Credits come to easy? Small ships redundant?

[dawsonmadcow]

I think it's all relative on the amount of time you can plough into the game. I personally can only play on average 6 hours a week if i want to stay married. I've been playing since beta and have a T9 and a vulture and only 30m in the bank. I gave up my cash cow to move to the imperials and need to find another one but enjoying working on my navy ranking currently.

 

[smiths121]

Hi All,

Started a 2nd character a few weeks back. The buffed mission system really helps at the sidewinder and adder level (still love the adder). 2nd character joined a faction for a bit of undermining. He is laying low (read not logging in at the moment), with a 70K bounty in a control system. I am focussing again on my primary character, where I need to fight in combat zones at the moment.

The character had a Python worth about 115MCr. I was hoping I could work well enough in a conflict zone with just the Python. The zone was a bit too tuff, so I have stripped the Python back to buy a 20Mcr Vulutre for the Combat/Bounty Hunter role. I also want to buy a Diamondback Scout or Cobra for combat scouting duties, an Adder for smuggling (everyone wants experimental chemicals at the moment, the Python is to risky to use for this) and probably a Cobra for some mining. It was only a month ago I was in an Asp, with a Vulture and an Adder to fulfill these roles.


Depending on what you are doing is how many and what size ships you require. Smuggling for missions is best done in an Adder or equivalent to get the smuggling bonus. Someone's going to tell me the Adder does not get the smuggling bonus, which would invalidate my reason for owning it!

Simon

 

[Defect0r]

I think it's all relative on the amount of time you can plough into the game. I personally can only play on average 6 hours a week if i want to stay married. I've been playing since beta and have a T9 and a vulture and only 30m in the bank. I gave up my cash cow to move to the imperials and need to find another one but enjoying working on my navy ranking currently.

This.

I look at an A rated module at 1.6m and am depressed about how long that will take me as it is. I enjoy the limited time I get to spend in the game though.

It's difficult to set the game to be all things for all people. Personally, I agree with a lot of the comments made here, I think fuel costs should be increased again and they should consider a docking charge based on size of ship, which could be used to balance using some of the larger ships for missions which don't have appropriately large payouts and encourage use of smaller ones.

There needs to be more reasons to have a collection of ships rather than one size fits all.

Just my 2p though.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

The problem isn't that money is to easily earned, it's that the ship balance isn't very good. The game favors big ships. More cargo space results in more profit, bigger ship allows more SCBs and bigger weapons and shields result in better survivability better chances to win in combat. In addition to that profit is the only thing that matters in this game from a game mechanics standpoint.

The game forces players to move up as quickly as they can. With other players being around much longer this creates an entry barrier for new players.

It would be nice if FD balances the ships, adds missions and additional station types to make using different ships interesting and all ships useful for specific tasks.

Maybe a small pad only outpost that offers very good profits for food and other "normal" stuff. Missions that require the CMDR to fly a long way to reach the mission target (not just combat). Smuggling missions that only work, or work better, with a unsuspicious Sidewinder.

I think you hit the nail squarely on the head with your post. The ships imbalance is real. I mean, you can be as good as you can, in a Cobra, you won't be able to survive much fights against bigger ships, as long as your opponent is half competent. It's just more firepower, more shields, better armor and so on.

Why can't there be smaller ships that could be really a threat to bigger ships? Maybe not a Cobra starting at 300K CR but why can't a smaller ship be able to be astonishingly fast, maneuverable, and still packs a punch? I understand that a large hard point has some physical requirements, same for a large power plant, power distributor, FSD, etc. But after playing ED for a few months now, I still think there would be a place for a powerful small ship.

I've been flying a Clipper for a few weeks now. It's pretty much upgraded to my liking and I think I'm going to stick with it for a while. Of course, if I get interdicted by a Python or an Anaconda, I run away, but I feel that I can take on more fights with it. It's still considered a large ship, even though it's much smaller than a Python or Anaconda.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

I think it varies with how far along the progression a player is. Early on it's quite hard to make much money, getting that first million can take a long time.

