1st 3 days trading with my Fleet Carrier. 1.6 Billion profit

[Crank Larson]

Yes, I know there is a group of players for whom flying 124 straight-line AB routes with zero events is riveting excitement. I dont want to take it from you, I wish you many thousands more of these adventures.

I just wish FD would be bothered to add some gameplay for those who want something a bit more engaging. Your fun is basically a parody of the FedEx quest of 90s RPGs, but with all the actual gameplay stripped out of it. I think FD should be able to do a bit better. :?

Also, many people do whatever is most profitable regardless of how enjoyable it is. Hence the reputation of ED as being a mindless credit grinder. Having the least challenging and most repetitive activity earn the most might appeal to a subset of ED gamers, it is pretty much frowned upon by everyone else.

The assumptions are strong in this post. I haven't done trading for years. But I also don't begrudge those who enjoy using that as an excuse to fly their ships.

And I also would not object to new gameplay - but I suspect that is what Odyssey is about.

 

[Viscera]

Yes, I know there is a group of players for whom flying 124 straight-line AB routes with zero events is riveting excitement. I dont want to take it from you, I wish you many thousands more of these adventures.

I just wish FD would be bothered to add some gameplay for those who want something a bit more engaging. Your fun is basically a parody of the FedEx quest of 90s RPGs, but with all the actual gameplay stripped out of it. I think FD should be able to do a bit better. :?

Also, many people do whatever is most profitable regardless of how enjoyable it is. Hence the reputation of ED as being a mindless credit grinder. Having the least challenging and most repetitive activity earn the most might appeal to a subset of ED gamers, it is pretty much frowned upon by everyone else.

This post made me smile, ironically.

Unfortunatly I can only post a direct response at you, as it is a very personal statement you have made., so a catch all reply will not work.

What did you do before fleet carriers were released, that their release has now stopped you from doing? What gameplay that you found enjoyable was removed for you?

Or is there nothing in the game you find enjoyable, and you are just venting this?

 

[Brrokk]

First week and a half did it all myself, hard work, 10hrs a load, 5hrs loading, 5 hrs unloading, but kept all the profits. Then I hit on and pioneered the idea of just taking a 1000cr a ton cut, and have others do the shifting for me. And it works very well. I have at least 10ish part time crew members that hang around on my FC, PC and Xbox, and load and unload automatically for me when they want to work.

In a buy system they buy from the station for 4k ton and sell to my FC for 29k Ton, so make 25k ton profit "loading" , when i am full and jump to a sell system, They buy from my FC for 30k ton, and sell to the station for 52k ton, so make 22k ton offloading. The 1k ton between 29k and 30k is my cut, as the boss. I just do the admin and move the FC, post in system messages, etc, and do the odd load myself to increase the margins for me.

Interesting. One more question: how did you recruit those guys? Did they just turn up to help, or did you advertise on Discord or something?

 

[Ian Skippy]

The assumptions are strong in this post. I haven't done trading for years. But I also don't begrudge those who enjoy using that as an excuse to fly their ships.

And I also would not object to new gameplay - but I suspect that is what Odyssey is about.

I literally said I wished him and those who liked it many hours of what they call fun.

I swear, this is quite literally the only gaming community where saying "I personally would enjoy something a bit more than going back and forth in a straight line." is a controversial stance.

Thank God this community didn't write Lord of the Rings. "And they walked for sixty days in a straight line, and after an uneventful journey tossed the ring in the volcano. "It was worth it!", cried Bilbo Baggins, for he has just earned 9 billion Fantasy Credits.

The End."

Again, if that sounds like the book of your dreams: great! So e people prefer something to, you know, happen.

 

[dognosh]

I offer the 3rd highest paying job in the Galaxy, LTD mining 1st, Tritium trading on your own 2nd, working for me 3rd, as i pay between 22k and 25k a ton profit, you can earn on the right run, with the right parking spot, and good , quick piloting skills, up to 140m cr an hour.

And this is very low risk, 3000+ flights now over 1 month hauling Tritium in open, 0 PVP ganks. I have calculated you can go from a 10t CARGO Sidewinder to a 756T Cargo T9 and a Fleet Carrier in a maximum 60 hrs working for me.

If you ever want to witness how many CMDRS without FC who dont want to mine LTD but want to haul Tritium, visit the large pad buy systrem, currently METZILI, of an evening or weekend, and just observe the system chat for a few hours.

Love your business accumen

But, for a day, your stuff was 4th highest paying , I was offering 40k/t to fill my carrier in a 4k/t system.
FC hauling ...boring
LTD exploit ...boring
LTD legal ...boring
Missions/trading/bounty/smuggling/PvNPC ...boring

I am setting up for one of the challenges in ED I haven't done ...Thargoids (lets hope it's not boring)

 

[Ian Skippy]

This post made me smile, ironically.

