So, for making money - Type 9 or Orca (or Beluga)

[Ted Striker]

My trade rank is only Broker and my exploration rank is only Scout. I need to increase both of them, but what I want most is the most lucrative role.

Orca (or Beluga but I'm hearing it's not worth it yet) can do passenger missions and if I want to I can get those high-paying exploration missions that take me 20k+ away from the bubble. Good for exploration and unlocking Palin.

Type 9 can possibly give me some very good trade missions. I've found some in my AspX that pay over 3 million each and that's only with 84 or so cargo space. Mind you I don't want to do basic buy-sell trading or set up a rares route like I used to do (no patience for that anymore).

Anaconda is a possibility for passenger missions and exploration but that blows my corvette budget completely and I just finished the navy grind the other day. I want a vette before conda.

Another possibility is to use my engineered AspX for the long range exploration passengers. It's already mostly engineered for it, with a 40+ jump range that I can probably increase further with a few more engineers unlocked. I don't know if they need luxury cabins though since I never paid much attention to passenger missions (haven't done a single one yet).

 

[777Driver]

I do a mix of freight missions combined with an economy cabin on my T9 & Cutter. If you are allied you will generally find quite a few very high freighter jobs going to the same destinations, I'll scoop them up then check the passenger lounge for any pax going to my destination. Overall a very good money maker for short trips, if no pax are available and more freight missions exist, I'll generally ditch the cabin and stick a cargo rack back in.

The highest payouts are those long super cruise passenger runs. Find a station that is a very long way from the entry star (plenty out there, you can use EDDB to find them) fly to a system nearby and transport passengers to that remote system. The payouts are huge, however the key is to find a balance between payout and time spent in supercruise.

Personally I avoid those long supercruise runs unless I get lucky and my freight is going in that direction anyway. If I was desperate for cash I'd probably just do those passenger runs, fortunately I have enough cash to pick and choose where I fly.

Exploration tourist runs don't pay as well as the long haul supercruise runs when you factor the amount of time spent to complete.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger Saud Kruger fan than I.

The Orca is a great ship for passengers or mid-range exploration.

The Beluga is great for passengers and long range exploration, as well as improved cargo capacity over the Orca.

But for those Long Range, top pay passenger runs that also improve your Exploration, you're forgetting what is possibly the best long-range ship of the lot - The Dolphin

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/dol...1/kA==.Aw1/kA==..EweloBhBGA2EoFMCGBzANokMK6A=

ADS - Check
DSS - Check
AFMU - Check
SRV hanger - Check
Fuel Scoop - Check
Luxury Cabin -Check

Engineer it light, up the jump range, and off you go. Small ship, so you can land anywhere, nimble, fast, sleek - the Dolphin really has it all going on when it comes to ranged operations.
Now, if you're not planning on Range Roving you can always swap out the SRV hanger for a cargo rack - just in case your passengers realize 100 light years into the trip they need a ton of clean underwear.
And for the price outfitted, you can't even make a down payment on an Orca or Beluga.

 

[Ted Striker]

You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger Saud Kruger fan than I.

The Orca is a great ship for passengers or mid-range exploration.

The Beluga is great for passengers and long range exploration, as well as improved cargo capacity over the Orca.

But for those Long Range, top pay passenger runs that also improve your Exploration, you're forgetting what is possibly the best long-range ship of the lot - The Dolphin

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/dol...1/kA==.Aw1/kA==..EweloBhBGA2EoFMCGBzANokMK6A=

ADS - Check
DSS - Check
AFMU - Check
SRV hanger - Check
Fuel Scoop - Check
Luxury Cabin -Check

Engineer it light, up the jump range, and off you go. Small ship, so you can land anywhere, nimble, fast, sleek - the Dolphin really has it all going on when it comes to ranged operations.
Now, if you're not planning on Range Roving you can always swap out the SRV hanger for a cargo rack - just in case your passengers realize 100 light years into the trip they need a ton of clean underwear.
And for the price outfitted, you can't even make a down payment on an Orca or Beluga.

So those long range missions require luxury cabins? The jump range of that dolphin is a little over half my aspx and when you're talking 20k+ distance it's a difference of quite a few jumps. If I have no choice but a luxury cabin for long range missions then so be it.

 

[Ted Striker]

Oh and btw, I've googled plenty of "guides" on money making and they all mention either Quince or in the latest ones Rhea. That includes youtube guides.

 

[Mrat13]

For trade rank, Python mission hauler (lots of missions go to outposts), or fill the above, or even a type 7, with economy cabins, then go to Rhea.

