Passenger mission experiment

[Suvi Anwar]

Found I can get 192 cabins in my corvette and still have a decent shield/hull defense, so now I just destroy anything that interdicts me...

So very much this. I did the same with my Corvette, I can kill any npc human in the game and still haul almost 200 passengers simultaneously!
The 1.6-1.9m ls missions are a good balance for me, takes about 30 minutes travel and I can catch up on other personal things while in cruise.

 

[Genus]

Well kind of. I'm of a mind that thinks that rather than them spoiling peoples' fun they're doing it because they're relying on long grinds to sustain player activity. It's a substitute for content, the kind of content that makes people want to log in and play because it's fun and engaging. They haven't added anything like that since Horizons and are trying desperately to keep the grind alive.

Indeed, one could be forgiven that the greatest factor is development going on elsewhere.

For example. The Themepark games lifecycle breaking and Star Citizen being really good on release, would result in all the ships ever made across the versions of Elite, being given an upgrade to modern designs and shipped in the same week.

Like they haven't been sitting on all the ship designs for the last three years anyway, drip feeding them in juuuust enough to keep people playing.

Five years since the Kickstarter launched. Four years since I jumped in and three since I bought the Lifetime Pass/ I'm beginning to believe the latter was meant literally.

They are running out of excuses and the next cycle can not come quick enough.

To "meddle" in the methods players have found and shared in order to fast track funds and actually begin to enjoy what's here already, outside of the grind and rank locks for decent gear would be financial suicide, without the first good update getting sorted.

I think they know that the wick is getting low though. Played it quite well, but April next year needs to blow people away to the point they commit to the game long term, otherwise it's all been for not a lot.

 

[Schmack]

So very much this. I did the same with my Corvette, I can kill any npc human in the game and still haul almost 200 passengers simultaneously!
The 1.6-1.9m ls missions are a good balance for me, takes about 30 minutes travel and I can catch up on other personal things while in cruise.

Smart way to make a lot of Cr, dumb game design to reward players for AFK more than actually playing the game. I ran a few to a station farther than what you mentioned, and no joke I took a shower and ate while enroute during the 1st trip (was getting interdicted as I came back into my office) and did laundry on the next trip. Both times I just pointed the ship and left for 40m or so. It makes a lot of progress, but it's not really gameplay, not really.

 

[Hermes]

I ran a few to a station farther than what you mentioned, and no joke I took a shower and ate while enroute during the 1st trip (was getting interdicted as I came back into my office) and did laundry on the next trip. Both times I just pointed the ship and left for 40m or so.

Most times you'll be ok doing that because interdictions usually take place at the start and end of a run, but on rare occasions I've been interdicted in the middle of a run (once midway through the run while moving 1090c). The last time it happened I noticed the NPC spawned ahead of me, I passed them, and then they started interdicting me seconds later.

 

[Genus]

Most times you'll be ok doing that because interdictions usually take place at the start and end of a run, but on rare occasions I've been interdicted in the middle of a run (once midway through the run while moving 1090c). The last time it happened I noticed the NPC spawned ahead of me, I passed them, and then they started interdicting me seconds later.

Oh wow. Did you target the NPC and discover what kind of module allowed it to jump into the system away from the Nav Beacon? Could be very useful against the Thargoids! ;-)

 

[duckofdeath]

I tried a run to Katzenstein as it is quite near my usual haunts.
Just used my AspX with a couple of econ cabins thrown in.
I dont have good rep with anyone giving bulk jobs and didnt mode switch.

First run (about an hour in SC) paid just about 100MCr, which begs 2 questions.
1) How do players stick with this game style? (which is as much fun as watching washing drying)
2) How can the game justify paying 100MCr/h using a cheap non-optimized ship, with zero effort, when the most expensive items in the game only cost a few hundred million?

There is a recent thread on the forum showing that most dedicated and long term players have averaged about 1MCr/h by comparison.

This has to be massively nerfed - yesterday.

You're comparing apples to pears. Most things in the game can be pushed to around, or over, 100 million credits per hour. But, it gets "grindy" as you're forced to do one thing, and one thing only. That's why average earnings levels out around a million per hour. Because people tends to prefer doing other stuff.

 

[Suvi Anwar]

I make right around 120m CR per run where I am now, and it takes anywhere between 45-60 minutes with board flipping and cruising, but between runs I usually spend 45-60 minutes goofing around doing other things, running to an engineer, ect, so really, i'm not making 120/hr, the average is somewhere south of 30m with all the time I waste between revenue runs. I may have a virtual gold mine at my disposal, but doing that solid for hours on end just isn't appealing, for me.

