Mode switching for missions and Smeaton Orbital [200mill/hour]

[Saxon Kili]

You are literally awarded with the highest cash-per-hour returns for

a) using mode switching for missions
b) literally NOT playing the game for 40 minutes while AFK in supercruise.

.....

Hey, now, Supercruise IS fun gameplay. It lets us feel how BIG space is.... haha.

So, about making lots of money quickly. God I just hate when people earn money really fast and then they ... uhhhh ... they ... wait, give me a minute. I need to think of a reason why this is bad. Nothing is really coming to mind. Darn it.

Hey, I'll get back to you, ok?

 

[MarkAusten]

It would be interesting to know how many players who will never spend the additional millions (from any high pay activity) still do them because for them it is fun - to max credits/time or whatever.

I'll hold my hand up for this. I set myself a target in Cr terms and then set about trying to reach that target using a particular method. Right now I'm using passenger missions. Previous methods have been trading, data missions, exploring... well, you get the point but the bottom line is my account's bottom line.

 

[jasonbirder]

People like making shed loads of money that's their perogative, people like getting easy access to the biggest/most expensive ships and modules and not having to worry about the consequences of replacement that's cool too...
And on one level at least when people say things like

use an efficient source of credits to afford the things that I want

Within four days I had 2 billion CR, Duke and Rear Admiral and Elite trade rank

I set myself a target in Cr terms

There's a frankness and honesty that's refreshing rather than hiding behind the fig-leaves of "Play-Style" "Playing their Own Way" "Blazing their own trail"
But surely if its OK to say hey Frontier leave things as they are we like the current easy credit dispensers...
Its ALSO OK for people who want to feel Ike they're a lone pilot in a tough universe...a little Guy in the big black...to feel that the game should reward you MORE SLOWLY and that the challenges should be TOUGHER can have their say too....
At the end of the day I suspect we're all a little bit of both rather than absolute Purists...or absolute Cash hoarders...
I often feel like I've an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other...
The devil says...GO ON...do a few Allen Hub runs and buy that Reactive Surface Composite...but the angel say...NO JAY! Spend weeks making 7 Million (!!! I know pathetic huh) doing teh Ancient Guardian Mission all on your own without looking at any of the guides/maps/co-ordinates/spreadsheets and Instructions...
To me...it'd be nice if Frontier made the Siren call of that naughty old Devil (Go on jay, Go on...YOU could have done the Palin Mission if you'd just looked at the how-to guide) if his voice was a LITTLE bit quieter!

 

[Kubicide]

I get your point a little but the facts don't add up. Is there an epidemic of systems being flipped by these people who are board flipping? No there isn't. The BGS is barely even noticeable unless you dedicate your time to it. Most players couldn't care less about it and don't notice. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of players don't even know it exists.

You say it unbalances the game/rate and progression but it really doesn't since my gameplay has never affected yours. To go forward from this point you would need to provide data in support of your claims but I thin we all know that ED isn't that complicated enough for players to affect each others gameplay significantly.

It's also the slowest "cheat" ever. Most cheaters on say, PUBG kill you in seconds. In ED you're saying that a 2 week long battle over changing the letters in a system is the same?

Yeah and I'd take this first part a step further and ask even if the systems are flipping quicker what's the net effect? Ego's get hurt in those player groups that 'own' a system maybe? What else? Trivial IMO.




The bigger surprise here is that lack of response by FDev. Once upon a time, cash-grabs like this would be shut down in days (anyone remember rare's being clamped down ASAP - how about the 'seeking luxury' trade ships - and they were generating much less income per hour).


Once upon a time, severely imbalanced and/or over-powered things would be shut down within days. Nowadays, FDev do not react at all or react months later. What message does that send to the community? It could be "we don't care that much anymore about Elite because we're busy utilizing our resources on other projects". Or it could mean something else. But we do not know. No 'tin-foil hat' or doom'n'gloom thought at all. Simple facts. FDev no longer invest the time and attention into this game like they once did. Fact.



So until FDev decides to react - or not - rack up the credits everyone! Don't complain. Simply be happy for the easy 'money'.

 

[V'larr]

Are you actually simultaneously complaining that the long SC missions make money too quickly and that SC is too slow?

Well, yeah, in a nutshell.

