Passive Income options to offset "The Grind"

[Streetguru]

Haven't played in a while with all of the new added legal fees, and low income at higher tiers outside of running passenger missions or finding exploits getting income in a pain, and income is required to have the money to rebuild after you do something stupid/fun.

Why isn't there any options for passive income sources? Renting unused ships to NPCs? Some stock market/Bonds/investment things? Space Casinos? Betting and participating in Ship Races or Ship Combat gladiator stuff? Universal Basic Income?

So many options to lessen the grind, but what are the chances they actually add any of them? The game is incredibly tedious with the constant boring missions in between fun ones. Might even just drop my Anaconda since fixing it back up is such a chore.

 

[Cmdr Snuffler]

I agree to a certain extent. Not so much in favour of renting ships out though and some of your other examples as that's "lazy passive income" etc...but things like planetary mining, where you come back 2 days later and the mining drone is full would be good (you could do this in previous Elite games)
I also don't fully agree with your reasons behind it...there is only a grind if you choose to grind. Flying around in a huge ship in not the aim of the game.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Haven't played in a while with all of the new added legal fees, and low income at higher tiers outside of running passenger missions or finding exploits getting income in a pain, and income is required to have the money to rebuild after you do something stupid/fun.

Why isn't there any options for passive income sources? Renting unused ships to NPCs? Some stock market/Bonds/investment things? Space Casinos? Betting and participating in Ship Races or Ship Combat gladiator stuff? Universal Basic Income?

So many options to lessen the grind, but what are the chances they actually add any of them? The game is incredibly tedious with the constant boring missions in between fun ones. Might even just drop my Anaconda since fixing it back up is such a chore.

How is it hard to earn money?

even doing stuff like bountyhunting, taking part of wars, etc, can be done in relative cheap ships and give a descent amount of money, while getting some action, compared to most ferrying of passengers around.


So take a conflict zone. there are mission that pays 3-5 millions and that will have you take part in destroying 40 ships. and you have ~24 hours to complete this. So an average player in small medium ship should be able to do this in 2-3 hours, and with experience 1 hours should not be to hard to reach. And in the process you will also get around 2 million in combat bonds too, so 5-7 millions.


Then we have the more lucrative assassinate Pirate Lords missions. A single ship (for the solo version), around 2 million per mission, that most of the time is go to system X, and find the pirate lord, or basically, go there scan nav beacon and wait for the pirate to drop in on you, which will normally happen in a minute or so. And then cash in mission and bounty, that is around 200-300k, so around 2.2 million for a single fight.


And this is the low end of income, as combat is severely lacking behind the cargo/passenger missions when it comes to payouts.




And those who have better ships, they will of course be able to do this even faster. I can most of the time stay for hours in conflict zones when I am in my Corvette, with lasers build, and if I use the load out that requires ammunition, that is usually the queue that is it time to go back to the station, and I have on each such trip normally around 1-2 million in war bonds. from when my huge multi cannons is out of ammo.


Still pocket exchange compared to the more lucrative passenger/cargo mission that can be done. But still, I have made over 200 million in the last 2 weeks doing this, and quite a few of badly paid missions to do some BGS influence. Mission was picked for how much influence they will give, or specific material rewards, and I still made 200+ million... Flying small (Vulture), medium (Krait) and Large (Type9/Cuttter, Corvette and Beluga) ships.


Earning money in Elite is NOT a problem, it has become ALOT easier, and that is without trying to follow the latest get rich fast.

You also have all the easy "road to riches" variants, where all you need is a ship, advanced discovery scanner and Detailed Surface Scanner, and can be done i any ship.. without any engineering... Some outfitting for better jump range is advised



So what is so hard in getting money?

I could understand if you complained gathering material for engineering, but it has been a long time since making money was any real issue. And just by looking at missions boards and spot the occasional really good missions and act on these, will have a huge effect on your income. without the need to board flip etc.

 

[dogsolitude_uk]

So...

Are you saying you want the game to play itself for you?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Haven't played in a while with all of the new added legal fees, and low income at higher tiers outside of running passenger missions or finding exploits getting income in a pain, and income is required to have the money to rebuild after you do something stupid/fun.

With a large ship running basic Palladium haul missions should make 50-100 MCr an hour easily in the right place. Earning a rebuy or three in an hour should give plenty of cushion for mistakes later on. (Various other comparable options exist, but that's probably the easiest to get started with)

You can of course get your 1000Cr/week passive powerplay income for doing absolutely nothing. It's not a lot, but by definition passive income methods are going to pay less than active ones.