Unfortunatly I can only post a direct response at you, as it is a very personal statement you have made., so a catch all reply will not work.

What did you do before fleet carriers were released, that their release has now stopped you from doing? What gameplay that you found enjoyable was removed for you?

Or is there nothing in the game you find enjoyable, and you are just venting this?

I am not sure how that is relevant. The issue is that the Big New Addition's primary attraction is the ability to even do more boring stuff for more credits you can't spend on anything meaningful beyond the thing that allowed you to earn more credits you, again, can't spend on anything.

To some that is exciting and the pinnacle of game design. To others it is not. To some earning more fake credits is the most important and enjoyable part of a game, to others it is not. FD has shown it is very much able to add ever more profitable income sources over the years. They have been far less succesfull in adding interesting, challenging and fun gameplay additions.

Again, some don't mind as long as the credit number becomes bigger. To others it is both disappointing today and worrisome for the future of the game. The exciting gameplay Mark is so loving is absolutely identical to what was in the game during beta in 2014; fly in a straight line, get some credits. The only thing that changed is the number goes up faster.

Is that the improvements we expected? Did anyone really dream back then of doing the exact same boring stuff six years later but with more credits as a reward? Was that the exciting space sim pitched during KS? Fly in a straight line for dozens upon dozens of hours?

And while it is irrelevant: I still find certain things enjoyable, I still play (though not daily) and I am looking forward to hear more about Odyssey. But dear Lord has the bar been lowered here if people can't even consider that flying in a straight line, with zero events or challenges, is maybe not the sign of a superbly designed game.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Love your business accumen

But, for a day, your stuff was 4th highest paying , I was offering 40k/t to fill my carrier in a 4k/t system.
FC hauling ...boring
LTD exploit ...boring
LTD legal ...boring
Missions/trading/bounty/smuggling/PvNPC ...boring

I am setting up for one of the challenges in ED I haven't done ...Thargoids (lets hope it's not boring)

Thargoids are very much not boring. They also pay about the least of anything you can possibly do in the game, including smuggling and exploration. By an order of magnitude.

I suspect the FD Devs skipped classes when risk Vs reward was discussed and assumed it means something should be either risky or rewarding.

 

[MarkAusten]

Glad to see someone running the system i recieved a little forum derision for suggesting in another thread.

Good work.

There are a few of us doing it now.

 

[MarkAusten]

I offer the 3rd highest paying job in the Galaxy, LTD mining 1st, Tritium trading on your own 2nd, working for me 3rd, as i pay between 22k and 25k a ton profit, you can earn on the right run, with the right parking spot, and good , quick piloting skills, up to 140m cr an hour.

And this is very low risk, 3000+ flights now over 1 month hauling Tritium in open, 0 PVP ganks. I have calculated you can go from a 10t CARGO Sidewinder to a 756T Cargo T9 and a Fleet Carrier in a maximum 60 hrs working for me.

If you ever want to witness how many CMDRS without FC who dont want to mine LTD but want to haul Tritium, visit the large pad buy systrem, currently METZILI, of an evening or weekend, and just observe the system chat for a few hours.

Sometimes it seems that there's a race on. The cargo either fills up or empties very quickly. Not all the time, obviously.

Don't know where I am in the earning stakes, my cut is 2k per tonne (ish) not 1k.

 

[MarkAusten]

Love your business accumen

But, for a day, your stuff was 4th highest paying , I was offering 40k/t to fill my carrier in a 4k/t system.
FC hauling ...boring
LTD exploit ...boring
LTD legal ...boring
Missions/trading/bounty/smuggling/PvNPC ...boring

I am setting up for one of the challenges in ED I haven't done ...Thargoids (lets hope it's not boring)

Not quite. Overall MarkyH was offering between 47 and 48k Cr/t profit over the round trip which trumps your 40k. I think I have the maths correct there.

 

[MarkyH]

Interesting. One more question: how did you recruit those guys? Did they just turn up to help, or did you advertise on Discord or something?

3 methods. On here, in system chat, (to do it right as you arrive you "announce" your FC, where it is, what your rate is, and what your supply/ demabd is) , 3rdly i run an INARA ad on their Bulletin board updated a few times a day, every time i jump, straight after i jump, so its always current and workers can find me in the galaxy.

INARA

The community site for Elite: Dangerous, Starfield with the game databases, information, gaming news and other handy content...

inara.cz

 

[MarkyH]

Sometimes it seems that there's a race on. The cargo either fills up or empties very quickly. Not all the time, obviously.

Don't know where I am in the earning stakes, my cut is 2k per tonne (ish) not 1k.

