The history of money making in Elite Dangerous

[Stealthie]

FDevs policy is really weird. Up to that point they were very eager to stop unbalanced money making asap, only to implement the most unbalanced way to make money the game has ever seen intentionally. I suspect this decision has been made not with the best interest of game mechanics but from a sales perspective.

Honestly, I've barely done a single mission since 3.3 dropped.

I don't need to earn superpower rank, I have little interest in the BGS and I don't need any permits so there's nothing the station Mission Boards have to offer me.
About the only time I do a mission is when, if I'm waiting for a ship-transfer, I take an Assassination or Massacre mission for the lulz.

At the moment, ED is just about collecting mat's, going mining, buying stuff and engineering it... so you can do all that same stuff a bit better.
Just as well I've got all my ships to rebuild, prior to moving them to Colonia (bankrolled by more mining) or I probably wouldn't be playing, I'm afraid.

 

[babelfisch]

Honestly, I've barely done a single mission since 3.3 dropped.

I don't need to earn superpower rank, I have little interest in the BGS and I don't need any permits so there's nothing the station Mission Boards have to offer me.
About the only time I do a mission is when, if I'm waiting for a ship-transfer, I take an Assassination or Massacre mission for the lulz.

At the moment, ED is just about collecting mat's, going mining, buying stuff and engineering it... so you can do all that same stuff a bit better.
Just as well I've got all my ships to rebuild, prior to moving them to Colonia (bankrolled by more mining) or I probably wouldn't be playing, I'm afraid.

Agreed. Missions are neither engaging nor are they lucrative anymore (well they are lucrative enough, it's just that mining is so much more lucrative). They should either be more fun or mining should earn less money or both.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Without the smuggling missions, I doubt I would have come much farther in the game. It earned me finally a Python. I kinda doubt I would have had the stamina to grind it to the ship "normally" back then. Reward and earnings - that's a thing they never really figured out in ED.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

The Python is still "D" rated, too. When I got it and looked at the prices for equipment - I took a break from the game, lol. When I came back, the smugglings were already nerfed, of course.

 

[Jenner]

I've minded VOs and earned a pretty penny, but I've not earned (Sagan voice) 'billions and billions' doing it. Despite not even having ONE billion in credits (although I have a lot of ships) I just don't have the need for that much cash so I've not VO mined to that level. I do it for fun, but not with an eye towards maximizing profits necessarily.

I guess this is just what happens when you've been in the "end game" content for years, in particular Elite. Credits are meaningless.

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

Wow looks like not many CMDR's knew about the 200-500mil/hr meta-alloy missions. Now that was profitable way ahead of its time.
The Palin missions where good for a while too as it filled a gap in money making things.
I was pretty much against the skimmer ones in 17 draconis but had no issues with stacking the combat zone ones.
However since no one was punished for the skimmers, when they popped up again later in another system I spent 2 days grinding that before it was finally closed down. Funny that Fdev could fix that in 2 days but we still have lots of serious bugs in play for months/years. Anyway .....

Just to highlight the difference in ability to make money. It took me 18 months of grinding trade missions to make my first billion way back from when the game started. I then made a billion in a few hours doing some of these "gold rush" scenarios. That ocean wide gap between earnings is why I jumped on every gold rush after that. There was a clear disconnect between earning and how much things (ships/modules/rebuys) should cost in game. The economy was and in many ways still is thoroughly broken.

 

[B1rdy]

Agreed. Missions are neither engaging nor are they lucrative anymore (well they are lucrative enough, it's just that mining is so much more lucrative). They should either be more fun or mining should earn less money or both.

Wing Assassination missions are quite challenging in non-large ships, but they lack in variety and risk and reward is totally unbalanced.

Without the smuggling missions, I doubt I would have come much farther in the game. It earned me finally a Python. I kinda doubt I would have had the stamina to grind it to the ship "normally" back then. Reward and earnings - that's a thing they never really figured out in ED.

In the early days, when a pirate Anaconda net you 30000 credits, I also found ships and modules were overpriced. In retrospect, treating those bigger ships as really long term goals and considering the lore, the situation was actually way more reasonable than it is now. I would really like to know what changed FDev's way of thinking in this regard.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

...