Or if you have friends, they might share wing missions with you.

but things like planetary mining, where you come back 2 days later and the mining drone is full would be good (you could do this in previous Elite games)

I wouldn't even count that as passive income - to make any sort of decent money off it you'd need to have a lot of drones to constantly place, harvest, prospect for new locations, and replace.

 

[Lestat]

I have to agree with Misty_Dark.

 

[TerranJupiter]

Not sure i like this idea of passive income i think its right that you have to do something to earn credits even with my hope that Frontier will add player owned outposts and ports i would still want to fly missions and do things to keep them running.

 

[RamirezKurita]

I don't much like the idea of completely passive credit generation, however some kind of anti-grind mechanism which rewards playing regularly every day rather than encouraging hours long marathons could help some players who don't have much game time available. That being said, I feel that credit generation is generally too high nowadays even without hunting down whatever the latest exploits are as even just bounty hunting or basic delivery missions produce enough income to make credits pretty trivial, so I'd say that any extra mechanics for helping players with relatively few hours to spare should be balanced by an overall reduction in earning rates (particularly for certain activities, while lesser-earning activities such as CZ fighting could remain almost untouched).

There are already some mechanics in the game that could easily be adapted to promote regular brief spells in the game. Particularly the tip-off missions that appear directly in your inbox could be adapted to build up even while offline for up to 48 hours between game sessions, which would allow a player who logs in to receive a selection of high value missions already sent to them so their first couple of hours or so of gameplay are a bit more productive than those that follow.

 

[Streetguru]

How is it hard to earn money?

I can certainly run around doing passenger missions, but that's a bit boring. In messing around with assassination missions all I've manged to do is lose 20 million trying to take on elite missions in a like 70% kitted out anaconda. Massacre missions used to be worth it when you could stack them and cash them all in at once given the extreme danger even with good tactics of dragging a ship away from the fight.

Any passive income options don't need to be extreme, have returns be time limited so it doesn't always last, say you can get a max ROI of a 1 million cap per day with it rolling over to the next if exceeded?

They could easily create a space ebay for engineering stuff and modified ship components or completed ships. Would be nice

Just need to figure out an effective ROI ratio, say a 20% return after 7 days? With an investment limit per day?

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

Pledge to a power and rake in that sweet, sweet 1,000 credits per week stipend just by logging in and clicking on the power contact. No actual gameplay required. Passive income achieved.

 

[Rising Dawn]

How is it hard to earn money?

I can most of the time stay for hours in conflict zones when I am in my Corvette

and I still made 200+ million... Flying small (Vulture), medium (Krait) and Large (Type9/Cuttter, Corvette and Beluga) ships.

Yeah guys, JUST get a Corvette, Cutter, and Beluga (3 of the most expensive ships in the game, 2 of which are gated behind a long rank grind) and then you can make 200 million easily!

You are so disconnected with reality dude, come on. It's a grind, period. Missions need to payout more like they apparently used to, which is the timeframe in which I'm guessing you earned enough to both buy AND outfit 3 of the most expensive ships in the game. But no, now that you have everything you need you're going to say mission payouts are fine where they are? Nah fam.

 

[Streetguru]

Yeah guys, JUST get a Corvette, Cutter, and Beluga (3 of the most expensive ships in the game, 2 of which are gated behind a long rank grind) and then you can make 200 million easily!

You are so disconnected with reality dude, come on. It's a grind, period. Missions need to payout more like they apparently used to, which is the timeframe in which I'm guessing you earned enough to both buy AND outfit 3 of the most expensive ships in the game. But no, now that you have everything you need you're going to say mission payouts are fine where they are? Nah fam.

An AspX can get you a decent path to making money doing various missions, but ya that's not even counting the outfitting of those ships aside from modules that can be shared.

The problem is more in the end game it seems, seeing a lot of missions that require 3000+ units delivered for a mear 2.5 mil payout, meaning you'd have to do a lot if you went with the Type 9 for the storage capacity. Vs the 400 or so you get on an Anaconda. Just to get your money back.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Yeah guys, JUST get a Corvette, Cutter, and Beluga (3 of the most expensive ships in the game, 2 of which are gated behind a long rank grind) and then you can make 200 million easily!

