Docks vs Stations Payouts

[KastenDarkness]

Hello All,

I 've only been playing ED for the past couple of weeks but have a question about Mission Board payouts. When I first started playing I was running out of a station pretty steady and bumped my system up to a boom state. My missions at that time, with factions at the Friendly, to Ally rep, would only pay 600k-1m in payout at a Large Station. I decided to check out a smaller dock in the same system to see if the people of mission boards offered a different payout or had different people. To my surprise about an 2-9m in payout difference from the same people and same amount of cargo.

So my question is why are docks pay more out then station? I just bought an Anaconda and can carry almost double my cargo but the payouts are terrible from the Station vs the Medium padded docks. Is there a reason why the same factions are paying less for the same cargo?

 

[Ethaidan]

It's not just about the size of the station... it's how you use it!

No really, did you compare the economic base of the different stations? I get far more from extraction economies in boom than from agriculture or tourism in boom - the combination of economy & state is an important factor when looking for specfic mission types or profiteering. Of course, travel distances, destination systens/stations are also part of the secret formulae.

 

[KastenDarkness]

I have not, This game is very different then what i"m used to. I came from Eve online so the market system in this game is very limited(external)or lacking since you cant see what every station in so many jumps needs compared to what I'm used to. How do you find out the economic bases of a station or region without having to hunt down stuff station by station in Eddb.io? and then find the person needing it without station hopping? Is there a better way that I haven't found to do this yet? Any information would be super helpful. Plus one question is there is wing missions that have high delivery volumes of thousand of units but don't pay anything for delivery, like 15 hulls worth for 1m CR?

 

[Ebel]

Hello All,

I 've only been playing ED for the past couple of weeks but have a question about Mission Board payouts. When I first started playing I was running out of a station pretty steady and bumped my system up to a boom state. My missions at that time, with factions at the Friendly, to Ally rep, would only pay 600k-1m in payout at a Large Station. I decided to check out a smaller dock in the same system to see if the people of mission boards offered a different payout or had different people. To my surprise about an 2-9m in payout difference from the same people and same amount of cargo.

So my question is why are docks pay more out then station? I just bought an Anaconda and can carry almost double my cargo but the payouts are terrible from the Station vs the Medium padded docks. Is there a reason why the same factions are paying less for the same cargo?

As Ethaidan said, but this would be a really good time for 777 Driver to pipe up.

 

[jacozilla]

I can't tell you WHY (because that would require reading minds of Fdevs) but can tell you my experience of WHAT....keyword of 'my' experience. Not claiming must be true for anyone else to avoid arguments.

In every mission scenario I've done - which isn't to say all but the usual popular category of stuff (source missions, passenger missions, cargo delivery, etc), the game as it stands (maybe was different in past, maybe will change in future, but right NOW it is the way it is) is balanced towards offsetting larger ship capacity at Large landing stations vs outposts where only Small/Med can land.

What I mean by offsetting is that on a 1:1 basis of same mission type vs same mission type, but comparing Large station vs Outpost, the missions at the outpost will pay more.

For example, take a well known classic money maker - Robigo.

I am NOT talking credits per hour right now - lets not get into debate over what is more profitable CR/hour - I am talking much less subjective, easily provable fact

a) passenger mission from same system (Robigo) to goto same destination (Sirius Atmospherics) always pays more from Robigo Mines (outpost) vs Hauser Reach (large station)
-same system, same distance of travel, same mission type - but if you take the mission from outpost, you get offers to ~5M as max ----whereas exact same allied rep, same faction, but at Hauser Reach (large station), that same mission max out ~3M

The catch is you can fit more missions from Hauser with larger ship, but you get better paying missions at Robigo Mines. In my own personal experience, I find I make a bit more CR/hour from outpost vs large station, mostly because the time to take off, dock, and approach is quicker. You get less missions, but they each pay more, and you take off/land faster.

But I easily concede for some commanders it may very well be more profitable from Hauser.

The point of this reply though is what can't really be disputed and answering the OPs question is on a mission to mission comparison, the pay scale is indeed higher at outposts - but as pointed out, since only Small/Med ships can land there, you can't take as many capacity limited missions. (e.g. ones taking cargo or passengers)

And far as I can tell, it is only those missions that scale this way. Meaning, data courier missions don't pay more at outposts like they do for ship capacity ones. So again, can't read Fdev minds, so don't know if this is just happy coincidence or they deliberately balanced it this way so that there was reason to do missions from outposts.

 

[777Driver]

As Ethaidan said, but this would be a really good time for 777 Driver to pipe up.

Really just depends where you are in the galaxy. As far as outposts paying more (missions) that is simply not true. As far as commodity trading goes, you can often find better payouts at outposts because large freighters are not hammering the markets, that too depends on where you are in the galaxy and the amount of traffic.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I can't tell you WHY (because that would require reading minds of Fdevs) but can tell you my experience of WHAT....keyword of 'my' experience. Not claiming must be true for anyone else to avoid arguments.

In every mission scenario I've done - which isn't to say all but the usual popular category of stuff (source missions, passenger missions, cargo delivery, etc), the game as it stands (maybe was different in past, maybe will change in future, but right NOW it is the way it is) is balanced towards offsetting larger ship capacity at Large landing stations vs outposts where only Small/Med can land.

What I mean by offsetting is that on a 1:1 basis of same mission type vs same mission type, but comparing Large station vs Outpost, the missions at the outpost will pay more.

For example, take a well known classic money maker - Robigo.

I am NOT talking credits per hour right now - lets not get into debate over what is more profitable CR/hour - I am talking much less subjective, easily provable fact

a) passenger mission from same system (Robigo) to goto same destination (Sirius Atmospherics) always pays more from Robigo Mines (outpost) vs Hauser Reach (large station)
-same system, same distance of travel, same mission type - but if you take the mission from outpost, you get offers to ~5M as max ----whereas exact same allied rep, same faction, but at Hauser Reach (large station), that same mission max out ~3M

The catch is you can fit more missions from Hauser with larger ship, but you get better paying missions at Robigo Mines. In my own personal experience, I find I make a bit more CR/hour from outpost vs large station, mostly because the time to take off, dock, and approach is quicker. You get less missions, but they each pay more, and you take off/land faster.

But I easily concede for some commanders it may very well be more profitable from Hauser.

The point of this reply though is what can't really be disputed and answering the OPs question is on a mission to mission comparison, the pay scale is indeed higher at outposts - but as pointed out, since only Small/Med ships can land there, you can't take as many capacity limited missions. (e.g. ones taking cargo or passengers)

And far as I can tell, it is only those missions that scale this way. Meaning, data courier missions don't pay more at outposts like they do for ship capacity ones. So again, can't read Fdev minds, so don't know if this is just happy coincidence or they deliberately balanced it this way so that there was reason to do missions from outposts.

GM Fiat: Nerf The Space Rich.

 

[jacozilla]

Really just depends where you are in the galaxy. As far as outposts paying more (missions) that is simply not true. As far as commodity trading goes, you can often find better payouts at outposts because large freighters are not hammering the markets, that too depends on where you are in the galaxy and the amount of traffic.

I never said all aspect of outpost pay more. In fact, pretty specifically avoided anything other than what i call missions that scale with ship capacity (e,g. Source delivery, passengers, cargo, etc - not data courier, kill missions, etc)

commodity buy/sell aren’t missions. So not sure how that contradicts the fairly narrow statement I made.

do you have actual examples that differ where outposts for these mission types don’t pay more? Specifically, like the Robigo example I gave, same system to same destination with same mission type - only variable being large station v outpost from that origin system, the outpost missions pay that are tied to capacity pay more (again, I specifically noted mission exceptions not ted to capacity like data courier)

doesnt seem to matter where in galaxy. But since I’ve seen you mention robigo before you’ve obviously been there.

go out there, view hauser vs robigo mines. At allied, right now you will never see 5Mil passenger to Sirius atmospherics missions at Hauser, ever. They top out at 3Mil. (Most will be 4 to 4.5 high end at robigo mines but it does top out at just over 5.0 mil if you check enough)

but those same mission types, same origin system to same destination pays 5Mil top out at robigo mines outpost. It’s same far as I can see elsewhere but harder to see and compare because to isolate variables you want same origin, destination, etc.

the choice from fdev seems to be use bigger ship that can carry more missions, in this case passengers but earn less on a per mission basis of the types i mentioned, or goto outpost in same system, earn more per mission but can’t take as many concurrent.

high end range at Hauser - large ship station = 3 mil
high end range at robigo mines outpost = 5 mil

this isn’t rocket science and hard to confirm.

 

[777Driver]

do you have actual examples that differ where outposts for these mission types don’t pay more? Specifically, like the Robigo example I gave, same system to same destination with

go out there, view hauser vs robigo mines. At allied, right now you will never see 5Mil passenger to Sirius atmospherics missions at Hauser, ever. They top out at 3Mil. (Most will be 4 to 4.5 high end at robigo mines but it does top out at just over 5.0 mil if you check enough)

but those same mission types, same origin system to same destination pays 5Mil top out at robigo mines outpost. It’s same far as I can see elsewhere but harder to see and compare because to isolate variables you want same origin, destination, etc.

Yes I have many examples, am sure you have noticed I post quite a few of my trucking destinations on this forum (with screenshots)

Regarding good old Robigo: Mines is controlled by CDE (in Boom) Hauser's is controlled by Sirius, currently no state in System.

Now I can't rule out some other hidden modifier( most people have never heard of the large freighter bulk tax in game) just never seen anything that suggests an increase in payout compared to a large Orbital. System state, type of industry etc etc all affect the payouts for freight/pax runs.