Of course. There may or may not be a penalty, a fine or something. It'll say in the mission description if there is. And you'll have to dock somewhere to let the passengers off, I believe. Been a long time since I did one of these.
-
Greetings Commander, want a more instant approach to your questions and need for help? Check out the Galactic Academy Discord server!
Feel free to join the Galactic Academy Discord server by clicking here!
Newcomer / Intro My Return to ED ......
- Thread starter Wombat1940
- Start date
Is there anything you don't do ? No wonder you're a bloody tycoon !Good post Codger, and a few things I'll add, as if I could call anything a 'career' in Elite, for me it's been passenger missions, running what I've dubbed my Interstellar Transportation Company. Orca, you know.
Good advice about ignoring passenger requests. I'd nudge it further and say don't even open the message, just ignore it entirely. As Codger noted, they won't care if you don't fulfill it, unless they know you know. Don't know.
It's vital, as he also said, to read the fine print. Be sure to know which missions are for criminals and wanted passengers. Take them at your own risk, but I'd advise skipping them entirely until you've built a smuggler ship. My Orca was built for this and idles at a very low temp, making it ideal for these. But if you cannot avoid scans through ship builds and ship handling you don't want to be doing these.
I'd divide the passenger missions in to more types
-- Bulk Hauling -- These are the ones which will say something like transport 54 businessmen. These missions allow bleed over multiple cabins and are one-way, short hop usually.
-- VIP transport -- Exactly like bulk haul, but require their own cabin
-- Smuggling -- Criminal and wanted transport. Work as above, but carry additional peril.
-- Sightseeing -- These are round-trip missions to tourist beacons and the like. Unlike the mission types listed above, which boost trade rank, sightseeing missions boost exploration rank. They work like VIP missions and require their own cabins, no sharing between stacked missions like bulk haul missions. I really like these, and it's what I cut my teeth on in my early days. They take you to some of the most striking places in Elite, and have the collateral benefit of often taking you to systems with valuable planets to scan. Lots of ELWs and WWs for example to boost the profits from the expedition.
There's one pitfall from sightseeing missions that prospective bus drivers should be aware of. Arrival distance is NOT shown in the mission description, and it's pot luck. You will have no idea of how long the supercruise is to the tourist destination. If could be 100 ls or 400,000 ls. I like this sort of unpredictability, but I also know there are commanders who would not care to fly these for this reason.
-- Long-range sightseeing -- These are the ones that go for many thousands of light years, usually taking a 'famous explorer' to his or her destination and back. You'd think being famous for this they'd already have a ship, but perhaps fame softens them and they think they are above such mundane acts as piloting.
I use two ships for this mainly. The Orca, which now is my sightseer and smuggler
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerouscoriolis.io
Very fast, with good jump and idles at 14% heat. Cabin arrangement is modular. I have a wide variety and mount them before stepping in to the passenger lounge with a mix of first class and business class to open more of the missions on the board. After selecting I then remove the unused cabins to maximize jump.
And a Krait II Rumble Bus
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
This is used for bulk haul and one-way VIP missions. Seats 55 business class as shown. It's armed to take on interdictors, and the passengers seem to love the action haha
EDIT: Oh! I got confused (again
). I though this was a Quain post, not a sinisalo post. So I'm not sure about your status sinisalo ? 
Last edited:
Tip - if you want more passenger carrying capacity and profitability 3.3 million gets you a Type 6 transporter cargo ship that will do 22ly with a bunch of passenger cabins in it. It will make credits faster than the more expensive Dolphin. It doesn't really look like a passenger ship, but it works.QE is a very few Ly's from where I'm at now, and I'm know there through buying the Hauler.
10 Million ! Oh .......
Build suggestion:
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
coriolis.io
It might actually be tricky to find enough passenger missions to fill it outside of the sight seeing criminals at Robigo Mines, which is also a few hundred ly away. There may be some other places others could suggest you try for multiple missions to one or two locations.
Haven't looked at the video yet (too bloody busy here and occasionally doing some flying
), but it's this sort of shot I'd like to see ....
I quite liked them. Kitted out a Dolphin and stacked 2-3 mid range passenger missions.
It gets you around and is quite profitable.
Yep the free camera suite will do that for you.Haven't looked at the video yet (too bloody busy here and occasionally doing some flying
View attachment 266496
I use the camera suite a lot in my videos.
It's great for doing 'flyby' shots.
Don't care what it looks like. Once in the 'pit who cares ! Does it have to be "full" to be profitable ?Tip - if you want more passenger carrying capacity and profitability 3.3 million gets you a Type 6 transporter cargo ship that will do 22ly with a bunch of passenger cabins in it. It will make credits faster than the more expensive Dolphin. It doesn't really look like a passenger ship, but it works.
Build suggestion:
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
It might actually be tricky to find enough passenger missions to fill it outside of the sight seeing criminals at Robigo Mines, which is also a few hundred ly away. There may be some other places others could suggest you try for multiple missions to one or two locations.
Right!!!!
P**s off you blokes!!!! (sorry Dreyski).
Enough !!!!
Got to get over to QE to check a Type 6 transporter ......
Wombat out ......
P**s off you blokes!!!! (sorry Dreyski).
Enough !!!!
Got to get over to QE to check a Type 6 transporter ......
Wombat out ......
Doesn't have to be full
Nostalgia moment.
All this talk about passenger missions got me to thinking about the various ways I've made money over the years. So many changes as the game progressed.
There was one point at which bulk passenger missions had a distance factor built into the payouts. If the destination station was a long way from the system entrance (main star usually), the pay was increased according to the distance.
This had the effect of generating very high payouts as long as you were willing to supercruise for a while. And since they were bulk passengers, you could try to fill your cabins with passengers all going to the same distant place.
