Am I doing it wrong?

[Foxis]

So, I have been playing ED since beta and enjoyed it. In general I think it is an awesome accomplishment and I tip my hat to Mr Braben and FD.

But, I am increasingly hesitant to continue to play it. This is not a rant or a moan thread, but rather the question in the title: Am I doing it wrong?

The last couple of weeks I decided to try to venture out to the fringes to look for opportunity. I was growing a bit tired of trying to find decent trade routes in my current Hauler. I fitted it for a bit of basic exploration and mining. Since then I have covered what feels like a gazillion systems. Many unexplored and others inhabited (mostly extraction economies). I have nothing to show for my effort besides some modest exploration income. I found pristine reserves of metallic rich content. But no gold or palladium. I found no profitable trade routes above the basic levels in the core. (I had expected more remote systems to pay better).

Based on the above I am very close to just quitting. It feels too much as a grind. Before you tell me that grind is only in my mind, effort without measurable progress over a longer period of time is not fun. I simply do not find it enjoyable enough for me to spend time on. Perhaps that means ED is not for me, which would be sad.

So, before I go: Did I do something wrong? Did I have extremely bad luck? Or is the economy in ED simply nerfed to the point where progression is meant to be extremely slow?

 

[Zebarmy]

There are 4 distinct Belt types:

• Icy
• Rocky
• Metal Rich
• Metallic

You want Metallic for Silver/Gold/Palladium/Platinum

I've had a Pristine Metallic belt to myself up until yesterday, when it would appear another 8 or so commanders found the system... Will watch the traffic reports with interest

 

[Wicz]

Have a break and come back in a few months.

 

[eachann]

I'm pretty much with you on that... in terms of wondering what i'm doing wrong when I hear about how much money everybody else is making. I don't make that much for sure... it's slow, but then I play at a relatively slow pace and I don't tend to focus much one thing. If I come to a system I tend to explore it all out, not just the things I deem to be the most profitable. I don't trade because i'm still in a sidewinder and it's not worthwhile with only 4T of cargo space.... but I do a lot of missions. I keep trying to upgrade my sidewinder because I want to get to Lave before I start buying ships so I can have all my ships in one place but even with a blass B FSD I still get the message that there is no route to Lave available....

So far I don't mind the slow pace though... I play casually, I progress casually.. I'll get there when I get there.... not giving up yet.

 

[Cruise]

You could change tack for a while, & buy a viper.
Ive found it to be great fun, especially if you upgrade everything.
I cant afford a Python, which is what im aiming for.
I also have an Adder for trading.
It does take some time to find a sweet trade run, but you will find one.

 

[Ghostlight]

Based on the above I am very close to just quitting. It feels too much as a grind.

You and most everybody else, it seems. Look I am a grind game type of player: WoW, D3 I've grinded for hours in these games. But here the grind is NOT rewarding enough, making it tedious. I want to trade in this game but jumping about for hours to make 20k is just not sustainable.

 

[CmdrSimonsen]

Guess it depends on how you measure progress.

It's either via an in-game stat (reputation/progression/money ...), or a goal you set for yourself.
Or a combination.

Also FD's still tweaking the trade AI

 

[[VR]tailgunner30uk]

Please do not take this the wrong way, but, what are you looking for?

Some like me, travel around, doing missions,not earning megabucks, just enjoying the scenery, with an occasional foray into bounty hunting, or mining what ever takes my fancy at the time.

If you are looking for something more challenging, try piracy for a short while, use an anarchy system, buy an interdictor module see how it goes. Want to have a career, try imperial or Federal progression, and head off to war zones, be a mercenary gun for hire.

Try a path, if it doesn't work, try another. Combine paths, set yourself goals and challenges, forget the grind, with just a little trading or mission performance, you can pay for fuel and repairs and enjoy tooling around sight seeing for a while.

I hope this helps.

 

[Wrathschild]

I think it has been made to be slow, but I think that is also part of the 'balancing'. I don't think they want everyone progressing at a rapid rate.

