Is this a joke?

[Jmanis]

Again, Colonia missions are not meant to be primary money making activities.

And again, tell that to Tourist missions to colonia, which are a return trip worth 30-40m per mission. If what you say is true, these should be nerfed down to ~1m credits. But that's not what I'm proposing at all...

Anyways, as people have asked, I can't get a Luxury one-way VIP transport mission, but there's plenty of economy ones to produce the figures.

Here's an Economy-class one-way at Entrepreneur level. It chops the reward in half to go from Luxury->Economy.

And here's an Economy-class one-way at Elite level. It adds 50% to the economy Entrepreneur level

So I think it's safe to say the most we'd see out of an elite version of the one I posted would be about 1.2m, which is still way under where it should be.

 

[kofeyh]

A good thing I wasn't comparing the two game systems but their outcomes.

Thanks for clarifying after the fact.

Frontier's highly abstracted system produces some idiosyncratic results in this matter which I find analogous with the results produces by EVE's much more granular and player-driven economy.

I believe you're trying to explain highly variable outcomes due to highly variable inputs leads to highly variable outcomes. No kidding? Maybe don't have quite the extreme to begin with?

Wildly inconsistent payouts are a problem across mission types yes and should be fixed, but this is irrelevant in this case.

They are the result of a symptom; Frontier has perpetually set extreme values. It's not even just the missions system we see that. It's virtually SOP at this point. Lest we forget the > 90% damage reduction for a massively bonkers anti-xeno weapon - aka "thargoids adapted". Fiddling with outcomes, in a climate of extreme levels of change or reversion, does not solve symptoms. It just works around them; somewhat dramatically at times. Hence reactive, rather than proactive. Which also tends to induce even more stress to an otherwise highly conservative player base.

They were supposed to sort this out during 2.x. It never really happened. Just more fiddling.

Again, Colonia missions are not meant to be primary money making activities.

If you read the OP, you'd note the primary concern is the lack of consistency; not the dollar value attached. Which is actually determined by the values Frontier use to compute relative worth, for any activity. Ergo sort the values out; the resulting outcomes will fall into a relative curve, as a result.

People fixate on the outcomes; never the causes. Maybe that's not actually helping; just permitting the status quo to continue. The missions system should be one of the strong pillars of the experience. It's become highly idiosyncratic, inconsistent in value proposition and just isn't a very good reflection of intent.

Whether one necessarily considers the missions system pivotal or not, shouldn't really dictate the quality of the associated experience, any more than anything else. I am not being hard on the developer here; they have worked very hard, it's just unfortunate that's become more a reactionary force of change, than a planned, proactive one.

That incessant amendment of per-mission type changes, without a more cogent broader reset of value across the board, has not aged well. It's just bandaid after splint after skin graft. They absolutely mean well. But I think the days of "fiddling" needed to stop back in Beta, to be fair.

 

[ApexWanderer]

When all is said and done you can still make at least 80 mill an hr at Colonia (I made 500mill yesterday)so chill.

 

[kofeyh]

When all is said and done you can still make at least 80 mill an hr at Colonia (I made 500mill yesterday)so chill.

Thank you for completely missing the point, and perpetuating the "it's fine, shut up" line that apparently has become just as entrenched as the approached Frontier has.

 

[[DS]_Skol]

So, I get colonia missions aren't meant to be total cash cows... but this seems pretty damn ridiculous. Bugreported it here, for reference. All these screenshots are from the same faction, to which I'm allied.

Firstly, courier missions to Colonia:

This is fine. 1.4m credits, I stack twenty, do the run to colonia, get 28m in addition to whatever exploration data I pick up along the way. All good, not a problem.

Now, a VIP Business-class tourist mission.
34m credit reward for a return trip to Colonia and back. Sure, sounds great, hop on board.

And now, this doozy. VIP Luxury-class one-way transportation to Colonia from a "Rich Tourist"

900k? What the actual? That pays *less* than a courier mission which needs zero specialised equipment, whereas this needs a Passenger Liner plus Luxury-class cabins, *and* it's VIP so I can't put anything else in the cabins.

Is this for real? What logic has that making sense?

And that`s why i take missions like that and fly right into near star

 

[Stealthie]

None of the missions provided, or indeed the entire missions system for that matter, has any cogent logic applied, and there is no consistency in action. Because of howling, because frontier just do the needful to attack one issue at a time, and because people say "I don't really understand.." and assume that about covers it.

Missions system is a wasteland of illogical, inconsistent twaddle; it should instead be one of the signature pieces of code written by Frontier. This is Elite. Yet there is always, always someone ready to defend the abomination for being "not that bad? I don't understand.."

It is bad. The entire missions system is bad. It needs love and feeding and a proper, contextually relevant and consistency pass that ensures there is something for everyone, with payouts matching investment and risk; as was intended.

It won't, ever, if it continues to be the standard people walk past. It's diabolical. Take a step back folks and apply some critical thinking. It'll do the world of good.

I agree that the mission system can be absurd. I just don't think this is an example of that.
It's actually more of an example of how individual missions should pay... if we had a sensible mission-generation system providing them in a viable manner.

If we consider how poorly some missions pay, and yet how lucrative the same missions pay during any kind of "gold rush", I think it'd be unwise to simply dial-up the rewards for missions.
If that's how FDev "solve" this problem, all they're going to do is create more work for themselves when they have to manually nerf even more aberrations which allow people to earn insane amounts of credits when the conditions allow it.

It occurs to me that we have 2 main restrictions in our ability to earn credits; ship slots and the 20 mission cap.

