Learn credits / Enjoy the game

[Axt0n]

Hello CMDRs, after few months of flying around the bubble, exploring systems also outside of it, bounty hunting and data delivery, I realized that my credits are not increasing so much and I'm starting to be really confused on what to do, I mean there are a lot of things to do but I don't know where I want to start from (or what is the purpose of it).

Let's make a step back so I can explain much better my feelings and my goal.

First of all I want to play what I really like most, such as killing enemies (BH or Combat zones) and exploration.
What I want to achieve is to get money as fast as possible to get better ships and doing whatever I want without problem.

After 8 months of gaming I have now 300M of credits and ships like DBX, Viper Mk3, Cobra Mk3, Vulture, Dolphin and a Keelback. I don't know if this is so much or if I am under the average.

I can see so far people (also streamers) with a lot of ships, (Federal Corvette and the Imperial Cutter just to name a couple of them) plus a lot of credits like Billions, how it is even possible? Is just grinding the game 24/7 or there is a way to get money faster?

Can any CMDR share his experience or "secrets" on how to make money faster without loosing the enjoyment to play this game?

Cheers

 

[Axt0n]

You've been playing as long as I have, and have about one hundred million credits more than me. I should be asking you how you're making money ;P

Well the best easier way (not faster) to make them is the Road2Riches, which involves you to make a journey to several systems and exploring body like Full Metal, Earth Like or Water planets.
Is good way, but is really boring, I did it for several day, I don't want to do it anymore (not into the near future).

 

[Dbrn47]

Milk things that overpay until they get nerfed. There's generally reddit threads and videos on Youtube that tell you where the latest milk money is. Of course, you can realize that credits don't really mean much and just play ways that you enjoy the game. Elite is something you learn to play for the long game, because if you don't, you're going to burn out and wish you never bought the damn thing. Milking one of these activities was one of the worst things I ever did, sure, it was great to have the credits for the new ship I wanted to buy, but then I needed an extended break to recover from the sheer repetition I put myself through. Never again.

 

[Tarman]

You can always become allied in a few regions, and then pick up all the hi-end killstuff missions from your allied factions. It can also give you some motivation if you're working for a cause instead of just bumming around randomly.

Milk things that overpay until they get nerfed. There's generally reddit threads and videos on Youtube that tell you where the latest milk money is. Of course, you can realize that credits don't really mean much and just play ways that you enjoy the game. Elite is something you learn to play for the long game, because if you don't, you're going to burn out and wish you never bought the damn thing. Milking one of these activities was one of the worst things I ever did, sure, it was great to have the credits for the new ship I wanted to buy, but then I needed an extended break to recover from the sheer repetition I put myself through. Never again.

And this. Terminal Burnout happens eventually, no need to intentionally contract it. Elite at its core is Pretend Spaceman till you dowanna noe moar.

 

[Axt0n]

You can always become allied in a few regions, and then pick up all the hi-end killstuff missions from your allied factions. It can also give you some motivation if you're working for a cause instead of just bumming around randomly.

Can you please explain better this process? What do you mean exactly as killstuff missions? The one that you need to go into a Conflict Zones?

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I have a 5 step plan for you. Step 1: Make some friends around your trade level or higher. Step 2: buy a T7 or T9. Step 3, find a good system near high tech and extraction and refinery economies 1 jump away. Step 4: get allied with all factions. Step 5: do source and return wing missions with the friends from step 1 and ship from step 2.

 

[Dbrn47]

Can you please explain better this process? What do you mean exactly as killstuff missions? The one that you need to go into a Conflict Zones?

Kill Pirates, Kill Person, Kill Skimmer, Kill Trader, etc. Usually labelled Massacre, Wet Work, Assassinate... Things of that nature. Beta missions seem to have lowered the amount of kills while maintaining the payout, so those will be pretty good soon, provided you're Allied of course.

 

[Iloveyourname]

Get into the beta, sell all your ships and buy the cutter or corvette.

Then try them both in combat. I think they are terrible ships, yes hull melting powerful weapons, but like flying a cruise ship. Some will probably disagree.

p.s. Try a clipper? 22M good agility and speed, good enough for a lot of combat but still fun and 150+ cargo when you need it. My rebuy is 2M, which doesn't happen that often as it's also good at running away.
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[Tarman]

Kill Pirates, Kill Person, Kill Skimmer, Kill Trader, etc. Usually labelled Massacre, Wet Work, Assassinate... Things of that nature. Beta missions seem to have lowered the amount of kills while maintaining the payout, so those will be pretty good soon, provided you're Allied of course.

