Decent credit buff in all areas

[Ryudo]

New posting to the forums, though I read them frequently. Very interesting to read, but I believe there's a key factor missing in the discussion. Prepare yourselves gentlemen (and ladies), for walls of text.

The reason Robigo runs are so profitable is directly related to both a commanders Rank in Trading, and the type of mission involved (Smuggling increases payout with distance as I understand it). A Tycoon will make more money than someone with the rank of Broker; as it should be. But this does not occur with any other 'profession' because the missions are so incredibly gimped on their rewards that next to nothing is worth taking. A Bounty Hunter, for example, will hunt in a RES system and make 2-3 Million an hour without any missions. If there were Bounty Hunting missions with 'identical' rewards, their profit per hour would go up (though their commitment and skill requirement to complete would as well) and better match the smugglers from Robigo.

A 'buff' to all professions across the board should come in the form of a revamped mission system. As an example, right now you can progress in rank in Combat, but any missions given don't have nearly the rewards they should have or are not difficult enough to merit higher rewards in the first place. Part of this problem is the ranking system itself; it's so directly tied into mission rewards that the only good rewards come from the top two or three ranks of any given profession. While ranking up shouldn't be easy, it shouldn't require hundreds of hours to get basic missions that pay decently. Create missions that will supplement already existing profitable activities (res hunting, exploration, etc) and you'll balance everything out nicely.


Something that could also be explored is adjusting rewards from missions not only based on one's rank, but on the 'value' of their ship relative to it's main role. For example, someone might give a commander with a Cobra (all purpose) an assassination mission, but you'd expect a commander of equal ranking touting a well equipped FDL (combat) to be given a slightly bigger reward for said mission for having better 'tools' at their disposal. This would help balance profit progression between Combatant, Trader, and Explorer (since a Trader's profit directly correlates to the size of their ship/amount of cargo they can carry; not the case for Combatant). You'd of course have to be extremely careful balancing a system like that, but would certainly make the whole thing more interesting.

 

[bfgm]

New posting to the forums, though I read them frequently. Very interesting to read, but I believe there's a key factor missing in the discussion. Prepare yourselves gentlemen (and ladies), for walls of text.

The reason Robigo runs are so profitable is directly related to both a commanders Rank in Trading, and the type of mission involved (Smuggling increases payout with distance as I understand it). A Tycoon will make more money than someone with the rank of Broker; as it should be. But this does not occur with any other 'profession' because the missions are so incredibly gimped on their rewards that next to nothing is worth taking. A Bounty Hunter, for example, will hunt in a RES system and make 2-3 Million an hour without any missions. If there were Bounty Hunting missions with 'identical' rewards, their profit per hour would go up (though their commitment and skill requirement to complete would as well) and better match the smugglers from Robigo.

A 'buff' to all professions across the board should come in the form of a revamped mission system. As an example, right now you can progress in rank in Combat, but any missions given don't have nearly the rewards they should have or are not difficult enough to merit higher rewards in the first place. Part of this problem is the ranking system itself; it's so directly tied into mission rewards that the only good rewards come from the top two or three ranks of any given profession. While ranking up shouldn't be easy, it shouldn't require hundreds of hours to get basic missions that pay decently. Create missions that will supplement already existing profitable activities (res hunting, exploration, etc) and you'll balance everything out nicely.


Something that could also be explored is adjusting rewards from missions not only based on one's rank, but on the 'value' of their ship relative to it's main role. For example, someone might give a commander with a Cobra (all purpose) an assassination mission, but you'd expect a commander of equal ranking touting a well equipped FDL (combat) to be given a slightly bigger reward for said mission for having better 'tools' at their disposal. This would help balance profit progression between Combatant, Trader, and Explorer (since a Trader's profit directly correlates to the size of their ship/amount of cargo they can carry; not the case for Combatant). You'd of course have to be extremely careful balancing a system like that, but would certainly make the whole thing more interesting.

This guy gets it ^^ (very nice points about rank effecting profit btw) Have some rep!

Only 2 suggestions I would add:

1.) Balance the professions (via missions) accordingly in order from Riskiest (most difficult) - Safest (Easiest)

2.) Reduce credit income (via missions) so that we aren't progressing through ships so quickly.