But now I've got 4 ships (Asp, Vulture, Python & Anaconda), over 500m in cash and the money just rolls in and I'm not sure if there is any way in which this could be rectified that wouldn't alienate a lot of players.

After a while the money is just another way to keep score, I can afford pretty much anything I want to buy in the game so the money is really an irrelevance, I certainly don't worry about credits/hour.

"Small ships need to have their own advantage"
Well apart from smuggling I can't see what is could be, the performance and functionality of a ship should reflect its value, if a small cheap ship could outperform a costlier vessel then what would be the point of the more expensive ship.

Analogy:
You could smuggle small stuff like gems with a jet-ski but it wouldn't stand much chance against a destroyer.

I think there could be costly smaller ships. They don't have to be cheap because they're small, unless I'm missing something. I see the Diamondback and the Courier as examples of ships that could possibly be made more powerful but also costing more.

- - - Updated - - -

It'd be nice if there were more missions and roles that were geared specifically for the small stuff. Keep them relevant far past the rookie stage, beyond merely keeping around as the cars you store in a big barn and drive only on the weekends for fun.

There are supposed to be smuggling benefits to the smaller ships as far as the cops' scanning priorities and such, but the grey and black areas of criminal gameplay are woefully underdeveloped overall, making that angle kind of pointless. FD maybe should hire some professional black marketeers to give them a rundown on crime.

There are many smuggling missions (that I miss) that have to be performed to an outpost, ruling out any large ship (like my Clipper, snif!).

 

[xslam]

Could expensive tier 2 versions of small ships with huge masslock and huge mass (to provide ramming power) compete big ships?

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Maybe, but new players won't necessarily know how to do this and will get creamed attempting it. Or maybe they prefer to be traders. It could happen.

New players need a way into the game. It's not just credits they will be gaining, but also game knowledge. So my answer would be "probably not."

They need missions to teach new players how the game works.
The most easily understood mechanic is the Pew Pew.
Trading is less appealing to a newbie because they don't know the Trade routes so what if the game showed them the basics, like you have to travel further to get more profit and by making them jump to a few systems, rather than just one, would help them understand the map since there'll be a big mission Icon where they need to go. They can still have the short range ones as well but by increasing rewards for the longer ones, a wee light bulb may go off in the newbies head where they realize Trading is viable.

Same can be said of exploration, have a mission to get them to scan a particular system that they haven't before or if that can't be done, scan "x" amount of systems they haven't explored yet or to the value of "x" creds and return it. That would teach them the fundamentals of that.

Basically, try and get the new players engaged in the specific roles.
This also works for basing missions around the toys available in the game. I don't see any missions about interdicting players, maybe to simply communicate a message, even drop off some cargo which I hope they would pick up then jump off somewhere. Sure you can interdict currently on the assassination missions but you don't need to as they always eventually drop out of Super-cruise and you get them in USS.
There's very limited use of the other scanners regarding others.
What if a cargo scanner was required to scan one of those groups of 6 T6's as info was leaked there were illegal goods, maybe even and Artifact or Relic for the more advanced players. Then they would have the dilemma of return, maybe sell, maybe even donate to the UA group. A wealth of options in that one mission.
Kill Warrant Scanners, same thing were an example may be that pesky Funeral Barge which you can't do much with. Mission states known Criminal gets toasted, his funeral, has an accomplice who has no bounties in the system he's getting hurled into the Sun of, KWS required, go kill, job done. Some could be particularly nasty for the more experienced players as there's usually 6 in a Wing.
There's so many ways these things could be used that are sorely lacking from available missions.

They could base Missions around any of the toys you can switch in or out of your ship.

