Making Credits - Very slow time consuming process - i.e. Ships cost way to much
- Thread starter CMDR Cheknov
- Start date
I agree!
The problem is, the journey is empty, repetitive, and appears to be a skeleton onto which someone forgot to strap the flesh. Not much of a reward if the journey is the reward itself...
Please tell me, how long can you scoop ore / trade items / hunt bounties / explore systems / steal from traders / whatever it is you're doing?
I've played this game since early Beta and spent (an estimate of) 100 hours. I no longer know what to do. I've recently returned from 6 days trip to Butterfly Nebula, made 2,5M credits off the journey, I wanted to go to Crab Nebula but I just don't feel like doing that. I couldn't stand the endless jump in/refuel/scan/jump out routine after 6 days and that was barely 3000Ly from my current location. Crab is 7000Ly and I feel sick just thinking of how many jumps that is. Did I mention I used quick route planning instead of efficient?
Same goes for trading, I've done enough cash to fully equip Cobra for exploration but it was so damn dull (taking broken economy mechanics into account) I don't see myself doing that to get Type 9. I couldn't stand making 2M to fit Cobra, let alone 7,5k to buy Type 9...
I've bounty hunted for some time and after I spent a while in fully kitted Viper, I asked myself what am I going to do next? Get Python? Then Anaconda? Then what?
All of the above were fun for the time being and I enjoyed these "jobs". But they get dull sooner or later by endless repetition of the same, basic tasks and bare-to-the-bone finishing does not help.
I strongly urge you all to not discredit players sharing my opinion: the sole fact these opinions arise proves there is something wrong with the game, something is missing. Please do not be ignorant against people who desire some more in-depth interaction with the game. No one judges your approach to the game while you're having fun. Just because it's not enough for someone else doesn't render their opinion obsolete.
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Getting a cobra was like a day playing. I got it relatively pimped out (class B/C stuff, military armor) and decided to give the viper a go, got that completely pimped out (all A), and decided to pimp out the cobra (I never sold it, just stored it), so its all A with a couple of B's. Thats all just doing bounty hunting. Had I wanted too, I've made more than enough for an asp but I'm enjoying the ride. I'm having fun with it, and I don't want to play space trucker min/maxing.
The OP mentioned that it would take him a whopping 3 months to get a nice ship. To me, that's a WAY too short of a period in which to get a nice ship. I've played many, many MMO type of games. WoW took a year of grinding to get a good set of gear when it first game out. AC took 3 or 4 years. These days everyone thinks the best of the best should be theirs instantly upon login. That's not how this game is designed, and to be honest, it's way too easy as it sits today, even with the rare "nerf".
Day 1: 4t cargo hold, 500cr per ton (which is terribly low), 4000cr per round trip. 15 trips = 60,000cr = Hauler + capital. Each run should take 15 minutes average, so about 4 hours to a cargo ship.
Day 2: 20t cargo hold. Same runs, same profit. 20,000cr per round trip. 20 trips = 400,000cr = Cobra + capital. 15 min average trip time. so 5 hours to a cobra with 24t cargo hold.
Day 3: Repeat day 2 with 24t, 20 runs @800/ton since you now know how. (this is still pitifully low) = 38,400cr per round trip, or 384,000 for 10 runs, upgrade to 32t and run another 512,000cr in the next 10 runs.
At the start of the 4th day you should have about 1,300,000cr and be driving a cobra with 32t of cargo space.
Let's assume at this point you find out about rares. You decide to drop a mil on upgrading your cobra, and spend a 100kcr on your first 32 tons of rares. You'll make 16,000cr per ton on average each way, and one way takes about 1.5 hours. You make a round trip and make a 1,000,000cr. Do this twice a day for 7 days, and you're driving an Asp.
So, from what I can figure out, in 10 days, you should be at least driving a base model Asp. At 80t and 4 hour round trip rare runs, you'll make around 1 mil each way even if you don't fill up, so 2 mil a day if you make 1 run. You should be in a base Anaconda in 75 days played, and this is assuming you don't go with a Type 6, supplement your trading with standard goods, collect on missions, bounties, or come across trading runs at 1,500cr per ton, which is very possible. It also only accounts for 4 hours a day.
How is this too slow again?
Day 1: 4t cargo hold, 500cr per ton (which is terribly low), 4000cr per round trip. 15 trips = 60,000cr = Hauler + capital. Each run should take 15 minutes average, so about 4 hours to a cargo ship.