You are so disconnected with reality dude, come on. It's a grind, period. Missions need to payout more like they apparently used to, which is the timeframe in which I'm guessing you earned enough to both buy AND outfit 3 of the most expensive ships in the game. But no, now that you have everything you need you're going to say mission payouts are fine where they are? Nah fam.

WOW, impressive nitpicking....Cutting of parts as it suits your agenda. Did you even bother to actually read my post?


Where in my post did I ever said anything about mission payouts to change? Please quote that part!


And it is no surprise that you failed to recognize that what I was saying, was that I made 200 million just playing the game....and that was not even picking missions for their money payout... dong stuff that we KNOW pays less that other more high paying stuff that is AVAILABLE, I even stated that fact.

You also decided that you would IGNORE the last part of my post, you know, that part about looking for opportunities. Check the mission boards for some interesting stuff. Instead, you lock yourself into the GRIND mentality and anyone not agreeing to that is bad and needs to be ridiculed.

 

[Misty_Dark]

An AspX can get you a decent path to making money doing various missions, but ya that's not even counting the outfitting of those ships aside from modules that can be shared.

The problem is more in the end game it seems, seeing a lot of missions that require 3000+ units delivered for a mear 2.5 mil payout, meaning you'd have to do a lot if you went with the Type 9 for the storage capacity. Vs the 400 or so you get on an Anaconda. Just to get your money back.

Those 3000+ cargo missions are not that fun, and have lock what fine you will have to pay if you fail those..



I look for the missions that will have you to fetch something, they pay alot higher, and that is for a reason, you have to also pay for the cargo....and the wing versions of these are the best....

The second problem with those missions are that most of the time, the really good paying ones, requires cargo that is hard to get, so check availability before accepting.


For example, lets say you find a mission to get and deliver 1620 slaves and for that trouble we will pay you 32 million....
So checking out availability, you will soon discover that we have two kinds of slaves....
Imperial Slaves - easy to get, I wonder why that is
Slaves - A much rarer form of slaves..

Buying 1620 slaves will set you back ~18 million credits, making your profit to be only be 14 million... And even in a Type 9 or Cutter, you will be making 3 trips if you do it solo... and I guess you will have to travel 150-200 LY x2 for each delivery (unless you are very lucky)...


So you do this solo, and can now cash in 14 million
But if you wing up and share it with your friends when turning the mission in, they will each get 32 million for your hard work. So in this case, free credits for your friends. Credits that would otherwise just get "lost"

Now if your friends spotted a similar mission, and they did those solo and share them before they turned those mission in, now you get the full 32 million for their hard work!


And if you decide to make this a team effort, and you are 4 in the group, and you share the cost to buy all the cargo (slaves), then
You have to pay 18/4 = 4.5 million per player
And you will each make 32-4.5= 27.5 million when mission is completed.


So these can be very lucrative wing cargo missions, but be vary about some stuff that are requested can be a pain to get....
And most of time doable solo. But the real trick is to share it before completing the mission, as that is FREE credits.
Of course this last part sucks for the solo only players, but this is after all wing content, and they are doable solo too.




And for combat related wing mission they work mostly the same, but they most of the time harder to complete for the average solo player, so here doing them together as a groups is recommended. I recommend the Kill Pirate Lord, these can be alot of fun, and for the average player a good challenge. And with practice, better equipment etc, you will do these faster and have less (no) lost ships... There is no shame in making a tactical retreat and try again.

 

[Sairii]

How is it hard to earn money?

It's not hard.
But its imbalanced, grind ,artificial content and srsly not fun.
Can we agree on that?
So... would you be fine with balanced fun ways to make money?


What is wrong with trying to find new fun ways of making money?

Also:
OP is like "lets lessen the grind and add new fun ways to make money"
People are like "no! money making is fine, let me show you how imbalanced and grindy it is. Also we dont like new things."

Yes. You can make 1 billion in 10 hours by grinding.... is it fun? no! Does it kill your joy and brain at the same time? yes.

 

[Gun Star]

I played for a hour the other night in a Conflict Zone in my Krait. Made about 5 mil, 2 more % towards Elite, and a ton of materials for my efforts. Thought that was decent for the time I spent.

I have an idea to incorporate CQC and Buckyball into a system designated a gambling area. Where you can bet on stuff, view, or participate in events. I'd be down for that type of income making.

 

[Kilostream]

I'm kinda feeling grind is in the mind on this one - the thing with ED is, that you only have to earn the money to buy the ship once, after that it's just rebuys.

