What's happened to Robigo?

[Slack]

Hmm.. well minor progress...is better then none...


1: The smuggler should be rewarded because he's doing his job smuggling high demand good that is illegal in most jurisdictions (demand outweighs actual worth.) The trader should have his account deleted and given a sidewinder because he thinks that dealing legal goods with zero risk should net more then any profession because he GRINDED incorrectly. You're doing it completely wrong and You won't come to grips with it. You should realize by now that if a "smuggler" with a asp just trades, the "smuggler" who is now outside his/her element is now making far less then a trader with 700t of cargo...take a break and mull that over,please... all this stuff about who makes more at what... is in YOUR head. You're doing it wrong.. I'm trying to let you see your fallacy ,but You refuse. apples to oranges just doesn't work. end of.

2: That same ship was given away in a CG wasn't it? for free,no rank required.. mull that over...I'll assume you'll start a campaign now to get all those who earned it that way as opposed to your head against the brick wall method...taken away,You're doing it wrong

3:Yes.. we've been over this.You can offset that as a trader.. do your job.. You'll make more then any smuggler that tries trading in a asp by doing your job... just do your job...if You want to smuggle: You have to outfit as one.. You want to trade: You have to outfit as a trader...

here's hoping 3rd times a charm...

Trying not laugh here.. You keep making the same point over and over. And like to highlight your irrelevant points so let me help you out. Different ships have different roles... Yes we get it haha, You completely seem to be forgetting the topic you and i are discussing, income balance between professions... Only reason im comparing an ASP vs a Cutter is because they are required to make top tier income in their profession. And yes a Cutter can carry more cargo than an ASP, and an ASP can smuggle better than a Cutter, but what does that have to do withincome balance between professions?

Lets pretend you want credits as fast as possible and are trying to decide which profession might be "slightly" more lucrative. Ok so you need equipment in both professions called "a space ship" Ok how much will the smuggling ship cost me? Oh say 20m.. ok and trading ship? Oh say 200m. At this point a normal person would ask, ok so how much more do I make with the 200m ship? And the answer is... well Timmy.. turns out you actually make half as much using a ship which is 10x more expensive.. Whaaaa? Yes smuggling makes double the income of trading and does it for 1/10th of the investment. So in the games current state why would anyone save up for a 200m ship and do trading? Well.... you wouldnt, the game is kind of unbalanced. Also dont bother doing mining. As again you will make 5x less than a smuggler, an yet be required to buy a more expensive ship for the job. But some will claim that smuggling is more dangerous and harder to do. But not when you compare a mercenary that actually has to go into combat, and take out targets to get his rewards vs someone that runs away from the fight, but even the assassin is making half as much as a smuggler (if hes lucky). Also pls lets stop pretending that smuggling is some dangerous/risky thing to do in Elite. After my fair share of smuggling runs, its no more risky and as routine as trading for me.

We've gone a few rounds and youre on the floor again. So far everytime you get knocked down you come back trying to throw the same pointless punch. ding ding.. The ref is calling this one. Although you will probably come back in your dazed and confused state and ask "sir may i have another?" and the answer is no, youve had enough.

 

[Slack]

The only problem I have with it is the switching between solo and open to refresh the board. That is obviously an exploit and not what was intend to happen with these types of missions. In my opinion, there should be no bonuses or special benefits for switching between open and solo and these missions should be removed until that exploit is fixed.

I agree, its this that brings an unbalance to smuggling. If you couldnt constantly refresh your missions, smuggling would be on par with other professions. But some will argue that this isnt an "exploit". I however highly doubt FD intended for us to log in and out of the game to achieve a certain in-game goal. That would be quite a bizarre feature that ive never seen in any other game.

But Shhhhh.... you will upset all those that are getting rich from this exploit.

 

[GilliganTX]

^To temper your claims of massive imbalance, consider that you have to have already earned Tycoon/Elite rank to have the imbalancingly-lucrative missions available to you in the first place. At my current Entrepreneur trade rank, I'm making on average $10Million / Hr, which is Par per the course for trading in a cutter.

You could claim there is an imbalance there, since I am not elite ranked.

However I have done quite a lot of rare-trading prior to this, which included bulk trading commodities at stations where I picked up the rares.


