New smuggling missions turn out to be not so OP (my 2 cents about new smuggling).
So after hearing how OP new smuggling is, and reading some angry topics on forum about it, i decided to try it myself.
For two days i did it cobra, bot getting money on Asp (was low on cash), and getting trading rank (was rank Merchant then i started, currently just 1 rank up - Broker).
Today i got max outfitted (for smuggling) Asp, and wanted to test out how much exactly it profitable in money.time spent.
After doing my normal daily merits farm to maintain rank-5 in powerplay, i've departed in my Asp at 17:15 of my local time.
I arrived to Sothis station at 17:41, having 21 million credits on my account.
Asp's cargohold, even with shield and fuel scoop still was major upgrade from Cobra (54 tons). But that also meant that i had to spend much more time on getting enough mission to feel up cargohold to maximum. Additionally to that i already noticed that Frontier today nerfed probability on getting long range missions. Nearly all smuggling mission was to nearby system, which obviously payed crap. More to that i still had to skip a lot of penless/unfriendly missions, which also provided relatively low reward.
I was able to fill up my cargo up to 53 tons only at 18:29 local time (48 minutes since i docked). Turn out to be 10 missions. Obviously to 10 different systems.
Second thing i noticed that interdiction sometime really can be nasty. In one system, after submitting to interception (as i couldn't jump in time), i had not just one ship, but 4 more ship dropping to instance about 5 seconds later. My poor A3 shield went down very quick, and i was extremely lucky not to be mass locked at that time, and thus escaping only with small hull damage.
Besides that i was interdicted many times. Didn't get more such harsh drops, but still all those interdiction slowed me down greatly.
Last mission i was able to complete only at 20:01 local time, and was at 69 million profit. Thus 48 millions in 2 hours 46 minutes, or roughly 17 millions a hour.
So obviously nothing like "OMG, its 60 million in 20 minutes!". Tbh i not sure how numbers like that popped out. I guess ppl just did single Elite rank mission in 20 minutes, taking into account only time of undock from Sothis station, and until mission completion (but not even time to travel to Sothis), and then multiplied that profit by maximum cargohold capacity, as if they would be able to take several missions instantly, and completing them all at once as well
More to that, such kind of activity is not of the sort where you can go like "ah, i am too tired - i'll finish it tomorrow". Nope, missions have timer, and usually you have to complete them all in 6 hours maximum.
Finally, its not semi-AFK job. Besides normal pirates, who will try to interdict you because you have cargo, you will have missions specific NPCs, that will try to intercept you all the time, and local security, will also often will try to intercept you because you carrying illegal cargo.
So, yeah, 17 millions per hour in Asp and Broker rank.
Is it good profit? - sure. Is it OP? - nope. Get rank-5 with Zachary Hudson or ALD, and you not only get 50 millions weekly salary, but also TWICE bounties in new Hazardous sites and compromised NAV beacons. Only CNBs and HESs can already provide over 17m/h profit in bounties.
Is it more profitable compared to normal trading? Probably yes, even comparing to Type-9. But first of all, as it was said on another topic, what kind of smuggling it is if it pays LESS than normal trading? And second, its nowhere as relaxing and semi-AFK gameplay as normal trading. Plus like i said earlier, you can't quit it at any time. Only when you complete all missions.