 

[Reckless Troll]

WHY IS IT A PROBLEM!? I never really got the whole, "you're a novice combat pilot, so you shouldn't be in an Anaconda". Or, "Big ships aren't the best, the small ones are". Or, "There's no reason to rush to expensive ships". People want to fly in a ship they deem their favorite, and if that ends up being a fully decked out 800+ mill Cutter... then so the F what!? Let them. I want to play the game in my favorite ship. I don't want to grind 300+ hours worth of game play just to start playing the game the way I want, because I need to wait to get the ship I want to play the game with. Let people gather up money however they want. If they make a billion an hour, so be it. Let them. It's of zero concern to anyone else, except the people flipping out about it... just let it go. Maybe Fdev haven't shut it down because it's "working as intended". Let people play the game at their pace, why does that pace have to be restricted by how much virtual currency you can earn? The game is about having fun. Some people have more fun in an Anaconda than an Eagle, pathetically low paying missions, among other low income play styles, have been a burden for far too long for people that want a bigger prettier ship.

 

[CMDR Dreamstate]

I would just like to add that the OP is over-reacting at 200/mil per hour.

I've spent the past 5 days doing these economy missions - 8 hours average per day - so to sum it up:

Time spent: 40 hours

Credits earned: 1,950,000,000cr

Average hourly earnings: 1,950,000,000 / 40 = 48,750,000cr p/h

In that time, I've only managed to get 3 factions Allied, 2 Friendly, and 1 Cordial.

Most of the time I still have some cabin space left because of time restraints, some of the time I get scanned and my missions fail (despite silent running / heat sinks), or time runs out and the mission reward is deducted by the passengers, and I have to put up with regular interdictions.

All in all, the credits per hour feels right for an end-game player like myself:

Combat: 47% Dangerous
Trade: Elite
Exploration: Elite

Yes, board hopping between Open/Solo/Private did or did not help - sometimes it's all down to RNG. I regularly found that I had no missions to accept for between 30-45 minutes despite board hopping. If I was lucky, both Open and Solo filled the majority of my cabins. A vast amount of systems fill the boards far more easily than the ones going to the other system to travel for ages.

These feel balanced for end-game and for my ranks, on a personal level. This allows me to buy all the low-mid range ships I haven't had the chance to try yet and will allow me to fully deck out a high-end ship - and afford rebuys.

I do not see a problem with these missions at all, and 40 hours is a considerable amount of time playing the game (doing nothing = boring). It isn't fantastic, it's a grind, but it is worth my time.

Ship used: Anaconda (all economy cabins except 1x 4 slot cargo rack for mission hand-ins to throw away reward cargo).

 

[Numenor1379]

I would just like to add that the OP is over-reacting at 200/mil per hour.

I've spent the past 5 days doing these economy missions - 8 hours average per day - so to sum it up:

Time spent: 40 hours

Credits earned: 1,950,000,000cr

Average hourly earnings: 1,950,000,000 / 40 = 48,750,000cr p/h

In that time, I've only managed to get 3 factions Allied, 2 Friendly, and 1 Cordial.

Most of the time I still have some cabin space left because of time restraints, some of the time I get scanned and my missions fail (despite silent running / heat sinks), or time runs out and the mission reward is deducted by the passengers, and I have to put up with regular interdictions.

All in all, the credits per hour feels right for an end-game player like myself:

Combat: 47% Dangerous
Trade: Elite
Exploration: Elite

Yes, board hopping between Open/Solo/Private did or did not help - sometimes it's all down to RNG. I regularly found that I had no missions to accept for between 30-45 minutes despite board hopping. If I was lucky, both Open and Solo filled the majority of my cabins. A vast amount of systems fill the boards far more easily than the ones going to the other system to travel for ages.

These feel balanced for end-game and for my ranks, on a personal level. This allows me to buy all the low-mid range ships I haven't had the chance to try yet and will allow me to fully deck out a high-end ship - and afford rebuys.

I do not see a problem with these missions at all, and 40 hours is a considerable amount of time playing the game (doing nothing = boring). It isn't fantastic, it's a grind, but it is worth my time.

Ship used: Anaconda (all economy cabins except 1x 4 slot cargo rack for mission hand-ins to throw away reward cargo).

This completely. 200M/hr is only possible if all the stars align and you have the needed trade rank and faction standing. 40-70M/hr is usually what happens as it takes a good hour to fill up a ship (or not even fill it). The you go do the run in another 40ish minutes and net 80-140M Cr.

