A traders perspective on career balancing

SlackR

Banned
SlackR
I am trader... I haul stuff.
I fly where the cargo takes me and my goal is to buy bigger and badder ships that can haul more stuff and make me more credits. I'm a space trucker by trade pure and simple. But heck even a trucker needs to know how to take care of themselves and so I am not averse to shooting down those who would try and take my payload- besides it helps with my anger management issues and breaks up the monotony.

So when I heard that bounty hunters and the like werent happy that I earn more than them I gave the problem some thought (there's plenty of thinking time out in the void)

First up I thought... Tough shiiiii

I'm mean you have an exciting job and hauling crap from A to B ain't exactly fun you know! plus ive seen you all hanging out in the spacebars, all suave and leathered up....The ladies aren't exactly flocking round me you know! Spacetruckins not exactly a glamorous job and the last time I could fit into a pair of leather pants was pre- flight school!

But after shooting down a few nasties on route to an extraction planet I noticed that the bounties were actually rather tasty. As an experiment I took my ship off course full to bursting with palladium and headed to a RES.
20 mins later and not even half way through Lynrd Skynrds first seminal album I was 280 000 creds better off and had not one scratch on my hull.

Huh?
Now it took me a good long while to earn enough creds to buy a ship that could make that kind of profit inside 20 mins doin what I do, so I really don't see what all the fuss is about?!?

Anyways there it is ... A simple trucker turned bounty hunter for less than half an hour and wondering why everyone's moaning!
See you around commanders :)
 

Sim Maker

S
OP: With the Price of the new ships, players were being forced in to "hauling crap from a to b" as you put it.........they didnt want to do it.
.
Even you dont seem to enjoy it............so, there you go.......people didnt want to be forced to trade for the new ships.
 
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Derath

D
I think its fairly simple, the top traders pull in 6+mil/hr, the top bounty hunters pull in maybe 1.5mil/hr there isn't really anything else to it, trading is also considerably easier, though the knowledge to find the perfect route might be hard and thats what justifies the greatest incomes on the best traders, but even if you approach in a I don't care fashion it takes maybe 10 minutes to find a 2.5kcr/t route lol.

Note this isn't a comment on the independent incomes just why people moan about them.

Edit: Also if you are currently trading in an Asp/T6 you are still in the area where combat scales and it really isn't that noticeable, its when you get to clipper/python/T9/Conda that the disparity becomes huge.
 
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Distance

Distance
SlackR said:
I am trader... I haul stuff.
I fly where the cargo takes me and my goal is to buy bigger and badder ships that can haul more stuff and make me more credits. I'm a space trucker by trade pure and simple. But heck even a trucker needs to know how to take care of themselves and so I am not averse to shooting down those who would try and take my payload- besides it helps with my anger management issues and breaks up the monotony.

So when I heard that bounty hunters and the like werent happy that I earn more than them I gave the problem some thought (there's plenty of thinking time out in the void)

First up I thought... Tough shiiiii

I'm mean you have an exciting job and hauling crap from A to B ain't exactly fun you know! plus ive seen you all hanging out in the spacebars, all suave and leathered up....The ladies aren't exactly flocking round me you know! Spacetruckins not exactly a glamorous job and the last time I could fit into a pair of leather pants was pre- flight school!

But after shooting down a few nasties on route to an extraction planet I noticed that the bounties were actually rather tasty. As an experiment I took my ship off course full to bursting with palladium and headed to a RES.
20 mins later and not even half way through Lynrd Skynrds first seminal album I was 280 000 creds better off and had not one scratch on my hull.

Huh?
Now it took me a good long while to earn enough creds to buy a ship that could make that kind of profit inside 20 mins doin what I do, so I really don't see what all the fuss is about?!?

Anyways there it is ... A simple trucker turned bounty hunter for less than half an hour and wondering why everyone's moaning!
See you around commanders :)
Click to expand...

I'm a trader. I can make 1.2mil in 12 minutes on a 1 jump route. That's the problem.

Combat bounties need to be bumped up but the main problem is there's no scaling for the other professions. With trading you buy a bigger ship, you get more cargo space and you make more money. With all other professions things top out early. You get the same max bounty (150k elite anaconda) in a sidewinder or an anaconda regardless of combat rank.

Rewards don't scale so it feels really unrewarding after you've got a cobra and you seen you need to make 170mil for an anaconda and up to a billion to outfit it all the while you're still getting the same 150k max bounty that may take you an hour to track down.
 
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Kerrec Snowmane

K
The whole concept that I have to do X hours of boring to be allowed to try stuff, IN A GAME, blows my mind.

Also, congratulations OP. In your very first sortie in a RES, you almost hit the Credit earning plateau.
 

Blaeringr

Blaeringr
From a pirate:
If pirating, or bounty hunting, or combat made as much money as trading, far far far more players would do those things and there would be no traders to hunt. The imbalance that makes it so hard for me to earn money is what makes it possible at all for me to earn money.
 

dioogio

D
Skillet said:
Have some Rep. :) Whiners always gonna whine, can't change that.
Click to expand...

Don't you just hate those whiners who keep whining about whiners!!

oops... Am I whining about whiners whining about.......

c'mon guys, just cause you dont agree, dont make it whining.
 