What he said. There are plenty of mission opportunities to be a killer for hire, so if that's what you like, go for those. They pay better if you've built up Allied rep with the mission-giving faction.

There are other ways to make monies, such as having a Python for trade missions and such (my Python paid for 6 other ships even tho I actually don't like its flight characteristics at all), but if you want to be paid in blood then stick with what you enjoy, and don't sweat credits unless you really want something. There's no endgame, so no real need to burn yourself out going for one of the Big 3 ships unless that is your goal specifically.

 

[Wendake]

I have prety much the same gaming style (some bubble combat and then out exploring).

I'm playing for 7 months now and 2 weeks ago I had only a DBX & a Krait full G5 and 250M credits...and then I found a gold rush between 2 systems with boom delivery missions...got 1 billion credits now lol

Anyway, doesn't change a lot since I like to stick with only 1-2 ships. I'll probably buy the Phantom as my new exploration ship so it'll replace my DBX for my long range explorations.

I went from 250M cr to 1 billion in 2 week...didn't felt like a grind because I was interdicted by Conda NPCs so I could do some fight and gather G4-G5 mats while doing the boom delivery missions.

Not interested in big ships so I'll stick with my Krait which is an awesome multi-purpose ship...I'm doing everything with and it's a really fun ship to fly in combat.

Sell some ships and try the Krait, you'll love it and won't feel the need to buy other ships so no need for big money.

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

All the efficient ways of making money are pretty boring, to be honest. My go-to moneymaker (only discovered it recently) is passenger missions to far-away-in-system stations like Popper Terminal in Ross 591. It's just flying in SC for 10 minutes, maybe dodging an interdiction. Got about 60 million in one hour, once. But it was a very boring hour.

I mean... you have 300 million credits. That's enough for basically every exploration build in the game, I'd have thought. Not super high-range combat, maybe, but you could easily kit out an FdL or something for bounty hunting or CZs, unless I'm underestimating PvP pricing.

Pretty much this , the big money is in grinding a high paying activity until your ears bleed and just cant do it anymore to be honest. If you plod aalong and earn at your leisure it sure doesnt seem to add up to much. In the last 2 years of just plodding along ive earned a very minor percentage of my few billion (the billions were earned grinding out at the very early stages of the game).

 

[DNA-Decay]

I flipped a system that I cared about for Alliance lore reasons.
It turned into a bit of a money printer. Err I mean “BGS edge-case”.
I made more money in that week than I had in the previous 18 months.

Previously I had got a week milking gems from a puzzle at the end of The Dangerous Games. That got my Python.
But that Alliance System out in the California Nebula has over time been the source of my billions and my expensive ships.

I don’t go out there that often.

If I know I need a “war chest” to cover a bunch of rebuys, I’ll head out and work a few days until I’ve got about tree fiddy in cash.

 

[zarking]

The "gold rush" days have mostly gone.
A year ago or so, we had a mix of "crazy bugs" and extreme payouts that a lot of people jumped on.
The last one I remember was the Palin mission in Maia to deliver thargoid stuff, you basically flew to a crashed scout, picked up 4 resin things, flew back and got 20 million or something.
You could easily do this 6 times an hour, and some people would spend all day doing it.
Before that there were planetary scan missions you could stack, scan one thing and make 50 to 80 million easy. This was a sort of bug.
Long before that was the ceos/sothis long range biowaste hauling back to the bubble, I made my first billion doing those.

These sort of things seemed to happen about once a month, they were exciting the first few times, as it's massively rewarding to see your balance go up so quickly, but ultimately boring and a lot of people did nothing but the same gold rush activity over and over and burned themselves out totally.

Currently, the simplest steady, easy to find way to make reasonable money that you can do on your own without a huge cargo capacity is passenger missions, mostly the 3 hop sightseeing mission types. You can grab 3 or 4 (an orca or something will give you enough passenger cabins and still have a decent jump range) and make 20 to 30 million in half an hour if your lucky, sometimes more sometimes less. If your ok with the odd interdiction and a bit of scan dodging, go for wanted passengers which may pay a little more.