My point being, it takes time upfront, whether it's trading rares in a cobra, or ABA grinding in a Lakon T ship, to get to the point where the option to make money as quickly as or quicker than ABA grinding in a cutter. So claiming this is a farce because it is more lucrative than ABA trading is, IMO, kind of moot, because it takes time invested in ABA trading to start earning at levels equal to or exceeding it, in regard to the LRS missions.


I won't comment on mode switching because I employ the "go do chores and come back in 10 minutes" BB refreshing strategy.

I did however, try it last night to test some of what Troa B is claiming is possible, and while I was able to stack more missions more quickly, I still ended up failing half of them, negating any excessive earnings.

 

[askavir]

Funny as you (Slack) care about inbalance between profession, but ONLY if something tops trading. You never cared before that trading makes far, far more than exploration for instance. Or mining.

You're only gripe with smuggling is that it makes more than trading. If you actually cared a bit with profession inbalance like you claim, you had a whole flogging year to complain about it, as it always existed since release day. But of course you never did. The difference between exploration and trading is far, far bigger than the difference between trading and smuggling.

You (and some others) are just pretending to care about inbalance between professions because it suits your purpose this time.

 

[Slack]

I think that we could all stop pretending that Robigo (and similar systems) long range smuggling is ok...

Just for curiosity I checked the traffic reports on Robigo yesterday (yes, it was my first run... 25M in a couple of hours, taking it really easy.)

Robigo has seen something like 3.500 ASP explorers enter the system during last week.
Three Thousand Five Hundred Ships in a week. It's more or less 1 ship every 3 minutes.

Isn't it a little bit strange that the great majority of the player base are making money JUST FROM ONE (few) SYSTEM and doing JUST ONE THING?
Please don't start your usual speech about "how hard it is to actually accomplish these missions without getting scanned"... coz ya know.. it isn't really THAT hard.
And even if it was SO hard it would not be a reason for those missions to be paid so much.

Now, if only I could find a similar system where I could get one ship to rob every 3 minutes that would make me a happy pirate...

Sure, earning ridiculous amount of money this fast is funny and lucrative, but don't come here and tell me that it's "right" or "in line with the other in-game professions".
And don't even try to tell me it's "Hard".

Well said, wish i could give you more rep..

 

[Slack]

Funny as you (Slack) care about inbalance between profession, but ONLY if something tops trading. You never cared before that trading makes far, far more than exploration for instance. Or mining.

You're only gripe with smuggling is that it makes more than trading. If you actually cared a bit with profession inbalance like you claim, you had a whole flogging year to complain about it, as it always existed since release day. But of course you never did. The difference between exploration and trading is far, far bigger than the difference between trading and smuggling.

You (and some others) are just pretending to care about inbalance between professions because it suits your purpose this time.

First off Trading isnt the benchmark and I never said it was. And you can somewhat justify that trading, since it requires a far more expensive ship to do, could pay a bit more than exploring. Lets see you justify smuggling vs exploring... Ships cost about the same, but smuggling pays like what 10x the amount?

Seems to me that you are afraid this will ruin your little smuggling ring, and youre the one making an argument because "it suits your purpose this time". While ignoring the disparity between professions. Where is the love for mining/trading/exploring? As someone else has pointed out, due to this imbalance, majority of the community has been reduced to doing the same thing over an over.

 

[Red Anders]

The only problem I have with it is the switching between solo and open to refresh the board. That is obviously an exploit and not what was intend to happen with these types of missions. In my opinion, there should be no bonuses or special benefits for switching between open and solo and these missions should be removed until that exploit is fixed.

Firstly there is no 'bonus' or 'special benefit' at all. Mode switching doesn't give better missions, it gives exactly the same missions. All it does is remove one wait for a board refresh each cycle. The boards don't show new missions every time you change mode - each separate mode's BB has its refresh cycle, so say you swap between the three modes in one minute and take all the missions that are on the three boards, if you then go back to the first mode's board it will still have the same missions on that you already saw - you still need to wait for a refresh cycle then before any of them will show anything new.

Note - I'm not waving a banner for mode switching there at all. I don't like it and I have made very minimal use of it, literally a couple of switches on a couple of trips, nothing more. It breaks immersion and it is clearly an 'exploit' in the literal sense in that you're using something for a purpose for which it wasn't intended. My preference would be for the total number of missions and the variety of missions available on a BB at any one time to be increased, but the BBs then synched so regardless of what mode you are in you see the exact same BB, with the only way you can get any more missions being to wait.