If some of these things are added to the game for new players, they can also be added for the other longer term players with the difficulty ramped up in accordance to their rank and this would add a much greater variety to the Mission structure and keep things that little bit more interesting.
Missions should be more focused on one, or even a few elements of the game if we ever get proper branching missions, and they should either teach the newbies or challenge the more experienced players out there.
I think one of the biggest problems currently is players don't know how to "blaze their own trail" and this is leading to all the one dimensional trains of thought of "must have Anaconda" and the fastest way to get to it (cash per hour threads) and it's detracting from what a lot of the game has and should be able to offer.
The focus needs to be shifted away from purely combat as the only real alternative I had when I started during 1.2 was going for black boxes / messages and light cargo missions and they got tired really fast and didn't teach me much...so once I got my ship combat viable, it's been the main way I make money.

Just thoughts.

 

[Jex =TE=]

The money sure went up quickly.

When I started Elite on launch day, missions on the BB were as low as 500 credits up to about 3k maybe. Occasionally you'd get 10 15 or even 25k missions. Now it seems they all pay far more than ever and conflict zones give you a mass of credits.

Because the game is all about credits, that's what it's built around. Had it been developed in a different direction then maybe we'd see differently but on launch, the credit intake was pitiful and needed addressing. Even getting a few million an hour still means grinding for 15-30 hours to get the ship you want plus modules plus insurance.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Well you see it from a veterans point of view, think about it from a new players point of perspective.
Not quite so easy anymore if you know nothing about this game, when I think back to my first Eagle. Really felt like a big step to me.

Of course now after months of learning I can get to an Asp in.. lets say a day if I would sacrifice this entire day.
If you know the routes and the ways of the game it is easy, sure. But that can be said about soo many games.

Very good point! I can't believe all the mistakes I made when flying my Cobra. Obviously, if I was to start from scratch again, it would be much easier to climb the ranks and get money faster.

 

[Woodwose]

Its much better now , ive been playing scince beta and can now make money doing what i enjoy , traveling around doing a few missions , smuggling , opportunistic trading , bounty hunting & combat zones , finally got myself a dropship

 

[askavir]

I've been flying a Clipper for a few weeks now. It's pretty much upgraded to my liking and I think I'm going to stick with it for a while. Of course, if I get interdicted by a Python or an Anaconda, I run away, but I feel that I can take on more fights with it. It's still considered a large ship, even though it's much smaller than a Python or Anaconda.

Actually the Clipper is bigger than the Python, longer, wider and heavier. It even has more armor than the Python, but worse shields and the Python has one more large hardpoint.

You generally don't have to run from Pythons nor Anacondas, compared with those ships, the Clipper is extremely fast and very nimble, you can outmanouver them easily and pound them with the big guns from behind the thrusters where they can't hit you.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Actually the Clipper is bigger than the Python, longer, wider and heavier. It even has more armor than the Python, but worse shields and the Python has one more large hardpoint.

You generally don't have to run from Pythons nor Anacondas, compared with those ships, the Clipper is extremely fast and very nimble, you can outmanouver them easily and pound them with the big guns from behind the thrusters where they can't hit you.

Hmmm... That will teach me to make statements without checking facts first! Thanks for that! I didn't know the Clipper was that big. It felt bigger than the Diamondback I had before, of course, but not that big. I might consider your statement about being able to hold my own against those large combat ships. I guess the key here is to stay behind them because they patch quite a punch...

 

[bendover]

Well lets make credit erning slower and more difficult and then lets credit erning faster and more easy,How ever fast/slow you can ern credits somebody will complain.And always remember your reasonable rate for erning credits is YOUR reasonable rate and may not coinside with everybody else.I say leave it as it is,Its as good a rate as any.

Plus there is a Whole Universe Beyond PvP,Personaly i do not care if the cheaper are seen as obsolite,Plus thinking only in terms of PVP is meta gaming,Combat is only part of the game,Just because a ship is less viable for combat does not invalidate its existance

 

[Louella]

I'm fairly new to the game, I think. Steam says I've played 99 hours so far, since the 1st week of June.

Anyway, my experience was this:

I started off with the basic Sidewinder, did some missions with it. Noticed that the smuggling missions paid a lot, lot more.

Made about 50,000 credits doing missions, then I stowed my Sidewinder, and bought a new ship.

Which was a Sidewinder !

