I commend you on the experiment
I did try to highlight the bit above that interests me the most, because absolutely i knew about the sol to barnards star 'robots' run that was perfectly safe and possible to 'grind credits' from. I would use it sometimes (when i started in Federation space vs the Alliance start doing the wiccan run) to get myself to something like the Cobra MkII before heading out and having more fun etc. Still my god if that was what you did to grind the Panther!....
So yes in general i would play Frontier(elite 2) and FFE like i was 'supposed to', and not grind a simple but monotonous route to riches (exploiting the time compression system to reduce in-game hours as much as possible!).Here is the MAIN difference in relation to Elite Dangerous that i could tell so far in my short time playing it. I never read any guides on optimizing my credit gaining. I'm not 100% sure on how the game starts for everyone (there are no game start choices like in the previous 2 Elites?) but i was in a system with my Sidewinder and in-system had a profitable trade run like the one you might have used to get your Panther, in-system no hunting around to find it needed. Now i could have just hit the grind on that and made my way to the Asp X i eventually settled on, but like in Frontier and FFE i prefer to play the game like you are supposed to. So i think i got up to the Adder then looked around the systems within range and decided to explore all the other cool stuff ED has like mining and delivery mission runs to supplement profitable trade runs. Now i was playing 100% inefficiently (mining in an Adder was not great!) as a newb to ED. It took just a dozen hours of playing the game as i was supposed to (so NOT focusing on an exploit) to be in a kitted out jack-of-all-trades AspX, that even includes 2 (2!) Hutton Orbital runs as i had forgotten to do a full scan of the system in my first visit (i was moving into trying out the 'exploring' gameplay in this period). At some point playing the game as we are supposed to in ED(H) (not grinding an exploit) i got a delivery request mission that earned me 20 million (and it was an easy task just involving a safe jump to and back to the quest giving system). Time to upgrade from the AspX.
That is just not possible at all in the older games. Just to clarify one of the main differences and flaws as i see it in the progress path in ED(H) currently. Whatever you do, however you play, you make so much money in ED(H) (and i assume the same is true for ED(O)?), your time spent 'struggling' against the environment of the game just flies by (about a dozen hours in my specific case, obviously less if i decided to grind an exploit). That same level of achievement takes me about a month (i worked it out at about 30 hours approx) of playing Frontier or FFE as you 'are supposed to'. It feels better, more natural, more like an achievement in Frontier and FFE compared to ED(H).
Luckily flying around in ED(H) is SO GOOD that that has become the main purpose of the game for me more than the importance of credits or anything else. I mean it is a beautiful realisation of the galaxy we get to explore and that is almost (like ALMOST) enough to look over the game imbalances and MMO connected issues and general not-quite-finished feeling to a number of the games other systems. Almost. Maybe when ALL the content from the older titles is present (all the ships, all the planet landings etc) and a few things have been polished up just a little more in terms of the end users QoL and a few imbalances relating to ease of making money is addressed, ED(H) will feel like the total upgrade us Elite players expect after Frontier and FFE? I can hope
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