However it is not in any way central to the ability to make decent credits from smuggling missions because if a player just waits, new missions appear anyway. On an average run to Robigo, you might save 15-20 minutes by using mode switching to get more missions rather than just sitting there for a few board refreshes. There is therefore no reason whatsoever to suspend missions completely.

I have to say I am quite surprised at the sheer number of people with their noses in this issue. I couldn't care less what other players do to make their credits in the game, I just play my own game, do what I want to do and make whatever I can in the process.

I haven't really seen anybody articulate an objection to these smuggling missions that doesn't seem to consist of a variation on 'I do something else and can't make as much' to which the obvious answer is if you're not happy then stop doing that and start doing this, 'I don't want to do illegal stuff from a RP point of view but want to make the same credits as if I was' to which the obvious answer is that role playing sometimes involves taking a path which seems more difficult because it is what your character would do, or 'It took me eight years to grind the credits for a chaff launcher on my Sidewinder but some noob just told me he earned the credits for a Cutter in seven minutes' to which the obvious answer is that at any given point you have had exactly the same earning potential as any other player in the game, with the only limits being imposed by your own choices of activity. That's pretty much the epitome of fairness.

Are some players going to get bored if they earn loads of credits fast and buy loads of ships? Undoubtedly.

Are some players going to get bored if they don't? Very likely.

 

[iFred]

It was worse than that... Over on Reddit somebody posted the exploit, a few days ago, that basically allows you to make 20-30 million an hour without ever leaving the station.

It wasn't long before Zac dropped in to say how interesting he was finding it.

So I'm guessing a quick fix was made for that.

I ticketed this right after release, this is almost 4 weeks ago and I got a "We are aware of it" back.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

It was worse than that... Over on Reddit somebody posted the exploit, a few days ago, that basically allows you to make 20-30 million an hour without ever leaving the station.

It wasn't long before Zac dropped in to say how interesting he was finding it.

So I'm guessing a quick fix was made for that.

I ticketed this right after release, this is almost 4 weeks ago and I got a "We are aware of it" back.

 

[Slack]

^To temper your claims of massive imbalance, consider that you have to have already earned Tycoon/Elite rank to have the imbalancingly-lucrative missions available to you in the first place. At my current Entrepreneur trade rank, I'm making on average $10Million / Hr, which is Par per the course for trading in a cutter.

Someone with a low rank or more importantly someone just starting out, can make around that income smuggling, 10m/hr, but you wont be doing that in trading, because you cant afford and dont have the rank, to buy a Cutter yet (it takes A LOT of work to get). If youre new, youre using a t6 or maybe even a t7, which arent even close to 10m/hr.

 

[askavir]

First off Trading isnt the benchmark and I never said it was. And you can somewhat justify that trading, since it requires a far more expensive ship to do, could pay a bit more than exploring. Lets see you justify smuggling vs exploring... Ships cost about the same, but smuggling pays like what 10x the amount?

Seems to me that you are afraid this will ruin your little smuggling ring, and youre the one making an argument because "it suits your purpose this time". While ignoring the disparity between professions. Where is the love for mining/trading/exploring? As someone else has pointed out, due to this imbalance, majority of the community has been reduced to doing the same thing over an over.

How am I ignoring the disparity? I just pointed out disparities far larger than the only one you complain about (smuggling vs trading). Yes you set the benchmark to trading, as for days on end you have been talking about trading and cutters and cutters vs asps. Even created a thread about it. And I still remember your posts from the last time you campaigned against smuggling missions. I have never read a single post from you that referred profession imbalance except to complain smuggling outpays trading.

Trading does not "require" a more expensive ship. This is false. Every single ship can be fitted for trade. There's dedicated trading ships available at all ranges of prices. Traders buy more expensive ships to get a bigger profit. But its not "required".

You keep failing to realize that payouts are based on the jobs, the tasks performed, not on your ship. Ships are tools. When you buy a ship, you do not buy revenue. You buy a tool which allows you to do tasks.

Anyway, keep up your your campaign for selective "balance", maybe the devs listen to you. Or maybe they don't.

 

[Slack]

How am I ignoring the disparity? I just pointed out disparities far larger than the only one you complain about (smuggling vs trading). Yes you set the benchmark to trading, as for days on end you have been talking about trading and cutters and cutters vs asps. Even created a thread about it. And I still remember your posts from the last time you campaigned against smuggling missions. I have never read a single post from you that referred profession imbalance except to complain smuggling outpays trading.

