A Metric To Compare Different Role Incomes: Total Loss Replacement Over Time

[CMDR_Justin_Bieber]

Greetings,

I'd like to present a new metric to consider when making ones case as to why a certain profession should be more, or less, profitable in raw credits per hour. This discussion I would like to have with all of you, is not meant to bolster or hurt the case of why a pirate should make more, a trader should make less, or how the miner needs more love, consider the Solo vs Open income debate, or consider the profession food chain, but to result in a fair and reasonable metric, that we can largely agree on, to which we can use in our comparisons and arguments of profession income differences and proposed adjustments. In short, please let us discuss the validity of this metric being an apples to apples comparison of different professions incomes, and not digress into an argument over changing specific professions raw income per hour.

I realize that this metric will be different for each person, and will also vary for each person in said profession depending on skill level and ship used to employ a specific profession, and I hope we can come to a middle ground for each profession and if need be each ship weight class used for that profession. I believe this tool to be a fair measuring stick, because I feel that your time is every bit as important as mine, and that everyone is just as important to the Elite: Dangerous universe as the next person. I dub this metric, Total Loss Replacement Over Time.

Total Loss Replacement Over Time, is the time in hours that it takes to replace total loss of one incident, including only the cargo carried and the insurance re-buy cost, using the average raw income per hour of the profession being employed at the time of loss. By this I mean using your trader income to replace your trading ship, and your pirate income to replace your pirate ship, not one replacing the other.

A few examples pertaining to Commander Justin_Bieber,

I have a type 9, the replacement cost is about 8.5 million, and the typical cargo I carry is around 3 million, also my raw income per hour is about 3.5 million when no difficulties arise. My TLROT in this instance is 3.2 hours.

I have a viper, The replacement cost is about 250 thousand with no cargo. My income per hour when I bounty hunt NPCs at asteroid belts is about 400 thousand.
My TLROT here is 0.62 hours.

My questions to everyone are, can this metric be used as an apples to apples comparison of different profession incomes, and if so, should this be used over the raw income comparison between professions?

Sincerely,

CMDR Justin_Bieber

 

[bAdbUd]

The metric seems sound. However I have two problems with it.

1: I don't care about credits per hour earned, I care about fun, off which I'm having plenty.
2: Your CMDR name, I bet you get griefed alot. Seen you get killed on YouTube.

Fly safe well you won't

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

Due to your name I'm afraid my only possible comment is , die Bieber, DIE!

 

[Ydiss]

Then you have Commander Johnny Smarts who trades in a ship capable of not dying to NPCs at all, and away from busy space, hence no loss. At all. And 6.5m profit per hour.

And Commander Benny Tryhard who pirates to the absolute best ability possible in the game. Never dies. Barely makes 500k an hour.

I know which pilot I am!

 

[CMDR_Justin_Bieber]

The metric seems sound. However I have two problems with it.

1: I don't care about credits per hour earned, I care about fun, off which I'm having plenty.
2: Your CMDR name, I bet you get griefed alot. Seen you get killed on YouTube.

Fly safe well you won't

#1, well the part of the metric is credits per hour, but as the whole its how long does it take you to replace your pirating ship from your pirating profits if you lose it while pirating?
Though, this is a game and fun should be paramount for everyone, shouldn't it?

#2, yeah I get a lot of flak for my name, and the guy who put me on youtube, if it is who I think it is, I witnessed him go inside the capital ship before choosing a team, and subsequently blowing it up, which is a shame because he's good enough to not need to use such a low handed tactic.

Fly safe is what I do all the time, or as safe as I can, I haven't seen another human on my radar in almost three weeks now, and I'm in Open.

Thank you for sharing your opinions of my proposed metric, I appreciate it.

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Due to your name I'm afraid my only possible comment is , die Bieber, DIE!

Thank you for adding your opinion to what I had hoped to be a rational intelligent discussion. Feel free to drop by if you have any more ideas. Thanks again.

