Best way to earn money with combat?

Hi fellow commanders.

I apologize if this has been already stated or debated (I'm sure it has, but just wanted the most up-to-date information possible).

I have been years (yes, years) building, A rating, upgrading, engineering and learning to fly my beloved Imperial Cutter.

Now, I have the PvP deadly ship I always wanted, and it can really kick asses, but it costs more than a billion credits and has a debut of +62 M.

At this point, I'm looking to put the impressive firepower of my ship to good use, and make some good money while having fun fighting.

So, the question is, what is the best way of earning good cash in combat?

Is it better to go to HazRes, or CZ?

Shall I join one of the powers to increase my earnings?


Every hint or input is appreciated!



Thanks commanders and fly save...
 
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Either will work, however, if you try your hand at CZ do not forget to stack a few missions for one of the sides, the bounty from targets in CZ is less than that to be had in haz res, and you want the mission bounties to pick up the slack. While the threat to your ship is generally higher in CZ than Haz res, that doesn't mean much, as both are easy with a little common sense. An alternative is doing wing assassination missions, these can be very profitable solo once you have decent local standing for the higher paying ones, and provided your clear rate allows you to do a few an hour.

It is also useful to note that you can pick up different engineer mats in haz res and CZ because some mats are only to be had from military vessels, and you will also get the occasional T9 and T10 dropping their mats in CZ too. If you want to farm CZ for mats it is advisable to use collector limpets as you wont often have luls in fighting to do it manually, and be prepared to have a lot of limpets destroyed by the enemy.
 
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Just fyi: The Combat Missions for Haz Rez are broken right now...we're STILL waiting for Frontier to fix them.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...on-Targets-not-being-flagged-correctly/page20
You can take to Massacre Missions (for Pirates); but do not expect a reasonable spawn rate in Rez Sites until Frontier fixes the problem.
You can still go into Haz Rez and try though...at least the bounties won't be too bad (And the Mats of course).
I would also make sure to know where the nearest Interstellar Factor is. So you can cash in all the "Out of System" bounties.
And as Hexcaliber said: Wing Assassination Missions can be good for Credits too.
 
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verminstar

Banned
Trying to complete massacre missions will suck what remains of yer sanity into the plughole...avoid massacre missions they bugged and have been fer some time.

Wing missions are cool if ye can stack them against the same factions and ye got the stones to do them solo...can be fairly challenging at times but they are fun none the less and the coin varies on how many ye can stack ^
 
Not quite the question you asked but since you have an A rated cutter it seems fun should now trump funds, and for me that would mean CZ.

There's a rhythm to CZs, on entering boost away a bit flip and look at the sides. Pick a side and move in. Keep an eye on the radar, stay at the edges and gauge the balance of power. One of the most dangerous times is shortly after your side mops up since a new wave of enemies can warp in and you'll be heavily outnumbered. This is a bit more of a risk in small ships since being swamped can be a fast death.

If making money is important then forget RP and honor, If out numbered consider boosting away. Sure your side will get obliterated but then a new wave of allies will warp in shifting the balance back and you can head back in for fast easy kills.
 
ether CZ or RES is good

ideally you find a place where you can get mission to kill pirates with in one of those 2 places!!

getting missions will double your hourly income.
 
Haz Rez and High Res farming for profit will required the use of a kill warrant scanner. Overlapping your farming with a community goal will allow you to double dip and maximize profits. Avoid doing it in Open because PVPrs are hungry to find players and they see BH CGs as watering holes for these self described "lions" (cough cough seal clubbers) to hunt at.

Another factor is the RNG of NPC ship populations. When you pop in, look for your first ship to be a Federal Assault ship or larger. You will earn trash if the first ship is an ASP or smaller. Log out and in, or switch modes (not including open) to repopulate the instance with a different profile of opponents.