There are other ways of course, but if I fancy a quick cash top up that I can spend a few hours on, I do those. It's also a nice way to see some interesting places you'd otherwise miss.

 

[Hans v Martell]

I made my initial heap of credits before I had heard of any "exploits", doing data runs in a Viper. Not overly exciting, but if you do them from a system where you are allied with everybody they pay quite well (I remember payouts up to 900k Cr per mission, and remember you can stack 20 of them )

On the other hand, don't be fooled to think you need one of the big three to be successful at combat. It's the pilot that counts. I know a guy who happily does all his combat in a very nicely beefed up Viper, and he is usually found in the Open. Myself, I happen to own an Anaconda I recently kitted for a more relaxed BH and CZ experience, but when the going gets tough I always hop in my favourite medium sized murder boat.

To keep yourself from getting bored and for whatever assistance you may need, you might consider joining a player faction. You're welcome to check out the A.R.C. if you like, see links below.

Fly safe, CMDR! o7

 

[Phil JMac]

OP - just keep doing what you fancy

money will happen - adopt a system and get allied for good missions as already stated

Trade does make lots of money but if it isn't for you don't worry too much.... just enjoy what you enjoy

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Can any CMDR share his experience or "secrets" on how to make money faster without loosing the enjoyment to play this game?

Combat and exploration are the slower ways to make money, though both get some improvements in 3.3

Most of the fastest ways to make money involve trade or trade-like missions, where you can get 50-100 million credits an hour in the right place at the right time. You have enough money at the moment to buy a cargo Python (or the much cheaper T-7) and go for it ... but if you don't like hauling cargo, you probably won't like hauling cargo for money either.

My personal way to make money [1] is to run data courier missions: if you get Allied with lots of factions in a small region, you can be making a couple of million per trip from them *plus* you get chased by assassins which you can kill for extra cash and combat fun. The missions don't pay much individually, but you can fly around systems picking up five or six at each port (and handing in two or three from the last port) and reach the 20 mission limit pretty quickly.

On the other hand: you have 300 million in cash. That's enough for a high-end medium-sized combat ship and plenty to spare, and your DBX is already an excellent exploration ship. So you can probably just buy that and carry on doing what you're doing. The money will show up as you go along.


One thing you might want to try if you're on PC:
- download the Beta
- log in to the Beta
- triple-check that you're definitely logged into the Beta and not live
- reset your save IN BETA (did I mention to check that you were definitely in Beta?)
- you now have a billion credits. You won't have the rank for a Corvette or Cutter, but you can buy yourself an Anaconda and A-rate it. See if you actually *like* it in combat.

If you don't like it - I hate flying big ships (I have an Anaconda miner, but I wouldn't use it for anything which required turning around or making more than one supercruise trip every few hours) - you don't need to worry about how to get enough money for a big ship. Problem solved.

If you do like it, you have enough money already to buy a mostly D-rated exploration Anaconda: do that, go explore in it for a bit, take advantage of the higher payouts and new tools coming in 3.3 when that's released ... come back with enough money to combat fit it as well.


[1] I don't actually do it to make money, but for other reasons. Nevertheless my bank balance is a few hundred million higher than it was a few months ago, which is a nice side effect.

 

[o2thaZ]

mmm s meat on billions

 

[Ashnak]

LOL. 8 Months and 300 Million? I've been playing for (checks forum joined date) close to three years now and have ~500 MCr. on my second (bubble) CMDR and maybe 100 MCr. in cash on my first CMDR (whom I did reset some time ago, and who is now more than halfway to Beagle Point, so he should have a fair amount in exploration data).

Let me tell you a secret: the big ships are boring . Apart from bulk cargo missions, they can't do anything the smaller ships can do. And all of the make money fast schemes get boring pretty soon.
Otherwise, there are ways to make a decent income in all trades - but you have to stick at them. E.g. taking a T-9 and shipping basic medicines from a booming high-tech system to an outbreak system. Sure, it'll make you a few millions per round trip. But how often do you want to repeat it?