 

[Ryudo]

This guy gets it ^^ (very nice points about rank effecting profit btw) Have some rep!

Only 2 suggestions I would add:

1.) Balance the professions (via missions) accordingly in order from Riskiest (most difficult) - Safest (Easiest)

2.) Reduce credit income (via missions) so that we aren't progressing through ships so quickly.

Thanks for the rep!

Turns out a lot of what I said was already taken into account for 2.1 according to a developer update post today: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=231826. Makes me wish I had read it first (Which, turns out, would have been impossible as it was posted 40 mins after mine. Yikes)!

No specifics on what kind of increases in mission payouts we'll be seeing just yet, but there is apparently a lot more news to come. We can hope that the mission revamp will address these issues.

 

[Boomer Kay]

HERE'S THE PROBLEM:

(My averages)

Smuggling - 10m per hour
Trading - 7m per hour
Bounty Hunting - 2m per hour
Pirating - 500k per hour (For npc's. Less for CMDR's)

I would like to think that the riskier a career path is the more it should pay out. However, the career paths should not vary to this degree. I also believe credits are far to easy to make in this game. Its not going to be fun when every pilot is doing Robigo runs and flying Corvette/Cutters.

That's a really low bounty hunting income there, but otherwise the numbers seem a lot more reasonable than many others.

Don't know how you think that risky job equals -or has to or should equal- good pay, though.
Have you ever compared the salary of a soldier or policeman to say .. the CEO of a big company? Responsibility my behind .. they run the company into the ground, take their million dollar bonus and leave. Widows of Servicemembers need to fight for peanuts.
It's a game, so you can actually chose the activity you enjoy without having to make money. And the brilliance of the game is, that you can have as much or even more fun in a cobra, viper, diamondback or T6 as in any other ship. Vulture, Asp Explorer and T7 in the 20 mio range each specced to their respective purpose are already a huge luxury.

 

[bfgm]

That's a really low bounty hunting income there, but otherwise the numbers seem a lot more reasonable than many others.

Don't know how you think that risky job equals -or has to or should equal- good pay, though.
Have you ever compared the salary of a soldier or policeman to say .. the CEO of a big company? Responsibility my behind .. they run the company into the ground, take their million dollar bonus and leave. Widows of Servicemembers need to fight for peanuts.
It's a game, so you can actually chose the activity you enjoy without having to make money. And the brilliance of the game is, that you can have as much or even more fun in a cobra, viper, diamondback or T6 as in any other ship. Vulture, Asp Explorer and T7 in the 20 mio range each specced to their respective purpose are already a huge luxury.

I'm not sure we're on the same page or not but the numbers you quoted were collected from my average incomes in the games current state. The other list of numbers I listed were the values I *suggested*.

As far as Risk and Reward goes that's one of the big reasons Elite Dangerous doesn't have Pirates. The Risk is through the roof, and the reward is the smallest among all professions. Therefore in order make any kind of credits pirates have to take up different professions instead.

I understand Risk and Reward isn't real life, but it does make for a better game experience. Why run the risk of losing my pirate python for pennies when I can run a risk free trade route for 7-8m an hour? Just doesn't give any incentive.

 

[Ryudo]

That's a really low bounty hunting income there, but otherwise the numbers seem a lot more reasonable than many others.

Odd to hear (or rather, read) that about Bounty Hunting.

On average I make about 3 Million an hour Bounty Hunting, usually less in my Corvette (it just takes so long to get from bounty to bounty). With my FDL I might hit 4 Million if I'm super lucky with spawns. Keep in mind that this is with ADL's Rank 2 Bonus; not being in a Bounty faction would see significantly less profits. Before Powerplay I made 2 Million - 3 Million an hour, at most.

Now if you had the 100% increase from Rank 5 that'd be another story (but to do so requires so much grinding it's effectively not worth it). What exactly do you propose the average income per hour is for Bounty Hunting currently?

 

[Lobstris]

What do people think ?

Should all areas for generating credits be given a decent increase, doubled, tripled or even more.