 

[lecorsobreton]

I'm almost 600h into the game and I'm a "Dangerous Entrepreneur Pathfinder". I must suck at the game. I'm happy when I can make 4m an hour, and when I do, it's because a lucrative mission popped up (I don't board flip). I stopped caring about credits/h because that's what drove me away from the game in the first place.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Deadly/Elite/Elite/CQC-Is-Dead

Been that way for a while, and I think my Combat gauge might be stuck. I'll try banging on it with some Elite Anaconda wreckage later.

As for passenger missions, had a very nice 9.7m 12 hop. 3 stop run last night, plus a side-stop for a ton of animal meat - hungry guests I suppose. 7 people / 2000 pounds of meat = 285.7 pounds of meat per person. There may be Outbreak of IBS somewhere soon.

 

[Flavourless]

...Most things in the game can be pushed to around, or over, 100 million credits per hour...

Not in my ED world, and not without exploits like mission stacking, or cheap practices like board flipping.

As a further experiment I have sourced, outfitted, and engineered a dedicated ship for this activity. An Orca (had a Beluga for a long time but never one of these) which boosts to 600, jumps 40ly loaded, and runs at 22% heat - nice ship.
Doing a run now with 4 separate PAX paying 37, 29, 46, and 40MCr, plus 20 data delivery missions "worth" a total of 55MCr. ( No I am not allied with the supplying factions, got friendly with a couple with the first run)

Given that it is to a single station, with one jump and a 55 minute SC, and that I spent about 30 minutes collecting the contracts (with mode switch at a single station for research purposes) - I will make over 207MCr at about 140MCr/h.

The ship cost me around 70Mcr, and I will use about 100Cr in fuel. So this ship pays for itself in 30 minutes.

The game has gone to pot, and this level of income for so little effort cannot be justified.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

The game has gone to pot, and this level of income for so little effort cannot be justified.

What's your issue - if you think its too easy for you, then don't do it?

 

[Trinity Star]

This has to be massively nerfed - yesterday.

Which roughly translates to: "You must play the game I WANT it to be played"

 

[Ted Striker]

The game has gone to pot, and this level of income for so little effort cannot be justified.

Very, very little in this game requires "effort". The word you're looking for is actually "grinding" because that's what this game forces you to do. People find ways to mitigate that, and in this specific case we have found a way to make good money that is completely legit and working exactly as intended.

Nobody wants to grind in ED. In other games the grind can still be fun. Take, oh let's say Diablo 2. You'd run Mephisto or Baal over and over grinding for rares, uniques and runes but it was still fun. You had a lot of fun spells and abilities to use, it was action packed, there was good music playing. In ED you basically play Space Truck Simulator without the nice visual environments. It's one of the main criticisms of the game. And the money grind isn't even close to as mind numbing as navy rank grinding.

So we found a good way to make money that doesn't require the constant "request docking, dock, mission board hop, take off, jump, request docking, dock, mission board hop, take off, jump, repeat every few minutes ad nauseum" grind we all hate. It still requires it but in 45 minute intervals with a very good payout which makes it feel like much less of a grind. It's almost (not quite but almost) enjoyable.

 

[Schmack]

Very, very little in this game requires "effort". The word you're looking for is actually "grinding" because that's what this game forces you to do. People find ways to mitigate that, and in this specific case we have found a way to make good money that is completely legit and working exactly as intended.

Nobody wants to grind in ED. In other games the grind can still be fun. Take, oh let's say Diablo 2. You'd run Mephisto or Baal over and over grinding for rares, uniques and runes but it was still fun. You had a lot of fun spells and abilities to use, it was action packed, there was good music playing. In ED you basically play Space Truck Simulator without the nice visual environments. It's one of the main criticisms of the game. And the money grind isn't even close to as mind numbing as navy rank grinding.

So we found a good way to make money that doesn't require the constant "request docking, dock, mission board hop, take off, jump, request docking, dock, mission board hop, take off, jump, repeat every few minutes ad nauseum" grind we all hate. It still requires it but in 45 minute intervals with a very good payout which makes it feel like much less of a grind. It's almost (not quite but almost) enjoyable.

At which point the entire "fun" aspect of the grind is in finding these rare opportunities to rake it in. So someone comes along and wants those opportunities to be taken away, because every single aspect of your career choice in the game needs to pay exactly the same Cr/min.

Finding a situation where you can make a lot of Cr doing something you don't mind doing is fairly rare. Finding one where you can really build your bank account even if it means buying a new large hull ship and outfitting with things you never really use otherwise.

I won't say there should be more of these opportunities, but there shouldn't be fewer.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

I won't say there should be more of these opportunities, but there shouldn't be fewer.