True. I just had to move out of NAUNI on a sell run as when I arrived this morning 9am, and took the 1st load, price was 52k. checked back 1/2 hr ago, stock not moving at all, I have been away from PC , took a quick flight and checked again, dropped to 48k, so jumped to a new 52k system now.

There is some work to do,

 

[MarkAusten]

True. I just had to move out of NAUNI on a sell run as when I arrived this morning 9am, and took the 1st load, price was 52k. checked back 1/2 hr ago, stock not moving at all, I have been away from PC , took a quick flight and checked again, dropped to 48k, so jumped to a new 52k system now.

There is some work to do,

Had half my load unloaded when the price dropped. Also gone somewhere else.

In fact you've just dropped into the same system as my carrier. Greetings !

 

[MarkAusten]

I literally said I wished him and those who liked it many hours of what they call fun.

I swear, this is quite literally the only gaming community where saying "I personally would enjoy something a bit more than going back and forth in a straight line." is a controversial stance.

Thank God this community didn't write Lord of the Rings. "And they walked for sixty days in a straight line, and after an uneventful journey tossed the ring in the volcano. "It was worth it!", cried Bilbo Baggins, for he has just earned 9 billion Fantasy Credits.

The End."

Again, if that sounds like the book of your dreams: great! So e people prefer something to, you know, happen.

To be fair, it's not just straight line from one place to another and nothing else. I spend a fair bit of time scouting around. Although Inara and EDDB give good search results, a lot of the time the data is too old to be useful. So, it pays to scout some of the systems with old data and see if the prices are still valid or not.

Then, of course, you can just go out scouting for systems yourself.

Bit like a real trader searching for the best bargain.

 

[Iskariot]

Yes, I know there is a group of players for whom flying 124 straight-line AB routes with zero events is riveting excitement. I dont want to take it from you, I wish you many thousands more of these adventures.

I just wish FD would be bothered to add some gameplay for those who want something a bit more engaging. Your fun is basically a parody of the FedEx quest of 90s RPGs, but with all the actual gameplay stripped out of it. I think FD should be able to do a bit better. :?

Also, many people do whatever is most profitable regardless of how enjoyable it is. Hence the reputation of ED as being a mindless credit grinder. Having the least challenging and most repetitive activity earn the most might appeal to a subset of ED gamers, it is pretty much frowned upon by everyone else.

I'd have to agree. To each his own, and I definitely do not mind people playing the game like it is all about straight line, uninterrupted credit grinding, but I sure want more out of it.
What are all these billions good for? Do you want to buy a fleet-carrier carrier, or perhaps a fleet-carrier carrier that can carry your fleet-carrier carriers?

Just watching the increasing figures in my credit bank account is not enough to keep playing.

I would like FDev to address some existing fundamental gameplay mechanics and add some depth to them, like they did with exploration. I love what FDev did with exploration.
Making piracy and bounty hunting more exciting would be a good start. These two professions need a deeper ecosystem, as I have described in other threads.
Or what about scavenging. This needs a much more serious approach, with much more interesting mechanics, its own set of tools and events etc.
And let's not forget about the black market and the related smuggling activity. This could and should be one of the most awesome and exciting activities in the game, but Fdev seems to have forgotten it exists.
And planetary mining? Where is it? Why does it not exist? It could be awesome with specialized SRV mining vehicles and other cool tools.

This is the stuff I have been waiting for for many years now.

 

[Crank Larson]

I swear, this is quite literally the only gaming community where saying "I personally would enjoy something a bit more than going back and forth in a straight line." is a controversial stance.

Isn't it odd how phrasing can change the whole context of a sentence?

Personally, I agree with your latest (quoted) statement.

 

[Ian Skippy]

To be fair, it's not just straight line from one place to another and nothing else. I spend a fair bit of time scouting around. Although Inara and EDDB give good search results, a lot of the time the data is too old to be useful. So, it pays to scout some of the systems with old data and see if the prices are still valid or not.

Then, of course, you can just go out scouting for systems yourself.

Bit like a real trader searching for the best bargain.

And that gets very much to the heart of my main gripe with ED´s game design: all the systems are in place, but seemingly randomly balanced to no objective. The idea of finding your own 'gold strike' by using the gal map, flying around and making notes sounds good. Having these gold strikes in dangerous anarchy zones would be even better. Having these opportunities play absolutely tons but dry up really quickly would be fantastic. You'd be rewarded for developing actual skills, both in finding the spots and being the kind of pilot that can navigate through a dangerous anarchy zone. Ship choice now really matters: do you really dare to take a T9 there or do you play it safe with a more heavily armed/armored Conda? Or maybe try to sneak in with a small Cobra and go for low-volume high-value trade?

