Let me ask a different way- Is the passenger lounge permanently as is, or are there bugs being fixed

[Aaron T]

Paltry 20 million? See this is why FDs task is impossible. To me 20 million for a mission Unless it takes 2hrs + to finish is insanity. How can a single mission which pays more than 3/4 of the ship hulls in the game be considered not only NOT over priced but a pittance?
Imo any mission to pay that should either take a long time OR present a significant challenge to complete and with risk to your ship.
I am not saying you are wrong but that you need to understand the predicament FD are in.

IF FD manage to improve things so missions are not stackable on they can balance it better so big ship only missions pay more then hopefully there will be a compromise but with the mission board as it is imo your expectations for pay is unreasonable. Just my view you are free to differ.

Thank you for your very good post.

You have some great points.

But I am in the golden years, I've paid my dues, and for me to consider the pilots lounge as it is now is for me to walk into the workforce commission in real life and say that I want to work at just any ole miserable job, and minimum wage is just way too much pay for me.

When you have seen it all, and have acquired the very best tools and equipment you demand and get top dollar, not meager wages.

Oh my goodness, I never thought about it, but, is ED against capitalism?

It has got to be into socialism, they instantly nerf high paying jobs to make it fair for all, and leave bugs and problems to grow and get worse.

I finally understand.

 

[Franc Kaos]

You love combat missions?
Suppose the 6/29 update completely ruined the mission boards, you'd be upset and make bug reports and posts about it until it got fixed.
A week and then two weeks with nothing done nor said about it and you'd be getting frustrated.
...
It has been reported by several players, along with screen shots, details, etc...
All we get is "More details please."
Or silence.

My favourite mission in the game was shooting skimmers, flying somewhere, driving to a base, shooting the skimmers, read the data then get out of Dodge until the crime ticked down; now (or then), stopped playing, not solely because of this...
1) The exclusion zone blew up to about a mile around the base
2) You could no longer take out things with the ships
3) Skimmers were no longer showing wanted status
4) Fixed gun emplacements caused notoriety if shot at
5) Had to faff about finding an IF if you didn't want modules suddenly becoming a stupidly expensive item to deal with

Some of this stuff has probably been fixed, not bothering with the game until 3.3 drops, but some of it was intended, and from what you've been writing seems like some of the changes were intentional - I wouldn't bother getting upset about it either way, 'cause even if a bug, could be a year or more before they get to it, if ever.

Come on, we need to be sympathetic to the OP. He found his niche in the game, evidently flying a Beluga doing VIP passenger missions, and I dare say it made him a lot of credits. So many credits that he has in fact forgotten how to do anything else in the game. The ONE THING he was moderately good at has been taken away, he can't trade, take any other class of passenger, bounty hunt, explore, all other mission types are now null and void to him, any other mission or activity simply doesn't exist for the OP now.​

That's not very nice. Play your own way - it's on the front page of Fdevs website for this game!

 

[Devari]

Paltry 20 million? See this is why FDs task is impossible. To me 20 million for a mission Unless it takes 2hrs + to finish is insanity. How can a single mission which pays more than 3/4 of the ship hulls in the game be considered not only NOT over priced but a pittance?

To me anything that pays less than 15-20 mil/hr isn't worthwhile because of the costs of covering a large ship rebuy. My Anaconda and Type-10 are 20 mil rebuy, my Corvette is 30 mil rebuy and my Cutter is 35 mil rebuy and they are "budget" builds that use gimballed weapons, military armor and regular shields and some of them even use an undersized PP as well. If they had turrets, reactive composite armor, prismatics and full-sized PPs they would be easily 5-10 mil higher rebuys. Really anything that doesn't earn at least 15-20 mil/hr isn't worthwhile to me because it isn't commensurate with the "risk" of flying a large ship in Open.

There's also the issue that it's hard to go back to lower incomes after using methods that are more lucrative. I used to do Sothis runs averaging 12-15 mil/hr, massacre missions averaging 10-15 mil/hr and Palin misisons averaging 30-35 mil/hr. I never did the ridiculous "goldrush" methods that earned 100-200 mil/hr but once you are used to an average of 15-20 mil/hr it is really hard to accept the lower payouts again because they no longer seem worthwhile.

