Is there any legitimate way to make so much money so fast? Trading slaves is just not my thing. I'm currently in a financial crisis. I bought a Vulture, but my current incomes are not enough for outfitting and insurance costs. basic bulletin board and bounty hunting is simply not enough. I found some tips on how to make more money, but it seems that nothing comes close to slave trading. Or am I missing something? I don't have enough time for powerplay and even if I did, it's still just 50M per week. Which is like just one Robigo run.
Also it seem a bit weird that someone would offer so much money for slaves. I mean how could a slave possibly work so hard to justify such price for the owner? And these are just the smuggling costs. Others had to acquire slaves, then someone has to feed them, house them, instruct them, guard them etc. Unless the cargo you carry is 1t of slaves and not just one slave in a 1t canister. That would make more sense, but how could you stuff a dozen people in that tiny canister? These high costs suggest some more sinister stuff that happens to them. Maybe they are not just workers but also sex slaves, forced organ donors, gladiators etc.
And even if they were just workers, it's still beyond my moral capacity. So whenever I acquire slaves, hostages, occupied escape pods or imperial slaves, I never sell them on a black market because I think that means slavery. I just jettison them while docked assuming I'm setting them free. I'm not sure if that's helping them though since they are then stuck on some station with no money and probably have to sell themselves anyway. It would be great if there was some faction offering enormous sums of money for killing slave traders and bringing slaves to them so that they can set them up and set them free. Maybe not paying as much as the Robigo cartel pays but still. Considering all the tree huggers here in the real world, I assume there would be a lot more opposition to slavery if it was real to such an extent.
So is there any way to make so much money in ED? Right now it seems that if you want to strike it rich then you either have to be a slave trader or a pirate. But doing moral/legitimate things means being stuck with cheap ships or playing really long hours. Which brings me to another question; Are the majority of players with Anacondas mostly pirates and slave smugglers?
Don't tell me it's just a game and just go trade slaves. I know it's a game. That's why I like this slave trading concept and pirating being available options. But for me, gaming immersion is all about realism. Knowing that if I was really there, I would not sell slaves, so trading slaves in-game would be boring for me as I couldn't get immersed. Slave trading would then for me be just a chore that I simply have to do to be able to afford doing other things.
PS. Also, it would be great if you could kidnap slave smugglers and traders and sell them into slavery.
EDIT (6.jan.2016@20:39) I copied some of my replies here.
-In case someone misunderstood me, by legitimate, I do not mean legal. Whether something is legal in a certain jurisdiction is a completely irrelevant matter in many cases. I always check the politics of the controlling faction. If it is a democracy then I assume that legal = legitimate most of the time. If it's a dictatorship I assume that illegal = illegitimate only around 50% of the time. That is why I don't mind the federal navy giving me missions that are locally considered as illegal. That is what basically the CIA does and I don't mind. That is also why I don't bounty hunt in Empire and other authoritarian systems as there is no guarantee that wanted ships have engaged in illegitimate activities. For all I know they could be perfectly legitimate freedom fighters.
-Some might have misunderstood me and think that I believe that illegitimate activities shouldn't be the most lucrative ones. Illicit activities should be the most lucrative as they are even in the real world. But that doesn't mean that they are common or easy. It can certainly be very lucrative to be in the mafia, but that definitely isn't a common nor an easy job. Right now whenever you meet a cmdr in an Anaconda, you can almost be 100% sure that he is a slave trader. And I heard here in this thread that they are doing it whilst watching YouTube. It makes no sense why someone would pay you that much for an easy job (ignoring the fact that I think that these slave cargo canisters from Robigo seem quite overpriced regardless of how difficult it is to transport them. Slaves in the real world were not worth much more than cattle).
So I do think that some balancing is still needed. FD should for example include missions for bounty hunters to hunt down slave traders on the fastest routes between Robigo and their popular smuggling destinations and/or add missions to patrol the popular smuggling stations outside the docking port alongside local security and scan passing ships. The more slaves you find the more you get paid. That would balance out gameplay somewhat as people could get rich legitimately whilst keeping the illicit activities still the most lucrative albeit more dangerous as they should be in the first place. And if people decide to do it in solo mode, well Anacondas in wings should do the trick.
