[Obsidian Ant] Elite Dangerous - The Credits Problem: A Case of Feeling Unrewarded?

[Harry Hates Golf]

Every time I help out another commander, or when I complete a mission successfully, I treat myself to a soft serve ice cream cone.

Golly, that's sure the best kind of reward in the whole world!

 

[Ralph Vargr]

You know, berthing and such would actually be a tremendous money sink for the game- scaled upward for the current amount of assets being held at the station, too.

Done right, it could give incentive to playing the game for everyone. Introduce a new rent fee paid daily, scale it by the amount of assets being held... and voila! Now all the billionaires have their money sink and others have a reason to keep earning money in game to upkeep their ships, modules, and so forth.

Alternatively, you can just park in space or on a planet in a single ship if you're wanting to avoid rental fees... lol

Where is the "Sell All" button for stored ships?

 

[Sylveria]

Where is the "Sell All" button for stored ships?

LOL I'm sure there's quite a few "collectors" who were thinking the same thing!

 

[House0fDerp]

You know, berthing and such would actually be a tremendous money sink for the game- scaled upward for the current amount of assets being held at the station, too.

Done right, it could give incentive to playing the game for everyone. Introduce a new rent fee paid daily, scale it by the amount of assets being held... and voila! Now all the billionaires have their money sink and others have a reason to keep earning money in game to upkeep their ships, modules, and so forth.

Alternatively, you can just park in space or on a planet in a single ship if you're wanting to avoid rental fees... lol

Why do you hate us space poors?

 

[CHristina]

No berthing fee... IT should be a docking fee... my dads 'old' game -- frontier--has a docking fee of $50 ... i can not remember if this fee changes with bigger ships ? I think this is a better idea?

 

[House0fDerp]

No berthing fee... IT should be a docking fee... my dads 'old' game -- frontier--has a docking fee of $50 ... i can not remember if this fee changes with bigger ships ? I think this is a better idea?

Financial incentive for inactivity?

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

You don't play the game for 3 months, come back and find you've got a giant bill for docking fees, possibly emptying your bank account or forcing you to sell ships that you've put a lot of effort into.
Not exactly going to encourage people to get back into the game, is it?

Berthing fees where part of the original proposal for the game but not implemented for some reason. However the idea is that only in game time is counted, not real life time. So if you only spent an hour in the game then was away for a week, then you only pay for that hour, not the entire week.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Just wanted to reiterate my personal views on the matter:

1) Payouts for Activities (Missions, Bounty Hunting, Exploring, Mining, Trading, smuggling, Power Play) should scale somewhat to the amount of effort put in by the player doing the activity (& hopefully new game mechanics will allow for that). For missions this would be scaling with difficulty and/or danger.....with a multiplier for your faction reputation, for mining it might mean that randomly shooting up rocks will yield very little, but using prospectors, detailed scanning & other tools will provide greater reward......both in the payout & the experience. Trading/smuggling could also be better scaled by how far you go to trade (similar to rares ATM) & the danger you put yourself in to complete the trade......& so on & so forth. So basically, people who just want to grind can do so, but should expect little reward, whereas those who want a more varied & interesting experience will get a payout to match.

2) Favours-can't stress this one enough. Rank & Reputation need to be "tradeable currencies", for a whole range of in-game benefits. Discounted ships & modules, "experimental" ships & modules (that can only be purchased with favours), off-the-shelf updgraded modules, shortcuts to Engineers, military rank & power rank, tip offs & rumours related to upcoming CG's & system states, haggling over mission payouts, tweaking of module upgrades.

3) With #2 in mind, diversify what constitutes a payout, for any activity, to reputation, rank & materials.

That seems to be the best way forward IMHO.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

You contradict yourself. Using prospector & scanner is not putting more effort, but less.

There is a *meaningful* effort and *stupid its-like-a-chore-menial-grind* kind of effort. And everyone has own opinion on what these are what game can't know about.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

You contradict yourself. Using prospector & scanner is not putting more effort, but less.

There is a *meaningful* effort and *stupid its-like-a-chore-menial-grind* kind of effort. And everyone has own opinion on what these are what game can't know about.

Here is a completely crazy idea, try to improve your reading, writing & comprehension skills before making any further comment.

 

[Variform]

The assumption that every "profession" should be able to earn the same amount of credits is a little bizarre. This isn't how the world works. Reward should be based on risk and skill. A risky endeavour like, say, piracy or smuggling should have the potential to award much higher credits than something more pedestrian, such as basic trading. But the potential reward should be balanced against the risk - such as bounties, wanted status and potential death. This can be applied to all professions - so mining in a haz rez should be the most profitable, but at the risk of encountering pirates. Delivery a huge amount of rare cargo or top-secret intelligence a long distance should warrant a large reward, but the risk of being interdicted by pirates/assassins should be commensurate to distance and value. It can work for exploration, too - finding "virgin" undiscovered systems should pay a lot more, but those systems could have some risk, such as random encounters with malevolent forces (be it pirates, thargoids, black holes with inescapable mass etc).

Interesting. I think the cost of hunting someone down and being damaged should scale with how dangerous the target relative to your skill and ship and its equipment. Overall repairs have never bothered me too much. But damage from fights should not be trivial.

The mining process is what is rewarding to me. Unfortunately it doesn't ear me a lot of credits. No one mines for Rutile - it's worthless. The only reason to do it if there is a mission to collect it but then again, these missions barely give a big income. The only way to mine, it seems to me, is going for anything between - let's say Bertrandite and Gold. Gold is rare enough to be annoying. If there is a mission to collect x units of it, unless you KNOW where the hot spot is, you can't fill it. It will take many hours. Painite and Palladium, just forget about it. They are bonuses and you get only 1 ton or so, maybe 2 if you are lucky. It also costs you one bin, because collecting 29% you are not gonna empty that for Osmium. It is too rare.

