2.3 Money Making please only suggestions

[Lienad87]

Hi All

I am looking for the fastest way to make money in Elite Dangerous currently

I have played for about 300 hours since public release and I love the flight model of this game about a year ago I convinced two of my friends to join in and they enjoyed it but both dropped out after about a month due to the grind ( as we perceived it) and changes in my circumstances mean I only get to play a couple of hours per week (on a very good week)

I am not looking for anyone to say just play the game or making money is too easy etc etc we see too much of this for now can I ask you let me play my game my way
Basically my aim is to get to an Anaconda decked out with fighters so me and my mates can muck about in a high res or a CZ and luck has it that I have about 10 - 15 hours over the next few days and maybe a little more than my normal hour or 2 in the next two weeks obviously I don't think Ill make it all the way but looking to fast track
Currently Got a vulture and 55 mil

I love this game but don't have the time to just build up credits
I don't care about using exploits board switching or anything else I'm open to anything to get to the gameplay me and my friends can enjoy

Again I understand that others enjoy their elite experience in their own individual ways and i'm not looking for an argument.

I would ask that people break down their responses at a per hour rate as I have seen on other posts it took me a week to get 500 mill however this doesn't really give any indication as to how long you played in that week

To be fair I would love if Fdev gave me the option to select a "I'm time Poor but love this game" mode and upped all rewards and Rep by about 400% (or whatever would have got me to an anaconda in like 20 hours)
keep it separate from the main mode, disable achievements (on those system which have them) and add a *Lite to any rating as in "Combat rating Dangerous*lite" so those that were able to put in the time get to keep the elite status they've earned. but I'm sure this is far more work than I could understand and that not everyone would appreciate this.

Please can we avoid arguing unless its about the best way to make money Quickly

 

[duckofdeath]

If you're taking cost of investment and skills requirements into account, I'd say exploration is the best earner for a newbie. By a wide margin.
It's a comparably safe profession as you're your only enemy out in the deep black.

I've done more exploration than most commanders on here. I've spent quite some time looking into the easiest way to make good credits on exploration, especially since the new high payouts we got with the latest update. I was looking into using the list of known earth-likes as each scan of those pays you around 650,000 credits. The problem I found with that list is to get their locations plotted into routes in-game in a hassle-free way. So, I decided to look for less complicated methodologies, started logging how often I'd come across one of the high value planet types in each star class system type. I found that F class stars seems to have a higher rate of terraforming candidate planets than other star class types. G class seems to have some galactic forge design flaw making them produce a high rate of worthless Mercury-like planets or gas giants. While A class systems mostly gets planets that are too big for terraforming.

I did a longer test run, only plotting to F class stars and only scanning likely terraforming candidates, earth-like planets, water worlds and ammonia worlds within 20,000-30,000 Ls from the arrival point. These planet types pays between 200,000 and 700,000 plus a 50% first finder's bonus on undiscovered planets. On my logged trip, I visited 537 random systems over a four-day period. Plotting to them using the map filters to exclude everything not F class and just do 1,000 light year stints in random directions. I did this in a region near Colonia, but the result would be more or less the same anywhere, I guess. Just make sure you travel a few thousand light years away from the inhabited bubble to make sure you get the 50% first-discovery bonus on as many planets as possible.

The active time I spent on this trip was maybe one or two hours over 20 hours. It could be done substantially faster if you don't get distracted by shiny things.
...anyhoo, the nice end-result I got to was, that I was making on average around 540,000 credits per jump by only scanning those high value planets, skipping everything else. That added up to nearly 300 million credits. That's not bad, considering you can do this in a D-rated Sidewinder, as long as you can afford the Advanced Discovery Scanner, the Detailed Surface Scanner and a C or B rated FSD and fuel scoop. A 1.5 million expense to make 300 millions in around 20 hours? No re-logging, no pirates, no looking up trade sites like a high-frequency trader or checking background simulation states for profit optimisation. Just jump, honk, scoop and the odd planetary scan....

Things to pay attention to when you target F class star systems for the high value planets.
Learn what earth-likes look like. They're pretty easy to distinguish once you see them.
Learn what water worlds look like. They're also very easy to distinguish once you see them, in combination with their distinctive dashboard hologram.
Learn what ammonia worlds look like. Again, they're generally very easy to spot, with their brown-ish toxic looks.
Pick likely terraforming candidates in the "Goldilocks zone". That zone is roughly between 800-1,200 Ls from an F class star. There are variables affecting these numbers. The temperature of the star. I personally ignore checking for this particular detail, as you've generally scanned a doubtful planet in the same time it takes to scan the arrival star for its stats and looked up where its corresponding Goldilocks zone is. The terraforming candidate high metal-content planets are the important ones using this way to make credits. They're by far the most common of the big paying planet types.

