Crew Wages should take a percentage of net income rather than gross income.

[Leucosia]

Fair warning, this is a detailed post with lots of math, numbers, and economic theory. Please insure you at least know the economic terms of "net", "gross", "profit margin", and "markup" before proceeding.

Having a crew member while trying to run a fleet carrier as an import/export style business has proven to be very oppressive with my two NPC pilots. One of them is Elite with a 10% cut, and the other is Harmless with a 2% cut. On paper I should be paying them 12%, and I'm perfectly happy to do this from my profits, but they effectively are taking far more from me than that.

Here's a recent example, I brought 294 tons of Void Opals to a station buying them for 1,650,929 Credits per ton. Station demand was 3,257 tons at the time of this sale, so my transaction was well below the "bulk sale tax" amount of 815 tons. I bought these Void Opals from other CMDRs at my personal fleet carrier for 1,236,205 Credits per ton, leading to a 25% markup at the max sell prices from stations, and costing me a total of 363,444,270 Credits. I prefer to ship items myself rather than reselling them directly from my fleet carrier to make larger profits. This also allows me to continually buy more Void Opals at my fleet carrier, since we regrettably cannot buy and sell a Commodity at the same time right now. Thus, my gross profit from this run is 95,513,992 Credits, which should then result in a net profit of 84,052,312 going to me after my crew takes its 12% cut of 11,462,879 Credits, right?

Wrong, I had 61,225,901 Credits before I made this sale, and had 465,109,172 Credits after it. The above scenario should have left me with a final balance of 508,722,483 Credits. The amount of 465,109,172 Credits just so happens to be the exact result of my crew taking a 12% cut of the gross sale amount of 458,958,262 Credits. This means that my crew took 55,074,991 Credits, or almost 58% of my net profit! How is that fair?

This is 480% more than my crew should be taking realistically from my profits, and is just bad game design. This also stifles player driven economies, since those of us with NPC crew, which likely includes a sizable amount of fleet carrier owners, now have to ask for much larger markups, or much lower prices to selling CMDRs, to account for the massive amount that our crew will take away. We are far less able to be competitive with CMDRs who own fleet carriers and don't have NPC crew. That isn't to say that we should be equally profitable as the non-crew fleet carrier owners, but the difference shouldn't be this large. It isn't fair to expect us NPC crew owners to dismiss our crew to make a reasonable profit with our fleet carriers, especially with the tens of hours it takes to rank a Harmless NPC up to Elite as I (and many others) have.

If my crew took 12% of just my gross profits, then I would see a profit margin of about 19% from the 25% markup my buy prices aim for. The crew taking 12% of gross sales means that I only receive a 10% profit margin from the same 25% markup. 9% may not sound like a lot, but it adds up fast when transactions reach into the hundreds of millions. A better perspective would be that the first situation sees my NPC crew taking 24% of the profit margin, with the second (and current) situation resulting in them taking 60% of the profit margin. Does that seem right to you?

I believe that most of my profits should end up in my own hands given that I do all of the work here. NPC crew only assists in combat, which I naturally run from when in my hauler ships. This same issue actually comes into play with combat to an admittedly much lesser extent, in that NPC crew takes their cut from the full bounty value, when they should really only take the amount left over after repair/rearm costs.

 

[Ed [FCOC]]

Looks like it's an oversight, unless it's a thing that's existed in trading for a while? If the purchase and sale prices are similar, do you make a hefty loss? Does the same thing happen when trading between normal stations?

Personally i ditched my pilots when i was grinding combat rank as i was tired of the punitive taxes both on rank progression and income.

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[FrogsFriend]

Would they need to track the purchase price of each individual tonne of cargo as they could all be purchased for different amounts?

But looking at the big picture, we're talking about making only very, very ridiculous amounts of profit instead of very, very, very ridiculous amounts of profit, all for very little effort. Even if they went to the effort of changing the way it works, would it make any meaningful difference to the short time it takes to have more Credits than you'll ever need?

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

Yes, so effectively you have started a venture with the crew, they’re not your employees. The venture earns, they get 2 and 10% of the total gain and you sweep up the rest, still not a bad deal. Imagine getting 2 partners in a business where they accept 12% of the venture.

I get your point. You want to be the Alpha-Capitalist and make them employees.

Are these rates negotiable? Because I will run my FC (when I get one) under strict a Anarcho-Syndicalist system. Sod the profits, power to the people!

 

[Leucosia]

Looks like it's an oversight, unless it's a thing that's existed in trading for a while? If the purchase and sale prices are similar, do you make a hefty loss? Does the same thing happen when trading between normal stations?

Personally i ditched my pilots when i was grinding combat rank as i was tired of the punitive taxes both on rank progression and income.

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I haven't really encountered a "loss" situation yet, but the "profit" that the game shows in a transaction does not account for what crew will take, so it is absolutely possible. Players generally trade in items with higher margins though, so it's uncommon for regular trading. The idea of high value sales with low margins didn't really happen until fleet carriers were introduced.

Would they need to track the purchase price of each individual tonne of cargo as they could all be purchased for different amounts?

But looking at the big picture, we're talking about making only very, very ridiculous amounts of profit instead of very, very, very ridiculous amounts of profit, all for very little effort. Even if they went to the effort of changing the way it works, would it make any meaningful difference to the short time it takes to have more Credits than you'll ever need?

Yes, they would, but this is similar to what is already done with wanted modules. The bounty on a "hot" ship gets tied and tracked to any modules added or removed from said ship, and module prices naturally can vary quite a bit.