Ship slots, especially with regard to passenger missions, limit a ship's viability.
Having a ship the size of the Beluga which can only fit a maximum of 9 cabins, for a total of around 180 passengers (flying "coach") is completely bonkers.
If it was up to me, I'd give the Beluga a whole heap of restricted C2/C3/C4 slots for "VIP" cabins and then give it 5 or 6 big slots for "coach seats" and/or equipment.
And then I'd revise the mission generator so it catered for that sort of configuration.

And then there's the mission cap.
The fact that we can only take 20 missions, maximum, limits the viability of delivery missions - either cargo or data.
Using the real-world as an analogy, I doubt FedEx would exist if a delivery van could only take 20 parcels at a time - or if each delivery van was carrying only 2 or 3 giant parcels.
What ED needs is more (a LOT more) small-volume cargo missions, so you can pack more cargo onto your ship.

And then, finally, it needs for the BGS (or whatever works this stuff out) to create specific, viable, trade-routes AND for the GUI to be modified so you can filter missions by destination system/station - even if the mission-generator doesn't actually provide more missions.


*EDIT*

Some rough sums regarding the Beluga...

It has 11 slots:-
4xC6
2xC5
1xC4
4xC3

We can assume that passenger cabins define the physical size of a slot - cos they'll be larger than a cargo rack of the same class.
We can also see that E-rated passenger cabins hold the most people.
At a bare minimum, we can assume that each passenger requires 2m³ of space - so they can stand up or lie down.
Yes, based on these assumptions, E-class cabins would be seriously cramped but let's go with it.
Thus, we can estimate the physical volume of each class of compartment.

C6: 64m³
C5: 32m³
C4: 16m³
C3: 8m³
C2: 4m³

For convenience, we'll assume a bulkhead height of 2m, which means the footprint of each compartment is half the volume.

C6: 32m²
C5: 16m²
C4: 8m²
C3: 4m²
C2: 2m²

We can now calculate the entire footprint of the capacity of a Beluga.

4xC6: 128m²
2xC5: 32m²
1XC4: 8m²
4XC3: 16m²

Total: 184m²

With 184m² to play with, you could configure the Beluga as follows:-

3xC6: 96m²
2xC5: 32m²
4xC4: 32m²
4xC3: 16m²
4xC2: 8m²

Total: 184m²

That'd give you 12 slots for smallish cabins, one of which could be fitted with a fuel-scoop if required, and 5 big slots for a shield, SLF hangar, cargo racks or bulk-passenger modules if required.

Overall, that'd give you a ship that could definitely take on at least a dozen "VIP" passenger missions at once and then fill up with "coach class" passengers too - thus meaning you'd have a ship that could actually take somewhere near 20 missions at the same time - if the BGS/mission generator could provide them reliably and viably.

 

[kofeyh]

I agree that the mission system can be absurd. I just don't think this is an example of that.

An example of the inconsitency of mission delivery, isn't an example. Okay then.

It's actually more of an example of how individual missions should pay... if we had a sensible mission-generation system providing them in a viable manner.

"And this is why we fail."

The payout isn't the point. It never has been. It's making the entire mission system have a contextually relevant remuneration for commanders performing missions, as part of playing a game, regardless of their chosen mechanics preference. This is actually vital to ensure a single mission type does not become dominant which it constantly does, because Frontier cannot seem to get their story straight, as to what ever matters.

You've then gone on to compound this by extrapolating entire ship changes and adaptations required just to interact with one of the many mission types rather than actually solving the input, ie the mission, instead.

People are obsessed with the notion if everything just paid 10x less we'd be fine; except we wouldn't be because the massive deviation would still exist and thus the endless hot takes on 'value'.

If you have 9000 elephants, and 90 pineapples, how is that rather clear example of extreme difference solved by making it just 900 elephants and 9 pineapples? Yes we have less of both. Congratulation! This hasn't solved the relative disparity, though, has it? And at no point in doing that, has the question of "why" do we even have 9000 (or 900) elephants versus so few fruit. It's just "the numbers of elephants is too damn high!".

The issue is, and has always been a lack of a consistent even hand over the missions system which takes into account ship and module design; it's clear a number of people have fiddled with it, and it's been (ab)used to serve the purpose of funnelling commanders into new mechanics, and damn the consequences; with the inevitable varying degrees of success. Any time a new mission type is added, of course it's just everywhere and boards are full of precious little else.

I've seriously given up at this point. The game fundamentally ignores what is required, where and when as far as delineating relative value for a mission 'reward' is concerned. Inconsistent, illogical and extreme in ratio from one to the next; nothing has relevance to anything else and the team developing ships and ship modules seldom have ever spoken to the people building the missions for them, because a clearer case of siloed design I have yet to see.

The missions system should be rock solid in delivery; it'll never be perfect but holy god this is one of the core mechanics deliverables for the game. And it just utterly fails to hit any sort of consistent or logical mark. I am sorry. I think the world of the development team, whom have a herculean task to deliver a game of this scope. But the missions system is one of the key pillars; and it's just ordinary.

Until this is understood and an actual review of the approach and an actual holistic pass is done; nothing will change. And I reckon, even years on, people just refuse to accept the situation, and believe more fiddling will surely solve.

And if this is ignored over just banging the table over payouts because surely that's the issue - I just do not know what else to say, really.

I've had to take a break, because a key signature of Elite; missions, is just a massive pile of burning tires that just seems to go on and on with fresh new tires added to the fire and no-one even knows who lit it or why -- and apparently the solution is to fiddle with the burning tires, make them smaller, or less of them seems to be frequently touted as the solution -- rather than actually address the fire itself.

 

[Bortas]

Tbh everything less than a billion or two is a joke for a 20k ly trip.