For exploration rank, get an orca to do sightseeing missions, three or four at the time if I'm not mistaken.

Type 9 only works for pure bulk trading. It's actually the same as a type 7 for passengers, and as I've said, can't land on a medium pad for missions. I know, it seems silly doesn't it.

 

[Tadeus72]

I'm a fan of the 5-7kly missions. I'm collecting 2 to the same destination, they are paying around 15-18mil each. With the exploration data (surprisingly the paths to the passenger mission destinations seem mostly undiscovered?) it's a nice sum of money for a weekend trip and you have some planets named after you But you have to calculate if it's good business for you. 1kly is around 40 minutes of game time.

I'm doing them with an AspX. But I guess you can do it with anything, the most important things for me are:

- Place for at least an 5A Scoop. If you are very good at repetitive precision scooping then size 5 is enough, if you are not or are lazy at scooping, you need a size 6 to not have to do stops at the sun to charge up.
- Jump range
- Place for two or more passenger cabins (explorers are mostly taking business or first class).

Nothing else is important. There are also now asteroid bases close to many of the destinations, you can sell your exploration data at some of them, but you have to watch out cause the explorers are secretive and there are NPCs that can scan you.

 

[SpaceScania]

I find that sight seeing missions close to the bubble are the highest paying for me right now. Some of the high paying ones do require luxury cabins but not all. However the luxury class missions pay well when you can get them. What I have been doing. Please note the methods below assume you are allied with the local factions which is an important pre-requisite to making good money from missions.

When I need money and am tired of rank grinding:
* Outfit an Orca or a Beluga with enough passenger cabins to carry two sight seeing tourist parties. Luxury cabins are helpful here at times. Also, get your FSD engineered as much as possible and make sure you have a big fuel scoop. Keep your ship light and weapons free to max jump range.
* Take 2 sight seeing missions (Go to a Tourist Beacon + 2 more type missions). I have found missions paying 4.5MCr, 7.5MCr, even 10MCr for missions all near the bubble. Try to maximize profit for the number and distance of the jumps. Sometimes you can even find a high paying mission with only 2 jumps. Search all factions on the board. Usually the most distant jump should be under 300ly. Avoid secretive or criminal passengers. If your ship is large you can do more than 2 but loops can get long if you try to stack a lot of missions this way.
* Loop through each tourist’s desired place of interest. Use the galaxy map and try to do both routes as efficiently as possible. When done return to the source station for lots of credits!
* You do get Medium rep with these missions but it is not an efficient way to rank up if you are trying for that.
* Ignore all messages from passengers asking for demands. If you don’t read the message you won’t be penalized.

One excellent thing about these sight seeing missions is that they are really fun because you do end up going to some very beatiful and interesting places in the Elite Galaxy.

When I want navy rank and money:
* Outfit your ship for passeners and cargo like 777Driver suggests. The Anaconda and Python are optimal for this role but a Type-9 works as well.
* VIP passengers are REP+++ missions so focus on those for rank. Try to maximize the number of missions you can get that all lead to the same destinations. Create a loop of nearby systems where you can keep doing missions back and forth A -> B -> C -> D -> A
* Look for data delivery and donation missions as well if you are trying to rank up.

I work the following systems which have been pretty good so far:
* Cubeo
* HIP 5700
* HIP 5623
* Yaque
* HIP 7142

 

[5 Puppis]

So you want to rank. The best way is to trade and explore organically, but I take it you want to min-max it.

Trade rank: Stacking transport passenger missions is a lucrative way to grind trade rank if you hate basic trading. I don't know how much profit it takes to hit Elite (I think in the billions, I'm not a fan of trading so I never did it). Just find a loop that requires a long super cruise and stack passengers. I hear even Rhea still works, just not to an absurd degree anymore. Any of the three ships you mentioned should be ok for that, just go with whichever lets you cram in the most economy seats.

Exploration rank: it takes $300 million to hit Elite. Only 50% of the money from taking taking on tourists and famous explorers count towards the rank, whereas 100% of money earned for selling exploration data. Most people leave the bubble with the intent of actually exploring and take on famous explorers for bonus money, but this takes a loooong time and maximizing profit is not the goal here. The Asp might be the best for this, since I've only seen a few explorers that request luxury cabins and the higher jump range is helpful when you're going truely long distances.

If you want to grind earnings that also count toward exploration rank, you can find a system where there are a lot of tourists/explorers looking to go to the same POI then stack them just as you would transport missions. Not sure how one would find these on EDDB, I found one randomly looking in passenger lounges: ~4-5 million to a POI 8 jumps away. I stack 4 of them at once and it's not a bad return over time. I've since been using it as a money printer. I don't need the exploration rank but doing the math, one could go from nothing to Elite in 30 runs. The Orca is probably best of your three ships for this, given the combination of stacking potential and range.