Transaction values are large, yes, I would disagree on the low effort and high profit part. My fleet carrier is run like a small business, and I feel that it adds value to the system that it is stationed in. I regularly check the prices of other fleet carriers to keep mine competitive, I stock mining modules should a new miner need them, I add large pads to a system that otherwise wouldn't have them, I have a shipyard to allow miners to base themselves at my carrier should they want to, and I buy pretty much any minable material that players realistically would mine.

I do all this while giving 75% of the max purchase price back to the miners, and hauling the sold goods to high sell stations myself.

 

[Leucosia]

Yes, so effectively you have started a venture with the crew, they’re not your employees. The venture earns, they get 2 and 10% of the total gain and you sweep up the rest, still not a bad deal. Imagine getting 2 partners in a business where they accept 12% of the venture.

I get your point. You want to be the Alpha-Capitalist and make them employees.

Are these rates negotiable? Because I will run my FC (when I get one) under strict a Anarcho-Syndicalist system. Sod the profits, power to the people!

The issue as I see it is that the NPCs literally contribute nothing to the venture. They sit back, and just take. I would happily give them more if I could have an NPC fly a ship for me and sell goods on their own, but there's nothing that they can do to add value here and warrant as high of a cut as they get. I would accept the system as is if it only applied to profits.

NPC crew rates are not negotiable. The starting rate depends on what level they are hired at starting at 2% for a Harmless pilot all the way up to 12% for an Expert one. The rate increases by 1% for each level the NPC obtains over its starting level, maxing out at 8% over the initial rate.

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

The issue as I see it is that the NPCs literally contribute nothing to the venture. They sit back, and just take. I would happily give them more if I could have an NPC fly a ship for me and sell goods on their own, but there's nothing that they can do to add value here and warrant as high of a cut as they get. I would accept the system as is if it only applied to profits.

So sack them. If they do nothing for you, send them packing.

 

[Leucosia]

So sack them. If they do nothing for you, send them packing.

NPCs are useful for combat though, especially when your combat rank is maxed out, and you don't have to worry about them taking it. In combat, NPCs actively work and contribute, very much earning even a 50% cut in my book, the same cannot be said for other activities though. I wish we could just hire and fire Elite NPCs at will, as they are amazing in a fight, but the max hirable rank is Expert, and it takes a lot of work to raise an NPC up to Elite.

 

[Sunyavadin]

NPCs are useful for combat though, especially when your combat rank is maxed out, and you don't have to worry about them taking it. In combat, NPCs actively work and contribute, very much earning even a 50% cut in my book, the same cannot be said for other activities though.

I'm sure your business in Elite probably also has a team of lawyers on retainer under a similar deal, you just don't notice it because when you do get into any kind of legal troubles, they handle all the actual work, and negotiate settlements which are favourable to you, and all you need to do is click a button on the authority interface. Most of the time they do nothing, occasionally they do something, and when they do it's worth it. If you need them more often, you save more money than they cost. If you don't, you don't.

 

[Leucosia]

I'm sure your business in Elite probably also has a team of lawyers on retainer under a similar deal, you just don't notice it because when you do get into any kind of legal troubles, they handle all the actual work, and negotiate settlements which are favourable to you, and all you need to do is click a button on the authority interface. Most of the time they do nothing, occasionally they do something, and when they do it's worth it. If you need them more often, you save more money than they cost. If you don't, you don't.

Perhaps, but that would probably be something covered in my flat ~26 million Credit weekly carrier maintenance fee, or at least it should be. No one wants sign a retainer saying that "I hereby grant this person 12% of my total income regardless of its source". I begrudgingly accept the mechanics thus far because I have no other choice, and propose the profit modifier because the current implementation is not fun, not intuitive, and this would build off of existing mechanics, thus reducing dev time.

Real retainers either have an upfront lump sum, or a quantified hourly/weekly/monthly rate over time, either of which would work for me here honestly, but unlike reality, no choice is given. Retainers are also generally refunded should the agreed upon work never take place, but NPCs will keep any money they get even if they never leave the station.

 

[777Driver]

My NPC crew has not made a penny since I bought my carrier, my total earnings have been around 1.6 billion. You can completely cut the NPC out of any earnings, make sure you sell any cargo to the carrier at a loss, the carrier makes all the profit. Same deal with stations, purchase the cargo from your carrier for a higher price than you will be offered at the station, the npc doesn't see a single credit.

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

My NPC crew has not made a penny since I bought my carrier, my total earnings have been around 1.6 billion. You can completely cut the NPC out of any earnings, make sure you sell any cargo to the carrier at a loss, the carrier makes all the profit. Same deal with stations, purchase the cargo from your carrier for a higher price than you will be offered at the station, the npc doesn't see a single credit.

I set my carrier price just a few credits the lower than the station I will sell to, so the NPC makes a tiny profit.

 

[777Driver]

I set my carrier price just a few credits the lower than the station I will sell to, so the NPC makes a tiny profit.

My crew get paid on combat missions and regular haulage. I don't even use them as escorts for carrier haulage, the SC runs are over in seconds. They don't get a cut.

She crashed my T-10 into a mountain last week, ai is definitely not built for canyon running.

 

[Leucosia]

My NPC crew has not made a penny since I bought my carrier, my total earnings have been around 1.6 billion. You can completely cut the NPC out of any earnings, make sure you sell any cargo to the carrier at a loss, the carrier makes all the profit. Same deal with stations, purchase the cargo from your carrier for a higher price than you will be offered at the station, the npc doesn't see a single credit.

Thanks for the tip! I still think Frontier should fix this, but it's nice to know that there's a workaround while they get their act together!