So I already left some ideas on other peoples suggestions. But here are a few of my bits on the issue:
Salvaging Missions
I frigging love Salvage Missions. I made my first few millions just going out there and grabbing lost art work, black boxes, you name it. But eventually the payout fell behind everything else, you could do with large ships. And then was of course the slow rise of NPC's dropping into your instance and shredding you to bits. When we are talking risk and reward, they should start paying as much as whatever new combat missions of similar difficulty should do, since it is very hard to gather stuff while under fire.
Mining
I don't mind the new changes to mining. Void Opal Mining was always my fav. mining activity after the update dropped. And I did so ignoring double hotspots and the like. Actually found a now fixed loopy mining method while playing around in mining ships.
But aside from that I am sad that no one talks about the low end minded goods. Sure most simply put them on the ignore list and it is logical to have natural occurring hotspots for all sorts of materials, but seeing them as useless is just sad. Sure there are dedicated Mission boards in some economies to mine low tier stuff, but they are rarely worth the money and or come in weird chunks. Here are some ideas to fix this:
- Simply increase the yield of low tier goods and reduce the price drop of them (after all they are the staple of the economy unlike vanity panite) to make them an more reliable alternative to earn cash without having to chase high demand places for VO, P and LTD. This would help with Faction BGS work for those with Extraction Economies. If I had to suggest a rate, I would go with 60%-70% of whatever the High End Equivalent(Core Materials -> LTD/VO, Laser Materials -> Paninte) pays when in the middle of average and optimum market conditions.
- Replace Mine X amount of STUFF with: You can place Y tons(200-1000) of STUFF here for the next Z Days and get paid SOME% above the Galactic average per Ton and increase thus the Hourly Pay rate closer to top tier mining materials and make it a reliable alternative that would help Faction BGS as a bonus incentive.
- Add more options to gain Engineering Materials to Mine Missions. They are by all accounts an alternative currency and being to earn them with low tier materials could be the trade off for their lower credit pay rate. Could be combined with the previous idea to give X Materials per Y tons turned over without any monetary rewards.
Exploration
I am quite the explorer and never really did it for the money. So while I have no real sense of the current meta regarding exploration for cash, I somewhat feel bumped out not knowing how much a discovery might be worth on face value. A simple popup to show the estimated scan value upon revealing a body, accompanied by an estimate of the detailed surface scan value would be nice. Doesn't even have to account for a plaque from another player and such things, just some help to estimate if a scan might be worth it based on distance and so forth.
Oh one thing regarding exploration reward changes I can think off: Increase the Value of Bio and Geo Discoveries on surfaces, because the hassle of having to land there is rarely worth the hassle, if you were interested solely in cash.
Burning Station Trading
While Burning stations are a nice way to panhandle Basic Medicines for quite the profit, I've noticed you can either sell to the rescue ship or the burning station itself. There is no reason to do so, because as far as I am aware there is no difference between the two markets. In my opinion the risk of cooking alive while explosions rock your ship, should be worth at least 10-20% more profit per ton. After all having to ship supplies from the rescue ship back to the station costs money and you save the stations those costs.
Regular Trading
The most trading I did was probably basic medicine to burning stations' rescue ships, whenever some popped up. Or running commodities for my faction as part of some mission.
But I have a similar nit-pick with trading as I have with mining. Leather, Clothing, Biowaste, Domestic Appliances have next to no purpose outside of Source Missions. Sure it makes the market UI filled with little lore bits and clutter, but most stuff would never end up in the cargo hold of a non brain dead commander. Yeah you can manipulate market BGS to push it in your favour to get high sell prices for VO and maybe induce a bunch of detrimental states, but this is just fun for BGS Players.
- A first good step would be to fix Wing Missions and have their payout be a pot that is split between participants. This way source missions with large ships would finally make sense.
- a similar price per ton promise mission as suggested for mining would also be an idea. Have pirates hired by the competition bother you more, while under such a contract.