The presences of binary stars. If there's another star in the system, that star will increase the system temperature and stretch zones. This is noticeable if they're within 15,000-20,000 Ls from each other.
The size of the planets. Terraforming candidate planets has to be between 0.15 earth masses and 3.5 earth masses. Give or take a bit, depending on their composition.

Learning to spot the high value planets is the "hard" part in this profession. That isn't extremely complicated and there are other methods than the ones I use, like listening to sounds on the system map. Learn the colour nuance variations on the system map. Notice the variations of the dashboard hologram. Once you get the routine working to spot them consistently, you'll be averaging around 500,000 credit per jump.

 

[Ca$hback]

What kind of ship(s) do you have?

 

[Henkka77]

People and "i want money fast"... Bwoah.

 

[kofeyh]

Hi All

I am looking for the fastest way to make money in Elite Dangerous currently

Don't ask here; you will get a wall of proselytisation about doing things the "right" way (in a sandbox, yes I know but still) and what not, and not a single constructive answer; try reddit. Usually the fast-cash options are published there.

I'm not sure if Quince is currently under the appropriate BGS state for the prolific scanning missions, but about the fastest options beyond scanning missions, are short-range tourism passenger missions. Find the nearest station that has the largest number of factions you can find, and haul a bunch of tourists about; you can usually turn over 3-4 groups worth about 4-9 mil each (depending on faction rep, allied is key) if you mode switch and whatnot in something like a python or type 7 (anything that has a few class 5 slots and decent jump range is a good option).

If you have enough cash, Orca is a great (and fast) bus with good range and will comfortably take 4-5 groups of people, with a profit potentially of 20-30 mil per run, depending on RNG. But 10 hours is probably pushing expectations. There are cash options, but they are all time consuming. Even with crazy income from something like Quince, your available hour count is probably too short to fund the ~400+ mil you'll need for an A rated combat-conda.

The rest of the missions have been butchered of value, and or are broken as far as credit gain is concerned. Exploration is time consuming and will not likely offer the return versus time you have.

 

[BL1P]

Ancient ruins mission.
System : Meene
Station : Felice Dock.

Dock at station and the mission is given to you.
Partially complete for 1mil per correct scan, which is about 10-20mil per site.
When you hand in mission just exit station then re-dock at station to receive the mission again.
Or fully complete for 99mil or 200mil if fixed.

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

If you're taking cost of investment and skills requirements into account, I'd say exploration is the best earner for a newbie. By a wide margin.
It's a comparably safe profession as you're your only enemy out in the deep black.

I've done more exploration than most commanders on here. I've spent quite some time looking into the easiest way to make good credits on exploration, especially since the new high payouts we got with the latest update. I was looking into using the list of known earth-likes as each scan of those pays you around 650,000 credits. The problem I found with that list is to get their locations plotted into routes in-game in a hassle-free way. So, I decided to look for less complicated methodologies, started logging how often I'd come across one of the high value planet types in each star class system type. I found that F class stars seems to have a higher rate of terraforming candidate planets than other star class types. G class seems to have some galactic forge design flaw making them produce a high rate of worthless Mercury-like planets or gas giants. While A class systems mostly gets planets that are too big for terraforming.

I did a longer test run, only plotting to F class stars and only scanning likely terraforming candidates, earth-like planets, water worlds and ammonia worlds within 20,000-30,000 Ls from the arrival point. These planet types pays between 200,000 and 700,000 plus a 50% first finder's bonus on undiscovered planets. On my logged trip, I visited 537 random systems over a four-day period. Plotting to them using the map filters to exclude everything not F class and just do 1,000 light year stints in random directions. I did this in a region near Colonia, but the result would be more or less the same anywhere, I guess. Just make sure you travel a few thousand light years away from the inhabited bubble to make sure you get the 50% first-discovery bonus on as many planets as possible.

The active time I spent on this trip was maybe one or two hours over 20 hours. It could be done substantially faster if you don't get distracted by shiny things.
...anyhoo, the nice end-result I got to was, that I was making on average around 540,000 credits per jump by only scanning those high value planets, skipping everything else. That added up to nearly 300 million credits. That's not bad, considering you can do this in a D-rated Sidewinder, as long as you can afford the Advanced Discovery Scanner, the Detailed Surface Scanner and a C or B rated FSD and fuel scoop. A 1.5 million expense to make 300 millions in around 20 hours? No re-logging, no pirates, no looking up trade sites like a high-frequency trader or checking background simulation states for profit optimisation. Just jump, honk, scoop and the odd planetary scan....