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

I'd like to see a reduction of all ship-related prices instead. Refund all players who own assets for which prices will go down. Then implement mechanics which introduce running costs, like ship crew members, so that larger (and in theory more expensive) ships require a higher income to operate. Players in big ships should not fear a high insurance cost, they should know beforehand that going to war in a big ship is going to cost. Finally, balance out the game professions which currently make obscene amounts of money compared to the others.

If I could give you all the rep for this comment I would. +1 to everything you say.

 

[GJ51]

Meh...

Far too easy to make credits now

Used to take a while to move up to the next ship. Now it's measured in hours instead of months.

Too many pilots flying hardware they aren't ready for and then complaining how they lost their ship. Doesn't really help them or improve the overall game experience when someone buys expensive hardware and doesn't understand many basic skills and hasn't really spent enough time in the smaller ships to learn their strengths/weaknesses.

Just my opinion

I'm sure many will disagree

YMMV

 

[bfgm]

Meh...

Far too easy to make credits now

Used to take a while to move up to the next ship. Now it's measured in hours instead of months.

Too many pilots flying hardware they aren't ready for and then complaining how they lost their ship. Doesn't really help them or improve the overall game experience when someone buys expensive hardware and doesn't understand many basic skills and hasn't really spent enough time in the smaller ships to learn their strengths/weaknesses.

Just my opinion

I'm sure many will disagree

YMMV

This guy hit it on the head +1

What exactly do you propose the average income per hour is for Bounty Hunting currently?

Heres a copy + paste from what I said a couple pages ago.

HERE'S THE PROBLEM:

(My averages)

Smuggling - 10m per hour
Trading - 7m per hour
Bounty Hunting - 2m per hour
Pirating - 500k per hour (For npc's. Less for CMDR's)

I would like to think that the riskier a career path is the more it should pay out. However, the career paths should not vary to this degree. I also believe credits are far to easy to make in this game. Its not going to be fun when every pilot is doing Robigo runs and flying Corvette/Cutters.

HERE'S THE SOLUTION:

Smuggling - 5m per hour
Trading - 2m per hour -- 4m per hour if trading in open play
Bounty Hunting - 3m Per hour (LARGELY amplified if the target is a CMDR.)
Pirating - 2m per 100t of stolen NPC cargo. -- 20m per 100t of stolen CMDR cargo. (Rare to see and catch 1 CMDR in a trade vessel in a days time anyway).
Wanted Bounties - 500k per NPC kill -- 5m per CMDR kill -- 3m for piracy. WANTED status stays with you until death.
This would give reason for Bounty Hunters to actually "hunt" pirate CMDR's, and not just pirate NPC's.

**Exploration, Salvaging, Missioning, Mining, all need reworked / rebalanced too, but I have little experience with them and therefore don't feel comfortable offering suggestions for them**

 

[Boomer Kay]

Depends more on the spawn than anything else. You can influence the spawn by leaving and re entering. Or have a ring with 2 high res that you switch if the spawn is bad.

Ideally you want python, condas, clippers.. and oddly FDL, which gave me between 200 and 300 k per ship over the last few sessions. FDL gave the most. More than condas.
You can modulesnipe them in a minute or less. 4 ships per million bounty on average?
Ideally you have a ship that can handle wings on it's own. FAS is a beast in those regards.
Using a kill warrant scanner gives 20-40% bonus without any PP modifier. Haven't seen those 300k bounties without.

And look for the next ships while you finish them off to minimize delay (module snipe, they don't move.. circle and look for other ships.. after doing res for some time, I can visually spot "good" ships from bout 10 km away).
But most depends on the spawn -> 2 high res and switching to a decent spawn yielded about 4-5 mio per hr. Just counting actual res time, though. I have an outpost 20ls away to restock. If you travel 5kls in supercruise and only stay 20 minutes, it will be significantly less.

If you stay in a mediocre or even bad (haulers and sidewinder for 10k each .. travel time between encounters being similar) res, it's a lot less, too.

 

[Ryudo]

Depends more on the spawn than anything else. You can influence the spawn by leaving and re entering. Or have a ring with 2 high res that you switch if the spawn is bad.