I had a route that had me taking passengers about 200,000ls, as I recall. There were others with much longer distances, but this particular system generated lots of bulk passenger missions. I made a few million on each run. Chicken feed compared to today, but at the time it was very lucrative indeed.
Eventually FDEV decided people were making too much money too fast and nerfed those missions (hilarious to think about now when you can make much, much more, much faster, but that was then).
I wonder what we (and FDEV) would have thought about current earning rates?
Here's a screenshot from some missions I turned in the other day. This was about 3 hours work for me. We could never have imagined it back then.
All this talk about passenger missions got me to thinking about the various ways I've made money over the years. So many changes as the game progressed.
There was one point at which bulk passenger missions had a distance factor built into the payouts. If the destination station was a long way from the system entrance (main star usually), the pay was increased according to the distance.
This had the effect of generating very high payouts as long as you were willing to supercruise for a while. And since they were bulk passengers, you could try to fill your cabins with passengers all going to the same distant place.
I had a route that had me taking passengers about 200,000ls, as I recall. There were others with much longer distances, but this particular system generated lots of bulk passenger missions. I made a few million on each run. Chicken feed compared to today, but at the time it was very lucrative indeed.
Eventually FDEV decided people were making too much money too fast and nerfed those missions (hilarious to think about now when you can make much, much more, much faster, but that was then).
I wonder what we (and FDEV) would have thought about current earning rates?
Here's a screenshot from some missions I turned in the other day. This was about 3 hours work for me. We could never have imagined it back then.
Nice post.
Memories ........ so nice ...... I survive on them ..... couldn't do without them ..... funny, I still have my long term memory ....... Thank God !
Gees Codger ! I thought you weren't big into combat ? Kill this ..... kill that .....
But wow ! The money was good.
I'm over at QE in the Khaka System. In their shipyard.
Can't believe how cheap the ships are .......
Type 6 Transporter: approx 1,050,000 credits (not 3.3 million.)
DBX approx 1,900,000 credits .......
Can't believe how cheap the ships are .......
Type 6 Transporter: approx 1,050,000 credits (not 3.3 million.)
DBX approx 1,900,000 credits .......
The Type 6 transporter is 3.3 million when you have upgraded the modules to make it work the way you need it to and have the passenger cabins in it.I'm over at QE in the Khaka System. In their shipyard.
Can't believe how cheap the ships are .......
Type 6 Transporter: approx 1,050,000 credits (not 3.3 million.)
DBX approx 1,900,000 credits .......
The DBX with the best modules for exploration is about 14.5 million including rebuy/insurance.
The starting ship price is the cheap bit.
Well ....... I'm thinking of starting out small:
Use my Hauler, store the Cargo Rack and buy a Passenger Cabin.
As crib3 suggests.
Is the Pas. Cab. the only thing I'll need ?
Sorry, too lazy to search for what you've already told me .......
Had a feeling that might be it. Even bigger reason to stick with the Hauler initially.
The Hauler looks like your route to 3.3 million and you only need to put a passenger cabin in it instead of the cargo rack. The Type 6 should be able to get you to DBX 14.5 million and even ASP X approx 47 million in time.
Most of my Elite career has been focused on non-combat stuff. Even when I do combat I set it up so that it's pretty easy. With the last round of changes to payouts, those pirate killing missions pay extremely well (after you've located the right system, and become allied with every faction -- it's not instant by any means). So I do those now and then to fill the coffers a bit.
I'm kind of planning a long exploration trip. I'll want to take the carrier, which means I need to fuel it up beforehand. Fuel for the carrier is quite expensive. Heck, the carrier costs me 10-14 million a week, just sitting there doing nothing. Yeah, I know, rich kid problems.
Anyway, I have need for extra funding right now, hence the temporary focus on those missions. I could also do some mining for similar monies. I probably will do some shortly. I've been missing it.
If you use a 6B instead of 6A fuel scoop on the ASP X it cuts 21 million off the price....
Been looking to the future:
(1) Passenger Missions will just be a means to an end. I can't think of anything worse. Noisy, smelly, argumentative passengers ! The last thing I want to be involved with ! However, to gain credits, I'll do it.
(2) Once I've found my home base, I going to develop my own bubble around it. The size will be limited to the fuel range I have for the craft I finish up with. That range being achieved without the necessity to fuel scooping. In fact, the bubble might be much smaller than that unscooped fuel range. 10 to15 Systems at the most maybe.
(3) Within my bubble I intend to explore every planet, moon, rock, station, ship, etc there is. I hope to land on as many planets as I can, walk on its surface, but not travel any long distances on the same, thus avoiding having to own an SRV.
(4) I will Galaxy map and Systems each area and produce copies of the same available to others.
(5) This is "Exploration" with a difference, not necessarily appealing to many others. However ........
(1) Passenger Missions will just be a means to an end. I can't think of anything worse. Noisy, smelly, argumentative passengers ! The last thing I want to be involved with ! However, to gain credits, I'll do it.
(2) Once I've found my home base, I going to develop my own bubble around it. The size will be limited to the fuel range I have for the craft I finish up with. That range being achieved without the necessity to fuel scooping. In fact, the bubble might be much smaller than that unscooped fuel range. 10 to15 Systems at the most maybe.
(3) Within my bubble I intend to explore every planet, moon, rock, station, ship, etc there is. I hope to land on as many planets as I can, walk on its surface, but not travel any long distances on the same, thus avoiding having to own an SRV.
(4) I will Galaxy map and Systems each area and produce copies of the same available to others.
(5) This is "Exploration" with a difference, not necessarily appealing to many others. However ........