It's not that one is not playing the game, it's just that the "game" (in the smeaton run) is best described as :
A) 20 min of clicking buttons, in a low skill version of candy crush (filling the ships)
B) 3 min of low skill piloting
C) 40 min of not doing anything
D) 3 min of low skill piloting
When the "gameplay" consist of not doing anything for 40min, can you blame people for doing "something else" ?
Keep in mind that for this "effort" one got 100M credits, which is more than 50 thargoids killed in solo, once repairs are factored in.
Please FD balance payout arround skill, not time spend whatching a screensaver.
Exactly why it was nerfed. Because no skill 40 mins of afk shouldn't give you a big reward. Especially not half a Conda worth. Credits are really difficult to lose. You only lose significant amounts on death or ship sell. There's really no credit sink! So every gain, big or small, stays with you. I honestly don't understand why huge credit rewards are so important!
Its been three years since this game has come out. I've played off and on just doing what felt fun. Even if the payout was tiny, didn't care because I was having fun. Today, i'm sitting on billions in accumulated credits, with plenty of fed and empire rank. Which is enough, I can't imagine why i'd need more credits now. Maybe for the carrier ships coming out in the fall? But big credit rewards don't change how fun the content is. In fact some of the most entertaining things i've done in the game had little to no credit reward.
This game is about the long haul of immersing yourself in how it grows. Taking a long time to get your conda is not a bad thing. Having everything you wanted hand delivered in a day will spoil you rotten. If you aren't enjoying the current missions and content, having a fatter wallet or a bigger ship won't help.