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Then you have Commander Johnny Smarts who trades in a ship capable of not dying to NPCs at all, and away from busy space, hence no loss. At all. And 6.5m profit per hour.

And Commander Benny Tryhard who pirates to the absolute best ability possible in the game. Never dies. Barely makes 500k an hour.

I know which pilot I am!

Which is why I hope we can all come to agreement on what a reasonable number would be for this metric, how much does it cost you to replace your pirate ship, and would 400k be a reasonable hourly average for your pirating profession?

While Commander Johnny Smarts, might never die, surely this commander has a replacement cost and average cargo cost were he to die? 6.5 mil is nice, most Ive ever seen in my type 9 is 5 mil per hour.

 

[Ydiss]

I'm no pirate I just want piracy to be better.

I trade in a Conda. So my rebuy and cargo loss together is about 10-11m
More with some commodities.

So about 2 hours.

 

[Dogoncrook]

I don't really go for max profits so I have no idea what average is but 400k an hr? That seems really high. I get lucky and clear 100k sometimes but it's somewhat rare.

What would you guess your loss rate for each is though? I haven't done trading for anything but rep and missions but for me I imagine my loss rate for trading would be far far lower, as it stands I've never died in one. Although recouping the loss may take longer, if you live longer while cranking out massive profit that should be taken into account.

 

[ImmerseMe]

I like the metric, and I think it has a place in the variables used to determine ideal income per hour. However, I would point out that Time to Replace must be paired with some calculation of Time to Upgrade.

If my Sidewinder is fully tricked out for a given profession within the first hour of gameplay, there won't be much gameplay, period.

So in this case Time to Replace would directly contradict Time to Upgrade. I.e., upgrading the first time should feel rewarding, like an accomplishment. But complete replacement can't feel like too much of a chore.

So perhaps a variable incorporating both these metrics could be considered. Perhaps, Time Sink Ratio. It would relate how many hours you spend investing money in the ship, upgrading or replacing, against how many hours you get to spend raking in profits.

One would need to decide whether the ratio would increase or decrease as you progress in the game.

 

[Zanten]

It's a good metric, but as Ydriss pointed out, there is the matter of wildly different circumstances on the part of an individual trader. In theory, if my Anaconda were destroyed, and all cargo lost, I'd prooooobably need about an hour and a half, two hours to catch up. But given my Anaconda is pretty far from player populated space, the only time I so much as suffered hull damage was during that collision bug; I have enough weapons to vaporize any NPC below another Anaconda, and the odds of one of those interdicting me are tiny. But by contrast, were I operating in the more, er, 'colorful' systems, I'd probably find the damages and rebuy costs from all dem 'pew pewers' critically draining on my bank account.

I think one sticking point may be that, unlike we traders who see notably higher profits as we get increasingly expensive ships, the income of a pirate and bounty hunter hits a relative plateau by the time you're piloting a Viper or Cobra with good armament, and that plateau is pretty low down. In the case of piracy, it's a combination of the hard limit on how much cargo you can scoop before the rest deteriorates, and the fact that even a well kitted Type 9 (with the possible exception of the 'Battle Cow' heavily armed and shielded model,) is a moderate challenge, at best, for any decently skilled Viper and Cobra pilot in an outright fight. It makes pirating in a Python ultimately unprofitable, because you don't need the bigger guns, and the higher cargo capacity only means you need to make less trips back to base, while the operating costs are significantly higher. For bounty hunting, it's because NPC bounties are randomly generated by the game (and almost every ship is easily dispatched) while player bounties are extremely rare and few between, so even if you have a Death Star of a ship, you're still going to be limited to shooting what the game decides you can shoot, even if it's just a stream of Sidewinders and Eagles.

