Saving for a Cutter, possibly Annaconda suggestions?

[Staarlord]

So, as of now I'm rockin a kitted out Vulture. However, I am at about the 22 Mil mark and once I hit about 30-40 mil, I'm going to buy a Clipper, so I can more easily farm merits/ interdict/ bounty hunt more confidently...especially, when facing Fed Dropships/ Gunships, and dual wings. However, I might not even bother, if that's not the best way to earn $$.

Ultimately, my goal is either the Annaconda, or the Cutter...but how to get there? I did the math, and at my current rate of farming, which, per, 2 hours of gameplay, is, roughly about 2-4 Mil in high res zones(more, on the weekends), It's going to take me about 40-50 days. There's got to be a more feasible way to earn $$ Starting out, res zones are the shiz. However, I cannot help, but feel, my efforts should be elsewhere as I head into Clipper/ Python class ships.

 

[Butter of Sorrow]

After I got a Python and kitted it with cargo racks worth 200t I made mad profits stacking delivery missions. It won't pay as much as it did before 2.3 but it should still be possible to make at least 10 mil an hour on Entrepreneur rank.

 

[aRJay]

Keep an eye out for the Community Goals you can pick up a very good return with some of those.

Remember to factor in the rank requirements for Imperial or Federation ships.

 

[Staarlord]

After I got a Python and kitted it with cargo racks worth 200t I made mad profits stacking delivery missions. It won't pay as much as it did before 2.3 but it should still be possible to make at least 10 mil an hour on Entrepreneur rank.

Fantastic! Yeah, when the game first released, I was making between 800k and 1.2 mil about 15 minutes, by stringing together cargo/ smuggling runs that paid between 150k-350k, using a configuration of only 8 unit cargo racks. Unfortunately, though, things have drastically changed in this game, so now it's been grinding. Thanks for the info!

 

[GTwannabe]

Buy a Dolphin, kit it for speed and jump range, then shuttle criminal masterminds. 2-5 million credits and only 1-2 jumps.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Best profits right now are passenger missions, get a system you are allied to with a decent station/ground base that drops a high number of missions and you can load up a ship full for significant profits.
If you have engineers for jump range consider an Asp Explorer exploration fitted for the longer range passenger missions. Some of those pay up to 80mil a go, in rare occasions up to 20mil... Probably looking at 10hrs flight-time +/- 2 hours. Stack 3 or 4 together in the same general area and you are golden especially with the new improved exploration payouts.

Standard missions are the 2nd highest paying atm I think. Followed by trading/smuggling, then combat, then standard exploration (no passengers), mining and finally piracy.

 

[Staarlord]

Keep an eye out for the Community Goals you can pick up a very good return with some of those.

Remember to factor in the rank requirements for Imperial or Federation ships.

Another good tip. I can't say that I've ever participated. Thanks for this! I'm assuming community goals are listed on the Powers screen.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Another good tip. I can't say that I've ever participated. Thanks for this! I'm assuming community goals are listed on the Powers screen.

Nope, mission board on any station/outpost etc and at the top. You can accept the CG anywhere but only contribute at the station in question. Be aware in Open you'll find both friendly and hostile players... The latter may kill you for no reason at all.

 

[Staarlord]

Best profits right now are passenger missions, get a system you are allied to with a decent station/ground base that drops a high number of missions and you can load up a ship full for significant profits.
If you have engineers for jump range consider an Asp Explorer exploration fitted for the longer range passenger missions. Some of those pay up to 80mil a go, in rare occasions up to 20mil... Probably looking at 10hrs flight-time +/- 2 hours. Stack 3 or 4 together in the same general area and you are golden especially with the new improved exploration payouts.

Standard missions are the 2nd highest paying atm I think. Followed by trading/smuggling, then combat, then standard exploration (no passengers), mining and finally piracy.

Is the cargo capacity of a Clipper decent enough? I really only want to drop $$ down a universal role ship that I can fit to be combat worthy, or explore/ bounty hunt/ and shipping worthy. Or should I buy a Beluga? lol

 

[Elyssaen]

As of 2.3, I'm finding passenger sightseeing tours don't pay as well (but they're still good when Allied and in a good system: but now it's 1M standard, 4M great, instead of 4M standard, 9M great, 20M exceptional) and missions generally pay significantly less well (particularly, transport missions don't seem to be top tier money-making anymore).

Sightseeing tours are still one of the best options, but look out for planetary scans. Few days back I took three, two for 1.8M each and one for 2.8M. Different locations, but they didn't take long at all: 40 minutes at most for more than 7M. Quince may still be an ideal place for this, and if so you'll also breeze through Empire rank.

I also made a total of about 54M in conflict zones in a few hours. Just 4M from bonds: the rest were three stacked massacre missions, all offered at the same place at the same time (no relogging). Got very lucky there, but it's worth keeping an eye out for good opportunities like this.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Is the cargo capacity of a Clipper decent enough? I really only want to drop $$ down a universal role ship that I can fit to be combat worthy, or explore/ bounty hunt/ and shipping worthy. Or should I buy a Beluga? lol

Clipper isn't the ship it once was. It used to be uncatchable apart from other Clippers but now with engineering mods and the Cutter its lost its shine.

It does fill the multi-role type ship. It can explore, it can bounty hunt and can move cargo.

But
It's not as good as the Asp for exploration
It's not as good as the T7 for trading
It's not as good as the FAS for combat.