 

[Gamatech]

I have owned both of these ships in the past, and my vote goes for the Orca.

The Type-9 is fantastic for trading, it truly is, but only if you do what I deem "manual" trading. That is buying your own commodities, finding your own station to sell it to, and doing all the legwork. If you are instead interested in "mission" trading such as cargo transport, charity donations or recovery operations, your monumental cargo space is never fully utilised. You will always have enough space leftover to make you feel like you're not making the most of the ship, but conversely not enough free space to make any meaningful profits from manual trading. The ship itself is also an absolute SLUG in supercruise. It's the only ship in the game that I've even come close to failing an interdiction escape, and I only got away with no small amount of luck each time it happened. In summary if you get the Type-9, only do so if you intend on running purely manual trading and you'd be best off with a fighter bay equipped too.

The Orca on the other hand is, obviously, more tailored towards passenger transport. That's not to say it has a cargo bay to be sniffed at, it's up to you how to kit it out and what balance of cargo and passengers you intend to carry. I would personally prioritise cargo bays with just one or two passenger cabins, the reason being that if you're doing any type of trading then you won't be going very long distances. That limits your passenger options to short-range transports, and it's not very often I've come across such missions to the same destinations I have for trading. The Orca also has a greater jump range, is more manoeuvrable, and you won't have any wasted cargo space should you choose to focus on mission-based trading.

With all of that being said, the best way to make money is to spend some time and effort finding the perfect trade route for manual trading. The empire has quite a few, and you can use EDDB to find the most efficient route in your local area. If credits are your only concern, search for one of these and get yourself a Type-9.

 

[777Driver]

I have owned both of these ships in the past, and my vote goes for the Orca.

The Type-9 is fantastic for trading, it truly is, but only if you do what I deem "manual" trading. That is buying your own commodities, finding your own station to sell it to, and doing all the legwork. If you are instead interested in "mission" trading such as cargo transport, charity donations or recovery operations, your monumental cargo space is never fully utilised..

Bizarre, someone else mentioned difficulty finding high capacity missions last week. You have to be allied, once you are allied you gain access to the haulage missions offering 180 tonne capacity each. I end up having to turn down missions, take 2 high capacity missions and fill the rest up with smaller haulage missions to the same destination. Combine that with an economy class cabin and you can make 10+ million for a 10 minute trip.

It's the same as those old Sothis long range runs, even a Cutter easily gets maxed out.

cant wait to get my hands on the T10.

The trip below takes around 5 mins tops

 

[andrak]

Anaconda is a possibility for passenger missions...

Considering I made 3.5 billion doing passenger missions in the Anaconda last week... Yeah you could say it's a possibility for passenger missions.

 

[Master Nidril]

Just take an Anaconda full of economic class, go Rhea (Ito Orbital) and take all missions to Hq Hydrae. With each travel, you can make 10-15M in just 5 minutes. The rewards increase with your reputation on the Rhea system and your trade Rank too. I did being Broker like you, and i've Made 700M just in 2 days, also my trade rank ends always on Elite. Totally Worth it.

 

[Cmdr Tel]

You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger Saud Kruger fan than I.

The Orca is a great ship for passengers or mid-range exploration.

The Beluga is great for passengers and long range exploration, as well as improved cargo capacity over the Orca.

But for those Long Range, top pay passenger runs that also improve your Exploration, you're forgetting what is possibly the best long-range ship of the lot - The Dolphin

https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/dol...1/kA==.Aw1/kA==..EweloBhBGA2EoFMCGBzANokMK6A=

ADS - Check
DSS - Check
AFMU - Check
SRV hanger - Check
Fuel Scoop - Check
Luxury Cabin -Check

Engineer it light, up the jump range, and off you go. Small ship, so you can land anywhere, nimble, fast, sleek - the Dolphin really has it all going on when it comes to ranged operations.
Now, if you're not planning on Range Roving you can always swap out the SRV hanger for a cargo rack - just in case your passengers realize 100 light years into the trip they need a ton of clean underwear.
And for the price outfitted, you can't even make a down payment on an Orca or Beluga.

And I'm also certainly a big fan ^^ this is good advice.

My moneymaker is my Dolphin, very versatile and can go anywhere. I'll usually look for px first but will take cargo and just switch cabins/racks as needed. The low rebuy also allows you to take some of those riskier jobs but is fast enough to usually succeed. She is also a joy to fly, as is the Orca.