Things to pay attention to when you target F class star systems for the high value planets.
Learn what earth-likes look like. They're pretty easy to distinguish once you see them.
Learn what water worlds look like. They're also very easy to distinguish once you see them, in combination with their distinctive dashboard hologram.
Learn what ammonia worlds look like. Again, they're generally very easy to spot, with their brown-ish toxic looks.
Pick likely terraforming candidates in the "Goldilocks zone". That zone is roughly between 800-1,200 Ls from an F class star. There are variables affecting these numbers. The temperature of the star. I personally ignore checking for this particular detail, as you've generally scanned a doubtful planet in the same time it takes to scan the arrival star for its stats and looked up where its corresponding Goldilocks zone is. The terraforming candidate high metal-content planets are the important ones using this way to make credits. They're by far the most common of the big paying planet types.

The presences of binary stars. If there's another star in the system, that star will increase the system temperature and stretch zones. This is noticeable if they're within 15,000-20,000 Ls from each other.
The size of the planets. Terraforming candidate planets has to be between 0.15 earth masses and 3.5 earth masses. Give or take a bit, depending on their composition.

Learning to spot the high value planets is the "hard" part in this profession. That isn't extremely complicated and there are other methods than the ones I use, like listening to sounds on the system map. Learn the colour nuance variations on the system map. Notice the variations of the dashboard hologram. Once you get the routine working to spot them consistently, you'll be averaging around 500,000 credit per jump.

Repped for stating Exploration as the most rewarding occupation. I wasn't expecting that, but as you put it, it is entirely true.

BTW for those who will come up with that anyway: Quince is under lockdown.

Otherwise, on the same Level as Exploration and quite similar: Passenger missions are very lucrative as well. You can put a cabin in a SideWinder, do one of those missions and get back after one week with enough cash to step directly in a ASP Explorer.

 

[EddyRockSteady]

Ancient ruins mission.
System : Meene
Station : Felice Dock.

Dock at station and the mission is given to you.
Partially complete for 1mil per correct scan, which is about 10-20mil per site.
When you hand in mission just exit station then re-dock at station to receive the mission again.
Or fully complete for 99mil or 200mil if fixed.

How long does this take to earn 200 million credits?

 

[BL1P]

How long does this take to earn 200 million credits?

Not sure exactly sorry.

 

[Bagginhood]

Quick guide. Money:quince passenger missions.
Fed rank:sothis/ceos data missions
Imp rank:wu guinagi/hip whatever data missions
End of guide to elite.
Ps yes quince is on lockdown this week. Quick money out the door for a week. Data missions at either of the others are pretty lucrative and your grinding rank as well. You will soon learn rank is just as important. Things will go into s&@&& states for certain weeks and you just have to learn to go somewhere else lucrative for that week.

 

[Magraev]

If you buy a ship with some space and become friendly with the local factions you can get som good delivery missions too. I got missions to deliver 6-8 batches of mostly biowaste to two neighbor systems around 40 ly's from where I started. I got at total payout of around 1,5-2 mill. I got interdicted a bit, but that was no problem in my fast clipper. Took max. 30 minutes.

I have to try that exploring though - sounds like a nive payout.

 

[Bagginhood]

Also. Thats the price of the big 3 ships. You will spend upwards of a billion credits on the 3 to get gud. Start grinding. It will make your eyes bleed. But the reward is one of the greatest game experiences ive ever played. And yes, i mean a billion per ship. Check out module prices. Then once youve got that together and think your hot stuff, you will still get smoked wo grade 5 engineering upgrades to all those modules you spent hours grinding creds for. The saying "a mile wide and an inch deep cracks me up." Your an inch deep guy who came up w.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Buy a Dolphin, find a good port, and do lots of passenger missions. Last night I did a simple 'Take Rich Tourist to [station three jumps away]' and got 7.5M Cr for it. Now, granted those payouts are rare, but you can commonly get payouts of 1.5-3.0 M Cr for the same type of job (pick up, drop off, 5-10 mins work).

 

[kofeyh]

Fed rank:sothis/ceos data missions

Is that back on the boil again? I've been working on ranking for Corvette again (gotta catch 'em all) but the horribly broken mission system has ben sucking my (remaining) will to live of late. Will have to check it out again; it was one of the few symbiotic locations (mission loops) left for fed rank.