It does hit and run combat really well, great for speeding around the battlefield picking your fights. It does smuggling/blockade running superbly and you'll never struggle to run from NPC interdictions. It has a nice amount of expansion slots for exploration.

In short yeah it's a good multirole jump geared slightly more towards combat than say the Asp.

Beluga I'd avoid, if doing passengers I'd go for the Asp Ex tbh.

 

[Stealthie]

Passenger missions are definitely one of the most stress-free ways to make credits.

Even if you just take "average" missions, it's just a case of flying somebody around for half an hour, visiting 3 or 4 tourist beacons and then collecting several million credits for your trouble.
And, if you've taken the time to honk in every system you jump through and, perhaps, scan the stars and any nearby planets as well, you'll get another million from that too.

 

[Deleted member 48160]

So, as of now I'm rockin a kitted out Vulture. However, I am at about the 22 Mil mark and once I hit about 30-40 mil, I'm going to buy a Clipper, so I can more easily farm merits/ interdict/ bounty hunt more confidently...especially, when facing Fed Dropships/ Gunships, and dual wings. However, I might not even bother, if that's not the best way to earn $$.

Ultimately, my goal is either the Annaconda, or the Cutter...but how to get there? I did the math, and at my current rate of farming, which, per, 2 hours of gameplay, is, roughly about 2-4 Mil in high res zones(more, on the weekends), It's going to take me about 40-50 days. There's got to be a more feasible way to earn $$ Starting out, res zones are the shiz. However, I cannot help, but feel, my efforts should be elsewhere as I head into Clipper/ Python class ships.

I know a place where you can stack passenger missions making 30-100 million credits a hour, if u don't mind board hopping once or twice that is I went from 55 million credits to 400 million in 2 days
Pm me if u want to know the location and I will tell you

 

[Xious]

Yep... Dolphin and passenger missions

 

[Fishy]

I know a place where you can stack passenger missions making 30-100 million credits a hour, if u don't mind board hopping once or twice that is I went from 55 million credits to 400 million in 2 days
Pm me if u want to know the location and I will tell you

And it's totally not Quince?

 

[Elyssaen]

Passenger missions are definitely one of the most stress-free ways to make credits.

Even if you just take "average" missions, it's just a case of flying somebody around for half an hour, visiting 3 or 4 tourist beacons and then collecting several million credits for your trouble.
And, if you've taken the time to honk in every system you jump through and, perhaps, scan the stars and any nearby planets as well, you'll get another million from that too.

Since 2.3, an average sightseeing tour for me is only worth 1M, in places where it used to be 4-7M. And 1M exploration data seems a little high to me, too. I'm more seeing 2x1.2M an hour for average sightseeing tours now.

I know a place where you can stack passenger missions making 30-100 million credits a hour, if u don't mind board hopping once or twice that is I went from 55 million credits to 400 million in 2 days
Pm me if u want to know the location and I will tell you

You know you sound like spam advertising, right? : )

 

[NCFCpaul]

And it's totally not Quince?

At Jeffries High? Taking trips to Gaylens ascension and Quince visitors begin but you only need to go to Gaylens? Absolutely not that!?

Although an AspX with good jump range can make just as much with siteseeing missions- you can stack them too. It got me into my Anaconda, A rated really quite quickly.

 

[evanevery]

It used to be (pre 2.3) you could average about 10M/hr running missions between boom systems in which you had rep. (I.E Wu Guinagi / Hip 10716). Now that they have nerfed the mission payouts - not so much. :-(

I'm not talking about exploits, mission stacking, etc. Just running missions as "God intended them". Now its much less productive. Missions are down to 1/2 or 1/3 the payout it seems. This in itself (v2.3 bugs aside) has reduced my desire to play the game. I used to like to set a financial goal for something (ship, module, etc) but now there is little point in setting financial goals - unless you enjoy frustration. It seems many in the community think just "letting money accumulate" is the ONLY way to play this game anyway...

I have both a Cutter and a Corvette and I see no problem in working to acquire new ships for you're fleet. However, I would caution you to consider what exactly you expect to use these ships for. Large ships simply aren't usually the best way to make money (if that's your goal). You just can't get them into as many stations. My top earner is my Python. However, I still like to fly the Cutter and Vette when I have an excuse to do so. But I also like to fly my little Courier as well! ...at least until it tried to deafen me with the huge increase in engine sound in 2.3. (Now I can't fly the Courier at all)

 

[shadragon]

Clipper isn't the ship it once was.

But
It's not as good as the Asp for exploration
It's not as good as the T7 for trading
It's not as good as the FAS for combat.

FDL is a good combat ship as well. I sold my Clipper long ago. I'll never drop my FDL.

 

[Katnisseve]

Was at Quince a couple days ago. Passenger missions were scarce for in system farming.
Since the OP wants a cutter or anaconda at some point, my advice is to start working on ranking up with Imperials now.
You can make decent money at Aditi taking missions to a couple stations one hop away and returning. There's like 6 stations in the Aditi loop. Mostly ground based and a couple others in the adjoining system. They are predominantly boom data and cargo missions.
I used a python to run this as its a medium pad size ship. The clipper is a large.... So more limiting in that regard and still rank locked.
Anyway.... I went from Baron to Duke in about 5 days.... Usually about 4 hours per day.
Please keep in mind, these missions were not affected by the 3 limit stack patch as they are not scan or massacre missions.
However, that being said, I have not had need to return to Aditi since 2.3 went live.