Mining in metallic rings is def hit & miss. I usually have to flit about drilling into asteroids for quite awhile to find the ones with the good stuff but in the two pristine rings I've found I can make between 250,000 - 600,000+ in about 40 min to an hour with 32 cargo units (cobra). It does get a bit tedious though I would have to agree. I have not seen a whole lot of difference between "Major" and "Pristine" other than the maximum percentage of those one or two big yields I'll find in that 40+min.

I tried to do some bounty hunting too but with the interdictions causing so much damage to my ship per, and the fact one's quarry will just immediately power up FSD after the first interdiction makes it unprofitable. Maybe the 300,000+cr interdictors cause less damage, I don't know.

 

[manny72]

Not really wrong way, maybe wrong style... I picked myself a nice little system, picked a group that advertises in the Bulletin and started doing their trade runs..if I was lucky I would get a return mission from bulletin board I just delivered to, back to my home system. As my rep with system and faction went up so did the mission payments. Even doing the "we need/want this item" missions are not too bad once you find out what systems around you stock certain items...for me in my system, all they want is Lithium, Superconductors and Semiconductors. Always only one jump away. As your brown nose the faction they start to throw money at you till you can upgrade your ship, then kit it out nicely to take on most things...If you get bored of doing that, once your kitted out just lurk around the Nav Beacons and hunt you down some nasty naught ships, and collect a heap of bounties....Once you get enough money to keep insurance on your ship, re-buy a hauler or whatnot and kit it out for mining if that's what you want, or just keep saving up for an even bigger ship... but chop and change what you do...any game, no matter what it is, doing the same thing over and over and over will get boring. So Mix it up a bit... it's not like it's a Spreadsheet Simulator.. (hmmm, where have I heard that term before...)

 

[Foxis]

A few asked what my goals are: A sense of accomplishment. I am definitely not in a rush to get into the really expensive ships. My short term goal was: Go to the fringes and find some profitable mining in order to be able to buy and fit a Cobra, then just fly around and do whatever I fancy (missions, bounty hunting, smuggling etc.). I have now sunk a lot of my available free time into trying to find profitable mining or trading only to find there are seemingly no good opportunities to find, or if there are they are very rare. Had I found a ring with metals in it that would yield me 8-12k / t then I would have been more than happy to mine for a while even after spending hours searching for the ring.
But my feeling is just disappointment. Hours spent, nothing found. I have not gained anything. Sure, the experience in the Rift is awesome, but even that does not counter the feeling after 2 hours of play that they were 2 hours wasted.

 

[zarnywoop]

I was playing during beta, and I loved Elite:frontier, so I know how the game is, but I was struggling with making cash at the start, and finding decent runs.. it seemed every station was the same type, but the thing is, the progression curve is really flat at the start with only 2 or 4t cargo space, but once you start doing some bulletin board missions, your rep increases and it gives you more options, meaning you can afford to buy more expensive items to trade.

.
I tried jumping out a few systems but the starter ships just don't have the flexibility to be a long range scout and a hauler.
So i went back to the starter system and just took missions and did a bit of trade here and there..I supplemented my income with a couple of NPC bounty tags, and it does help (you can get 5-20k for a just a couple of wanted npcs). Now I'm getting into it.
.
Now I feel like I'm really making progress, and having fun, even if it is slow going..
.
I started writing down prices in excel for the stations I visit, because it was better than winging it and getting to a station only to find you made 100c profit for the trip. Now I can see at a glance whether it will be worth while taking that trip.
.
I wanted to do mining, but i think it is just not worth it at the beginning of the game, till you have the cash to have a couple of ships.

 

[manny72]

From what I've read many times in forums, AVOID Metal Rich rings...go only for the Metal Rings, they yield the better more expensive Metals.

 

[Foxis]

From what I've read many times in forums, AVOID Metal Rich rings...go only for the Metal Rings, they yield the better more expensive Metals.

Ah, that might explain part of my frustration. Will give it another whirl. If metal rings do yield some more expensive metals it would feel meaningful to mine/explore again. Thanks!