I agree. FDev (someone at FDev?) seems to maintain (maintained?) a notion that "to reach our endgame, you should play for several months at the very least". This is completely stupid for a computer game, especially when it does not really have enough of diverse content to provide for all this time - and mediocre amount of content just stretched ridiculously thin by artificial slow-downs and becomes super-repetitive.

Imagine any kind of other game, where to reach "Act 2" you need to play for several weeks - not because its very long & interesting Act 1, but because you need to kill stupendous amount of same enemies due to miniscule rewards they provide. Just because developer thought "if we slow it down, people will be *forced* to *enjoy* it for longer! yay, brilliant idea!"

 

[Scoob]

I've actually been dabbling with Passenger Missions of late, mainly because someone suggested it might be a good option in my newly acquired Type 7. I sort of discovered by accident that the destination station distance and faction reputation appear to be the key. I'm based out of Shinrata, so was simply taking passenger missions from there, then picking up the next one at the new station and repeating. I eventually found one paying 18 million credits - I'd never seen more than 1 million before, putting Passenger missions on par with normal trading from a time and money perspective. I thought I'd hit the jackpot of RNG luck, but when I arrived in the system the target station was showing as 0.14 ly away! It took me an hour and five minutes - full throttle most of the way - until I arrived. I was probably making around 5-6 million cr per hour on a looped trade run, so the passenger mission was more lucrative, if not very involved. Still this suited me as I wanted a relaxed play session.

One thing I did discover though, is how long in-system flights in FSD massively impact ship integrity. I assume it's due to me hitting speeds of 1,700 x the speed of light as an hour of travel over several jumps doesn't appear to do much wear at all. After just one long trip, my Integrity was at 53% - I've never seen it below about 99% before lol - and my paint was all peeling off. which sorta looked cool lol. Still, repairing integrity - I guess it's like getting the ship serviced - isn't expensive, though I guess forgetting to do some might be.

For me, being quite new to these missions, they do appear quite lucrative, but they take a time investment and are not necessarily that involved. So, a fairly relaxing way to play, from time to time. The rest of the night I switched to my Imperial Eagle and met up with a mate for some bounty hunting, so quite a different pace of gameplay. I enjoyed both.

So, cheesing the mission system aside, the rewards for the time invested seem ok to me. Generally, that 18 million cr mission being a rarity, earnings seem on par with normal trading in my Type 7 when it comes to returns. Perhaps things will increase further as my rep does.

Note: If I see several missions to the same station, I will of course take them all if I am able. However, I've never done the logging thing to get extra missions generated. Easy money isn't as rewarding. I mean, if I'd managed to stack say five of those 18 million cr missions, well, that'd be daft lol. Still, if you enjoy that, go for it, though I'd not be surprised if Frontier try to stop this exploit - still, they've not done it so far, so maybe they never will!

Scoob.

 

[shadragon]

What's outrageous is with such payouts you could lose your ship once every three hours and still make a lofty profit. And buy any ship in the game that isn't rank-locked.

Making money has not been an issue for over a year now. Anyone who makes billions does not affect my game in the slightest. It's not mandatory to do these passenger missions though. Those that do will only cheat themselves.

If Frontier wanted to address this as an issue they just need to make the mission harder based on the payout. Higher pay = more risk. If stacking several, then the risk should be logarithmically more difficult.

Take 5+ stacked missions and be interdicted by a Wing of four Elite Vultures on every jump sort of thing. At least then you'll earn it.

 

[Red Anders]

The game has gone to pot, and this level of income for so little effort cannot be justified.

Pious drivel. Get off your soapbox for God's sake.

 

[MUSKETEER]

The less grind the better imho.

I can spend time doing stuff I like more.

But Trade Elite rank is just a joke now. Half a day of passenger missions to get it

They should keep the payouts but increase Elite rank requirement.. that would make everyone happy... those who like to grind and those who don't [haha]

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Nobody wants to grind in ED. In other games the grind can still be fun. Take, oh let's say Diablo 2. You'd run Mephisto or Baal over and over grinding for rares, uniques and runes but it was still fun. You had a lot of fun spells and abilities to use, it was action packed, there was good music playing. In ED you basically play Space Truck Simulator without the nice visual environments. It's one of the main criticisms of the game. And the money grind isn't even close to as mind numbing as navy rank grinding.

Yes. That is "grind" - doing the same thing over and over, for that super rare item you may never get anyways. Elite really doesn't have it. The closest you might get is looking for a specific item - like the whole 15 minutes I spend yesterday looking for some Proto Radiolic Alloys - found 9 in one Signal Source. Praise be to RNGesus.

