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

[Karunamon]

So is there *anything* left in the game that's not an "exploit" by the definition of the people here, but actually represents either a reasonable way to make a reasonable amount of money, or a *fun* way to make slightly less money?

Let's use that 3m/hr trade loop as a baseline. Reliable, but low-ish payouts that are dreadfully boring.

For everyone saying this has been over-nerfed

If it can be changed *that quickly*, then it can be scaled back to something more reasonable just as fast, rather than being gutted.

 

[Maka Gucci]

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 was the single best post in this thread, and yet it meant nothing to devs.

 

[lovely lovely]

18 rebels to smeaton for 94k = 5k for 40 mins work per person
17 tourists to huich for 477k = 30k for 5 mins work per person.

That ~48 times the earnings

Nerfed too far the other way imo

 

[frostypaw]

So is there *anything* left in the game that's not an "exploit" by the definition of the people here, but actually represents either a reasonable way to make a reasonable amount of money, or a *fun* way to make slightly less money?

No nothing, whole game is clearly now literally unplayable and awful because this one thing got shut down. Totally reasonable response.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

The issue was board flipping

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring

 

[Karunamon]

No nothing, whole game is clearly now literally unplayable and awful because this one thing got shut down. Totally reasonable response.

Wow, look at the flames coming off that strawman!

Perhaps in the future, respond to what I said, rather than what you want me to have said.

 

[Morat]

Well done FD!



You didn't nerf it, you killed it. Utterly pointless now to invest that time for this kind of return. I'd have expected a reasonable hit would have reduced this to around 6 million for a mission of that range making your 2 - 3 hr time investment comparable to other methods.

Why do you do this, simply killing off totally these things :S

It seems their "initial" solution has been to delete the distance multiplier which will kill the profits in all other systems too. Putting in a better sliding scale for distance would have been the most basic solution, but that is a level of coding skill that apparently requires months to be put into place. How such an incredibly simple piece of maths can't be inserted into the game within minutes beggars belief.

Then we have to factor in that it took what can actually be described as "an in depth investigation" to identify the problem. How is it physically possible for any single human being to be this thick? Anyone who first took a mission and jumped into LTT9360 and saw the distances involved and -couldn't- immediately infer why the payout was so high (even without looking into or having the slightest knowledge of coding) wants culling.

I despair that we have imbeciles running a galactic sized asylum.

 

[T0RC4ED]

Would be nice if they would fix real bugs this quickly.

 

[Morbad]

No doubt payouts will be tweaked more in the future. There does need to be some incentive to make long trips, but hauling economy class passengers through SC should never have been competitively profitable per unit of time.

I'm with a few others here... We were told that it was NOT, repeat NOT an exploit before. FDEV stated it really wasn't what they had intended but it was not an exploit... Now it is?!?!?! Make up your minds and stick to something...

If it's stupid and doesn't make any sense, it's probably an exploit, almost certainly not intended, and eventually going to be nerfed, no matter what Frontier initially says.

It's always and I mean always the same people on here @#$!ing about something that others are doing that they never see in game anyway...

Even if we never encounter each other directly, we are still influencing each other's game.

Just because you chose to ignore the effects, or are oblivious to them, doesn't mean they aren't there.

How about, screw this game Frontier kills every way you can fiscally advance.

The game dumps truckloads of money on pretty much every CMDR for nearly everything they care to do, no matter how profitable it would rationally be.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

This is a bizarre and poor decision imo, but my timing is impeccable.
I left there last night and my final run netted me > Cr 166mil.

Now, just think of all the stranded refugees there will be CMDRs!!!
Good luck to Smeaton's economy too.
I hope you're proud of yourselves.

 

[Karunamon]

The game dumps truckloads of money on pretty much every CMDR for nearly everything they care to do, no matter how profitable it would rationally be.

Your definition of "truckloads of money" isn't in line with repair bills, ammo costs, refit costs, and insurance once you get out of the lower tier of ships.

Rebuy on a base cutter is 18M for crying out loud. That's buttload of grinding to absorb. It goes closer to 50 once fully fitted.

 

[daman]

I think it was quite easy to average 125-175 million/ hour.

The issue is that this was so excessive on any scale, that if someone wanted to simply make credits - they would have only one smart choice - to do this.

It was funnelling player behaviour.

Things need to be balanced, whether upwards or downwards. But for example trading in the game has become a hobby rather than a way to make credits when compared to the passenger runs. same for missions which were not passenger missions. you did them for other goals rather than credits.

 

[Saber123316]

I look forward to X4 that way I can uninstall this crap game and not be lied to by the devs.

 

[CMDR_Brantford of FLC]

Hello commanders,

As some of you are aware, Passenger Bulk missions are currently generating extremely high credit rewards that we feel are excessive of what we would consider reasonable and balanced.

After a detailed investigation, we can confirm that this is due to an element in our mission generation algorithm that rewards credits based on the distance of the destination system from the star.

Due to this, we will be disabling (until further notice) the aforementioned element of Passenger Bulk missions to reduce the amount of credits offered as a reward. Commanders will still be able to select and complete Passenger Bulk missions, but will see less excessive credit rewards.

In the meantime, we will be reviewing the Passenger Bulk missions and correct the previously mentioned element – hopefully in time for you to test in the Beyond Chapter One beta.

Thanks to all the players who reported the issue.

After seeing how extensively you've punished long distance systems (36 Ophuchii etc) where they're making less then to systems who are barely a stone's throw a way.. can you assure us there will be at least some incentive in your fix for folks to take (bulk) passengers to systems with stations 100K or out or more? Because right now.. you've ensured there isn't. Its a bit ridiculous when I can make twice as much in a 5 minute trip to a station 3000 ls away as I can to a station that is 100k - 500 - 1 million k/ls from the star.

 

[Rittings]

I think it was quite easy to average 125-175 million/ hour.

The issue is that this was so excessive on any scale, that if someone wanted to simply make credits - they would have only one smart choice - to do this.

It was funnelling player behaviour.

Things need to be balanced, whether upwards or downwards. But for example trading in the game has become a hobby rather than a way to make credits when compared to the passenger runs. same for missions which were not passenger missions. you did them for other goals rather than credits.

Same thing with mining it seems. It takes a long time to complete any mining missions - and when you do, it doesn't pay well at all. I enjoy the peace and quiet being a miner can bring - but the rewards absolutely suck!! Especially considering dropping out of cruise, even in remote systems, immediately puts you into a dog fight if you are carrying anything at all. I've had NPC pirates attack me for my limpets...

 

[Skuli]

Would be nice if they would fix real bugs this quickly.

Like convoy beacons being completely empty for two years...

 

[Threeofseven]

I think this is a wonderful move. It was massively unbalancing the game and killing other professions. Very few people bothered with trading/mining/other missions because they were peanuts compared to Smeaton.

Great job Fdev! This give me hope for the Beyond series.

 

[Siobhan]

Now they'll be forced to travel on "the top 1% of all liners out there", since players won't be taking them...

 

[T0RC4ED]

Saber123316,
X-Rebirth was pretty bad... I know im not shelling out money for X4.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'd like to know what you at FDev consider "excessive" for credits payouts for passenger missions... and what is reasonable and balanced?

A wide variety of ways to earn 30-60 MCr/hour - missions and otherwise - have survived multiple version releases without nerf or comment from FDev, so I'd guess that they think that's a reasonable high-end earning rate.