You make a lot of good points and suggestions, thanks for that! The above part however hightlights a hidden problem: You dont seem to be aware of all the options. For example, CGs alone are a very easy source of income. The latest trade CG got you 10 million credits if you brought about 150t of cargo. Thats one or two trips in a T6, or about 15 minutes. The bounty hunter CG of two weeks ago got me 7.5 million for one hour of bounty hunting in a small ship. These opportunities are in-game every week, and broadcasted via the message board. That alone gives you a solid 10-20 million every week for a few hours spend, including getting to and from the CG. You can do it at any point in the week, and spread it over multiple sessions.
20 million credits for 10 hours of (IMHO) boring work is not good. That is true. But the good news is there are loads of options for way more credits if you want.
lol
Seriously, OP?
Is there any way to tell if this is the longest post ever made on Dangerous Discussion?
I recall some treatise on dogfighting a while back that didn't even come close.
If I am wrong about there already being more interesting ways to get money at a more reasonable rate in this game, then I am happy to hear it. I am aware I'm not as experienced at what this game has to offer, in its entirety, then some of the more experienced players around here.
... What's a CG? No, honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about.
... wut?
You wrote a 30 page article on this game, yet you don't know what a CG is? How do you think those people who read that feel right now? Huh, Commander?
Dude, I seriously supported this game at kickstarter (as a founder) and have played since Alpha. I've been across the galaxy and back, spent some amazing times just burning around craters in my SRV, I loved the engineers and don't really care if my l5 mod is 0.5% worse than someone else's. I like to use my (limited) time in this game doing things I feel are progress. Sometimes that means going to do a bit of work to get something I want - like a trade cutter or an explor-a-conda. I'd much rather do that now in somewhere like Quince than spend the stupendous amount of time I did ferrying metals 3 jumps and returning with Fish, just after this game was released to get to Trader Elite.
I like the fact that ED has a real risk and reward element. I feel your pain, I have also had an unfortunate experience flying without rebuy myself and I can tell you I wanted to smash my computer to pieces and never play this stupid game ever again!!
But that is also what I like about it - it doesn't care. It just is what it is and any setbacks in your own personal agenda don't matter to anyone.
It's like RL in space and to me, that's awesome!
If I am wrong about there already being more interesting ways to get money at a more reasonable rate in this game, then I am happy to hear it. I am aware I'm not as experienced at what this game has to offer, in its entirety, then some of the more experienced players around here.
... What's a CG? No, honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Given that I quoted my hours spent in the game, most people WHO DID actually read my OP (not you, as you admitted) already know that I am by far not the most experienced player out there.
Take your "gotcha" arguments, and take a hike.
You're right. I get it.
... I just wish the game rewarded you for doing things right. Or doing things logically and varied. It doesn't much reward you to go exploring. In fact, quite the opposite, it rewards you for setting up camp in one system.
This game just seems to give you 2 choices, either go do something fun that you want to do, or go make money... Rarely both. And that's depressing, because really, a game dev should figure out what players most like about it, and reward them for doing it. Why on earth should we be setting up shop in one lonely system when there's a whole galaxy out there?
You're right. I get it.
... I just wish the game rewarded you for doing things right. Or doing things logically and varied. It doesn't much reward you to go exploring. In fact, quite the opposite, it rewards you for setting up camp in one system.
This game just seems to give you 2 choices, either go do something fun that you want to do, or go make money... Rarely both. And that's depressing, because really, a game dev should figure out what players most like about it, and reward them for doing it. Why on earth should we be setting up shop in one lonely system when there's a whole galaxy out there?
What? That's incorrect, OP. You can make money doing just about anything. Wingmate of mine who has been playing since just before 2.3 dropped, and certainly not every day, just came back from an explo trip in his AspX and made about 180M.... he's sitting on something like 250M in cash. Guy only did 11k Ly round-trip. My last explo trip in my Asp Scout I brought in 90M between passengers and data, and that was with me rushing back half the trip because I'd logged out for 2+ weeks and wasted my mission time. Another one of my wingmates made his first billion by just bounty hunting.
You can make money just about everywhere in this game, without exploits. If you need some tips on how to do that, just ask. People will be happy to help you out.
And I would really like to include Elite Dangerous devs on this conversation since, ultimately, no change would come of merely talking about it. I know they work hard on this game, I know they want what’s best for it, I can see it in what they do for the game and its community. Horizons, for example, was an amazing update, and was actually the one to make me finally decide to buy it. I think most of the players in this community wouldn’t mind if the developers took a break for a little while to really think over what would be the best approach to solving some of this game’s problems. No game is or ever will be perfect, but a dev team that is willing to strive inexorably towards that impossible goal is one worth their weight in gold.
agreed - if you get a good run of short passenger trips you can make quite a few million/ hour.
Outbreak trading medicines - 5 mil/ hour
exploration trips - 100 million +
Best ROI i had was quickly running a number of passenger trips on a newly bought keelback