The main thing is this is efficient when comparing it to other credit earning methods. Except credit farming is all you are going to do on this. You won't be gaining much Fed Rank, nor will you appreciably be working towards Engineers or their unlocks. There are downsides to using this method.

 

[Nilt]

There's a lot of real world analogies in this thread. [haha][haha] I wonder how many of the people here who are against the high earnings, are also against people who earn big money in the real world for "little effort"?

Seriously though - there's always been big earning options in the game, and so far - after all these years, those things still haven't broken the game. Maybe a case of "chicken little" then? Complaining about excessive payouts is getting a lot like all those doom threads.

Right? The thing that gets me is when people whine that Frontier isn't "fixing" this despite the fact that it's very much intentional so the claims of it breaking the BGS are absurd. They did this to encourage folks to go to these otherwise ignored stations. They did it on purpose and somehow I am reasonably certain they managed to account for that in the BGS.

 

[kofeyh]

yep i agree... and indeed i am NOT saying those players are wrong, and from what i can tell, few people are... What i AM saying - as are others, is dont tell me having a money printing machine does not affect my game because it DOES.

It doesn't; credits aren't a player transferable thing. If they were; then 100% yes. But they aren't. It might offend a sense of fairness? Sure. But the game isn't fair. It might not be liked? Sure. Not everyone wants to do the same thing. But it's not implicitly impacting the experience. There is no direct connection.

That the game is stupidly inconsistent, that it has an over-reliance on RNG, and that commanders still feel their experience is somehow sacrosanct and will continue to be incensed that choice exists, isn't something Frontier is really going to address. This was always a game+sim; never just a sim. It's a hard thing to accept, or even believe. But this is the case. It's always been the case. And will always be the case.

The BGS has built in constraints, there are multiple modes with unbalanced numbers of commanders, two walled gardens, multiple platforms. There will never be a truely correct and unified 'way' to play. I get that that might be frustrating. But it's not really going to change. Ways to earn will come and go, but remain they will.

 

[Suvi Anwar]

AT this point, everyone in this thread is nothing more than a scratched record. Everyone just keeps trumpeting the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

It's pretty obvious there is no more "discussion" going on.


Can this thing be put to rest?

 

[bootsam]

Then the people in this thread would spread to others. Keeping them here is containment and allows us to freely go about our moaning elsewhere in peace.

 

[jasonbirder]

Part of the problem is...that from what was once a VERY popular Genre....Elite is barring a few mods of old games and some alphas the ONLY spaceflight sim/game on the market....so at one end of the spectrum you have people who want more realistic systems and flight challenging AI and a functioning economy/poltical system...at the other end you have people who want to fly coevettes/cutters have player made bases farm hundreds of AI in RES/CZs with little risk as they're in overpowerwd ships and all kinds of activities you might associate with MMOs - it is in fairness IMPOSSIBLE to cater for both in one game....but as irs the only current choice we'reall playing in the same Universe...maybe instead of open/solo split ED could have had it set up ad easy/hard or game/sim and split the player base that way...

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

.At one end of the spectrum you have people who want more realistic systems and flight challenging AI and a functioning economy/poltical system...at the other end you have people who want to fly coevettes/cutters have player made bases farm hundreds of AI in RES/CZs with little risk as they're in overpowerwd ships and all kinds of activities you might associate with MMOs .

I think this is about the top and bottom of it!.... That said i think you paint an overly negative picture of the 2nd extreme (tho that may be my interpreting wrong).

Some features in the game - PvP in cutters for instance - can get very expensive if you are potentially losing a cutter every 60 mins in PvP competition for instance... that is nothing to do with wanting the game to be easier... but it does created a demand for a lot of credits fast.

The problem is for me (and i am biased because that kind of gameplay does nothing for me) that kind of gameplay flies in the face of the kind of game I felt ED was ptiched as being. what insurance company in the universe would happily fork out new ships willy nilly just taking 4-5% insurance excess from their clients.

to some who play the game, questions like "why would insurance companies put up with this" or "why would the number of passengers prepared to pay may 100s of times more than the value of the actual ship they are travelling in, in totally safe space be never ending" is a non issue, because its a space pew pew game... who cares.

for others however this kind of disconnect, where you CAN blow up as many ships as you like without any effect so long as you can afford that insurance excess, and where never ending cash cows just keep on paying is a horrible feature.

like kofeyh says .... maybe i missunderstood the KSer, the dev diaries and the DDF and elite was never meant to have a proper economy or actual plausible systems in place.. if so that is on me..... but that was not the impression i got. I WAS expecting a far more complex BGS and economy than what we have <shrugs>

 

[Obsidian Ant]

I would just like to add that the OP is over-reacting at 200/mil per hour.

