You're absolutely right. AS OF RIGHT NOW bounty hunting is perfect. In a HAS RES you'll make the most money with the most risk. But that is your choice. When this AI upgrade comes and we don't see an increase in pay then bounty hunting could very possibly DIE because all the hunters can't afford to fix their stuff or rebuy their ships because the insurance money isn't cheap, even now.
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Ok see that was me. And man does trading suck. I did smuggling twice at Robigo wasting 3 hours of gameplay and losing 5 million credits in fines that were instantly docked because of getting scanned. Smuggling isn't fun. Trading isn't fun. Mining is kinda fun and exciting like opening a chest or smashing a barrel in an RPG. Combat is tons of fun with tons of thought but it doesn't pay for late game people.
Well another thing about making repairs more expensive again is that it will cause more people to pull the plug if they get in trouble. It will also hurt the armor meta, make income through combat more effective in small ships, and cause pvp fights to stop when the shields drop.
it will do a few positive things however, it will make a warning volley from a pirate carry more weight they won't need to blow you up just to teach you a lesson.
it will add that feeling of victory in a duel even if your opponent gets away, you know it still stings.
it will add more depth to ship ownership making what we take for granted a real concern.
however, while I am in favor of that there are a few quibbles.
1st is that large ships are not balanced correctly against small ships. They are too much of a liability if you get tanked by a group of Cobras running permanent chaff and going cold. In the old days 20% damage on a conda was equivilent to the rebuy of that wing of Cobras. That wing of Cobras you have zero chance against provided they are good pilots. Big ships need to be much tougher than they are now, chaff and running cold should not make you invulnerable. Big ships need to be balanced against wings if they make them prohibitively expensive to use them.
another thing is if you make money easy come easy go (which again I prefer over easy come never go) the ways of generating income need to be viable no matter the profession. The reason it's such a grind to some is because if they want to get ahead they are forced to trade, smuggle, bounty hunt. If none of that interests you or you've become bored with your limited options it becomes a grind.
This is why I agreed with this post despite wanting things harder, an easy come easy go mentality makes the game a lot more engaging and surprising.
Illegal activities need to make the most, or rather they need the capacity to with the greatest penalties for failure.
sandbox smuggling, piracy, long range smuggling, rare trading all need attention.
Sandbox smuggling needs to be expanded with new high risk expensive wares where a full load can often be several times the rebuy of your ship. Smuggling also needs to be profitable outside of powerplay bonuses, it's barely more profitable as it is than trading. It also needs to become a lot more risky and become a bounty offense if scanned. It needs to feel like smuggling not fast trading.
piracy needs a lot of attention as it really is the only profession in the game at the moment with actual risk, but it has nearly no reward. Adding new smuggling wares that are super expensive makes the profession more viable. Make NPCs viable targets to reduce the downtime waiting on players. Add new piracy modules and weapons for non lethal piracy to take place. Make the security responce adequate to the pirates activities, ship class, and number of players. Make anarchy space matter, big fines and big response from authorities in policed space. Make trade routes that have better profits run though anarchy space to route traffic.
rare item trading does not scale, once you're in a type 7 it dies off (not counting long distance smuggling) trading rares in open is very risky it's a great gaming experience that sadly ends so early.
i propose linking your quota of rares directly to your trade rank and removing the "refresh" of the commodity market to fill your quota. You land and buy what you can depending on your rank. Make more illegal rares and have the bounty scale if caught to be based off of the sale price you would have got for them where you got caught.
long range smuggling needs to just be scaled properly, remove the mode switching and just add a mission refresh button. Scale the profit per ton delivered linearly with your trade rank. Then it become viable without being broken for all players. Again make getting caught for smuggling a bounty offense instead of a fine. Make the police follow the rules, make the police response and skill scale. Keep it hard if not more difficult but make the police and pirates follow the same rules we do.
make it impossible to weasel out of a bounty, if you die you have to pay it, period. Don't want to pay bounties? Fly in anarchy space or keep your nose clean.
after that make all legal activities more or less equal in average income and add scaling to all professions based on rank, ship class, and number of players.
mining needs to be expanded and buffed a lot have profits scale with trade rank, it should by all rights make more than trading.
trading needs to be more dynamic, with market fluctuations in both supply and demand being influenced by what is traded. Bring in a lot of computer components and see a rise in technology based wares and commodities. Scale profit bonuses with rank.
exploration needs some serious love time per credit gain is through the floor, increase it, a lot. Add new anomalies, comets quasars ect.
salvaging, make it a proper career add sources of income, and buff them to match both terrestrial and space based salvaging.
Bounty farming, have it scale in difficulty, scale on ship class, scale per ships in a wing, and scale in reward.
bounty hunting make it even more difficult and the most rewarding, add tier 2 NPCs.
make all missions guaranteed ways of making money but make them second to their sandbox counterpart.
if all of the professions are viable, the money is easy come easy go, and the difficulty and reward scale properly what a game Elite would be. Difficult, fun, and rewarding despite your profession, ship, or skill scaling along with you. That's what blazing your own trail should be about. Not being forced to trade, smuggle, or bounty hunt.