In my opinion, the High Res gives you a faster farming rate because the cops are helping out. Trigger discipline is essential so you don't get wanted for accidentally hitting a good guy. An easy way to avoid it is to have two hardpoint configurations that you mindfully switch between when encountering new targets. I usually set the KWS on the primary trigger on one configuration, and start scanning immediately after selecting a new target. Just watch your hud to make sure you're in the scanning configuration.

All energy weapons will allow you to stay in the zone for extended periods and turn in a fat bounty when you're done for the session.

If I'm in a small maneuverable ship, I tend to use the long range modification because it allows you to plink away while juking around facing wings.

If I'm in a large ship like a conda, I tend to go with efficient because I'm not doing alot of turn fighting.

If you want to be actively engaged in your farming, I would say gimballed weapons would be the best choice - just mind your trigger discipline.

If you want easy mode farming, go with turrets - but I would definitely stay in the high rather than the haz because your dps will be too low for a steady kill rate.

For CG farming, my favorite grinder is a conda with all efficient burst turrets and an OC MC on the huge hardpoint. It uses ammo slowly and breaks down hulls quickly.

I would avoid laser special effects like phasing sequence, because accidental hits will trigger a bounty.

I recently have seen what I believe to be a buff in bounty payouts per kill with the KWS. In the most recent CG, I had several 600K bounties, where in the past it would be extremely rare to see a 400K bounty.

Regular assassination missions can pay out 1-2 million a pop, but be prepared, the Elite single player missions always feature an enemy corvette with SCBs. They are fun for the fighting, but unless you're experienced I would not suggest anything smaller than an A rated and engineered chieftain. There is also the annoying search for mission signal sources (usually 8-18 Mm from target planet), or the dreaded go see this contact for the last location of the target (these require an extra four steps to get to the target).

Happy hunting!
 
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Haz Rez and High Res farming for profit will required the use of a kill warrant scanner. Overlapping your farming with a community goal will allow you to double dip and maximize profits. Avoid doing it in Open because PVPrs are hungry to find players and they see BH CGs as watering holes for these self described "lions" (cough cough seal clubbers) to hunt at.

Another factor is the RNG of NPC ship populations. When you pop in, look for your first ship to be a Federal Assault ship or larger. You will earn trash if the first ship is an ASP or smaller. Log out and in, or switch modes (not including open) to repopulate the instance with a different profile of opponents.

In my opinion, the High Res gives you a faster farming rate because the cops are helping out. Trigger discipline is essential so you don't get wanted for accidentally hitting a good guy. An easy way to avoid it is to have two hardpoint configurations that you mindfully switch between when encountering new targets. I usually set the KWS on the primary trigger on one configuration, and start scanning immediately after selecting a new target. Just watch your hud to make sure you're in the scanning configuration.

All energy weapons will allow you to stay in the zone for extended periods and turn in a fat bounty when you're done for the session.

If I'm in a small maneuverable ship, I tend to use the long range modification because it allows you to plink away while juking around facing wings.

If I'm in a large ship like a conda, I tend to go with efficient because I'm not doing alot of turn fighting.

If you want to be actively engaged in your farming, I would say gimballed weapons would be the best choice - just mind your trigger discipline.

If you want easy mode farming, go with turrets - but I would definitely stay in the high rather than the haz because your dps will be too low for a steady kill rate.

For CG farming, my favorite grinder is a conda with all efficient burst turrets and an OC MC on the huge hardpoint. It uses ammo slowly and breaks down hulls quickly.

I would avoid laser special effects like phasing sequence, because accidental hits will trigger a bounty.

I recently have seen what I believe to be a buff in bounty payouts per kill with the KWS. In the most recent CG, I had several 600K bounties, where in the past it would be extremely rare to see a 400K bounty.

Regular assassination missions can pay out 1-2 million a pop, but be prepared, the Elite single player missions always feature an enemy corvette with SCBs. They are fun for the fighting, but unless you're experienced I would not suggest anything smaller than an A rated and engineered chieftain. There is also the annoying search for mission signal sources (usually 8-18 Mm from target planet), or the dreaded go see this contact for the last location of the target (these require an extra four steps to get to the target).

