Balance Hourly Rates - Exploring needs a huge % Uplift on body values

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
I make considerably more money exploring than Nutter does, but not anything like as much as I'd make shuttling back and forth in an unshielded trade ship or whatever's the grind du jour.

Once you know what to scan and how to interpret a system once it's been revealed by the space horn, you can speed things up a lot. I can generally spot and fly directly to terraforming candidates now using my mad astrophysical skills and knowledge of the underlying mechanics. (A matter of recognising planet types, and knowing roughly where the habitable bands are, and what sorts of planets end up where in the proc gen.)
 
Last edited:

HELLBOUNDMAN

H
My comparison is to bounty hunting.

Generally, the rewards are in line with each other, but that's based on a per target aspect.
You'll get one ship that's worth 1k and you'll get one system that's worth 1k.
Then you'll come across one ship that nets 80k, and one system that nets 80k.

The problem is, it takes significantly less time to locate a wanted target and burn them down than it does to scan an entire system.


With that in mind, the rewards are balanced when you factor it per target.
It's the time required that isn't balanced, but the rewards don't factor this in.

As an example, trading is significantly more time consuming than bounty hunting, but the reward payout is significant as well.
However, it also has the side balance of the more you spend, the more you can make. (buying bigger ships and more expensive trade goods).


I think the payout of exploring needs to be altered to factor in the time required...
 

Vincent Starson

V
BigDaddio said:
WHAT!! Who says everyone has to make the same potential hourly rate? Get over it, why is it you people get so egalitarian when it comes to games, bordering on socialist but yet you accept that IRL different jobs get different pay scales. You get what you are worth, overall most systems are economically worthless, so you flying through and proving that is worth very little. You want to make more money do a different job. One that is more economically in demand.
Click to expand...

It just doesn't make sense that trading (least risk) makes the most reward. It's bad gameplay.
 

HELLBOUNDMAN

H
Vincent Starson said:
It just doesn't make sense that trading (least risk) makes the most reward. It's bad gameplay.
Click to expand...

Please, for the love of god don't bring that Eve Online "risk vs reward" bull crap to this game.
Lets take a different approach with this game.

Allow players to do whatever the hell they want and what they enjoy without forcing them to have side projects in order to make ends meet.
Why can't a player explore and actually make what others make?

@ BigDaddio
Dude, we play games to get away from RL, so why in the hell would we want that kind of "this job pays better" type of attitude?
I don't care to figure out trading and don't want to because I don't enjoy it.
This isn't RL and I shouldn't be economically hindered for what I enjoy doing in a video game.

That's like saying that stealth kills in RPGs shouldn't drop as much loot because they're not as risky.... It's just stupid.
 

vonvonbraun

Banned
vonvonbraun
Kashre said:
Personally I'm of the opinion that Exploration should use the El Dorado model (that I just made up). Keep most of the stuff you find the same, but wildly increase the payout for very rare objects. in ~ 2500ly of exploration I have found exactly 3 earth like worlds... I think they should be worth like 1-5 million each, not 50k or whatever it is. Leave the rocky iceballs down in the hundreds, and make us feel like we hit the jackpot when we find something cool (gas giant with life? water worlds?, etc)
Click to expand...

this

jackpot systems would be great
 

Remiel

Banned
Remiel
Rewards are fine for an activity that carries so little risk. It's a game, not a second job, explore because you want to. Personally, I do a bit of everything, including mining, and I would argue that mining is the only thing that needs a buff in the reward department given the AI's high propensity for aggression in resource extraction zones.

And here's the thing about risk vs reward - it's not an EVE Online thing, it's a sensible thing. Half the game dries up if everyone's doing the same thing because it carries a high reward with very little risk. This attitude that making money is the only reason to do anything is exactly why that would happen. Balancing risk with reward is common in sandbox games, and means people have to weigh up other considerations for taking on the risk in high-reward activities. Don't make the fallacious blunder of thinking that it's a bad thing just because it's used in EVE, because it's not even very well balanced there in many cases.
 

Tigga

T
Several other people are reporting hourly rates ~100k/hour for exploration. Simply enough: while I'm sure Nutter knows a lot about the exploration game, his number of 40k/hour is well off the mark for what is easily possible.
 

KING5TON

KING5TON
Can anyone arguing that the professions are balanced please read this thread -
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=95470

Quote "I made 8M/hr today, Type-9 with 500t, E2 FSD. In total about 45M since yesterday. Crazy stuff... "

The professions are not balanced in any way shape or form.
I fully expect FD to balance them and there has been inroads into this already.
What we don't need is forumites insisting that they are balanced when they are not. I don't know if you're misinformed or just want to protect an advantage or something but you aren't helping.

Anyone saying that the professions shouldn't be balanced also need to pipe down. According to the holy Breadbin himself the professions should be balanced. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gMbLjUjs1w
So please, just stop.
 

elayeth

elayeth
KING5TON said:
Anyone saying that the professions shouldn't be balanced also need to pipe down. According to the holy Breadbin himself the professions should be balanced. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gMbLjUjs1w
So please, just stop.
Click to expand...

Does "balance" mean the same payout per hour?
If so - what is your prediction regarding number of people willing to trade? How many would rather go "kill things" or explore than fly back and forth?
 
Last edited:

Tigga

T
Trading is the only profession that scales. The solution is naturally to add more scaling to other professions: make bounties harder to claim (ie. NPCs a lot tougher) but higher. Add more fancy bits of kit to use for exploration which would require a larger ship/more expenditure. Add a FSD neutraliser so that pirates could prevent their prey from escaping. Add a module that improves scooping for miners/pirates. That sort of thing. Massively increasing the base payout on other professions is not the solution, maybe some tweaking, but they're already roughly even.