I have a 32T capacity. Missions I take are rarely more than 6 to 8 tons of some ore. Certain things I never encountered, like Beryllium or Thorium. Bigger demands is too time consuming and you might fail the mission. Besides, if you find 6 of 12 Gold and you are full, you get interdicted and you might lose what you had. If it takes more than one run, I rather not do it.

If I knew how the universe worked I might be able to extrapolate where to find certain valuables. But it comes down to searching for pristine. Is there some mechanic to the distribution of certain elements? It escapes me what ring would contain Clathrate and what gas giant ring has Cobalt. Indium? A myth, I am sure. Never found it, never learned what sort of star would puke it to some giant or planet.

So it is the same ole same ole for me. Osmium, Silver, Bertrandite Praseodymium which is stupidly abundant and Samarium. Spiced up with some Gold or a ton of Palladium if you get lucky.

You don't get rich mining and no, I don't want to be victimized by Braben because is a space/science fanboy and actually study material distribution. Only in the last few weeks scientists have gotten clues as to how that works, making observations in space.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

It escapes me what ring would contain Clathrate and what gas giant ring has Cobalt. Indium? A myth, I am sure. Never found it, never learned what sort of star would puke it to some giant or planet.

Maybe you need to do some homework. three of the ring types have minerals specific to them. Ice rings have the most specific ores, as you'd expect.
Cobalt is only available in rocky rings, just as platinum is only found in metallic.
Many of the metals in the game can't be mined directly. Aluminium for instance can't be mined, but it is refined in stations from bauxite - which you can mine in rocky rings.

 

[ebbrell]

No berthing fee... IT should be a docking fee... my dads 'old' game -- frontier--has a docking fee of $50 ... i can not remember if this fee changes with bigger ships ? I think this is a better idea?

I remember it well. I agree with it, larger ships should be more. Not a little amount either
Fines should also be increased for larger ships, may be tied to ships mass.

Therefore I will pay more for my ship with reactive armor, than somebody with light armor on the same ship

And interest per day you dont pay
Failure to pay docking fee results in ships destruction.

 

[Variform]

Maybe you need to do some homework. three of the ring types have minerals specific to them. Ice rings have the most specific ores, as you'd expect.
Cobalt is only available in rocky rings, just as platinum is only found in metallic.
Many of the metals in the game can't be mined directly. Aluminium for instance can't be mined, but it is refined in stations from bauxite - which you can mine in rocky rings.

I know about that. But why does one cluster around a sun have Palladium and another won't. Is it the type of star? And the point was, I don't want to do homework. I did enough chemistry in school. But no one taught me about element distribution. I have actually tried to figure out of certain things have a specific location in rings around gas giants. That lighter elements would be on the outside and heavier more toward the the planet because of gravity. I suppose gravity affects everything based on their molecular weight...or something and the distribution spread is even.

So I found no proof a clathrate is closer or farther from a giant. I haven't figured out what sort of description of some stellar body will signify what can be found there. I believe this is a game flaw based on the fact Braben is a science/space fanboy and likes to be through in how star systems work scientifically. But for me as a player I find it hard to connect some dots here.

 

[fu9ar]

idk, but Methane Clathrate is found in ice rings... You can figure out where the icy rings are for sure by looking at the planet descriptions in the system map.

Here is a list of all of the various minerals you can find, guestimate values, and which ring type you can find them in.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Miner#Values

 

[CHristina]

No... wrong idea... you pay a docking fee on entering a station .. a one off docking fee .. so if you comeback 3 months later . it's been paid automatically on entering the station..

 

[Variform]

Don't know about mining myself, but this is same case where you simply don't know how to trade properly. Now I easily make at least 10-15 mils/h just by *opportunistic* trading. If I decide really focus on it (e.g. use proper trade-optimized ship), it will be even more.

You can't flip the board until your cargo is full. You flip it 3 times and you done - you won't be getting anything new. You have to wait, or change station - same as without flipping. I suspect it will be fixed too, just harder to do due to diff servers and not such big priority anyway since infinite reset is fixed now.

Okay, I am ready to ask now. What is board hopping and how can anyone make over a million credits an hour mining? I fly an Asp X now. I can make over a million per hour? I sincerely doubt it.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

Okay, I am ready to ask now. What is board hopping and how can anyone make over a million credits an hour mining? I fly an Asp X now. I can make over a million per hour? I sincerely doubt it.

Board hopping is getting more mission variety without going to different station - using mechanics that different game mode (e.g. open vs solo) will usually have different board.

You can't get million credits an hour mining. Mining still sucks. However you may fit your ASP with passenger cabins, find missions with long cruise range (e.g. ~40minutes real time), find several to same destination, make "bus run" - and in hour or so you will easily earn ~50mils at very least. Buy a Beluga, fit it with cabins, do many more missions - ok, 150 mils in an hour or 2. Buy Anaconda, fit it with cabins - you will be billionaire and Elite trader in a day or so.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Okay, I am ready to ask now. What is board hopping and how can anyone make over a million credits an hour mining? I fly an Asp X now. I can make over a million per hour? I sincerely doubt it.

Collect (stack) several mining missions, which pay much more than the normal value per tonne of ore. When you have enough - go and mine (take plenty of limpets with you for speed of collection), return and cash in all your missions.