If it was more like Eve online, where you have to buy a whole new ship if you lose one (or the insurance is optional) then I'd be more solidly with this proposal, but as it is right now, it's pretty easy to keep hold of a ship once you've bought it, so I'm not feeling the need to reduce 'the grind' for cash - it's fairly easy as it is.

 

[Sairii]

I played for a hour the other night in a Conflict Zone in my Krait. Made about 5 mil, 2 more % towards Elite, and a ton of materials for my efforts. Thought that was decent for the time I spent.

I have an idea to incorporate CQC and Buckyball into a system designated a gambling area. Where you can bet on stuff, view, or participate in events. I'd be down for that type of income making.

Yeah but you would need to do that 199 more times in order to buy just a single fully outfitted high tier ship.
And about 10 times to get a rebuy for that ship.
And most people like to have a few more so this would be a nice idea.

I'm kinda feeling grind is in the mind on this one - the thing with ED is, that you only have to earn the money to buy the ship once, after that it's just rebuys.

If it was more like Eve online, where you have to buy a whole new ship if you lose one (or the insurance is optional) then I'd be more solidly with this proposal, but as it is right now, it's pretty easy to keep hold of a ship once you've bought it, so I'm not feeling the need to reduce 'the grind' for cash - it's fairly easy as it is.

It is "fairly easy" to get cash. So easy that you can watch some youtube while you do it... IS that fun tho? no.
Why do I have to invest hours into grinding money?
Why can't I just play the game normally doing the things I like and make the same amount?
Why can't we have nice things for our ships that we don't use at the moment?
You think there is no need because you like it boring? You like to play in order to not play?
Why do you think its bad to have more & fun ways to make money? Because you think there is no grind / you like the grind? Easy money = no grind?
You don't need to "just earn the money to buy a ship once". High cost ships cost alot in maintenance, insurance & taxi incase you dont just stick to one system and have a fleet.
You build a buffed out fighter ship that costs around 1 bil and what can you do with it? Kill dudes that give you up to 300k.

Is grinding 500 passenger missions really the thing the devs want us to do?
Ofc they don't want us to get all the ships fully outfitted too fast because there is so little to do in the game.

I really do hope the Q4 makes exploration fun and rewarding. I still wouldnt mind some more options for making money / balancing(this is not just nerfing...) ways to make credits.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I can certainly run around doing passenger missions, but that's a bit boring. In messing around with assassination missions all I've manged to do is lose 20 million trying to take on elite missions in a like 70% kitted out anaconda.

I'm going to be blunt, but its hopefully constructively: you are asking for free passive money because you are getting destroyed by the computer. That is a silly solution for a problem that is caused by one thing and one thing only: you making the wrong choices. There is a metric ton of money to be made with combat, and you should never lose a ship at all. The solution is for you to accept you are doing something terribly wrong, get out of that anaconda and learn to fight. When you are asking for free money to make your already uber-expensive ship even more expensive because you keep getting wasted, you've got it completely backwards.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Yeah but you would need to do that 199 more times in order to buy just a single fully outfitted high tier ship.

No, not 'just a single fully outfitted high-tier ship' but 'the most expensive thing in the game'. You can have an apex FDL for 10% of that money. If you want the most expensive ship, and then want to put the most expensive of everything in it, than it will take a while. How that is considered a reasonable criticism is beyond me; this is how games work.

You build a buffed out fighter ship that costs around 1 bil and what can you do with it? Kill dudes that give you up to 300k

"I've been grinding money in real life to afford a solid diamond hammer. Its a super buffed-out hammer, and what can I do with it? Whack nails into the wall, and the local construction jobs dont even pay a fraction of what my diamond hammer costs! Plus it is super expensive to maintain my hammer, and insure it against theft? Is that what everyone wants? To grind for a diamond hammer that people dont care much about? This is stupid!"

Answer: Then dont get a diamond hammer. If you can get a fully buffed FDL that can get the same results or even better, for a fraction of the cost, insurance and maintenance, then it is just you being stupid if you insist on getting the one billion credit ship just because it is expensive. You dont have to fly something because it is more expensive, it doesnt mean it is more fun, or better at everything. You dont have to 'grind' stuff because it gets you quicker to the thing you dont need in the first place. You are complaining you chose to do things you dont like, to get stuff you dont need, to complain about the pointlessness of it all.

Surely at some point some self-reflection must seem prudent, no?