Ideally you want python, condas, clippers.. and oddly FDL, which gave me between 200 and 300 k per ship over the last few sessions. FDL gave the most. More than condas.
You can modulesnipe them in a minute or less. 4 ships per million bounty on average?
Ideally you have a ship that can handle wings on it's own. FAS is a beast in those regards.
Using a kill warrant scanner gives 20-40% bonus without any PP modifier. Haven't seen those 300k bounties without.

And look for the next ships while you finish them off to minimize delay (module snipe, they don't move.. circle and look for other ships.. after doing res for some time, I can visually spot "good" ships from bout 10 km away).
But most depends on the spawn -> 2 high res and switching to a decent spawn yielded about 4-5 mio per hr. Just counting actual res time, though. I have an outpost 20ls away to restock. If you travel 5kls in supercruise and only stay 20 minutes, it will be significantly less.

If you stay in a mediocre or even bad (haulers and sidewinder for 10k each .. travel time between encounters being similar) res, it's a lot less, too.

Considering I know all of the little tricks you've mentioned (I powerplant snipe almost all the time), I think this has more to do with combat rank than anything else. I very rarely get any kills worth more than 200k even with a kill scanner (I'd say 90% less than 200K, 8% ~220k, and 2% 300k or higher). This includes Clippers, Condas, Pythons, FDLs, and even FAS. It seems strange because I'm 70% into Dangerous, which is the third highest rank in Combat, and the targets I kill range anywhere from Master to Elite.

 

[GilliganTX]

Considering I know all of the little tricks you've mentioned (I powerplant snipe almost all the time), I think this has more to do with combat rank than anything else. I very rarely get any kills worth more than 200k even with a kill scanner (I'd say 90% less than 200K, 8% ~220k, and 2% 300k or higher). This includes Clippers, Condas, Pythons, FDLs, and even FAS. It seems strange because I'm 70% into Dangerous, which is the third highest rank in Combat, and the targets I kill range anywhere from Master to Elite.

I'm also dangerous rank. Not quite 70%.

Last night, in a Haz Res, I got an Anaconda for 300k and an FDL for 285k. Other ships ranged from 150-250k. I'd say similar averages.

 

[Joey2o15]

No. If anything its too easy to make money. Way too easy, personally id like to see it be harder. The last HAZ RES i ran i pulled out 55 million credits in about 90 mins. It doesnt take long to buy anything, other than rep requirements.

No way you could earn that..... maybe 30m if you're really lucky.

 

[Troa Barton]

This guy hit it on the head +1




Heres a copy + paste from what I said a couple pages ago.

HERE'S THE PROBLEM:

(My averages)

Smuggling - 10m per hour
Trading - 7m per hour
Bounty Hunting - 2m per hour
Pirating - 500k per hour (For npc's. Less for CMDR's)

I would like to think that the riskier a career path is the more it should pay out. However, the career paths should not vary to this degree. I also believe credits are far to easy to make in this game. Its not going to be fun when every pilot is doing Robigo runs and flying Corvette/Cutters.

HERE'S THE SOLUTION:

Smuggling - 5m per hour
Trading - 2m per hour -- 4m per hour if trading in open play
Bounty Hunting - 3m Per hour (LARGELY amplified if the target is a CMDR.)
Pirating - 2m per 100t of stolen NPC cargo. -- 20m per 100t of stolen CMDR cargo. (Rare to see and catch 1 CMDR in a trade vessel in a days time anyway).
Wanted Bounties - 500k per NPC kill -- 5m per CMDR kill -- 3m for piracy. WANTED status stays with you until death.
This would give reason for Bounty Hunters to actually "hunt" pirate CMDR's, and not just pirate NPC's.

**Exploration, Salvaging, Missioning, Mining, all need reworked / rebalanced too, but I have little experience with them and therefore don't feel comfortable offering suggestions for them**

I don't quite agree with your solution but I think it's going in the right direction.
personally I'd like to see better scaling and have rank, player count, and ship class effect you income levels in all areas.
example being if you're in a wing of two bounty hunting and the leader of the wing is in an anaconda ranked elite the game would spawn high ranked large ships. There would either be more enemies generated, larger ships, and higher ranked with bounty payout scaling to match. Because there's two people in the wing the game would spawn double the potential bounty vouchers worth of opponents. Be that with higher bounty opponents and or more of them. That way the pay and difficulty would scale as you ranked up and your ship became better equipped, rather than getting easier as it does now.

