This is just an artifact of an incomplete game. Dont listen to people that say "bounty hunting shouldn't make as much, it's a trade game after all". I have been in since premium beta and one thing the devs have been consistent on is they do not want there to be one way to play to rule them all. Its not that one profession is supposed to earn more, they should all be relatively equally viable, according to the devs, it really looks like they just haven't implemented the aspects of bounty hunting and exploration and mining, and pirating etc, that will make them financially viable. Who knows, maybe they won't develop them further, I'm losing hope because it seems like there priorities are all over the place, and they are obsessed with balancing ships for some reason, but at least it's been stated by them that they intend to have all the professions reasonably in balance with each other.
Taking advantage of Seeking luxuries? Why?
- Thread starter Grundfuttock
- Start date
This is just an artifact of an incomplete game. Dont listen to people that say "bounty hunting shouldn't make as much, it's a trade game after all". I have been in since premium beta and one thing the devs have been consistent on is they do not want there to be one way to play to rule them all. Its not that one profession is supposed to earn more, they should all be relatively equally viable, according to the devs, it really looks like they just haven't implemented the aspects of bounty hunting and exploration and mining, and pirating etc, that will make them financially viable. Who knows, maybe they won't develop them further, I'm losing hope because it seems like there priorities are all over the place, and they are obsessed with balancing ships for some reason, but at least it's been stated by them that they intend to have all the professions reasonably in balance with each other.
For me, it's because I'm not keen on trading, so I put a good chunk of my cash into a Type 6 and headed to Beta Whatitsname to make hay. Turned out I could stand it for about an hour, logged & played some Alien Isolation, with the intention of trying to get another hour or two in the next night.
Next night when I logged in, just sitting in the cockpit of the Type 6 depressed me to the point I went straight to the shipyard, sold the Type 6 and got back in the Cobra with enough cash to get it A rated, which was my initial reason for going there, so I got that at least. The thought of getting 35 million together for an A rated Asp, frankly gives me sleepless nights; fortunately, I'm not really interested in the Python & Anaconda (at the moment at least).
There's no doubt that people who choose to mainly trade should be a good deal wealthier than those of us who don't, but I see Luxuries (and Rares) as something of a concession for us to get a bit of a bump here and there. They both need some tweaking of course, and I would rather hope we will get something less artificial in the future.
The Gordon Gecko type traders can of course abuse both of these to their hearts content, so until we get something tangibly better, these will have to do.
Next night when I logged in, just sitting in the cockpit of the Type 6 depressed me to the point I went straight to the shipyard, sold the Type 6 and got back in the Cobra with enough cash to get it A rated, which was my initial reason for going there, so I got that at least. The thought of getting 35 million together for an A rated Asp, frankly gives me sleepless nights; fortunately, I'm not really interested in the Python & Anaconda (at the moment at least).
There's no doubt that people who choose to mainly trade should be a good deal wealthier than those of us who don't, but I see Luxuries (and Rares) as something of a concession for us to get a bit of a bump here and there. They both need some tweaking of course, and I would rather hope we will get something less artificial in the future.
The Gordon Gecko type traders can of course abuse both of these to their hearts content, so until we get something tangibly better, these will have to do.
Because my main trade is bounty hunting, just bought the basic ship specifically to try out the Seeking Luxuries thing... was bored within 15 mins aside from not earning much, that is apart from when another human player interdicted me while empty in Leesti... not to pirate me, just to blow me to smithereens with dumb fires for the sport of it.
I doubt even the most rabid fanboi would say that the game content is anywhere near complete. Currently we have a really good framework for a game. To borrow an analogy from David Braben, they have built the house, and now it's time to start moving in the furniture. As I mentjoned earlier the SL traders are based on a good economic premise, but it's poorly done, too simplistic, and too easy. Sure I'm taking advantage of it now but I won't weep when it's changed. If others disagree with using it noone is forcing them to do so, and given that the game is noncompetitive those who choose to not use them aren't disadvantaged by those who do. Yes I have an asp now where I had a cobra before, but that doesn't change anything about your game.
Of course anyone is free to use any ship they like for any purpose. I'd be free to take my kids (if I had any) to school in a semi-trailer if I saw fit to do so too. If however I complained about the difficulty of parking it at the school and the high running costs it would be reasonable for the other parents to laugh at me and call me all sort of unpleasant names that probably wouldn't make it past the swear filter here. Equally someone using an Anaconda as a bounty hunting ship probably shouldn't be complaining about it's failings and costs in that role, when it's plainly more suited to a defensive or escort role. To use a world war two analogy you don't send out a battleship against submarines, you use cruisers and frigates coz they are better in that role, and preserve your battleship for the main strike missions. Of course a battleship can kill submarinsz, but it will be a lot more expensive in terms of repairs and lives lost and less ecfective than a more appropriate ship.