 

[Mrat13]

Just take an Anaconda full of economic class, go Rhea (Ito Orbital) and take all missions to Hq Hydrae. With each travel, you can make 10-15M in just 5 minutes. The rewards increase with your reputation on the Rhea system and your trade Rank too. I did being Broker like you, and i've Made 700M just in 2 days, also my trade rank ends always on Elite. Totally Worth it.

A type 7 can earn 2/3 of this roughly (dependant on missions), but is 1/5 the price. Ultimately up to you however.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

So those long range missions require luxury cabins? The jump range of that dolphin is a little over half my aspx and when you're talking 20k+ distance it's a difference of quite a few jumps. If I have no choice but a luxury cabin for long range missions then so be it.

Oh and btw, I've googled plenty of "guides" on money making and they all mention either Quince or in the latest ones Rhea. That includes youtube guides.

No, they do not require a luxury cabin, however most long-range passenger missions have very few occupants - 2-4 being the average, which fills a Luxury cabin. Many will require only Business or First Class, but there are some who do demand a luxury suite. Some are even willing to travel Economy, so ultimately the choice of cabin is yours. I recommend the Luxury cabin, and no one will turn it down. Ultimately it just gives you the most options.

As for these Guides... Both Quince and Rhea have all gotten some pretty heavy nerfs as of late, and are generally held in low regard by the community at large, since most of them believe in suffering and fighting tooth and nail for every single credit they've earned. Personally I don't care how someone goes about making their credits, as it can in no way impact how I play the game.

My own recommendations for making credits remain Ram Tah's Ancient Ruins mission, smuggling, Rare-goods trading, industrial mining and bounty hunting - in that order.

And do note, I did specify to Engineer said Dolphin - See this revision for a reasonable Engineering outcome: https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/dol...XAYAmLHNzmwAAAA=.EweloBhBGA2EoFMCGBzANokMK6A=

My go-to exploration Dolphin actually does 40.22 Ly, second best jumper next to my ultra-light DBX at 44.

 

[Cmdr Tel]

So those long range missions require luxury cabins? The jump range of that dolphin is a little over half my aspx and when you're talking 20k+ distance it's a difference of quite a few jumps. If I have no choice but a luxury cabin for long range missions then so be it.

No you don't need them but at least to me it seems it stops them for asking for stuff on route. I'm not sure if that's everyone's experience but they all seem to stay happy and I can take any small group. I'll switch out cabins only if needed and use the highest rated that can accommodate them.
As for jump range I get around 40ly depending on loadout so it is hardly shabby. If you add the SC handlng, which is fantastic, it makes it a great little ship for these missions with almost no chance of getting interdicted.
The small size also means plopping down on a planet is also super easy if you need to go planet side
Try it, you are hardly going to lose anything on this little money spinner.
You might even fall in love with this little darling of a ship.

 

[DukeIronHand]

If your gonna trade then do it like a champ in the T9.
T7 is cool if you don't have T9 money - including modules.
Course I am not a fan of the Passenger missions in their current format (celebrities, criminals, CEO's - the three C's of the Apocalypse) but that's just me perhaps.
Straight up trading seems much more...righteous.

 

[Cmdr Tel]

If your gonna trade then do it like a champ in the T9.
T7 is cool if you don't have T9 money - including modules.
Course I am not a fan of the Passenger missions in their current format (celebrities, criminals, CEO's - the three C's of the Apocalypse) but that's just me perhaps.
Straight up trading seems much more...righteous.

Well the celebrities and CEO's shouldn't be getting on that T9 clunker.
Criminals I can understand.
For "righteous" trading...yeh T9(and it should have a cargo buff....Cutter! Really!)
Horses for courses IMHO.
As an SK commander let me take care of those whiney rich folk.

 

[Ted Striker]

Just take an Anaconda full of economic class, go Rhea (Ito Orbital) and take all missions to Hq Hydrae. With each travel, you can make 10-15M in just 5 minutes. The rewards increase with your reputation on the Rhea system and your trade Rank too. I did being Broker like you, and i've Made 700M just in 2 days, also my trade rank ends always on Elite. Totally Worth it.

Didn't they nerf Rhea?

I'm thinking if I do long range passenger missions I can rank up exploration as well (and unlock Palin - side bonus) so long as I bring the scanners. It's definitely not good credits-per-hour but the payouts are pretty large and I'll have gained some exploration ranks.

I'm also thinking I might want to hold off on Type 9 until I see what the Type 10 is all about.

I don't know, I'm conflicted. I've relied on bounty hunting and a little bit of Quince cheesing for money, but it's not enough to upgrade and operate a corvette like I want.