A sort of high-level piracy play would be welcome, I think, allowing a greater window of opportunity to scoop dropped cargo, or an easier and quicker way to do so, improving the yields obtained from any given ship, ESPECIALLY considering how the effectiveness of the Boost, Boost, FSD tactic makes actually getting a player's hatch popped a bit of a rarity before they skedaddle. If you pop the hatch of a Type 7 and over 200 units of X Commodity pops out, it's a bit silly that you can only really get away with scooping about 30, even if the cops don't show up. And if the cops DO show up, (which they would if it isn't an anarchy system and if the trader has Report Crimes On,) that provides a definite hard limit on how long you can get away with collecting cargo, i.e. 'Before the po-po pop a cap in your butt.' However, I think this would mean upping the defensive capabilities of a T9, as that should be considered the Big Score of ships, not to be challenged by anything short of a REALLY strong group or very powerful combat ship, and increasing the aggressiveness of an over-time police response. So even though you have plenty of time to scoop that 100 units of Gold, the longer you take the more authority ships are going to try and blow you out of space, giving the pirate with greater skill, and who takes greater risks, the greater reward.

But it would actually make pirating in a Python or Anaconda make sense, because you could use that big cargo capacity to load up on an insane amount of valuables... the challenge in the Anaconda, of course, being popping the hatch without blowing up the entire cargo ship in the process. =P An Asp would become a great mid-tier pirating ship, as whereas trading is a reliable and steady stream of income with a tighter profit margin, piracy would be this relatively sporadic, but nonetheless highly profitable per-trip, profession.

 

[mongo2006]

Don't worry CMDR_Justin_Bieber some people that play this game have no ambition other than flying Vipers. Want to know where I have fun at?

Smacking the teeth out of Viper pilots that think they can interdict my Anaconda or Python.. man I have a ball when I let them go at 3% and no life support (which is the first thing I target)

I love to creep up on Pirates after they interdict a Trader and blow them out of the sky..

Getting in my Asp and getting away from it all... Listening to Bob Marley

Trading in my Anaconda or Type 9 while having good conversations with other traders or listening to Rage Against The Machine

This list goes on and on..




For some sick reason people who have no cash seem to think people with a lot of cash don't have fun... But they have to tell them selves that so they feel good about them selves... it's the same in real life.

Trust me when I say the people with more credits have more options to have fun in ED than those that don't... they just don't realize it.

 

[CMDR_Justin_Bieber]

I don't really go for max profits so I have no idea what average is but 400k an hr? That seems really high. I get lucky and clear 100k sometimes but it's somewhat rare.

What would you guess your loss rate for each is though? I haven't done trading for anything but rep and missions but for me I imagine my loss rate for trading would be far far lower, as it stands I've never died in one. Although recouping the loss may take longer, if you live longer while cranking out massive profit that should be taken into account.

I haven't bounty hunted since the mechanic was changed for wanted npcs spawning in asteroid belts, but last time it was for me about 400k, as cobras worth 20k each were plentiful and not super hard to take out, or the occasional 200k anaconda already getting pounded on by the police, so it seems that I need to do some more time in the belts to find out if it has changed for me.

My loss rate, do you mean how many times do I lose my ship? I lose my trading ships more often than my combat ships for sure, or do you mean my incidental costs, like integrity repairs and fuel? Oh about 250k per hour for fuel in my type 9, not sure about the repairs maybe 100k every few hours.

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I like the metric, and I think it has a place in the variables used to determine ideal income per hour. However, I would point out that Time to Replace must be paired with some calculation of Time to Upgrade.

If my Sidewinder is fully tricked out for a given profession within the first hour of gameplay, there won't be much gameplay, period.

So in this case Time to Replace would directly contradict Time to Upgrade. I.e., upgrading the first time should feel rewarding, like an accomplishment. But complete replacement can't feel like too much of a chore.

So perhaps a variable incorporating both these metrics could be considered. Perhaps, Time Sink Ratio. It would relate how many hours you spend investing money in the ship, upgrading or replacing, against how many hours you get to spend raking in profits.

One would need to decide whether the ratio would increase or decrease as you progress in the game.

I can see how the time to upgrade your ship affects the time to replace, however I do not agree that it contradicts, but only changes it to some degree, as when you lose your ship and/or cargo you do not lose the upgrade, but you are impacted by paying more for your replacement, there is a lot to consider about each ship, each profession and each weight class, and I am sure, somewhere in there is something which can be largely agreed upon.