Or perhaps the 12 entire minutes I spent looking to replenish my Tungsten supply (and picked up a very unexpected 6 polonium, 3000 Ct worth of dead skimmers and a cargo hold full of Platinum, Jadite, and Nerve Agents), might come close. Again, Praise be to RNGesus.

Pretty much everything else just happens as you play. Need CIF? It's in the mission boards. Exquisite Focus Crystals? They're in there too. Credits? Yep, got those as well. Sure, you can narrow your focus, but you'll miss more opportunities that way.

Rewind time, just over a year ago, I was getting my start, downloading and installing Elite, scanning through the forums and the web site, particularly looking at the ship yard.
I saw the Fer de Lance, and wanted one. I saw the Imperial Clipper and wanted one. I saw the Federal Corvette and wanted one. I saw the Orca and wanted one...

Finally got into the game, stuffed into some rusty old sidewinder that smelled like old beer and tears, with a stain on the seat I didn't want to identify. Flipped through the local ship yard, saw the price of new ships, my 1k credit balance and though "You've got to be kidding me!".

I took a few missions, running data around for a few k-credits, did the math, figured at this rate it would take around 70 hours just to get a bigger ship. Decided to check out this SRV thing they stuffed in my little ship, and drove around, found some cargo that was actually worth something - Platinum, Gold and Jadite. Cool... I was hooked on this salvage thing, and about an hour later, I was sitting in an Adder, with a good bit more cargo space. Ran a few more missions, landed on a few more planets, did some more scavenging, ran a few more missions, even got blown up a few times... and then I spotted it - a station selling an Orca... and the price made my stomach drop. 47 million? I did the math again.. this time I was looking at some 1484 hours of non-stop.. ugh.. and then I found out that the Clipper and the Corvette were both rank-locked on top of it, which meant...

Oh, it meant doing missions for Federation-aligned factions and Imperial-aligned factions. So I picked myself a spot, it just so happened to be an Imperial System, and I started running missions. At first, a few k-credits, then 10k credits, 50k credits, 100k credits, 1.2 million credits - hmm.. my standings went up, my payouts went up. A bit more calculating and, that 21 million credit clipper would be paid for in just over 18 more missions.. ugh, if I could survive! The NPC's were frightful, my little ship barely held up, and getting blown up only cost me credits... it seemed so far away, and this Navy rank think.. I hit 100% soon enough, but had nowhere near the credits nor the ship capabilities to keep up with the missions that were coming available... what to do what to do... I opted to buy another ship, something with more cargo capacity, so I opted for a Keelback. It wasn't very popular, but it seemed pretty rugged, and had a lot more space than my Adder, so I went for it, rationalizing that by the time this Rank finally moved I'd have made back what I spent... except my rank still hadn't moved, but then, neither had my credit balance much.. so back to mission running. I stayed at it for a while, and eventually settled into a nice little loop that had me bouncing between Federation systems and Imperial systems, so I was pulling missions for both. Jump ahead about a week, and I happened to notice this Federation Navy Mission to deliver some celebratory beer. I could deliver beer, so I did, and my rank went up, still at 100%, so I reasoned I must have another rank under there, and it turns out it I did. Several in fact - so many in fact that by the time I'd reached a point that I wasn't at 100% any more I could buy a Federal Drop Ship. And I could actually afford it, but I still wanted that Clipper, and had 100% Imperial rank that had been hanging around for quite some time, so off to my Imperial home I went, and did some poking about until I found some Imperial Navy Missions I could run, and I did. And I found I rather liked the look of the Imperial Courier, and it was well within my budget, so I bought one, upgraded it a bit, flew it around Empire space while I was working on my ranking, and found myself two ranks short of that Clipper.

I was a few credits shy too, and was heading into a couple weeks into the game. I opted to give a try at these Community Goals since they were just hauling missions. I wound up buying a Type-7 by accident, but figured I could use it to finish the CG, sell it, make back most of what I spent, plus some credits from the CG and...

Well, first off, this was no ordinary CG. This was the Moira CG. It ended while I was at work, but I left sitting in the top 25%, and slipped into the top 50%. And the payout was bugged. But bugged in a good way - I wound up with a bit over 200 million in credits, bought that FdL I wanted, bought that Orca I wanted, kept the Type-7 I didn't really want, but came to appreciate, took my new toys over to Imperial space to see what I could do about those last few ranks, and had a nice, comfortable level of credits left... which wouldn't last that long once I did get my hands on that Clipper... credits came and went, rank accumulated, and I had just about forgotten what it was like that first day, seeing those prices and wondering how it could ever be possible. It is, and it happens fastest when you're not watching it directly. Play, enjoy, learn, and you'll have more than you know what to do with before you know it.