This balancing should be made adequate enough so that less than half of rich players are criminals even though the richest most capable ones maybe still are. Right now ED is a kind of a parody of the real word as everyone who is rich is a criminal. Most people in my country would say that this is actually the case, but I for one don't believe it.
Also it seem a bit weird that someone would offer so much money for slaves. I mean how could a slave possibly work so hard to justify such price for the owner? And these are just the smuggling costs. Others had to acquire slaves, then someone has to feed them, house them, instruct them, guard them etc. Unless the cargo you carry is 1t of slaves and not just one slave in a 1t canister. That would make more sense, but how could you stuff a dozen people in that tiny canister? These high costs suggest some more sinister stuff that happens to them. Maybe they are not just workers but also sex slaves, forced organ donors, gladiators etc.
And even if they were just workers, it's still beyond my moral capacity. So whenever I acquire slaves, hostages, occupied escape pods or imperial slaves, I never sell them on a black market because I think that means slavery. I just jettison them while docked assuming I'm setting them free. I'm not sure if that's helping them though since they are then stuck on some station with no money and probably have to sell themselves anyway. It would be great if there was some faction offering enormous sums of money for killing slave traders and bringing slaves to them so that they can set them up and set them free. Maybe not paying as much as the Robigo cartel pays but still. Considering all the tree huggers here in the real world, I assume there would be a lot more opposition to slavery if it was real to such an extent.
So is there any way to make so much money in ED? Right now it seems that if you want to strike it rich then you either have to be a slave trader or a pirate. But doing moral/legitimate things means being stuck with cheap ships or playing really long hours. Which brings me to another question; Are the majority of players with Anacondas mostly pirates and slave smugglers?
Don't tell me it's just a game and just go trade slaves. I know it's a game. That's why I like this slave trading concept and pirating being available options. But for me, gaming immersion is all about realism. Knowing that if I was really there, I would not sell slaves, so trading slaves in-game would be boring for me as I couldn't get immersed. Slave trading would then for me be just a chore that I simply have to do to be able to afford doing other things.
PS. Also, it would be great if you could kidnap slave smugglers and traders and sell them into slavery.
EDIT (6.jan.2016@20:39) I copied some of my replies here.
-In case someone misunderstood me, by legitimate, I do not mean legal. Whether something is legal in a certain jurisdiction is a completely irrelevant matter in many cases. I always check the politics of the controlling faction. If it is a democracy then I assume that legal = legitimate most of the time. If it's a dictatorship I assume that illegal = illegitimate only around 50% of the time. That is why I don't mind the federal navy giving me missions that are locally considered as illegal. That is what basically the CIA does and I don't mind. That is also why I don't bounty hunt in Empire and other authoritarian systems as there is no guarantee that wanted ships have engaged in illegitimate activities. For all I know they could be perfectly legitimate freedom fighters.
-Some might have misunderstood me and think that I believe that illegitimate activities shouldn't be the most lucrative ones. Illicit activities should be the most lucrative as they are even in the real world. But that doesn't mean that they are common or easy. It can certainly be very lucrative to be in the mafia, but that definitely isn't a common nor an easy job. Right now whenever you meet a cmdr in an Anaconda, you can almost be 100% sure that he is a slave trader. And I heard here in this thread that they are doing it whilst watching YouTube. It makes no sense why someone would pay you that much for an easy job (ignoring the fact that I think that these slave cargo canisters from Robigo seem quite overpriced regardless of how difficult it is to transport them. Slaves in the real world were not worth much more than cattle).
So I do think that some balancing is still needed. FD should for example include missions for bounty hunters to hunt down slave traders on the fastest routes between Robigo and their popular smuggling destinations and/or add missions to patrol the popular smuggling stations outside the docking port alongside local security and scan passing ships. The more slaves you find the more you get paid. That would balance out gameplay somewhat as people could get rich legitimately whilst keeping the illicit activities still the most lucrative albeit more dangerous as they should be in the first place. And if people decide to do it in solo mode, well Anacondas in wings should do the trick.
This balancing should be made adequate enough so that less than half of rich players are criminals even though the richest most capable ones maybe still are. Right now ED is a kind of a parody of the real word as everyone who is rich is a criminal. Most people in my country would say that this is actually the case, but I for one don't believe it.
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