Something else to remember is that we only have half of the promised compliment of 30 ships. With half of the options missing, is it any wonder that combat ship options are limited? Yes there are currently more trading and multirole ships than combat... because the whole basis of the game is trading. Witbout traders (and to a lesser degree miners) there is noone to pirate, no loot to smuggle, and no pirates to hunt. Traders support the entire "food chain" if you will, and therefore must be the most numerous and prosperous or will face extinction and bring down the entire "ecosystem". (Oh look, it's happening already. Just one PvE group has over 3000 members... that's 3000 fewer targets for piracy and lunacy.... and that's just ONE group of many!)
Historically Elite games have all been trading games first. In ED they have focussed on three things so far... getting the galaxy looking/acting right, getting the ships looking/flying right, and getting the background politico-economic simulation working right. Obviously there's still a ways to go on all three of those, but they are the most advanced part of the game leaving it as basically a 21st century, multiplayer version of Elite II. Roles such as pirate, bounty hunter, smuggler, and even trader are still VERY primitive and are barely functioning, and I'm sure they will all evolve significantly in the next 12 months, just as EVERY other mmo has (a point people often forget). The politico-economic part will ALWAYS be the driver of the game as that is the "backdrop" against which all the trades are painted, but I'm very sure that the trades themselves will grow and develop.
Perhaps some effort should be made to curb some of the more laserbrained amongst the pewpew set then. Their habit of disparaging any non-pewpew gameplay, and insulting those who seek something other has gone a long way toward their reputation. The recent actions in places like lave and altair, the mindless murder inside stations, the mass migration of mobs like test and goons etc just reaffirm to the rest of us that the majority of combat seeking players ARE laserbrained pewpewers. Actions speak louder than words. While there are many PvP players who seek a reasonable game, there are very few of them who will shout down the obvious griefers and "people who are role playing psychopaths". Rather they tend to just go quiet when these more rampant players start mouthing off. It's of little use being upset about the reputation PvPers get if they won't do anything about their more pschotic brethren themselves. Sure it's not your job to do so, but it's also not the job of the non-PvPers to protect your reputation.
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The seeking luxuries runs are definitely overpowered at the moment. I mean it was possible to make 700k every 3 or 4 minutes at Fan Horizons before the conflict hit. And now you just have to move to tenche and you can make the same profits again, 700k every 3 or 4 mins in a type 9 or anaconda, 300k in a type 7.
The ships buying the luxuries off you are only type 9's so they should have a limited cargo capacity of about 500 right? with a max of 5 of these ships (havnt seen any more than that at once) flying together.
Instead of randomizing the instance every time, track the amount of ships that first spawned and their total cargo capacity and once that many units of stock have been sold to them, they leave.
This would leave you with the same highly profitable runs, but they would only last 20 minutes or an hour depending on the size and frequency of ships supplying them.
The ships buying the luxuries off you are only type 9's so they should have a limited cargo capacity of about 500 right? with a max of 5 of these ships (havnt seen any more than that at once) flying together.
Instead of randomizing the instance every time, track the amount of ships that first spawned and their total cargo capacity and once that many units of stock have been sold to them, they leave.
This would leave you with the same highly profitable runs, but they would only last 20 minutes or an hour depending on the size and frequency of ships supplying them.
Technically there's some type 6's in there too but that's irrelevant. The way the encounter is written is that the T9's etc don't always stay there, they spawn when you enter the POI and they always spawn empty. As soon as everyone's gone from the POI they despawn. Rinse and repeat. They may actually be "bottomless pits" too, just to complicate it. I'd be VERY surprised if the current mechanism survives very long at all - I think they just wanted some way to express a "boom" before a civil war and this was the simplest. Yes it SHOULD be possible to make stupid amounts of money for a short while in a boom (it's called profiteering), but not this easily or quickly.
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for what it's worth - i began my career in ED bounty hunting and scavenging/salvage, amassing about 10 million* in the process. there is a game there and it can be won even early on - even in the weedy little sidewinder, you just need to pick your battles.
the trading game might seem like the obvious route if you think 'upgrade, upgrade, upgrade...' which requires cash in large amounts. luckily some of the first posts i saw here were about how to take on bigger craft in a small one and win, or withdraw alive - the focus was on skills and strategy, and if a e.g. wannabe-fighter decides to go the trade route first, he will end up with a mean ship but will probably become frustrated with his losses in both defeats and repair bills.
i'm not trying to negate anyone's opinion or experience, i'm merely saying that someone who wants to fight can do so, or explore, and right from day one. i'd hate for every new player to think they *must* trade first in order to progress. i've been playing this since 1.0 release, and my first attempt at the 'trading grind' was yesterday in sculptoris. both paths have pros and cons
*no it's not much but it resulted in an extremely capable A-grade Cobra III, which you could remain with for the rest of your in-game life if you wished. everything else is profit.