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Spiridon

Spiridon
Kids want it all and they want it now.

Trading is work, bh/pirating is fun. Please don't ever, anywhere, expect the fun payed same as work.
 

nifty

N
Blaeringr said:
From a pirate:
If pirating, or bounty hunting, or combat made as much money as trading, far far far more players would do those things and there would be no traders to hunt. The imbalance that makes it so hard for me to earn money is what makes it possible at all for me to earn money.
Click to expand...
A problem with pirating is that it only makes any economic sense to pirate players because they actually haul cargo that is worth something. One should be able to pirate in solo and make around the same as someone that chases bounties in solo. We all know that isn't the case! So if NPCs carried more valuable cargo, then pirates would have a means to make money even if lots of players stopped trading to do other activities.

Now if you only pirate players instead of NPCs for the challenge, that's a different argument.
 

SlackR

Banned
SlackR
Distance said:
I'm a trader. I can make 1.2mil in 12 minutes on a 1 jump route. That's the problem.

Combat bounties need to be bumped up but the main problem is there's no scaling for the other professions. With trading you buy a bigger ship, you get more cargo space and you make more money. With all other professions things top out early. You get the same max bounty (150k elite anaconda) in a sidewinder or an anaconda regardless of combat rank.

Rewards don't scale so it feels really unrewarding after you've got a cobra and you seen you need to make 170mil for an anaconda and up to a billion to outfit it all the while you're still getting the same 150k max bounty that may take you an hour to track down.
Click to expand...

I hear you but if it suddenly becomes possible for everybody combat inclined to get an anaconda, FDL or Python fairly easily, then you also have a problem on your hands. I personally think high end ships should take a seriously long time to earn. Not saying bounty jobs couldn't go up incrementally based on rep, rating etc. but it all has to stay proportionate. Last thing you want is for all the traders to start flying solo. No fun in that!
 

Mohrgan

Mohrgan
I believe the biggest disparity surrounding Trading's income is a result of the 3rd party trading tools. I don;t mind them, and don;t suggest banning them (if you even could), but that is the brunt of it. If traders had to develop their own routes, the incomes would be vastly altered. It looks like FD are investigating ways of closing the perceived gap, but it will never be enough to satisfy everyone, and one could argue that persistent complaining on the Forum will get the Dev's to change things. Expect the complaints to continue, or accelerate even.

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nifty said:
A problem with pirating is that it only makes any economic sense to pirate players because they actually haul cargo that is worth something. One should be able to pirate in solo and make around the same as someone that chases bounties in solo. We all know that isn't the case! So if NPCs carried more valuable cargo, then pirates would have a means to make money even if lots of players stopped trading to do other activities.

Now if you only pirate players instead of NPCs for the challenge, that's a different argument.
Click to expand...

Why can't a Pirate collect bounties as well? Cutting yourself off from content should have a cost.
 

dioogio

D
Spiridon said:
Kids want it all and they want it now.

Trading is work, bh/pirating is fun. Please don't ever, anywhere, expect the fun payed same as work.
Click to expand...

Gobsmacked!! You bought ED to work?
If you did, I think you are in a very small minority. It is all play, some of it just so dull. A lot of us would not buy a game if it meant we had to work at playing.
 

Jordan Cobalt

Jordan Cobalt
SlackR said:
I hear you but if it suddenly becomes possible for everybody combat inclined to get an anaconda, FDL or Python fairly easily, then you also have a problem on your hands. I personally think high end ships should take a seriously long time to earn. Not saying bounty jobs couldn't go up incrementally based on rep, rating etc. but it all has to stay proportionate. Last thing you want is for all the traders to start flying solo. No fun in that!
Click to expand...

Everybody can already get a conda or python easily, as long as they're willing to trade first.
 

SiriusSeven

S
Distance said:
I'm a trader. I can make 1.2mil in 12 minutes on a 1 jump route. That's the problem.

Combat bounties need to be bumped up but the main problem is there's no scaling for the other professions. With trading you buy a bigger ship, you get more cargo space and you make more money. With all other professions things top out early. You get the same max bounty (150k elite anaconda) in a sidewinder or an anaconda regardless of combat rank.

Rewards don't scale so it feels really unrewarding after you've got a cobra and you seen you need to make 170mil for an anaconda and up to a billion to outfit it all the while you're still getting the same 150k max bounty that may take you an hour to track down.
Click to expand...

^ Exactly this. I worked it out. You could buy 146 Vipers for the price of the Vulture. In the meantime, profits don't scale when you get the Vulture. That Vulture does not earn you 146x more money ... or even 14.6x more money. You're stuck at 280,000k an hour (in the OP's case). So why bother? It does not bode well for lasting appeal of the game. People hate the word, but I'll say it again: progression.
 
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Clawhammer

Clawhammer
Sim Maker said:
OP: With the Price of the new ships, players were being forced in to "hauling crap from a to b" as you put it.........they didnt want to do it.
.
Even you dont seem to enjoy it............so, there you go.......people didnt want to be forced to trade for the new ships.
Click to expand...

Sometimes you have to make yourself dirty to get on the great gems...
 
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