to trade in order to pay the upkeep for the bigger ships or to even get them.

And to fix that elite actually needs scalable content, harder high end missions, etc. Trading scales due to cargo space, nothing else does because there's no content to make it scale.

 

[stumagoo]

I can make more in a ~2 million type 6 trading stuff than in a 30 million asp killing pirates or doing missions.

thats because using the 30 mil asp for those missions is like hitting a nail with a sledgehammer. its overkill in most cases, most wanted npc's can be taken out with a 1-2 mil viper. the pirate kings with their monster bounty plus 150 k mission is a different story yes but does not mean the whole of the Bounty hunting aspect is broken.

 

[SE-Apocalypse]

thats because using the 30 mil asp for those missions is like hitting a nail with a sledgehammer. its overkill in most cases, most wanted npc's can be taken out with a 1-2 mil viper. the pirate kings with their monster bounty plus 150 k mission is a different story yes but does not mean the whole of the Bounty hunting aspect is broken.

No they are not, the 150k missions are exactly what you do when you are in your one million viper.