 

[xondk]

Hi All

I am looking for the fastest way to make money in Elite Dangerous currently

I have played for about 300 hours since public release and I love the flight model of this game about a year ago I convinced two of my friends to join in and they enjoyed it but both dropped out after about a month due to the grind ( as we perceived it) and changes in my circumstances mean I only get to play a couple of hours per week (on a very good week)

I am not looking for anyone to say just play the game or making money is too easy etc etc we see too much of this for now can I ask you let me play my game my way
Basically my aim is to get to an Anaconda decked out with fighters so me and my mates can muck about in a high res or a CZ and luck has it that I have about 10 - 15 hours over the next few days and maybe a little more than my normal hour or 2 in the next two weeks obviously I don't think Ill make it all the way but looking to fast track
Currently Got a vulture and 55 mil

I love this game but don't have the time to just build up credits
I don't care about using exploits board switching or anything else I'm open to anything to get to the gameplay me and my friends can enjoy

Again I understand that others enjoy their elite experience in their own individual ways and i'm not looking for an argument.

I would ask that people break down their responses at a per hour rate as I have seen on other posts it took me a week to get 500 mill however this doesn't really give any indication as to how long you played in that week

To be fair I would love if Fdev gave me the option to select a "I'm time Poor but love this game" mode and upped all rewards and Rep by about 400% (or whatever would have got me to an anaconda in like 20 hours)
keep it separate from the main mode, disable achievements (on those system which have them) and add a *Lite to any rating as in "Combat rating Dangerous*lite" so those that were able to put in the time get to keep the elite status they've earned. but I'm sure this is far more work than I could understand and that not everyone would appreciate this.

Please can we avoid arguing unless its about the best way to make money Quickly

While I get the idea and in part agree, it would unfortunately severely mess up other things, but yes for those that are time poor it can seem to take an eternity to progress, however unfortunately I don't think simply upping things is the answer.

Right on the top of my head, the "best" thing I see, possible might be a sort of, like many mmo's have, a "Rested" bonus, which increases the more you are offline, giving you a boost to catch up, said bonus could in this case count towards rep and money, (though not influence for obvious reasons)? That way those that aren't online a lot would get that bonus, and those that are around often, would also get 'some' for their offline time but less, and would most likely still be able to earn a heck of a lot more then those that haven't been around much, but those that haven't been around much wouldn't be punished as severely.

 

[Friedenreich Xante]

Is that back on the boil again? I've been working on ranking for Corvette again (gotta catch 'em all) but the horribly broken mission system has ben sucking my (remaining) will to live of late. Will have to check it out again; it was one of the few symbiotic locations (mission loops) left for fed rank.

Since he was also stating Quince (which is locked down right now and quite often otherwise), my guess is that he did a rapid Google search and took the first result for granted. Wouldn't go to sothis on such a tip. If you want to rank fed, be informed that I am just doing that at an acceptable pace between Col 285 Sector YF-M c8-8 and Niu Hsing.

 

[kofeyh]

Since he was also stating Quince (which is locked down right now and quite often otherwise), my guess is that he did a rapid Google search and took the first result for granted. Wouldn't go to sothis on such a tip. If you want to rank fed, be informed that I am just doing that at an acceptable pace between Col 285 Sector YF-M c8-8 and Niu Hsing.

Aye. this was my assumption, also. Thanks for the intel, I may re-visit that loop; I stopped a while back as the system states fell into 'none' which immediately delisted all missions and stayed that way for successive BGS cycles.

 

[Bagginhood]

Yes and no. Sothis/ceos used to be quickest money and quickest ranking. Rank w data missions and money w millions of credits easy transport missions back to bubble. They came in and master nerfed transport missions. They didnt touch data missions. When people say sothis is dead, theyre talking about high pay transport missions. An 8 hour cycle running data missions like crazy might net you 50 million and a lot of rank. Quince however can net you like 400 million in that 8 hours. I know of no quicker way to make money on elite. Wo rank you will only be able to get an anaconda. So you have to do the others at some point if youre a serious player. Dont miss sothis too bad. Even before, the time and money payouts were nothing like what quince is paying out for a little nothing of a trip. Before. Sothis was best money we had. No passengers.

 

[kofeyh]

Yes and no. Sothis/ceos used to be quickest money and quickest ranking. Rank w data missions and money w millions of credits easy transport missions back to bubble. They came in and master nerfed transport missions. They didnt touch data missions. When people say sothis is dead, theyre talking about high pay transport missions. An 8 hour cycle running data missions like crazy might net you 50 million and a lot of rank. Quince however can net you like 400 million in that 8 hours. I know of no quicker way to make money on elite. Wo rank you will only be able to get an anaconda. So you have to do the others at some point if youre a serious player.

This was the nice situation with Sothis/ Ceos, as far as rank was concerned. I don't really care about the long range missions (water under the bridge at this point) it was more the ability to ferry large numbers of courier/ data missions between both systems. Once you get to the higher naval ranks, the numbers of missions you have to drag to keep the progress going, is a bit obscene.

Any-hoo - not intending to hijack the OPs thread; as you were.

 

[Mugur]

I believe Quince passenger missions (sightseeing adventure in the same system) are dead.