Happy hunting!

This. Absolutely.[yesnod]
 
The Wing Assassination missions can be quite lucrative (and fun!). Around 5m if memory serves. They can be quite intense however. Depends on how good you are but personally I wouldn't attempt it in anything but my Anaconda or Corvette. If your Cutter is fully kitted and engineered I'm sure it'll suffice. Take SCB's though! Depending on how quickly you find the mission signal source (they're not too bad these days) I reckon you'd make money faster than a res site and certainly faster than a CZ. This is assuming you already have the required rep with the local factions to get the juicy missions though.
 
Thanks commanders for all that feedback... rep for all of you!!

Just fyi: The Combat Missions for Haz Rez are broken right now...we're STILL waiting for Frontier to fix them.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...on-Targets-not-being-flagged-correctly/page20
You can take to Massacre Missions (for Pirates); but do not expect a reasonable spawn rate in Rez Sites until Frontier fixes the problem.
You can still go into Haz Rez and try though...at least the bounties won't be too bad (And the Mats of course).
I would also make sure to know where the nearest Interstellar Factor is. So you can cash in all the "Out of System" bounties.
And as Hexcaliber said: Wing Assassination Missions can be good for Credits too.

I just realized about the ridiculous spawn rate of the mission targets. I have been picking up some missions but I prefer the ones that tell you to kill one unique pirate lord (the payout is good and you can complete them very quickly).

Not quite the question you asked but since you have an A rated cutter it seems fun should now trump funds, and for me that would mean CZ.

There's a rhythm to CZs, on entering boost away a bit flip and look at the sides. Pick a side and move in. Keep an eye on the radar, stay at the edges and gauge the balance of power. One of the most dangerous times is shortly after your side mops up since a new wave of enemies can warp in and you'll be heavily outnumbered. This is a bit more of a risk in small ships since being swamped can be a fast death.

If making money is important then forget RP and honor, If out numbered consider boosting away. Sure your side will get obliterated but then a new wave of allies will warp in shifting the balance back and you can head back in for fast easy kills.

Thanks for the advise.

I may try both CZ and HazRES and see which one grants me with better income.

About being outnumbered, that is certainly a thing my ship is very capable of standing. My A rated, fully G5 engineered Cutter can stand a lot, and I mean a lot of damage without even starting to sweat.

I can deal with 8, even 10 NPC ships attacking at the time without loosing much of my shields... :D

It is a very fast ship too, so I can eventually say good bye without problems if needed...

Haz Rez and High Res farming for profit will required the use of a kill warrant scanner. Overlapping your farming with a community goal will allow you to double dip and maximize profits. Avoid doing it in Open because PVPrs are hungry to find players and they see BH CGs as watering holes for these self described "lions" (cough cough seal clubbers) to hunt at.

Another factor is the RNG of NPC ship populations. When you pop in, look for your first ship to be a Federal Assault ship or larger. You will earn trash if the first ship is an ASP or smaller. Log out and in, or switch modes (not including open) to repopulate the instance with a different profile of opponents.

In my opinion, the High Res gives you a faster farming rate because the cops are helping out. Trigger discipline is essential so you don't get wanted for accidentally hitting a good guy. An easy way to avoid it is to have two hardpoint configurations that you mindfully switch between when encountering new targets. I usually set the KWS on the primary trigger on one configuration, and start scanning immediately after selecting a new target. Just watch your hud to make sure you're in the scanning configuration.

All energy weapons will allow you to stay in the zone for extended periods and turn in a fat bounty when you're done for the session.

If I'm in a small maneuverable ship, I tend to use the long range modification because it allows you to plink away while juking around facing wings.

If I'm in a large ship like a conda, I tend to go with efficient because I'm not doing alot of turn fighting.

If you want to be actively engaged in your farming, I would say gimballed weapons would be the best choice - just mind your trigger discipline.