Unique Trading
I did Unique Trading for a bit, but the prospect of just a bunch of particular long fixed trades routes never had a great appeal for me. I would very much enjoy to maybe bring some mugs or rare spirit to Colonia or the brave souls in explorer's anchorage for the right price. So maybe open the distance limit, but have it drop of significantly after 200ly, so that a real increase is only felt halfway cross the galaxy.
On that note regarding Colonia-bubble trading:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/colonia-people-and-ware-connection.475184/
Tourism
Don't we all love the Sothis/Robio VIP loops or whatever is hot. Even more easier than most trade loops, since you only have to dock at 1 station to deliver and pickup goods. Yeah they already received some "care" and as far as I know are now in an acceptable way, we shouldn't overlook them while giving the rest of the system some overhaul
That aside I would like to remind everyone of the more traditional multi-stage visits or even the deep space tourism adventures. Honestly while they don't have much risk involved, I currently feel like they are in a terrible place and often even forget they are a thing. Increasing their payout by a bit not to make them the new hot thing (in fact don't increase it by that much), but to have people not feeling like wasting their time would be nice. At least put them on par with Road to Riches Payout.
Wing and Multicrew
I mean do I even need to spell out what we all already think? The wing bonus is nice, but having some control about profits in General would be nice to facilitate actual trading convoys. Probably an idea for another time.
Multicrew on the other hand could probably really use a buff to payouts. I mean Expert NPC crew is payed more. It's a game first and foremost and having fun with friends or strangers shouldn't be humstrung by having your crew feel like wasting their time. I don't know keep the 10% bonus, but also use the profit cut from npc crew, set it to 10-25% percent and let's not talk about bug fixes to the feature for now.
Powerplay
I mean I've done PP for exactly 2 or 3 days before putting it away. Other probably have a lot more to say about it, but I am just saying the time investment, commitment and return stand in no comparison to each other. Since it is a legal PVP outlet, the payout for destroying ships currently holding PP commodities should probably be boosted, if you carry such materials yourself.
Open vs Private/Solo
I mean that is a can of worms for another day, at least if we are talking about payout. I just want to say that rather than affecting the Rewards gained while avoiding the risks of open, I am a firm believer in simply cutting the value of any action performed outside of open down (including personal contributions to CG's for ranking). But yeah that isn't about money. Just wanted to reiterate that I don't support any change to how much you are getting paid for avoiding open.
Final Thoughts, if you are still reading
Credits in Elite were aside from Engineering Materials, the primary method of progression through the game for a very long time. With Fleet Carriers you, FDev, fulfilled a much requested feature of your fans. And while I haven't been able to afford let alone maintain one yet and might never, since I avoided major gold rushes so far and cannot dedicate as much time as others to this wonderful game. Regardless I've pretty much gained the financial independence, where I could play around with any ship I wanted. Us as the community don't know how much bling there is to be bought in Odysee, but I am just projecting nothing will be quite the Credit Sink that are fleet carriers.
With that being said, I feel myself kind of unsatisfied by the lack of alternatives to spend my cash on. Sure I dumped a few dozen if not hundred millions as Donations into BGS or Rank unlocks, but as far as I am concerned, even you fix my and everyone else's long term grudges with the rewards of various activities, in the end one problem remains:
Not everyone plays Elite just for experience of sailing the stars, although you did a pretty fine job. Many want to actually get something for their long hours of works and at some point just seeing the credit counter go up just doesn't cut it. I know your time is currently dedicated to real content updates and I am of course excited and this is but busywork for your team to tweak the experience until everyone is happy in the meantime. Yet I implore you to start investigating some alternative ways to spend credits.
Back then Squadrons became a thing, sadly rather lacklustre if I may add, I made a whole bunch of suggestions to improve the feature, including adding a Treasury for Squadrons:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/squadron-improvement-part-1-treasury.476390/
I am not even asking for more assets, which would clog server space, but rather temporary bits and pieces to interact with players. In another post I suggested to make information about recent traffic at a station purchasable. Something that should already be tracked and just needs an interface, unlocked by money for example.
I think that is all I have for now in me. Looking forward on how this experiment of listening to the community will go. If you made it this far I should probably thank you for entertaining my ramblings about the game for so long. Fly safe everyone.