Trading is only being used an example bud.. and its not the only thing ive been talking about. Might want to go back and re-read.. Also yes, Ive seen you troll multiple posts on this topic and we have had several conversations, and i have to say your arguments hold no weight.

Trading does not "require" a more expensive ship. This is false. Every single ship can be fitted for trade. There's dedicated trading ships available at all ranges of prices. Traders buy more expensive ships to get a bigger profit. But its not "required".

Larger ships carry more cargo... your point being? Are you trying to say that if you want to make more money trading, a more expensive trade ship IS required?

You keep failing to realize that payouts are based on the jobs, the tasks performed, not on your ship. Ships are tools. When you buy a ship, you do not buy revenue. You buy a tool which allows you to do tasks.

Right, so why are you required to buy tools that cost 10x as much to make half the profit? Could it be because smuggling is unbalanced XD?

Anyway, keep up your your campaign for selective "balance", maybe the devs listen to you. Or maybe they don't.

Good luck to you as well, on your campaign to have this exploit persist in the game.

 

[GilliganTX]

Someone with a low rank or more importantly someone just starting out, can make around that income smuggling, 10m/hr, but you wont be doing that in trading, because you cant afford and dont have the rank, to buy a Cutter yet (it takes A LOT of work to get). If youre new, youre using a t6 or maybe even a t7, which arent even close to 10m/hr.

No, they can't. The missions that pay well enough to generate the $10million/hr are not available to anyone below "Entrepreneur" trade rank. So they have to have at least traded their way to that rank by standard means, or taken and completed less lucrative smuggling missions in order to grind rank.

I showed these missions to my "peddler" ranked friend and so far he's made about $1million in four runs, which is more time than to complete a loop of our rare-item route which earns about $500k each side. So he's actually making HALF of what he could be doing rare-trading.

Why so little income? There were almost no shadow delivery missions available to him, because he's not yet friendly with the Robigo Cartel. Just the legal transport contracts for higher tonnage, which still have the "fail if scanned" requirement. So he can stack about three of those, for about $500k each. He's failed each run at some point along the way, and only successfully completed two deliveries.


So yes, it is fairly easy for an experienced pilot with a high trade rank to make obscene amounts of money this way. It is significantly less so for a less experienced pilot.



Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, MEH.

 

[Mikey2305]

You are very welcome to this style of gameplay. Tried it a couple of times and found it way too stressy, so do more gentle pursuits. I dont in any way begrudge those who do or the credits they make. If you guys are having fun thats ok by me...

 

[Garagiste]

(snip) Right, so why are you required to buy tools that cost 10x as much to make half the profit? .(snip)

You aren't required to do anything. The entire point of the game is that you can do as you wish.

Mining, exploring, etc. don't pay well in comparison to trading, and never have but that doesn't stop people from doing those roles if they enjoy them.
And it doesn't does it? I've read tons about mining and even more about exploring - doesn't especially float my boat so I don't do it.

Quite a lot of Asps passing through Robigo is the flimsiest evidence imaginable for the case that "majority of the community" is doing this. The majority of the community likely never come near the forums and are busy doing their usual thing that they enjoy, blissfully unaware that these missions even exist.

However you dress it up a wanting a better balance for the greater good you still sound like Ferrari and McLaren did when Brawn GP rocked up and obliterated them both in 2009: Unbalanced, not fair, they're beating us because they understood the rules better!

 

[GilliganTX]

You aren't required to do anything. The entire point of the game is that you can do as you wish.

Mining, exploring, etc. don't pay well in comparison to trading, and never have but that doesn't stop people from doing those roles if they enjoy them.
And it doesn't does it? I've read tons about mining and even more about exploring - doesn't especially float my boat so I don't do it.

Quite a lot of Asps passing through Robigo is the flimsiest evidence imaginable for the case that "majority of the community" is doing this. The majority of the community likely never come near the forums and are busy doing their usual thing that they enjoy, blissfully unaware that these missions even exist.

However you dress it up a wanting a better balance for the greater good you still sound like Ferrari and McLaren did when Brawn GP rocked up and obliterated them both in 2009: Unbalanced, not fair, they're beating us because they understood the rules better!

Can't throw enough Rep at the F1 reference.

 

[Slack]

You aren't required to do anything. The entire point of the game is that you can do as you wish.