 

[Kubicide]

Ummm maybe I'm mistaken but doesn't this game already have three metrics? You know, the ones visible in the right side panel. One is being an Elite combat pilot where the number of kills are counted. A second one is being an Elite trader where the amount of credits are counted. And a third one is being an Elite explorer where the number of discoveries are counted.

Why do folks keep looking at the Elite trader metric as a measure of progression for pirating or bounty hunting? Shouldn't they be looking at the combat one? (Did I really need to post this? )

(Kinda like comparing (or complaining about?) the slow speed of earning kills and total number combat kills while playing as a trader. Make any sense?)

 

[Noogillim]

Not sure with exploring as to what i'd be I can go over a week without a cash in.

So when I can I ensure I swap exploration data for ship repairs and keep a healthy float should I run into trouble in my Cobra, I wouldn't have a clue as to a rate as my potential earnings are very variable, for instance one day I just sat shutdown watching a planet transit the sun whilst it's moons orbited itself - no credits earn't no damage or destruction taken I have lost my ship once in open and did a clear save when the game launched in Dec' I guess this metric is important if you loose ships regularly

 

[CMDR_Justin_Bieber]

It's a good metric, but as Ydriss pointed out, there is the matter of wildly different circumstances on the part of an individual trader....

I think one sticking point may be that, unlike we traders who see notably higher profits as we get increasingly expensive ships...

Well thanks for thinking it is a good metric, everyone will have different experiences, and a case by case basis for sure, perhaps then this metric should be used on a broader term, such as, traders have the longest average time to replace a total loss, and pirates or bounty hunters, or miners have the shortest time?

In regards to getting a larger trading ship and profits rising, one thing I have noticed of my experience is that, I indeed make more profits per hour, however it takes me longer to replace the cargo and come up with the insurance cost as a result, as when I traded in my cobra, it only took me about 90 minutes or so to replace that. I agree with the plateau of income for npc bounty hunting, though it may be fun, I myself would not use a more expensive ship for bounty hunting were I able to make the same per hour in a less expensive ship thereby decreasing my time to replace losses, which isn't something I had originally considered, this metric could be used as a rough efficiency meter, I really had hoped to put a little objectivity into the arguments at large of why traders should be nerfed, or why pirates should make more, instead of what I mostly see 'I'm a trader, i hate you pirate", "I'm a pirate, you're a carebear trader".

 

[CMDR_Justin_Bieber]

Ummm maybe I'm mistaken but doesn't this game already have three metrics? You know, the ones visible in the right side panel. One is being an Elite combat pilot where the number of kills are counted. A second one is being an Elite trader where the amount of credits are counted. And a third one is being an Elite explorer where the number of discoveries are counted.

Yes, the ranks are metrics, but they do not measure what I want to measure, nor are they apples to apples, as it takes a different amount of time in each profession to change ranks, I want to measure the differences in professions that it takes to replace a total loss of that professions ship while using that replacement to recoup the credits. So that one can have an apples to apples metric for income comparison between professions.

Kubicide, you are talking about something, that this thread is not intending to discuss, perhaps you may find the discussion you are trying to have elsewhere. Thanks.

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

Ummm maybe I'm mistaken but doesn't this game already have three metrics? You know, the ones visible in the right side panel. One is being an Elite combat pilot where the number of kills are counted. A second one is being an Elite trader where the amount of credits are counted. And a third one is being an Elite explorer where the number of discoveries are counted.

Why do folks keep looking at the Elite trader metric as a measure of progression for pirating or bounty hunting? Shouldn't they be looking at the combat one? (Did I really need to post this? )

(Kinda like comparing (or complaining about?) the slow speed of earning kills and total number combat kills while playing as a trader. Make any sense?)

Except you can't pay your repair bills with an elite combat rating. Oh and a good pirate should have as low a combat rating as possible, considering he should only kill as a last resort.