I just wanted to stow the Sidewinder that the game gave me still had all its original equipment, never made any changes to it. Sentimental value and all that


With my new Sidewinder, I started to fit new stuff, to do different things. Had a go at some combat missions, and even managed to kill a pirate anaconda npc. Admittedly, that was because I carefully followed them and watched as they dropped into a resource extraction site, and began shooting at things in there. Once the police ships turned up and started shooting the pirate, I opened fire, and targeted the power plant. So I didn't take the anaconda down without help

After having that Sidewinder exploded due to foolishly attempting to attack a pirate Python, I realised that I needed a tougher ship, with more guns, so I could do more combat missions.

So I looked at things, and saw that the Cobra seemed to fit that role, and once I had 600,000 credits, I bought the Cobra, and have since upgraded the equipment as funds allowed.


I don't know how people are making tens of millions of credits per hour, though I am guessing that missions and things get more rewarding as your harmless/competent/elite ratings go up, and you don't get a 70k reward mission to kill a pirate "mostly harmless" anaconda with a 100k bounty.

 

[askavir]

I think what the OP was saying is that at the average credit earning rate, more than half the available ships become "obsolete" after a couple weeks (at most) playing. Thats a lot of quickly discarded ships. He was not complaining at the "speed" of credit income, but pointing out that there are too many ships for the (very)early game, compared with mid and top range ships. And there's another low tier ship on its way, the Imperial Eagle.

Need more mid and top tier ships, not more small ones. There's more than enough cheap ships already.

 

[PiLhEaD]

I tend to agree, and feel that this is as much a function of the majority of the shipyard being in the smaller/lower price bracket.

I strongly believe that missions (or mission types) restricted to ship size/mass/hold capacity, are needed, so the big ships can't hoover up everything in sight, and there is an incentive to stay in/use smaller ships.

At a slight tangent, missions should be allowed to be multi-trip - so that '12 ton' cargo mission becomes do'able in an '8 ton' capacity ship.

 

[veryinky]

I strongly believe that missions (or mission types) restricted to ship size/mass/hold capacity, are needed, so the big ships can't hoover up everything in sight, and there is an incentive to stay in/use smaller ships.

At a slight tangent, missions should be allowed to be multi-trip - so that '12 ton' cargo mission becomes do'able in an '8 ton' capacity ship.

I like the multi-trip mission idea.

Would love it if missions were tailored to the player and what ship they were flying, thinking of it filtering the thousands of missions the player couldn't take. Namely because bulk trading in large ships from A-B is boring and "haul 260 tons of X to system Y 100ly away" missions would be a welcome change.

As for more small ships, I don't mind even if I would never fly them. Adds variety to the NPC ships I see in stations. Feds desperately need a imperial courier analogue though.

 

[TargetLost]

Found an old beta 1.03 video.

Killing an Anaconda gave you 1000 credits !

 

[Quineloe]

I watched a few newbies recently. It takes them just hours to go from the Sidewinder to a Cobra or Viper.

Adder, Hauler, Eagle - those are obsolete now. FD should not release another ship below 200k ever again.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

Yes, making money is too easy...if you use things which I personally consider as exploits:
- Using third party tool to find your trade route. I found one at nearly 5000cr/ton/journey. Where is the merit in this? Overpowered and too easy.
- Re-entering a RES until you get a good instance, then bounty hunting in a big overpowered ship.
- Go mining, collect osmium, painite, platinum, then fly to a high-tech system and switch back and forth from solo to open to get some mining missions.
- I assume it works as well for smuggling missions where you could collect dozens to the same locations...

If like me you never allow yourself to grind or use exploits, no, money is not that easy to get.
The only way I allow myself to grind is during Community Goals...but if I do not see enough PvP or other commanders flying around, these are boring to me, I quit and return to them the next day hoping for better player interactivity.
I wish more creative ways could bring real money, such as PvP bounty hunting, piracy...or that anything not PvP in game would be much more challenging to achieve.

Though I own Clipper, battle Python and plan to build a Fer de Lance, I fly mostly small ships which are way more fun, and the only way for me to face challenge when I do PvE.