We have all these systems. But none of them work in an inter-connected and coherent sense. All these traders fly barely-shielded (if even that) T9s, nobody bothers to even check if its anarchy or not because who cares, finding your own spots is not worth it compared to blind grinding with the thousands of other youtube-tutorial-pilots, developing skills or knowledge is actively punished with how the rewards are set up.

ED is like a chef making a meal consisting of soup and a beer. They have all the perfect ingredients, tools and such, but they by accident put all the raw ingredients in the beer glass and boiled the beer in the soup pot for a few hours. It is just odd to see how the same studio can be so good at the preparation part and yet so comically terrible at the execution bit. And when you then later hear that none of the cooks in the kitchen have tasted their own meals for years suddenly things start to make sense.

On the bright side, the worse flaws in the game are relatively trivial to fix compared to issues in other games. Much of it is just a matter of fiddling with numbers, which isn't easy but its hardly impossible either. And I do have some hope that the abysmal state of the game is in part because Odyssey will change things to such an extent that spending any time on fixing the current state of affairs just isn't worth it. But all of that is based on the assumption FD is aware of the discrepency between what they claim to set out to do and how the game actually function. And when you hear an FD dev go "huh, mining pays a lot more than most other activities? We'll have to look into that!" it is a bit difficult to be too convinced of that.

 

[jacozilla]

Maybe just me but I don’t just haul A to B when doing AB hauling sessions. I take some source missions and/or couple low ton delivery missions. This will generate (4) named enemy NPCs, per mission - one at a time till dead or mission turned in. But each mission has different set, so if I take half dozen missions, I will have chasing me at 6 at one time, and in many interdictions 3-6 all drop in at same time.

makes the hauling lively and not the zero interaction that some have described. Even hauling with no missions will spawn random pirates since Fdev seems to code in an automatic detection of 1 unit of biowaste or better = pirate npcs.

i run an armed trade cutter or anaconda - never evade, just allow the interdiction and have fun plus extra credits for killing the NPCs sent after me. Unlike pure random npcs that spawn whenever carrying any cargo, these mission generated NPCs are my combat rank or higher, and almost always in anacondas, fdls, t10, etc.

i don’t think ppl commenting hauling is boring with nothing happening but going back and forth between A-B has ever done much hauling or they’d know this.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I would like FDev to address some existing fundamental gameplay mechanics and add some depth to them, like they did with exploration. I love what FDev did with exploration.
Making piracy and bounty hunting more exciting would be a good start. These two professions need a deeper ecosystem, as I have described in other threads.
Or what about scavenging. This needs a much more serious approach, with much more interesting mechanics, its own set of tools and events etc.
And let's not forget about the black market and the related smuggling activity. This could and should be one of the most awesome and exciting activities in the game, but Fdev seems to have forgotten it exists.
And planetary mining? Where is it? Why does it not exist? It could be awesome with specialized SRV mining vehicles and other cool tools.

This is the stuff I have been waiting for for many years now.

Absolutely. And I was hoping the salvaging part would be improved with Spacelegs: zero-G EVA to wrecks could be great. But I am very much doubtful it'll actually come with odyssey. In the end, activities should be inherently fun. Any rewards should drive the player towards better equipment/tools than enable them to tackle more challenging scenarios. That is just the basic progression of a game. But for that to work you'll need:

1) Inherently fun activites (would anyone do the Tritium trading if it didn't earn credits? Thought so...).
2) A scaling set of ever more challenging variations that offer increasingly more rewards within each activity type.
3) A reward system where a 'reasonable' amount of time leads to a 'reasonable' progress. This is of course up to debate! But in short it means that after an hour of doing one activity and becoming comfortably with it, you get the option to do a slightly more challenging one for a bit more rewards.

Tritium trading is an example where all these concepts are broken. It is so much not fun that by far most people only do it for the wildly imbalanced credit rewards. There is no scaling set of increasing challenges, and even if there were you'd bypass them all in an hour due to the massive income obtained. It is, from a game design perspective, nothing but a placeholder propped-up by insane in-game rewards to entice players to engage with it anyway despite the glaring design flaws (or rather: the absolute lack of design rather than flawed design). Its the kind of stuff that CIG calls 'tier 0' gameplay, which is rightfully mocked by gamers outside the Star Citizen community. I don't think we should expect less from FD.

 

[Max Bothin]

Also, many people do whatever is most profitable regardless of how enjoyable it is. Hence the reputation of ED as being a mindless credit grinder. Having the least challenging and most repetitive activity earn the most might appeal to a subset of ED gamers, it is pretty much frowned upon by everyone else.

Elite is like the real life: most people only try to gather more and more credits and stuff. Least people simply have fun.