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All true for anyone who doesn't want any of the big ships for any reason. IF you want big ships in your or my lifetime, you will have to resort to trading at some point. Cash from everything else is "Random", never know how big or low bounties will be, etc... For trading you can find routes point a buy X, deliver to point b for Y. Over and over again. Its a grind, NO doubt. But the only really reasonable way to get large sums.
Your right, totally.
Ive played alot of space sims since my younger days like alot of the members here, the trade grind is no suprise and kinda expected, part of the game type imo. I find bounty hunting and anything kill related similair to rare trading. Its good in the short term/lower pricing areas of the game but if you feel like you want to progress past this to something bigger...then simply your punished.
From my general chats and such alot of people in the bigger stuff feel they cant make the returns they want without it simply being a money sink. A python is about the only big ship where you can take on everything and not have an insane cost at the end...hence its nerf. The anaconda can do the same, dont get me wrong but the slower turn rate in general just means you take more glancing blows than usual and miss more/have to be more trigger finger selective...it simply isnt as fun.
So like alot of others, farming these things to get a good stock of petty cash is the result. The irony is we grinded hard to get the cash...to not need to grind lol. Instead were hammering random fluxes in cash booms like this to make that petty cash margin larger so we can go back to having the fun of pew pew and suchlike because if not its back to like you say, the dullness if legit trading.
As a small heads up to what its like, the last time i went bounty hunting in my python back when i had one. I got 4 bounty missions, all bettween 150-175k each. 2 of them luckily were for the same target, awesome, 1 kill, 2 bounties. I had a fuel scoop and was running lasers and cannons. You know one of those runs where you stop at every damn USS but never find what you need...it was that so i was hunting for ages. Eventually when everything was done, id not burnt much ammo or shield cells. I'd not taken any hull damage...it was a good bunch of fights.
Then i dock, hand them all in and find from the wear and tear, the ship integrity cost alone was over 300k (military grade hull, a base anaconda att 1% is 75k)...thats almost half my profit gone. All you need is a bad run where you do take hull damage or not avoid that plasma ball and bang, your profits gone also. As the same can be done in a viper (faster with more stops for ammo), money grinds like this are the only way of getting the fun of fighting and accepting the cost.
(sorry if i ramble also but lastly, alot of people dont seem to understand some of us also dont want multiple ships. I dont want to fly 700LY into the void to find an awesome trade spot and need to go back for my trading ship or get bored and not have my fighter when 2 minutes at a high tech stations lets me switch from one to the other in some multi-role vehicles).
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Sounds a lot like you were trying to trade 'rares' & not trading to seeking luxuries ships, they are 2 totally different things! To make a decent return on rares you need to fly at least 120 ly away from the system where you brought them and you will make 15k cr per T. There are other threads that have routes listed for you to trade rares if you look them up. Seeking luxuries ships appear in certain systems & you find a station, in that system, selling performance enhancers, fill your hold then fly to the selling luxuries ships, fly past each other (he takes the goods from your hold & transfers credits to you), you then fly back to planet, buy more enhancers........rinse & repeat until you get bored. Avg return per T on luxuries is around 1100-1500 per T & any half decent pilot will be able to do at least 8 trips per hr.
Hope that helps clear up your misunderstanding(s)
There's variety, but yes that variety lacks depth. I love this game but it is seriously short on content in virtually every possible area.
You are succumbing to the fallacy of equating in-game credits with "points" as if having a higher credit balance than the next guy indicates somehow higher status or greater dimensions or whatever.
I enjoy the challenge of finding a decent trade run without using any crowd-sourced data to do it. I feel satisfaction when I succeed. This activity pays for the outlays required to maintain it - a decent sized ship, defenses and weapons appropriate to the ship to protect me from pirates, upgrades to its equipment to make longer runs easier. This takes a lot of credits. To some extent, for a trader, credits are a measure of success.
I also enjoy bounty hunting. Once you have a combat-rigged ship this activity ALSO brings in enough credits to maintain itself. Not as much as trading does, though, because you don't need a big ship to be a very successful bounty hunter, you just need one that can dish out the pain and survive incoming fire. Your repair bills will be a lot smaller in that ship than they would if you were BH-ing in a bigger target. Credits are not the main measure of success here, kills of criminals are.
I like the eye-candy of the ED galaxy, so maybe I'll have a crack at exploring later too - fit out a ship for it and head for the deep black. If the exploration data even comes close to being profitable enough to repair the wear and tear on the ship, this too is self-sustaining. Neither kills nor credits count as "points" to an explorer, system data sales do.
Bottom line is that you don't need to make all career paths equally profitable, because the progression goal of different career paths isn't necessarily profit. Provided you make enough to keep doing it and have fun playing the game, where's the need for more?
Because the game is unfinished and unbalanced, therefore placeholders and various band-aid fixes to cover unimplemented features.