Since FD created these income rates and allowed them to exist for many months they really need to understand that players aren't going back to bulk trading that makes only 10 mil/hr. Many of the core game mechanics are boring and repetitive and FD shouldn't have any difficulty understanding why players want to maximize the incomes they can make with those activities. If I am only making 10 mil/hr it takes anywhere from 2-4 hours to earn back a rebuy for a large ship. If I am making 15-20 mil/hr that is 1-2 hours which is much more reasonable.

My other suggestion here is to simply provide rebuy discounts so that a player can use large ships without being as limited as we currently are due to rebuy costs. An Anaconda is nowhere near 2-3X as effective as a Python yet the rebuy is 2-3X as expensive. If a player is taking 2-3X the risk flying an Anaconda but is only making 1.5X the profits then they are seeing the opposite of an "economy of scale". They are seeing their operations become less efficient when they scale up to a large ship. To a large extent this is a consequence of FD having modules provide linear performance increase but an exponential doubling of mass and cost when you go up one size range. The fundamental problem here is really related to ship design and costs more than to the underlying game economy but this still needs to be taken into account so that FD can balance mission rewards properly against large ship rebuy costs.

 

[ChaseBears]

there's nothing wrong with less efficiency at the high end. That's a very normal balancing mechanism for better stuff. Higher payouts, but much more financial risk, so don't up.

 

[Devari]

there's nothing wrong with less efficiency at the high end. That's a very normal balancing mechanism for better stuff. Higher payouts, but much more financial risk, so don't up.

The problem here is that large ships in Elite are supposed to be "endgame" content. How many online games are there where "endgame" content isn't worth using because it costs you more than it helps you? For many missions (including Sothis runs) my Python was nearly as efficient as my Anaconda and cost 2.5X less (8 mil rebuy vs. 20 mil rebuy). For Palin missions the most efficient ship to use was actually an Asp, partly due to the limit of 2T corrosion resistant cargo racks, but also because griefers were often waiting at the Thargoid Scout site and I would occasionally lose my ship. The 1.5 mil rebuy on my Asp could be easily absorbed and made basically no difference to my overall profits but my Anaconda's 20 mil rebuy was quite different. The medium ships are also far less vulnerable to griefing/trolling in general due to better speed and being able to escape from interdictions much easier.

The way I currently view Elite, I use my medium ships for regular gameplay to support the occasional use of my large ships. Really though my large ships are a bit of a liability in Open. They carry 2-3X the risk of my medium ships but only let me earn incomes 1.5-2X faster.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Bugs have been reported by various commanders and FD said that VIP passenger mission are being looked at since the update but not a thing has changed.

There are many other stations that are 1 million plus Ls away from the systems primary star, and all the missions types across the galaxy were affected by the update of 6/28, but I will use the one place everyone knows- Parutis.

[...]

What I simply want to know is if the passenger lounge is going to be fixed, or if this is the new norm.

The problem with using edge cases in the mission generation for money earning is that changes to the mission generation based around the remaining 99% of systems are highly likely to break them intentionally or not.

The changes in 3.1 to increase the default range for missions to 20LY rather than 15LY, and to improve variety of mission board generation, have been great where I am - far fewer empty boards, far fewer boards with just a single mission type on them, more chance of finding at least some missions going the right way. It's been really positive, and addresses a lot of previous bug reports and suggestions from these forums about mission generation.

So I'd say "new norm" for the specific Parutis location. It's not a bug as such, it's just the consequences of a whole bunch of changes to the mission system, applied to a way of earning money which depended on a lot of specifics. Even if they wanted to bring them back as a major earning method, doing so without breaking the improvements they made elsewhere is going to be an extensive piece of work, not a point fix that can go into 3.1.3. So maybe check again in 3.2?

Regarding making money from VIP passengers in general, there still exist locations in-game which allow this to be done. If 20-60 million / hour is the target, then I can think of a couple of VIP mission types which get within that range - and that's just within the Colonia region, so there are probably equivalents *somewhere* in the Sol bubble. Parutis specifically? Probably gone and not coming back. Other locations will exist, maybe even some new in 3.1 ... but it's a big galaxy and it might be a while before someone inclined to publicise them finds them.




