Lets talk about Earning Money (with spreadsheets)

[CMDR Beltane]

Rewards aren't the only elements of the missions that are impacted by your rank. A simple example is that the rank of spawned enemies will also be impacted by this. We don't want missions for harmless missions forcing them to take on Elite rank pilots!.

Missions do still have a recommended rank unless something has gone wrong.

Whoa... sec there. I have been out for quite a while, but since when is the rank mentioned in the description only a recommendation? I mean, i read the reply - but only superficial. Friend of mine started 2 days ago and i tried to give him a rundown of the game, suggesting he might wanna get an Adder for general purpose and viable jumprange to join me and another friend as soon as he wants to. Today i asked how he is doing in regards to money and tells me he already made his first 10 million. And truth be told, i was equally happy for him as i was like *W*T*F*, how?! But this would perfectly explain it. So, as initially asked, thats a thing? Ranks are worth nothing and even a fresh starter can access elite missions?

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit, but i really need to know. A few seconds ago i thought i knew this game, now i feel as i just got a called shot to the nuts. So yea - a short yes, thats a thing or no, i got something wrong is enough. The rest i have to decide for myself. Thank you very much in advance.

 

[Maka Gucci]

I think this a great idea and vast improvement on what we currently have. Really appreciate all the effort and attention to detail.
I just wish I could believe that FDev haven't considered much an option and poo poo'd it in favour of a more trivial grind-time style approach. Still I hope it will be well received.

 

[Adam Bourke-Waite]

Whoa... sec there. I have been out for quite a while, but since when is the rank mentioned in the description only a recommendation? I mean, i read the reply - but only superficial. Friend of mine started 2 days ago and i tried to give him a rundown of the game, suggesting he might wanna get an Adder for general purpose and viable jumprange to join me and another friend as soon as he wants to. Today i asked how he is doing in regards to money and tells me he already made his first 10 million. And truth be told, i was equally happy for him as i was like *W*T*F*, how?! But this would perfectly explain it. So, as initially asked, thats a thing? Ranks are worth nothing and even a fresh starter can access elite missions?

Sorry to hijack this thread a bit, but i really need to know. A few seconds ago i thought i knew this game, now i feel as i just got a called shot to the nuts. So yea - a short yes, thats a thing or no, i got something wrong is enough. The rest i have to decide for myself. Thank you very much in advance.

Players can take missions of any rank, however, the missions they see will be scaled to be around their rank. This means that no, an new player should not being seeing Elite missions for some considerable amount of time.

Adam

 

[CMDR Beltane]

Players can take missions of any rank, however, the missions they see will be scaled to be around their rank. This means that no, an new player should not being seeing Elite missions for some considerable amount of time.

Adam

Okay, thank you Adam. Will simply ask him later the day. I was and am just quite baffled that a fresh out of the oven player is able to amass that kind of credits in two days. Its not like he is on vacation to play all day long. Still think its a bit extreme - but well, on the plus side - we can forget about the adder and get him a real ship - so thats something

 

[StefanOS]

Sure, I can't really comment on areas outside of missions and the BGS. In regards to the BGS the issue is that earnings are linked to rep/inf/states and that means that empire/fed factions would be at a strong advantage. If you remove even that as consideration, the idea that empire/fed players are able to earn more allows them to potentially support their faction in a way that a non emp/fed player would not be able to match.

However, I think that is outside of the area that you are wishing to discuss, I just want to clarify the difficulties I was referring to.

Adam

Hello Adam.

I am deadly and have 700mil cash, 2700mil assets. Is it intended that I receive mission invites and mission on the board with rewards below 100k?
Its really nice to get a mission offer while flying in a system, but offering 50k as reward makes me think the mission giver is TROLLING me..... All the work implementing them - but players in game laugh about this offers at best.

I consider to open bug report next time i get such an offer...

 

[Andargor]

Hello Adam.

I am deadly and have 700mil cash, 2700mil assets. Is it intended that I receive mission invites and mission on the board with rewards below 100k?
Its really nice to get a mission offer while flying in a system, but offering 50k as reward makes me think the mission giver is TROLLING me..... All the work implementing them - but players in game laugh about this offers at best.

I consider to open bug report next time i get such an offer...

I read this, and I surprisingly found myself agreeing. I have not looked at mission boards in a couple of years, since I find anything under 1M is a waste of my time. I only do missions if I have to, like reputation for permits or engineers, but that's it.

There is definitely something basically wrong with "end game" mission rewards, and one of the reason for the popularity of "gold rush" exploits like skimmers: missions are there to get you started, and cover some of your costs, but not to improve your financial situation. At least, that's how they seem to be designed.

 

[CMDR CPT. Boris]

not a bad idea OP
+1

 

[Genxav]

I read this, and I surprisingly found myself agreeing. I have not looked at mission boards in a couple of years, since I find anything under 1M is a waste of my time. I only do missions if I have to, like reputation for permits or engineers, but that's it.

There is definitely something basically wrong with "end game" mission rewards, and one of the reason for the popularity of "gold rush" exploits like skimmers: missions are basically there to get you started, and cover some of your costs, but not to improve your financial situation. At least, that's how they seem to be designed.

Yeah for some reason this game makes one of its main feature feel like a complete waste of time :S

not a bad idea OP
+1

Thanks hopefully something will change regarding the payouts in this game. Veteran pilots suffer more with this scalability problem. Everything gets bigger except you payout lol. I bet that if this was the case gold rushes would not be a thing.

 

[orange_apecs]

Rewards aren't the only elements of the missions that are impacted by your rank. A simple example is that the rank of spawned enemies will also be impacted by this. We don't want missions for harmless missions forcing them to take on Elite rank pilots!.

Missions do still have a recommended rank unless something has gone wrong.

Hi Adam.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify some points.
However, a lot of the missions don't really rank with the pilot. For example, an ELITE kill so many pirates mission doesn't mean you are going to have to take out 10 Elite/Deadly/Dangerous pirate ships, it just means you have to kill 40-60 pirate ships, any rank if you are say Deadly. The issue is that due to RNG the chances are you end up just killing 40 competent or below eagles/sidewinders/adders and that's just tedious and time consuming, due to the number of ships required. Also it has no effect on your combat rank if you are dangerous or deadly.
Would be far better if the number of ships required did not change but the standard of NPC spawned matched the pilot, i.e. if a player has a current kill order mission active the only spawns he/she gets are 1 above, equal and one below the rank of the mission taken. That way the player can still progress, take appropriate missions and gets the correct reward. Once the kill order has been completed the spawns can resort back to normal.

 

[Ikio]

Not to mention it makes plenty of sense to get paid more with a higher rank in both the pilot's federation and the naval ranks. Being a higher rank in the pilot's federation implies a higher level of experience and skill, so you can charge a higher price. And real world militaries always pay higher ranks more money, I doubt that has changed! One thing I think needs tweaking that may not work with this though is bounty hunting. If I made 3 mil an hour (generous estimation imo, requires lucky spawns) it would take 8 straight hours of bhing to afford one rebuy for my ship, 63 straight hours for a power plant upgrade, and 166 straight hours to a rate it. At the same time, it's very lucrative for new players if they know to just follow cops. They can get into a new, a rated ship in a matter of hours. I don't know where the balance is, but it needs to be found.