If you want easy mode farming, go with turrets - but I would definitely stay in the high rather than the haz because your dps will be too low for a steady kill rate.

For CG farming, my favorite grinder is a conda with all efficient burst turrets and an OC MC on the huge hardpoint. It uses ammo slowly and breaks down hulls quickly.

I would avoid laser special effects like phasing sequence, because accidental hits will trigger a bounty.

I recently have seen what I believe to be a buff in bounty payouts per kill with the KWS. In the most recent CG, I had several 600K bounties, where in the past it would be extremely rare to see a 400K bounty.

Regular assassination missions can pay out 1-2 million a pop, but be prepared, the Elite single player missions always feature an enemy corvette with SCBs. They are fun for the fighting, but unless you're experienced I would not suggest anything smaller than an A rated and engineered chieftain. There is also the annoying search for mission signal sources (usually 8-18 Mm from target planet), or the dreaded go see this contact for the last location of the target (these require an extra four steps to get to the target).

Happy hunting!


Thanks for your interesting tips.

No problem with the PvPrs. In fact, I thank being attacked by them from time to time. I've long trained my skills (and prepared my ship) to face the most aggressive and skilled attackers, and I can promise you I have had the most fun out of Elite kicking their asses as they came attacking with their typical overconfidence... ;)

I will follow your advise about the opponent profiles and I'll try to attack a big fish first...

Regarding my weapon load-out, I always use the same config, since each gun is engineered and specialized for a certain effect. It is the result of years of research and trial and error and it works pretty well in a great variety of situations. It is specially meant for PvP combat, but as I have powerful lasers, it can be used with great succeed against NPCs and I can last decent amount of time farming bounties in combat zones or RES without having to reload.


For now I'm loving the regular assassination missions, and they seem to have the most challenging and fun fights you can get against NPCs...
 
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Spam wing assasinations. Would require some search to find a system where 4+ minors are hating on a single minor faction in another system.
But it is a best combat money maker atm, in my opinion.

You will need a Vette along those lines, or a conda like that. Just burst down misson target and be done with it. Do not stack more than 18, it is a PITA.
 
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Wing assassination missions are where the cool combat pilots are hanging out these days!

Failing that, combo a CZ with CZ missions and - ideally - a CZ-based community goal!

I suspect that REZ farming would be god-awfully boring as all heck in a Cutter, unless you like kicking puppies. More time finding targets than fighting them; a bit like bringing an aircraft carrier battlegroup to a gunfight!
 

verminstar

Banned
Lol at my own expense. Did I really write that? I feel so terribly English. [where is it]

True though...upto a point. Farming easy wildlife is a cool way of getting a crew member trained up...everything has its uses ^

Oh and as fer wing missions, yeah they good money but hard work...Ive lost the conda twice and limped out on 8% hull once on the cutter which was a but clenching ¨almost¨ moment. I know some guys can breeze through these but they still fairly challenging...I do have some engineering but not a great deal cos I cant be bothered unlocking them ^
 
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High or Haz RES bounty hunting at a good CG. Like the last one in Narri. Great bounty hunting system, with a close station.

I enjoy combat in CZs more, but I don''t come anywhere near the sort of money I make at a CG bounty hunting.

Of course not all CGs are created equal, but the goods ones are a great way to make money. Even if you make the same or more money with missions, you are killing fewer ships, so bounty hunting is better for the rank as well, leading to higher paying missions.
 
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I suspect that REZ farming would be god-awfully boring as all heck in a Cutter, unless you like kicking puppies. More time finding targets than fighting them; a bit like bringing an aircraft carrier battlegroup to a gunfight!

You can occasionally get a good fight in a res site - A wing of 3 Anacondas beat up my Chieftain quite badly recently - But they're the exception rather than the rule. Usually I don't even have to use my SCB's in a res site in my Corvette. Unlike, say the CZ where they come in handy and the wing assassination where they are pretty much essential.
 
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