On the broader point, I don't think Frontier have any obligation to keep specific mission types available as before as the rest of the game changes. For example, one of the VIP mission types in the Colonia region relies for its profitability (reliably above 5 million per cabin per hour) on all the tourist beacons in Colonia being in the same place. That will change at some point - Frontier will add more tourist beacons to the region - and it will still be a way to make money but no longer among the top earners in the game when min-maxed. But I'm certainly not going to oppose further development of Colonia just because it might mess with some mission details a bit!

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

The problem here is that large ships in Elite are supposed to be "endgame" content. How many online games are there where "endgame" content isn't worth using because it costs you more than it helps you? For many missions (including Sothis runs) my Python was nearly as efficient as my Anaconda and cost 2.5X less (8 mil rebuy vs. 20 mil rebuy). For Palin missions the most efficient ship to use was actually an Asp, partly due to the limit of 2T corrosion resistant cargo racks, but also because griefers were often waiting at the Thargoid Scout site and I would occasionally lose my ship. The 1.5 mil rebuy on my Asp could be easily absorbed and made basically no difference to my overall profits but my Anaconda's 20 mil rebuy was quite different. The medium ships are also far less vulnerable to griefing/trolling in general due to better speed and being able to escape from interdictions much easier.

The way I currently view Elite, I use my medium ships for regular gameplay to support the occasional use of my large ships. Really though my large ships are a bit of a liability in Open. They carry 2-3X the risk of my medium ships but only let me earn incomes 1.5-2X faster.

Wait wait, you actualy use different ships for different reasoning and just don't leave them all in storage gathering dust. Wow, that's a new concept. I though I was the only one who only kept various ships with loadouts conducive for particular missions.

I've never understood the concept of having more ships in storage gathering dust. I prefer to have my cr's liquid, rather than investing with no returns on my cr's by having multitudes of ships in storage gathering dust.

 

[verminstar]

Wait wait, you actualy use different ships for different reasoning and just don't leave them all in storage gathering dust. Wow, that's a new concept. I though I was the only one who only kept various ships with loadouts conducive for particular missions.

I've never understood the concept of having more ships in storage gathering dust. I prefer to have my cr's liquid, rather than investing with no returns on my cr's by having multitudes of ships in storage gathering dust.

In the 3 years Ive been here, Ive only very recently got some sorta achievement fer having more than 5 ships simultaneously. I see ships and modules as assets, nothing more so when Im flying the cutter, I reason to meself that if I wanna try the likes of a corvette, I can cash in the cutter fer about a billion which will A rate anything else in the game with change leftover.

Having both at the same time? Not gonna happen with my wallet, and thats after 3 years...besides if it doesnt actively serve a purpose that no other ship can achieve, then I see little point in owning it at all.

On a lighter note, the vette is the only ship I havent tried due to the rank grind...and due to the fact that I actually dont like the design of the vette, I like my cockpit up front like gutamaya and lakon, so tend to stick with ships that tick my boxes in that respect ^

 

[Pug]

Hmmm

I guess just enjoying the amazing graphics is the best thing about ED, other than that it is all a repetitive grind, the reason I either need non stop combat at the CNB or Netflix to keep me engaged.
Mining, cargo multiplayer with a home faction, engineering, mat gathering, combat missions, exploration, grinding guardian mats, power play, are all very boring and dull, and very repetitive.
B

Good morning, I don't do fan boy S**** never have, never will.

If you take the game for what it is, I feel I need to clarify, I mean- Years ago whilst playing Scramble on a ZX81. I wondered in my youth 'what it would be like to be able to sit in the comfort of my

bedroom, lounge Etc. and be able to drive a factually correct rally car or be able to sit in a cockpit and fly through space, see through the eyes of a combat soldier, let alone anything else.

It's a game and if it doesn't make you reasonable happy, absorbed or otherwise engaged then... you may have heard this before, (I've not checked) Don't play. You sound really unhappy, find something that Does.
Regards
Pug