i agree strongly that illegal activities should pay the most if successful.
i also agree that all the lesser income generating tasks need to be brought in line and be viable options.

your current averages are odd however let me list mine.
robigo runs avg 20 mill per hour
smuggling avg 16 mill per hour
trading avg 14 mill per hour
bounty farming 12 mil per hour (no bonuses)
Npc pirating avg 1.5 mill per hour
mining ~2 million per hour
exploration ain't nobody got time for that.

personally I think missions should be the lower level income generator compared to the sandbox equivilent. so I think the avg income between long range smuggling and sandbox smuggling need to be swapped.

so my solution would be as follows (all baseline averages without scaling bonuses based on rank, ship class, number of players, or power play bonuses)
sandbox smuggling 20 million per hour (in a cutter, black market markup scales with trade rank)
Long range smuggling avg 17 mill per hour (directly link profit per ton delivered to trade rank)
pirating avg 17 mill per hour (npc pirating needs to be just as viable, again with black market prices scaling with rank)
mining avg 16 mill per hour (odds of finding better ore scale with rank)
trading avg 15 mill per hour (in a cutter, with bonus vouchers that scale with rank, wing trade vouchers no longer require the wingmate in the same system)
bounty farming avg 14 mill per hour (number and value of opponents scale with rank)
exploration 500k-3mill per hour (scale scan distance by sensor rating so that it scales add in bonuses based on exploration rank.)

After that make the npcs as indistinguishable from players as much as possible in terms of skill / loadout with higher ranked npcs.
make smuggling a bounty offense
drastically increase the value of fines and bounties
all bounties are paid upon death with no exceptions
all bounties can be paid early after 50% of the bounties timer duration, bounties paid early are subject to a 50% mark up.
route the best trade routes through anarchy space
drastically increase police responce and force in non anarchy systems
increase fuel and repair prices
add module storage and add flat not percentage based refittment fees
purchasable hangers in stations with no limit scale the cost first extra bay costs 10k the next 25k ect capped at 5 mill this is for all hangers in all systems not just per stations. Add in bookmarking system to galaxy map.
add in ship transport 2% of the ships cost to transport plus hanger fee at new station.
add more illegal goods at very high prices
increase the cost of the lower goods
scale rare allocation to trade rank, remove refresh for allotment

 

[slothman320]

How about we cut the most profitable occupations tenfold instead to bring them back to reasonable levels.

Some guy on reddit was recently asking what was the next step up from his Python.
He had been playing for one week.

Is that one week of gameplay or is that since he started? Because I didn't get my Python until last month and I've been playing since April of 2015. Granted I've been just having a laugh dog fighting. I stayed as mostly penniless all the way up until I got my Python. And then I started trading to get money quickly to get that fabled anaconda. What I think people don't consider is: you don't have to do the fast tracking. Look at the explorers, I bet they don't make near as much as someone in a type 7. In a type 7 with a 2.5k trip one way you can make upwards of 500k in little more than 5-8 minutes. It's what you make of it but your desired way to make a living shouldn't be factually worse.
Bounty hunters make a decent amount of money, but in the time it takes me to make upwards of 1.5 million in a Haz RES I can make 4-6 million trading in my Annie. I just feel that the wealth gap should close a bit. Especially since bounty hunting is the most dangerous occupation. Also combat bonds should contribute to your faction rank (fed empire) if the faction you support is allied with those big factions. It doesn't really make sense that the fastest way to rank up is to sit and make it rain in tun or Tamar before taking a break to run off and do the rank advancement mission. Combat bonds pay very well and is a very fun way of making money, so maybe a very small increase in pay just to make this post relevant. Like 5% just so the combat pilots don't think they're getting snubbed.

 

[DragoonKnight]

It's rather easy to make around 3m an hour using mid-range ships. I think that's the sweet spot. People making 10m+ an hour from Robigo runs are making too much. Remember, this game is meant to continue development for the next 10 years. And already, players can find themselves flying in an Anaconda after a couple of months.

Wishing to fly an Anaconda after a week of gameplay is asking too much.