All the other professions are about right. Pirating/exploration are probably about the same if done efficiently (150k-200k/hour, NOT 40k/hour). Bounty hunting/missions/mining come in a bit higher. Trading is only higher because it scales.

This thread is about exploration though. While I think some scaling tools would be useful in all professions, I don't feel exploring is unduely unprofitable right now.
 
Last edited:

KING5TON

KING5TON
elayeth said:
Does "balance" mean the same payout per hour?
If so - what is your prediction regarding number of people willing to trade? How many would rather go "kill things" or explore rather than fly back and forth?
Click to expand...

The amount of "fun" you have doing a profession shouldn't come into it.
It's subjective for a start. Plenty of traders that like trading do not want to kill things so how to they fit into it?
Should they rate their fun they have trading and earn less than the people that don't have as much fun trading?

It's a very poor excuse for issues regarding balance that one professions is more boring and thus should pay out more.
People should be able to play the game how they want and do which ever profession they want and get similar returns.
David Braben thought so in the video I linked so it's not just my opinion but the opinion of the person that decides these things.

At the moment due to scaling issues the professions are imbalanced and I firmly believe they will be fixed.
Just like when bounty hunting got a boost a month or so back. There were a group of people arguing that bounty hunting was fine and there should be no change, FD obviously didn't agree with them as they changed it. Expect the same to happen here and some posters to look silly (or at least sillier).
 

KING5TON

KING5TON
Robert Maynard said:
.... which would require all roles to be balanced using all ships and all loadouts, all at the same time.
Click to expand...

No quite to that level, that's a bit overboard and I assume your being facetious.
Ships of a comparable level should earn similar rates across the professions.
I'm not saying that a type 9 should earn as much as a python in combat or that a python should earn as much as a type 9 trading but a type 9 trading should earn as much as a python in combat and vice versa.
Why is that too much to ask?
 

Nutter

Nutter
Pay to explore? Is this by design FD?

OK, I'll try to keep this positive...

So I thought I had fitted out the best ship (in terms of jump range) an ASP at just shy of 38ly.

The reason being there are a quite a few systems I want to explore that require a 36 - 43ly Jump.

Turns out an Anaconda can better 38ly quite easily, I don't have the funds to experiment though due to the fact that I'm an explorer (See Below). That said I think I could squeeze 42ly out of an Anaconda 'Perfect' !

The only negative here though is that exploring in a Anaconda would be very costly due to the worst role 'wage' in the game.

  1. Trading 1,300,000 - 2,500,000 Per Hour
  2. Bounty 300,000 - 500,000 Per Hour
  3. Missions 500,000 Per Hour
  4. Mining 400,000 Per Hour
  5. Exploring 40,000 Per Hour

A rough estimate on cost of exploring a 10,000ly loop in an Anaconda would probably bring integrity down to about 5% - Leaving you with a repair bill of about 20 Million Credits.

Lets be generous and say the scans from the trip pay 10 million - After 5 hours of non-stop selling of course! ;)

Summary - In order for me to explore in a MAX Jump range ship is going to cost me 10 million per trip (Probably More)

Now back at the very beginning of Beta, a long long time ago, I mentioned it looked like exploring would be Very expensive and a Rich mans role. Back then it was "no, no it will pay for itself."
Clearly not - Even in my ASP I can't fit a better fuel scoop than a C6 because the wear and tear would mean I earn no money.

So, my question is... Is this by design? I want to be a hard core explorer and I would like to know now if I need to raise a ticket or Grind the Milk Runs (Trade) for a Month to fund my hunger for exploration? Or to put it another way, should we be paying to explore?

IMPORTANT:
I'm not asking FD to make exploring pay the same as trading @ well over a Million per Hour
I have not mentioned the word BALANCE apart from this sentence.


Possible Solutions if not by Design
Increase the Hourly rate of exploring from 40,000 per hour to 200,000 per hour (Still by far the worst payed) = Increase Scan pay by x 5
Reduce Wear & Tear Costs
Increase the Payout on rare objects such as earth like from 20k to 200k.

Thoughts FD?

Thanks in Advance

Nutter
 

Shude

S
I have done almost no exploring in Elite Dangerous, mostly trading. I would love to do some exploration and have almost finished building my Asp Explorer as per your excellent, recent thread (even down to the paint job!). My plan was to keep my dedicated trading vessel (Type 7) in order to build up a wedge of funds to pay for the exploration, from what you have just said this plan makes a lot of sense. In the meantime I will re-read your exploring guide :)
 

bobilon

bobilon
ï have heard that broom has much better fuel consumption and almost zero insurance. But im not sure about its jump range...
 

nr.

nr.
Either that, or an explorers guild that funds missions. For example, if I wanted to go and explore an unclimbed peak in, say, the Karakorum, I could write to the British Mountaineering Council and ask them to support me. They may not. But then again, they may, say, cover the costs of part of the expedition if it's particularly interesting and/or significant. So if you're allied to, say, The Alliance, you could ask them for money to go out and help find untapped mineral resources, or terraforming candidates.

I love exploring - it's all I've done in the game. And I'm still pottering around in an Adder with an empty bank balance and a big smile. I'd love to upgrade to an Asp so I could get a better view - it's currently a bit like looking through a letter box. But at my current rate of earning, I reckon that's about a year away.

(Also worth noting at this point that I'm sitting here in my mountain boots as I type this, getting them broken in ready for the Alpine season).
 

CaptainBinky

C
I'll grant you that exploration yields not nearly so much per hour as trading, but I'm not sure how you're determining that it doesn't pay for itself (and more).

My last exploration run in an Asp netted me 1.99Million Cr and my repair bill was about 30K Cr.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom