High-end mining material prices seem maybe a little bit TOO volatile

Mining has always been easy money if you are sensible in how you go about it, the only real issues are that it typically is a repetitive process with little by way of actual skill and typically a mining ship has to have it's combat capability sacrificed at least a little too which can make fighting pirates a bit interesting. Pre-3.x I had mainly focused on mining Gold and lesser materials with only one session mining Painite (IIRC?) specifically to unlock one of the Engineers.

For some, the pre-3.x mining mechanics (mining laser) were more than adequate but some others complained about a lack of investment in it hence the addition of deep core mining and abrasion blasters in 3.x. One of the biggest mistakes FD have made with the new mechanics is their implementation of analysis and combat modes. This split has generally made gameplay on the whole more tedious and irritating.

Pre-3.x, I had a few ships geared up for mining (Cobra Mk IV, Python, Anaconda) and was generally happy to take them out on occasions to engage in a bit of mining (Gold and some lesser materials normally) but TBH the 3.x changes overall (primarily the FSS+DSS changes though) so badly impacted on my overall enjoyment of ED that I have not played ED as much as I used to pre-3.x. To date, since the introduction of the mining changes I have not engaged in any more mining and if anything the claims about Deep Core/Abrasion blaster mining being high yield money trees put me off doing any more mining in general. Similar things can be said about various other money earning exploits that FD had eventually put a cap on.

Only fairly recently (sometime last year - 2019), did I retool my pre-3.x mining craft (CM4, Pyt, Ana) with at least some of the new tools but I have yet to build up the gumption to do some test mining sessions in them (so I can tune their builds appropriately). I still find the gameplay changes of 3.x irritating in the extreme but ED is one of the few games with both a decent VR implementation and a general universe setting I like.

FD have generally speaking made numerous errors in judgement over the course of the 3.0 and later updates BUT the 3.6 changes give some hope that FD are perhaps getting back on track.

but it's not as easy money as jumping from one system to another, right?

At least it is an activity where you really notice that you have to make an effort, and with enough playability. Normal mining, exploring and almost everything that was done to make money, does not contain any difficulties, before horizons there were no engineers, no guardians, no thargoids, I guess people would have more time to make money on repetitive missions, something that they seem to forget.
 
but it's not as easy money as jumping from one system to another, right?

At least it is an activity where you really notice that you have to make an effort, and with enough playability. Normal mining, exploring and almost everything that was done to make money, does not contain any difficulties, before horizons there were no engineers, no guardians, no thargoids, I guess people would have more time to make money on repetitive missions, something that they seem to forget.
I think you are missing my point, there is no justification for mining to pay better than other activities over time - certainly not as disgustingly as the Deep Core/Abrasion mining seemingly did pre-3.6. The problem is with people's earning over time expectations in on one hand, and FD letting such situations occur and persist for too long on the other - the pre-3.6 VO/Painite mining situation just one of many comparable errors made by FD that they took their time to address.

FD have made numerous errors in judgement over the course of ED's development, mining-gate is just the current one that they are addressing. The only real mistake in regards to 3.6 was FD allowing the situation to persist for so long.
 
I think you are missing my point, there is no justification for mining to pay better than other activities over time - certainly not as disgustingly as the Deep Core/Abrasion mining seemingly did pre-3.6. The problem is with people's earning over time expectations in on one hand, and FD letting such situations occur and persist for too long on the other - the pre-3.6 VO/Painite mining situation just one of many comparable errors made by FD that they took their time to address.

FD have made numerous errors in judgement over the course of ED's development, mining-gate is just the current one that they are addressing. The only real mistake in regards to 3.6 was FD allowing the situation to persist for so long.


imo you take the economy of a galaxy too seriously ... you could have thought that there was an inflation in the economy or something like that by the thargs wars, so that players could make time in other things ... if you intend to make changes and evolve the game, you don't force the players to always repeat the same mechanics for years, you try to encourage the new ones.
Do not realize that there is no human time to see everything you want in elite?

I understand your point and that of all veterans, and I can only say that the economic progression was too slow and repetitive before, stalled the game quite a bit,and it's an argument as valid as what all veterans give.

One tells you that he spent almost a year doing the same things.
It was more than enough to learn almost everything about the game, play 2 or 3 more years doing the same thing always, it would not have brought me much more experience.
 
Finished up a mining stint, checked local prices and travelled to the indicated station, a single jump away. In the 5-6 minutes it took me to get there the price of Painite at that station had dropped by almost a third, from 797k to a bit over 540k. Minute-to minute price volatility of that range is a bit excessive IMO. o7
Can this even be called volatility? It seems to me to more closely resemble chaos. Market volatility in many ways is predictable. Is there any data we have that makes this volatility calculable?
 
Can this even be called volatility? It seems to me to more closely resemble chaos. Market volatility in many ways is predictable. Is there any data we have that makes this volatility calculable?
The question is, where did the price change come from?
Did he check 2 weeks old inara data? In that case we don't know how long it took until the price changed.
Did he use the in-game tools? AFAIK they aren't very accurate, so again, we don't know if the price actually changed.
Let's assume the price was correct at the time, did other people trade at the same station?
 
The question is, where did the price change come from?
Did he check 2 weeks old inara data? In that case we don't know how long it took until the price changed.
Did he use the in-game tools? AFAIK they aren't very accurate, so again, we don't know if the price actually changed.
Let's assume the price was correct at the time, did other people trade at the same station?

Our journals record market data when we dock at a station - not when we've sold our cargo. So it's very possible that Inara or EDDB could show high prices and demand that are a few minutes old, but still don't reflect demand having been met seconds later when the reporting CMDR cashed in.
 
Our journals record market data when we dock at a station - not when we've sold our cargo. So it's very possible that Inara or EDDB could show high prices and demand that are a few minutes old, but still don't reflect demand having been met seconds later when the reporting CMDR cashed in.
It's also possible that the person reporting the price didn't have any VOs in his cargo, so the bulk tax wasn't applied.
 
imo you take the economy of a galaxy too seriously
IMO you and some others do not consider the implications on other people's gameplay by NOT taking the economy seriously enough.

FTR what I am talking about is not the economy per se, but individual gameplay balance. The economy model is merely a tool for regulating that/

I understand your point and that of all veterans, and I can only say that the economic progression was too slow and repetitive before, stalled the game quite a bit,and it's an argument as valid as what all veterans give.
I call rubbish on that one - what many people do not appreciate about ED is that it is a multiplayer environment with a shared NPC-centric economy. What I mean by that is that there are at least some that expect their individual actions to have an unjustifiable level of influence on the shared universe state. There are also those that seemingly expect to be flying the higher tier ships in a matter of hours without taking into account there are good reasons NOT to allow it to happen.

The apparent volatility of the VO (and similar) markets are perhaps an indicator of how selfish and thoughtless at least some players are over their in-game activities.

One tells you that he spent almost a year doing the same things.
It was more than enough to learn almost everything about the game, play 2 or 3 more years doing the same thing always, it would not have brought me much more experience.
Every game - especially MMOs - include a high degree of repetitiveness but the main factors that some are seemingly unable to accept in regards to ED are:
  1. It is not a personal story focused game - we are all just cogs in the wheel, not individuals of marked significance that game-play is centred around
  2. Universe state is shared across all platforms and instances - all are behaviours have impact on the universe state, and some object to not being able to directly intervene with regards to those that are working against them
  3. There is a notional road of progression but it is not true progression - what I mean by that is that the ships follow a notional correlation of increased capability with increased hull cost but it is perfectly viable for an individual to pick a less capable ship and stick with it. It is not a hard progression like with RPG MMOs where if you are above a certain level then you need to have the higher level kit otherwise you will either not survive or not be able to beat the enemies at that level. Further more, it is ill-advised to skip-level in ED due to the fact that flying lesser crafts for a period of time helps prepare you with skills for the higher level craft - this again is different from the situation with typical RPG MMOs where there is little difference in gameplay between L1 and LXX.
But we digress, the point here is gradual ship progression is a natural part of games like Elite and those that try to speed run things are missing out on that. That is why the situation with VO (and similar) mining money earning exploits needed to be capped ideally quicker than it was.
 
IMO you and some others do not consider the implications on other people's gameplay by NOT taking the economy seriously enough.

FTR what I am talking about is not the economy per se, but individual gameplay balance. The economy model is merely a tool for regulating that/


I call rubbish on that one - what many people do not appreciate about ED is that it is a multiplayer environment with a shared NPC-centric economy. What I mean by that is that there are at least some that expect their individual actions to have an unjustifiable level of influence on the shared universe state. There are also those that seemingly expect to be flying the higher tier ships in a matter of hours without taking into account there are good reasons NOT to allow it to happen.

The apparent volatility of the VO (and similar) markets are perhaps an indicator of how selfish and thoughtless at least some players are over their in-game activities.


Every game - especially MMOs - include a high degree of repetitiveness but the main factors that some are seemingly unable to accept in regards to ED are:
  1. It is not a personal story focused game - we are all just cogs in the wheel, not individuals of marked significance that game-play is centred around
  2. Universe state is shared across all platforms and instances - all are behaviours have impact on the universe state, and some object to not being able to directly intervene with regards to those that are working against them
  3. There is a notional road of progression but it is not true progression - what I mean by that is that the ships follow a notional correlation of increased capability with increased hull cost but it is perfectly viable for an individual to pick a less capable ship and stick with it. It is not a hard progression like with RPG MMOs where if you are above a certain level then you need to have the higher level kit otherwise you will either not survive or not be able to beat the enemies at that level. Further more, it is ill-advised to skip-level in ED due to the fact that flying lesser crafts for a period of time helps prepare you with skills for the higher level craft - this again is different from the situation with typical RPG MMOs where there is little difference in gameplay between L1 and LXX.
But we digress, the point here is gradual ship progression is a natural part of games like Elite and those that try to speed run things are missing out on that. That is why the situation with VO (and similar) mining money earning exploits needed to be capped ideally quicker than it was.
yes, a shared economy and whatever you want, but the truth is that there are enough stations / systems so that the economy is not really affected .... if there is low demand in one season, you just have to jump to the other part of the bubble to find a better price, that you want to give more depth than you have is your problem.
But whatever, the truth is that when I play I am not observing what other players do, that is the real problem in this forum, I have even seen people believing how deep mining works without having tried it.

im not wanting to go around, looking for information on taxes, I found this thread of 2015, all veterans have been talking about the same thing for 5 years, and even at that time, there were people who complained that the progression of doing Money was slow, apart from the threads of pure speculation.

Man, you don't have to be a masochist and I know that speaking here could cost me 5 years of conversations to me too, but I entered the elite after following it for a few years because they talked about a game with a development for 10 years, but I never imagined that progression will be based on repetitive mechanics, and such a slow development because part of the community prefers a "realistic" economy, in a large galaxy, on the other hand empty.

I like this game, but in a year and a half 3000 hours it is excessive, if I am sincere, I hope that frontier will someday launch the final content to not continue expectantly to this game , life is short, I can not explain it but surely many understand it, I just want to get to other things, which I do, but I keep thinking about what this game could have been and that keeps us attentive to it, apart from its slowness to add content, that is what really keeps people still playing elite.


You can call rubish that you want in a game , but it's just that, a game, and I use it to play, not to speculate on how something or not should be realistic, the only thing that really matters to me is not to pass so many hours in front of a video game while life and other games go by, I have seen what makes people elite and I prefer that it does not happen to me, and I play videogames since I have reason, but this is too much.
And please don't tell me to stop playing elite, I'm not tired yet and I wait for other things, simply elite forces you to spend half a day playing to make a progress of 0.000000000001 percent.
If things were raised differently, it might be worth it, but not like that.

Doing things repetitively without meaning and without a real mmo component, I don't think it means making progress. This game should have, at this time ,more varied mechanics and content that involves real players, but then they do not want fighting, or wing fights, or wars .... discovering that was quite disappointing for me, I am not a pvp in elite or a pure pvp in other games, I just hoped that was normal. However, now I know a lot of definitions, whether children, men / women or older, for someone who likes to shoot a lasers gun in a video game, simply.

Don't talk to me about mmo game when you can´t even intercept other players to influence the economy truly by breaking his ship loaded with goods, you can do the same from alone. By the way, I spent a year playing open to play alone, there is no big difference, only I can leave the keyboard/hotas without thinking that another player can explodes my ship.
 
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  1. It is not a personal story focused game - we are all just cogs in the wheel, not individuals of marked significance that game-play is centred around


I thought this is just what they sold on the game page, but in a persistent and shared universe, that's why there is the way solo, don't you think?I am not, nor are you, any gear in your story / my story really, I play alone, so it would be useless to fight against clan or whatever. I don't think about any of that when I play, that's why I find many speculations here, and many parallel stories in heads.
 
I thought this is just what they sold on the game page, but in a persistent and shared universe, that's why there is the way solo, don't you think?I am not, nor are you, any gear in your story / my story really, I play alone, so it would be useless to fight against clan or whatever. I don't think about any of that when I play, that's why I find many speculations here, and many parallel stories in heads.
Nope - what they sold was essentially a product where you "blaze your own trail" not one where you play out a story and the universe revolved around it. Your actions define how the universe reacts to you in your direct dealings, but the universe itself is affected by a wide amalgam of concurrent activities - a bit like real life.

Solo mode is just a non-multiplayer mode (PG with no-one else in it) - no difference in universe nor game play in essence. Sorry to disappoint.

The ONLY story element is a universe wide one, which all of us affect and are affected by.
 
im not wanting to go around, looking for information on taxes, I found this thread of 2015, all veterans have been talking about the same thing for 5 years, and even at that time, there were people who complained that the progression of doing Money was slow, apart from the threads of pure speculation.
There have always been those that complain about the rate of money income either in regards to specific activities or in general. Most of them have been unjustified though.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
I don't know what the fuzz is all about. During the entire existence of the Game, there's always been some "income Meta" due to sub-standard or poor Balancing decisions.

The VO rush was just one amongst many many others before it. And just like those, it came, stayed a while.... and now went (*).
All on top of multiple unpatched income "opportunities" (that most would call exploits).

(*) Mining is still dirty profitable as is hehe :D
IMHO FDev's big mistake on the Mining Income Meta wasn't the sheer existence of BGS-induced Commodity Prices.
It was having those "new, rare and very valuable ores" scattered everywhere in a generic fashion, all over the bubble next door (not rare) and even defying Depleted Reserves metrics deep inside the bubble.

The first locations for those Ores should have been reported by Players first :
"Hey, I was mapping a Gas Giant in System {name} 400LY from the bubble and I found multiple {new ore} Hotspots everyone is frantically looking for!"
-> Gold rush ensues to this System and Miners begin systematically Mapping Rings for valuable Hotspots all around the bubble within 2500LY.

Didn't come, but Mining Carriers then in Dec Update would have been the ultimate supplement to Miners operating now in Deep Space, either looking for or already mining those Ores that (for all I care) then could have paid well over 1M Cr/ton back in the bubble or Colonia etc.

But as it is? That Depleted Reserves Ring 65LY from SOL fills you up with the exact same rare ores like that pristine 8200LY distance one in Deep Space.
That's what I call a missed Opportunity and missed Balance (want to fill up with 400t VO that sell for big bucks? Sure, but fit a Fuel Scoop and you'll have to travel at least a few hundred LY)

PS.
So whenever Mining or Exploration/Mining combo Carriers now become a thing in the next Update, that opens up the question :
- why take a Carrier hundreds or even thousands of LY into Deep Space to go Mining, when all the valuable ores are a dime a dozen right in the bubble?

I kinda hope they do implement new and truly rare ores (SciFi stuff if need be, Irradiated/Weird/Alien alloys or whatever "Unobtanium") into Deep Space (and Deep Space only!) to create an Exploration/Mining combination that still makes sense and is worth/is rewarding the additional effort operating a Carrier over this distance.
 
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(...)

PS.
So whenever Mining or Exploration/Mining combo Carriers now become a thing in the next Update, that opens up the question :
- why take a Carrier hundreds or even thousands of LY into Deep Space to go Mining, when all the valuable ores are a dime a dozen right in the bubble?

I kinda hope they do implement new and truly rare ores (SciFi stuff if need be, Irradiated/Weird/Alien alloys or whatever "Unobtanium") into Deep Space (and Deep Space only!) to create an Exploration/Mining combination that still makes sense and is worth/is rewarding the additional effort operating a Carrier over this distance.

and then sell them, but only 100t/10min to make good profit.. :)

indeed interesting area: with Mining Fleet Carriers coming some additional balancing would need to happen.. what a mess
 
Nope - what they sold was essentially a product where you "blaze your own trail" not one where you play out a story and the universe revolved around it. Your actions define how the universe reacts to you in your direct dealings, but the universe itself is affected by a wide amalgam of concurrent activities - a bit like real life.

Solo mode is just a non-multiplayer mode (PG with no-one else in it) - no difference in universe nor game play in essence. Sorry to disappoint.

The ONLY story element is a universe wide one, which all of us affect and are affected by.

You have not disappointed me, it is just what I said ...

then it will be that I play my way without believing that it affects anyone else, like yours, in mine I do not care what the other commanders do, it will not affect at play, I'm sure, and of course I'm not going to bother anyone,I mean, I am not going to go to your system full of merchandise to lower demand or something like that in your home or your faction ...It may mean something to those who play for that, but absolutely nothing to me right now, I would prefer other ways that are not so well seen in this game, but that are completely normal in others.

Do you think I care about the state of a system or faction, when I don't have a only one home?




The funniest thing about this, is that everyone can continue playing as they want if that is their lore / role or their funniest way to play, do not try to get into the game of others, there may even be children for whom the economy sound like raxxla.

It is an accepted video game for children too.,although some believe that they have real ships and that it is somehow an adult game.

I am quite simple for these things and live more happier,sorry.
 
The delivery of one or two tanker ships full of gasoline does not significantly alter the price of gasoline in a city. The delivery of a ship or two full of coal does not significantly alter the price of coal in a city. I could understand a 10 or 20% reduction based on the delivery of ten or twenty ships each delivering 500 tons of Painite but I do not believe this is what is happening, not when the prices are shifting by 50% or more over a couple of days at each station. The prices shifting seems too volatile. o7
 
Well, I don't know how many active players ED currently has, and even less how many of those active players are miners, but suppose there are probably more than one or two of them. The other day a buddy of mine mentioned how he went to a VO hotspot in Open and it was like a beehive. So there are probably dozens or even hundreds of players for each of the well-known hotspots, and they all try to sell their stuff in the same handful of systems.

So, odds are there's not one ship full of the stuff or two coming into your city, but a hundred. Filled with a commodity whose value is defined by its scarcity. In reality, it could actually happen that only the first couple of ships get to sell their load, and the rest are simply turned away because there is absolutely nobody left who would buy it.

A good lesson in this subject is offered by the Asterix volume "Obelix & Co".
"People buy things that are a) useful, b) convenient, c) interesting, or d) make your neighbour jealous, and this (d) is the market niche we need to penetrate." 😊
[loosely translated, I never read the English version.]
 
Watching all the hard effort into mining flushed away by some idiot who doesn't play the game is heartbreaking and as soon as a better, fairer option becomes available...

Wow! They actually took back all those credits you made during the gold rush? This is much worse than I realized!
 
Wow! They actually took back all those credits you made during the gold rush? This is much worse than I realized!
He may have been a bit abrupt in what he said, but he is right, most of those who complained about mining prices have not even tried deep mining, it is absurd to complain about something you don't play, and put excuse the markets, when the markets do not make much sense and are restored every week.
 
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