Day 2: 20t cargo hold. Same runs, same profit. 20,000cr per round trip. 20 trips = 400,000cr = Cobra + capital. 15 min average trip time. so 5 hours to a cobra with 24t cargo hold.
Day 3: Repeat day 2 with 24t, 20 runs @800/ton since you now know how. (this is still pitifully low) = 38,400cr per round trip, or 384,000 for 10 runs, upgrade to 32t and run another 512,000cr in the next 10 runs.
At the start of the 4th day you should have about 1,300,000cr and be driving a cobra with 32t of cargo space.
Let's assume at this point you find out about rares. You decide to drop a mil on upgrading your cobra, and spend a 100kcr on your first 32 tons of rares. You'll make 16,000cr per ton on average each way, and one way takes about 1.5 hours. You make a round trip and make a 1,000,000cr. Do this twice a day for 7 days, and you're driving an Asp.
So, from what I can figure out, in 10 days, you should be at least driving a base model Asp. At 80t and 4 hour round trip rare runs, you'll make around 1 mil each way even if you don't fill up, so 2 mil a day if you make 1 run. You should be in a base Anaconda in 75 days played, and this is assuming you don't go with a Type 6, supplement your trading with standard goods, collect on missions, bounties, or come across trading runs at 1,500cr per ton, which is very possible. It also only accounts for 4 hours a day.
How is this too slow again?
Yes because you just explain how to "grind" to get the credits needed.
I don't ever intend to play the game like that and playing the way I like to play, getting a nicely out fitted Python is months away.
Anaconda? well I probably be sick of the game before I get to that unless there are other ways to play and earn credits.
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yeah your right. ships should cost 1 credit each as I want to play ED for just one day after spending all my RL cash on it and then move on to the next crappy mmo that bringing this in would make me do
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My problem is not with how much ships cost. Its with how trading seems to make so much more money than anything else. I like mining and exploration but how can i ever hope to make even some 500k an hour consistently doing mining? i can only sometimes reach 300k...
If all "professions" yielded similar returns given similar efforts while still being fun, i dont care if it takes a year to make money to buy & fit the best ship.
If all "professions" yielded similar returns given similar efforts while still being fun, i dont care if it takes a year to make money to buy & fit the best ship.
But it's not an MMO.
I've seen a few people say "you need to earn it with hard work". Really? Hard work? Hard work is for bills, games are for fun. You're supposed to do fun things in games so you forget how cripplingly tedious reality is. When I play a game I don't want the sci fi equivalent of a desk job.
Inb4 someone straw man's my comment by saying I want an instant win button.
Inb4 someone straw man's my comment by saying I want an instant win button.
Playing just a moderate number of hours a day you should be able to trade up to an Anaconda within 4 weeks very easily. Should have an Python or at least a Type-7 by now.
See the sums here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=90227
However it's not a race & you can mix up the time spent trading with time spend doing more fun things such as combat etc.
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4 hours a day is a "moderate amount"......? lol.
also, do those figures count cost of fitting a new ship (oftentimes as expensive as the ship hull itself) and buying a cargo (up to 15k per t of space).
Not just 4 hours a day, 4 hours of sheer boredom. Trips to upgrade from a Type 6, only 214! 214 times doing the exact same thing. Over and Over.
Oh but if you get bored of that (somehow) you can do the exact same bounty hunting you've already spent hours doing and have already extracted all possible fun out of because once you've seen one nav beacon/RES you've seen 'em all.
It's a two part problem. 1 - trading is the only way to generate a decent amount of credits. 2 - There's not a whole lot to any of the individual facets of the game.... so even if you do like combat, even that will wear thin after a while because even though it's nowhere near as boring as trading you can only do the same thing for so long.
It's not like bounty hunting opens up and gets more in depth and involved, you're not tracking an individual target across the galaxy in a high stakes game of cat and mouse. You're going to Nav Beacons and RES, targeting ships, seeing if they're wanted and then shooting them. The only thing to aim for, the only (artificial) semblance of progress is ship upgrades which are ultimately pointless because you'll end up doing the same thing in those ships anyway.
Oh but if you get bored of that (somehow) you can do the exact same bounty hunting you've already spent hours doing and have already extracted all possible fun out of because once you've seen one nav beacon/RES you've seen 'em all.
It's a two part problem. 1 - trading is the only way to generate a decent amount of credits. 2 - There's not a whole lot to any of the individual facets of the game.... so even if you do like combat, even that will wear thin after a while because even though it's nowhere near as boring as trading you can only do the same thing for so long.