I find it is Better if we discuss it in terms of hours and not just weeks. What may be one week of gameplay to me while I am sick and stuck at home may be a month to someone else. Obviously our achievements in the game will differ. It is why it did not take long for me to make my way from a sidey into an ASP and for other people it can take much longer.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Is that one week of gameplay or is that since he started? Because I didn't get my Python until last month and I've been playing since April of 2015. Granted I've been just having a laugh dog fighting. I stayed as mostly penniless all the way up until I got my Python. And then I started trading to get money quickly to get that fabled anaconda. What I think people don't consider is: you don't have to do the fast tracking. Look at the explorers, I bet they don't make near as much as someone in a type 7. In a type 7 with a 2.5k trip one way you can make upwards of 500k in little more than 5-8 minutes. It's what you make of it but your desired way to make a living shouldn't be factually worse.
Bounty hunters make a decent amount of money, but in the time it takes me to make upwards of 1.5 million in a Haz RES I can make 4-6 million trading in my Annie. I just feel that the wealth gap should close a bit. Especially since bounty hunting is the most dangerous occupation. Also combat bonds should contribute to your faction rank (fed empire) if the faction you support is allied with those big factions. It doesn't really make sense that the fastest way to rank up is to sit and make it rain in tun or Tamar before taking a break to run off and do the rank advancement mission. Combat bonds pay very well and is a very fun way of making money, so maybe a very small increase in pay just to make this post relevant. Like 5% just so the combat pilots don't think they're getting snubbed.

Just pledge Hudson or ALD if you see yourself doing a lot of bounty hunting.

 

[Gold Member]

NO.

Scaling with mission length / difficulty / rank required would be nice, but aside from that, no changes are necessary.

 

[slothman320]

This guy hit it on the head +1




Heres a copy + paste from what I said a couple pages ago.

HERE'S THE PROBLEM:

(My averages)

Smuggling - 10m per hour
Trading - 7m per hour
Bounty Hunting - 2m per hour
Pirating - 500k per hour (For npc's. Less for CMDR's)

I would like to think that the riskier a career path is the more it should pay out. However, the career paths should not vary to this degree. I also believe credits are far to easy to make in this game. Its not going to be fun when every pilot is doing Robigo runs and flying Corvette/Cutters.

HERE'S THE SOLUTION:

Smuggling - 5m per hour
Trading - 2m per hour -- 4m per hour if trading in open play
Bounty Hunting - 3m Per hour (LARGELY amplified if the target is a CMDR.)
Pirating - 2m per 100t of stolen NPC cargo. -- 20m per 100t of stolen CMDR cargo. (Rare to see and catch 1 CMDR in a trade vessel in a days time anyway).
Wanted Bounties - 500k per NPC kill -- 5m per CMDR kill -- 3m for piracy. WANTED status stays with you until death.
This would give reason for Bounty Hunters to actually "hunt" pirate CMDR's, and not just pirate NPC's.

**Exploration, Salvaging, Missioning, Mining, all need reworked / rebalanced too, but I have little experience with them and therefore don't feel comfortable offering suggestions for them**

Here's the problem with what you're saying. Pirating and trading depends on the cargo you're trying to sell. It's not a fixed amount like bounty hunting or combat zoning. CMDR bounties are based off of that commanders crimes which last I checked didn't include existing. If you mean raising the max bounty that shouldn't happen either as we had a problem where people could raise their bounty super high vey quickly and would find their friend and let them kill you. People were making 100s of millions a day.

 

[bfgm]

Here's the problem with what you're saying. Pirating and trading depends on the cargo you're trying to sell. It's not a fixed amount like bounty hunting or combat zoning. CMDR bounties are based off of that commanders crimes which last I checked didn't include existing. If you mean raising the max bounty that shouldn't happen either as we had a problem where people could raise their bounty super high vey quickly and would find their friend and let them kill you. People were making 100s of millions a day.

Easy solution. Once you're killed, you're forced to pay your bounty. If you lack the funds then assets will be liquidated.

 

[slothman320]

Easy solution. Once you're killed, you're forced to pay your bounty. If you lack the funds then assets will be liquidated.

That's not a solution. The dead guy doesn't pay the bounty, the state pays.