Just do what is fun for you, and the money will come. Or start grinding, and the money will come faster. But there is no endgame, and having the money just for the sake of having it is pretty pointless IMO.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

If you try to play it like old Frontier, meaning:
1. Hunt for an acceptable paying mission
2. go to system X with the mission
3. repeat from 1

Then you're basically a "stranger" everywhere. Like some posters said, get yourself allied with some faction you like (note that federal/imperial factions count towards your superpower rank which locks away some ships, including Corvette and Cutter and one or two permit-locked systems). Repeat missions for this faction. Hell, get allied with as many of them as possible in a system you like, setting it as your "home system", as meaningless as it is in game today. You'll see payouts increase. Still it doesn't make nearly as much as other activities, like passenger missions. Be aware that doing passenger mission increases your exploration rank, because bus drivers make the best explorers ;-)

You can also try setting up a trade route for rares trading. Not something I dabbled in myself. You can find it, as always, outside the game on http://eddb.io/ .

 

[Shiro Akai]

First of all I want to play what I really like most, such as killing enemies (BH or Combat zones) and exploration.
What I want to achieve is to get money as fast as possible to get better ships and doing whatever I want without problem.

Then you need to sidetrack into money making routine. R2R is a way but dull, boring and doesn't bring that much money. Other, similar way, is proper exploration. Your DBX is perfect for that. Top fuel scoop, afmu, no need for SRV, head to SagA* and back, scan every Earth-like, water world, ammonia, high metal content and bigger gas giants. 50k LYs loop, week, maybe two of time, 100M credits from exploration. Not the best cr/hr ratio but still.

Another thing is passenger runs. They pay quite well but involve "engaging and interesting gameplay" in which you spend 40 min flying straight in supercruise. One, max 2 missions per hour in which you see the counter going down. Yaay :/

One more thing is exploiting the back ground sim. This requires bit of knowledge and skill. YOu need to find those 2 systems where hauling stuff between them can pay 20M per mission. With luck you can stack enough to earn 100M in one run. Trick is in finding those systems, other CMDRs who know them remain silent.

Yet another idea is to exploit trusty outbreak and basic medicines loop. Simply - find a ssytem in an outbreak state (map filter) then in eddb.io set that ssytem as default and search for nearest station that sell basic medicines. Buy medicines there and transport it to outbreak station. Full cargo Anaconda/T-9/Cutter is a ~3M credits more in your pocket per run. With skill you can do 4-6 runs an hour.

After 8 months of gaming I have now 300M of credits and ships like DBX, Viper Mk3, Cobra Mk3, Vulture, Dolphin and a Keelback. I don't know if this is so much or if I am under the average.

Hmm.. with your credits and fleet you should switch to Python by now. Or hit for Anaconda for big hauling missions. Individual progression is individual but at this point you should have something bigger already.

I can see so far people (also streamers) with a lot of ships, (Federal Corvette and the Imperial Cutter just to name a couple of them) plus a lot of credits like Billions, how it is even possible? Is just grinding the game 24/7 or there is a way to get money faster?

Streamers tend to exploit "gold rushes" hence all those billions. Plus they play bit longer. Also - they play more due to their "work", gathering video material for next Youtube show, guide, news, etc. Other CMDRs - it's an effect of scale, player who plays for 3 years will have significantly more assets than new one.

And there were also bugs and gold rushes. When I started then it was Robigo run. Later it was data delivery missions, skimmer shooting and planetary scans. Honestly I tried scans once - although money was good it was ultimately boring so I skipped.

Cutter / Corvette is seen as ultimate goal. Not only it costs an arm and a leg (new player perspective) but it also requires military naval ranks (which were tough to progress, at some point you could run through all ranks in a matter of days, instead of months). Nowadays having a Cutter is not as big as having one 2 years ago.

I myself, at some point had all Big 3 (Anaconda, Cutter and Corvette) plus bunch of other ships like Clipper, Python, AspX, DBX and such. And I had been playing ED for like 15 months at that point. Casually.

Can any CMDR share his experience or "secrets" on how to make money faster without loosing the enjoyment to play this game?

Cheers

Truly? You can't (personal opinion). You either play as you like but suffer from low income or you enjoy large income but perform repetitive, dull and simply boring stuff. Unless you're the guy who just love to spend 40 minutes in supercruise just to deliver that businessman to the outpost that is 300k Ls away.

I tried both methods, none worked as I expected. So I simply do everything at a time. One day I go exploring and bring few millions. Other I spend trading medicines to outbreak systems. One day I venture for material gathering and earn nothing to switch to simple cargo missions. After 2 years as a CMDR there is no ship I couldn;t buy.

But still I don't play as I would like. Key thing with ED is finding your style.