It's not like bounty hunting opens up and gets more in depth and involved, you're not tracking an individual target across the galaxy in a high stakes game of cat and mouse. You're going to Nav Beacons and RES, targeting ships, seeing if they're wanted and then shooting them. The only thing to aim for, the only (artificial) semblance of progress is ship upgrades which are ultimately pointless because you'll end up doing the same thing in those ships anyway.
It's still "only" months. The game isn't designed to be finished quickly, assuming your definition of success and/or completion is an Anaconda.
You can play the game any way you want to and enjoy it, or not. It's up to you. You seems to believe that a Python or an Anaconda is required to have played successfully. If you feel that you MUST HAVE what you perceive to be the "best" ship in the game, yet don't wish to grind for it, your play style and your goals are at odds in this game.
While you can log into most of today's games and have the best kit in a week, or a month, or go buy it with real money, that isn't a measure of success to me. I'd rather spend more time working on it. I have spent some time grinding. I have spent a lot of time exploring and doing missions as well. I don't like a nonstop grind either, but i did spend a week grinding to get to a fully kitted Asp, so I could do the other things I wanted to do.
It appears you want the best ship in the game in less than "months", which, as it is vague, I will assume to mean "two months"/ It further appears you don't want to "grind" at all for it. Your desires and this game do not align. It's that simple.
I think the real problem is that 15 promised ships are missing which will fill some gaps. Even the gap from 1mio Type-6 to 18mio Type-7 is a bit big. I guess there will be more haulers from other companies in this gap, just not yet. Though that doesn't change the fact that overall moneymaking is starting with Type-6 best done with trading and that is a boring process. Even Tetris Online is funner. Now when you loose everything due to genious game design and have to regrind it all it doesn't get better either. Quit playing already quite a while ago. Played roughly a month, then it got too boring. Now doing my trade routes in European Truck Simulator 2 (ETS2), there i don't have to bounce back and forth the same 2 stations for ages and also the warp tunnel doesn't look always the same.
At the moment, better ships seem to be the only goal in the game. Due to very simplified approach to task mechanics, every possible job in ED universe gets dull and repetitive sooner or later. The only light in the tunnel is that new, different ship. But to get to it you need... millions of cash, which you can only get by repetitive and dull jobs. And the circle closes.
Now, I can only speak for myself but to me, I want that better ship for a reason. Yes, I've explored in Cobra Mk3 so far and it did the job, but to get to some more distant places, with far larger distances between stars, I NEED that ASP. I can't help it, really, if my Cobra had 30+ Ly jump range, I couldn't care less for a better ship. But it doesn't, and to get there I need that better ship. Problem is - current amount of work required to gain specific amount of credits from exploration has exceeded my patience and I've simply gave up.
An example:
I've mentioned I made a trip to Butterfly Nebula.
I've visited approximately 600 systems on my way, and I estimate the whole journey (scanning some earth-like water-world-type planets taken into account) took me about 24 hours all together. 24 hours of non-stop jumping in/scanning star/scanning system/re-fueling/scanning occasional good planets/plotting course through stars/jumping out. After visiting more than 600 systems in one trip, I returned to 78UM to sell data. Due to server lagging, it took me whole 1 hour and about 20 minutes to sell all data! I almost felt asleep on my keyboard, it was 6 am Saturday. I gained 2,5M credits.
Now go ahead, check ASP's price, add all the equipment (apart from scanners I can take from Cobra) of at least B class (A desired), sum all these credits and tell me how many systems would you have to visit to get that much credits? It's late but I recon it would take about 10-11M credits. That's at least 100 hours of non-stop jumping from system to system. If the server lag hasn't been solved (doubtful) that's at least 5 hours sitting at a station, clicking system after system after system after system after system, selling data and waiting for 6 seconds for server to respond. It's not an issue when you have one system data to sell. When you have 4000 systems scanned, that becomes a problem.
Some of us feel there's something wrong with the game, and that's not because it's not what we wanted the game to be. That's because it doesn't offer much apart from very basic approach to occupations you can choose. Please answer yourself one honest quetion: how many hours can you dig that rock and scoop lose ore? How many hours can you scan for bounties? How many hours can you haul cargo from A to B to A, repeat? Occasional missions break that boring cycle a little, but how many hours can you do these? Add these hours up (mileage may vary) and now answer another question: what will you do next? Can you now see where the problem is?
Read the post directly above yours for an explanation as to why you have been neg repped. Read before you post, please.