Mining, exploring, etc. don't pay well in comparison to trading, and never have but that doesn't stop people from doing those roles if they enjoy them.
And it doesn't does it? I've read tons about mining and even more about exploring - doesn't especially float my boat so I don't do it."

Haha yeah maybe it doesnt float your boat because you cant make a good income. If mining was making 20/m and everything else was 5-10m/hr you would be over there saying its the best thing since sliced bread. Just like if smuggling paid 3m/hr hardly anyone would be doing it.

Quite a lot of Asps passing through Robigo is the flimsiest evidence imaginable for the case that "majority of the community" is doing this. The majority of the community likely never come near the forums and are busy doing their usual thing that they enjoy, blissfully unaware that these missions even exist.

Lets give you that most people playing Elite never learn about smuggling, so your answer to the unbalance between professions is, "Its ok since most people arent aware of it"? Interesting...

I do have some really good news that will probably make you and many others happy.. This is my last post on "What happened to Robigo".

 

[EddyRockSteady]

It was worse than that... Over on Reddit somebody posted the exploit, a few days ago, that basically allows you to make 20-30 million an hour without ever leaving the station....

That has now been partially fixed. Hopefully the Devs fix it in it's entirety.

 

[Hrv123]

I hope Robigo shadow trading wont be nerfed, but resolved smart way. Im having best time ever trading (as this is not smuggling, just moving around contraband goods) in my Cobra ever. I actually almost newer even play with Cobra 3, just moved asp on larger ships. As ex blockade runner in EVE, this "must not be scanned" missions with high payout and all that NPC ships dropping on my head suddenly is giving me my best, stressed and fun, trades run ever. Just this morning two wanted ships dropped on me while I was in silent running positioning myself for boost trough mailbox. All hell get loose, shooting at me and police ships start to move in and I have a 14 mil worth of missions on. I remember I was boosting around station in silent running with all pips in engines while there were attempt to scan me, and all that pulse lasers and multi cannon bullets flying around me and I dropped all 6 heat sinks. I barely cant remember those 5 seconds when I was switching free view in cabin and doing that U turn with a roll while dropping speed and taking out landing gear while passing trough mailbox with no shields way to fast. I know I overshot landing pad, was right under mailbox, did some station superstructure hugging and landed in 30% or something hull. I cannot express my joy for succeeding to land in such conditions not get scanned. Pure fun and joy, and lost 6 months of my life from high blood pressure.

To earn millions fast in moving nothing special goods from one part of galaxy to another is broken and should be changed ".", but until Black Markets are essentially nothing other than place to dump pirated goods, this is only lookalike smuggler gameplay I encounter in ED *Cries* .
I dont care about graphics downgrade, I dont care about advanced scanner one charge discover all, I dont care about settled space full of platinum rich pristine rings and I dont care about RES waves of mindless pirates with fat bounties. But I do care to have fun with smuggling and blockade running against all odds in ships made of paper. FD please give us way to earn in life properly with selling other people children as slaves and selling drugs in stations, daily, to ruin lives of decadent federal and imperial citizens on Black Market

P.S. Simply to make such mission heavily dependable on faction rep. and failing to do 1 or 2 to kill that rep needed. Exploit part fixed. Also to rewrite them and create new crazy valuable goods as 1 million worth "Stolen Masterwork Art" or 2 million "Missing abducted (fill in as wanted) in cryo" that every CMDR in pirate ship would kill to take from you and resell himself and all problem fixed, more crazy content to game added for PvP and everybody happy.

 

[_Fissure]

Haha yeah maybe it doesnt float your boat because you cant make a good income. If mining was making 20/m and everything else was 5-10m/hr you would be over there saying its the best thing since sliced bread. Just like if smuggling paid 3m/hr hardly anyone would be doing it.


Lets give you that most people playing Elite never learn about smuggling, so your answer to the unbalance between professions is, "Its ok since most people arent aware of it"? Interesting...

I do have some really good news that will probably make you and many others happy.. This is my last post on "What happened to Robigo".

You seem to be very fond of telling other people how they think and why they think it. Not really the best way to convince people of your argument.

 

[Garagiste]

Indeed, and I couldn't bring myself to go mining again if it was 50m/h. Cr / hr has never been a thing for me in any case.
But out of the thread now, apparently so not to worry. I'm off to try Robigo for the first time ever - have been operating exclusively out of Quince thus far as a lot of the LR missions there were coming from Empire factions so was good for ranking too. They've dried up though and only getting them from the minor faction, so let's see how it goes.