I honestly don't care how much I make compared to a trader, I care how much I make compared to my rebuy, repair, wear and tear, and ammo costs. As it stands now, it means I'm making too little or even losing money.

 

[CMDR_Justin_Bieber]

Not sure with exploring as to what i'd be I can go over a week without a cash in.

So when I can I ensure I swap exploration data for ship repairs and keep a healthy float should I run into trouble in my Cobra, I wouldn't have a clue as to a rate as my potential earnings are very variable, for instance one day I just sat shutdown watching a planet transit the sun whilst it's moons orbited itself - no credits earn't no damage or destruction taken I have lost my ship once in open and did a clear save when the game launched in Dec' I guess this metric is important if you loose ships regularly

Exploring I am earning about 350k an hour, most hours more, but I want to be reasonable. and the cost to replace my exploring ship is 2.5 million. My time to replace losses for my exploring profession is 7.1 hours.

 

[Dogoncrook]

I haven't bounty hunted since the mechanic was changed for wanted npcs spawning in asteroid belts, but last time it was for me about 400k, as cobras worth 20k each were plentiful and not super hard to take out, or the occasional 200k anaconda already getting pounded on by the police, so it seems that I need to do some more time in the belts to find out if it has changed for me.

My loss rate, do you mean how many times do I lose my ship? I lose my trading ships more often than my combat ships for sure, or do you mean my incidental costs, like integrity repairs and fuel? Oh about 250k per hour for fuel in my type 9, not sure about the repairs maybe 100k every few hours.

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I can see how the time to upgrade your ship affects the time to replace, however I do not agree that it contradicts, but only changes it to some degree, as when you lose your ship and/or cargo you do not lose the upgrade, but you are impacted by paying more for your replacement, there is a lot to consider about each ship, each profession and each weight class, and I am sure, somewhere in there is something which can be largely agreed upon.

I was referring to how often you die. They did tweak the spawns at res. rings but I've had to stick to nav points because npcs in rings has always given me horrible stutter so I'm not sure how much it changed.

 

[squeekydoor]

This would make sense if the inherent risk made sense also though this metric places small combat ships as better most older players have bigger ships where the math gets really squeued the wrong way for combat take for example the same cost of ships a type 9 and a decent combat fit clipper

income before taking any damage because your a god and getting wanted anacondas for 1hour straight figuring no stopping you can kill 12 (one every 5 mins) anacondas with an average bounty of 200k for the sake of max possible profit only using lasers and fuel cell banks which is negligible makes an insured 2.4 mil an hour (which is completely unfeasible) risking much more with the same 3.5 mil debut cost and if you take hull damage at all profits tank considerably
making a ratio of roughly 1.45

Now let's look at trading in a type 9 figure you have a route that takes 8 minutes round trip netting 3k per ton do some math and you end up making 11 mil after fuel costs ( surprisingly rare but possibly reasonable) with little to no inherent risks sides pilot error
Which makes a ratio roughly 1

Factoring in risks makes fighting anacondas even less feasible figure you have at minimum a 5% chance to die meaning every 20 times you fight a conda you will die once where you will die 1% of the time trading each being an independent event multiply by the chance of death where lower is better making .01 the type 9 theoretical peak and .0729 for the clipper inversing these numbers to make them more relative and to make higher better gives us 100 for the type 9 and 13.9 for the clipper now assuming that the viper has the same risk and your numbers are correct the viper has an ajusted risk profit of roughly 32

In conclusion not factoring in inherent risks makes for a sad simple metric adding the risk of the activities makes for a much truer vales my numbers being perfectly optimistic.

I would say the below equation is a much more valuable representation with higher being a more profitable option

1/(S/P*R)= Adjusted risk vs profit
Where S is total loss P is profit per hour and R is chance of death as a percentage
Higher is better


Sincerely,
Squeekydoor

 

[Ydiss]

Of course, there's a different metric when it comes to bounty hunting in a Python; time to recoup costs of losing shields.



Last time that happened to me, which is only once to NPCs, to be fair, it was two hours.