So I recently came back to elite after a long break, quit playing couple months after release (back then the only profitable thing to do was bulk trading, slaves mostly, basically flying circles was the only way to make real money, there was other fun stuff but didn't feel like I was progressing at all doing the more fun stuff. The only reason you wanted a bigger ship back then was PVP or bulk trading, make more money being bored)
New things came along, thx Fdev, tried a bunch of new things, I checked out every detail of the 3 passenger mission types :
Method 1) Fly 90.000 lightyears or x amount of real life days in a straight line for 40 million credits, uh, no thanks?!
Method 2) Exploit the game, boardflip until you fill up 200 economy seats with refugees or some such, fly in a straight line 90.000Ls 1+ hour of being AFK to make money and feeling like a scrub because i'm cheating + board flipping is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Method 3) AMAZING! Sightseeing! Ferry VIP's! No board flipping required! Asp explorer 6C first class cabin, have a reason to see stuff, high value passengers means you get attacked along the way so there's actually something to do, the income is decent [heart]
So I decided, this is fun and profitable, grab my python, grab the anaconda, more cabins, become allied with these stations, grab all the sightseeing missions, plot a course, do a bunch of them in one trip, finally something fun and useful to use a bigger ship for.
Derp, not possible, wasted my time, game demands the sightseeing destinations are done in a predefined order, can't plot a route and do a bunch of them, can only do one at a time, the best anaconda build has one first class cabin and a dozen empty modules. The only way to use a bigger ship for sightseeing is boardflip even harder than you do with bulk passenger missions [haha]
Spoofed again, the only reason to get a bigger ship is *still* limited to bulk trading, just like it was in 2015.
Essentially, for this mission type, you have the asp explorer with a C6 first class cabin and 29 useless ships.
I adore frontier, easily in my top 3 favorite game devs, easily the most skilled one, but the mission system in elite was and always will be terrible. Here we are 3 years later and the only two reasons I'd use any ship other than my asp explorer are still : PVP & Bulk trading.
You add a completely new element to this game, passenger transport, players can either boardflip for days, fly in a straight line for days or fly an asp explorer with a C6 first class cabin. Beautiful new content poorly thought out imho
Super easy fix to make this game mode fun and interesting all the work has been done, just needs a little tweak : Remove predefined destination order on sightseeing, let people invest in a bigger ship and plot a course.
Board flipping is a thing because without board flipping there is no difference at all between having an anaconda & having a cobra. Well, there is, the anaconda is slower. If people want to bulk trade passengers, they have 150 seats, let them grab 150 passengers somewhere and tweak the income, they'll play the game instead of solo-open-solo-open-solo-open until they get a full cabin.
New things came along, thx Fdev, tried a bunch of new things, I checked out every detail of the 3 passenger mission types :
Method 1) Fly 90.000 lightyears or x amount of real life days in a straight line for 40 million credits, uh, no thanks?!
Method 2) Exploit the game, boardflip until you fill up 200 economy seats with refugees or some such, fly in a straight line 90.000Ls 1+ hour of being AFK to make money and feeling like a scrub because i'm cheating + board flipping is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Method 3) AMAZING! Sightseeing! Ferry VIP's! No board flipping required! Asp explorer 6C first class cabin, have a reason to see stuff, high value passengers means you get attacked along the way so there's actually something to do, the income is decent [heart]
So I decided, this is fun and profitable, grab my python, grab the anaconda, more cabins, become allied with these stations, grab all the sightseeing missions, plot a course, do a bunch of them in one trip, finally something fun and useful to use a bigger ship for.
Derp, not possible, wasted my time, game demands the sightseeing destinations are done in a predefined order, can't plot a route and do a bunch of them, can only do one at a time, the best anaconda build has one first class cabin and a dozen empty modules. The only way to use a bigger ship for sightseeing is boardflip even harder than you do with bulk passenger missions [haha]
Spoofed again, the only reason to get a bigger ship is *still* limited to bulk trading, just like it was in 2015.
Essentially, for this mission type, you have the asp explorer with a C6 first class cabin and 29 useless ships.
I adore frontier, easily in my top 3 favorite game devs, easily the most skilled one, but the mission system in elite was and always will be terrible. Here we are 3 years later and the only two reasons I'd use any ship other than my asp explorer are still : PVP & Bulk trading.
You add a completely new element to this game, passenger transport, players can either boardflip for days, fly in a straight line for days or fly an asp explorer with a C6 first class cabin. Beautiful new content poorly thought out imho
Super easy fix to make this game mode fun and interesting all the work has been done, just needs a little tweak : Remove predefined destination order on sightseeing, let people invest in a bigger ship and plot a course.
Board flipping is a thing because without board flipping there is no difference at all between having an anaconda & having a cobra. Well, there is, the anaconda is slower. If people want to bulk trade passengers, they have 150 seats, let them grab 150 passengers somewhere and tweak the income, they'll play the game instead of solo-open-solo-open-solo-open until they get a full cabin.
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