I've spent the past 5 days doing these economy missions - 8 hours average per day - so to sum it up:

Time spent: 40 hours

Credits earned: 1,950,000,000cr

Average hourly earnings: 1,950,000,000 / 40 = 48,750,000cr p/h

In that time, I've only managed to get 3 factions Allied, 2 Friendly, and 1 Cordial.

Most of the time I still have some cabin space left because of time restraints, some of the time I get scanned and my missions fail (despite silent running / heat sinks), or time runs out and the mission reward is deducted by the passengers, and I have to put up with regular interdictions.

All in all, the credits per hour feels right for an end-game player like myself:

Combat: 47% Dangerous
Trade: Elite
Exploration: Elite

Yes, board hopping between Open/Solo/Private did or did not help - sometimes it's all down to RNG. I regularly found that I had no missions to accept for between 30-45 minutes despite board hopping. If I was lucky, both Open and Solo filled the majority of my cabins. A vast amount of systems fill the boards far more easily than the ones going to the other system to travel for ages.

These feel balanced for end-game and for my ranks, on a personal level. This allows me to buy all the low-mid range ships I haven't had the chance to try yet and will allow me to fully deck out a high-end ship - and afford rebuys.

I do not see a problem with these missions at all, and 40 hours is a considerable amount of time playing the game (doing nothing = boring). It isn't fantastic, it's a grind, but it is worth my time.

Ship used: Anaconda (all economy cabins except 1x 4 slot cargo rack for mission hand-ins to throw away reward cargo).

This is easily the best post in this thread!

As you say, 40 hours is a very long time - even by MMO standards that is a big time investment in a single activity. I agree that in terms of "end-game" this feels just about right.

It's nice to see someone posting facts based upon information they have gathered, as opposed to just theorycrafting and posting their feelings and "concerns".

EDIT: That said you will probably earn at a slightly higher rate once you have all those factions allied.

 

[jasonbirder]

45 Million an hour seems right? Ill check out of this thread...if thats the average cr/hr people expect...bear in mind thats probably c1000 system scans with a couple of ELWs or WWs in in most...or about 225 top tier bounties (4/minute) or probably 20 times what you'd get from being in the top 10 of a CG (which would take MORE than an hour obviously)

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

It's nice to see someone posting facts based upon information they have gathered, as opposed to just theorycrafting and posting their feelings and "concerns".

hmmm I admit i have not watched your (very good) videos in a while (sadly time is limited of late) but have you not been guilty of exactly the same yourself?

 

[Obsidian Ant]

45 Million an hour seems right? Ill check out of this thread...if thats the average cr/hr people expect...bear in mind thats probably c1000 system scans with a couple of ELWs or WWs in in most...or about 225 top tier bounties (4/minute) or probably 20 times what you'd get from being in the top 10 of a CG (which would take MORE than an hour obviously)

Frontier manually set the Palin missions at Obsidian Orbital to pay out ~15 to 20 million each. It was easily possible to do 3 of those per hour. As those were essentially hand-placed, hand-crafted missions with manually set rewards - then I would say Frontier are happy with people earning around 45 million per hour.

hmmm I admit i have not watched your (very good) videos in a while (sadly time is limited of late) but have you not been guilty of exactly the same yourself?

I totally have.

 

[jasonbirder]

It WAS possible to do 3 an hour if you downloaded/viewed a step by step "how-to" guide from the internet...if you avoided spoilers then the time investment was HUGE (for possibly no reward)

 

[Obsidian Ant]

It WAS possible to do 3 an hour if you downloaded/viewed a step by step "how-to" guide from the internet...if you avoided spoilers then the time investment was HUGE (for possibly no reward)

We are talking about the same missions here right? The missions where you had to go collect just three pieces of Thargoid Resin / Material...? This stuff was easily collectible from many different places, most of them very close to mission giver system. This mission wasn't at all involved of complex, it was just a case of flying from A to B to pick up item X.