In the early days, when a pirate Anaconda net you 30000 credits, I also found ships and modules were overpriced. In retrospect, treating those bigger ships as really long term goals and considering the lore, the situation was actually way more reasonable than it is now. I would really like to know what changed FDev's way of thinking in this regard.

Engineers. There is no reason to have players grind BOTH mats and credits excessively, especially not with the environment being juiced up in power creep upgrades too.

 

[B1rdy]

Engineers. There is no reason to have players grind BOTH mats and credits excessively, especially not with the environment being juiced up in power creep upgrades too.

I disagree here, there are already a lot of game that have both some sort of currency and special equipment.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I disagree here, there are already a lot of game that have both some sort of currency and special equipment.

Yes, but they are usually more refined and balanced in what you encounter and what you do to unlock stuff. Haven't you noticed all the troubles people have finding specific mats in ED?

 

[B1rdy]

Yes, but they are usually more refined and balanced in what you encounter and what you do to unlock stuff. Haven't you noticed all the troubles people have finding specific mats in ED?

Yes, but if you go that route, it immediately begs the question, why we still have small ships and even some medium ships, like the T7, which have become meaningless - unfortunately.
But in the end I am a bit lost regarding FDev's strategy. On the one hand they intentionally add seriously unbalanced credit sources, while at the same time they leave unintentionally broken material sources unfixed for months. Ultimately neither of these conditions make the game more fun in the long run. The EZ money is only short-term fun, if you consider credit balance as a form of progression.

 

[Miczi]

This opinion will be unpopular: getting the top ship with top equipment in, let's say, a year (or 360 hours - 1 hour a day), seems totally reasonible to me. Crazy? Well, some people obviously wouldn't get it, but it's not like we want everyone to fly in the best possible ship (especially considering how rare pvp competition is in this game). I don't think getting top stuff should be accessible to everyone. Decent stuff, all features - yes. But maximising the stats in less than 360 hours shouldn't be possible. Otherwise, money will always be trash.

Btw., How much approximately is top Anaconda with A equipment?

 

[RolloTreadway]

This opinion will be unpopular: getting the top ship with top equipment in, let's say, a year (or 360 hours - 1 hour a day), seems totally reasonible to me. Crazy? Well, some people obviously wouldn't get it, but it's not like we want everyone to fly in the best possible ship (especially considering how rare pvp competition is in this game). I don't think getting top stuff should be accessible to everyone. Decent stuff, all features - yes. But maximising the stats in less than 360 hours shouldn't be possible. Otherwise, money will always be trash.

Btw., How much approximately is top Anaconda with A equipment?

There is no best ship, no top ship, no end game ship.

 

[Hank]

History of credit exploits goes all the way back to early access days. I read about an exploit several players found (I don't know exactly what it was) a way to make millions of credits back when millions was a big thing. There was a lot of discussion before Beta No. 1 hit whether the devs would wipe all accounts back to Sidey and a few thousand credits (leveling the playing field). They unfortunately did not wipe accounts at beta launch. Thus several players "started" the game with huge sums of money and many already could afford Condas (The ship to have at the time). I wonder if there are many ppl still playing the game who bought in (invested) in ED before its official launch, who recall this.
GL HF Commanders

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

Btw., How much approximately is top Anaconda with A equipment?

A lot more than ships that'll kick your butt no matter what you're doing!

 

[Uchuu]

This opinion will be unpopular: getting the top ship with top equipment in, let's say, a year (or 360 hours - 1 hour a day), seems totally reasonible to me. Crazy? Well, some people obviously wouldn't get it, but it's not like we want everyone to fly in the best possible ship (especially considering how rare pvp competition is in this game). I don't think getting top stuff should be accessible to everyone. Decent stuff, all features - yes. But maximising the stats in less than 360 hours shouldn't be possible. Otherwise, money will always be trash.

Btw., How much approximately is top Anaconda with A equipment?

Nothing against slow earnings but there is a BUT! In V1.0 you got very low payments for the jobs so it took months to get a anaconda. The issue was that the insurance took also hours or weeks to get it. I had a conda at the time but was flying it not very often in open. The friendly ganker was waiting at the next station.