The State of money making in this game.

[Urzorn]

As of right now there are a couple of methods to make money. these are:
exploring
mining
pirating
bounty hunting
trading.

And sadly only one of these activities is actually worth doing money wise.
If we take bounty hunting for an example: bounty hunting is absolutely fine to make money up to buying a viper (and maybe even a cobra) but after that the ship costs scale up so incredibly high that bounty hunting doesn't really cut it any more (and neither do any of the other methods besides trading). let's just assume you make 150k an hour bounty hunting. this should be perfectly reasonable for the average player in an anarchy system. Sometimes you get more sometimes you're unlucky and you only find sidewinders with 500cred bounties but lets assume you make 150k an hour on average. If you wanted to work yourself towards an anaconda just with bounty hunting this would take you 196 days of 5 hour bounty hunting without pause. This doesn't factor in repair runs, ammo refill runs or the fact that you can lose your bounty vouchers if you get killed. I do not think that bounty hunting for half a year to buy an anaconda is reasonable. I mean yes it's the "biggest" ship right now and the game would be somewhat boring if everyone was flying around in one all the time but I think that you should be able to look forward to buying a new ship every now and then while still playing the role you like.

Now trading. As anyone who tried trading so far can attest trading is BY FAR the best option to make money in this game. Early on you have the rare trade routes which send you across the galaxy making a decent amount of credits and later with better ships commoditys outperform said rares. in a lakon type 6 it is quite easy to make about 1,2mil credits an hour.

Now I want to make clear that I DON'T think trading is overpowered at all. If we consider the prices of the bigger ships (from 22mil for a Clipper to 146mil to an anaconda. all without upgrades of course) it is actually the most reasonable. I might argue that even that could take a slight buff maybe. Or at least make it a bit easier to find good trade routes in game. But the wall you face when trying to advance to these ships with anything other than trading is almost impossible to climb. So in short: I think that the reward for bounty hunting, mining and pirating needs to be seriously increased. I'm not sure about exploring. Does Frontier see exploring as its own reward with the explorer vouchers only covering some fuel and heat repair? Or is it considered are full on viable play style in itself? Because if so this too needs a serious buff.

TL;DR Trading is ok, bounty hunting, mining, pirating needs a boost.

 

[evilolive]

Trading is the only way to accrue significant wealth. Period, end of story. The question then becomes, is that what it is supposed to be? Should trading be the only way to become very rich?

My opinion is that rares are still overvalued and need to be changed. I would like to see the area of profitability be around ~200 light years if not a bit more. Piracy needs to be significantly changed, but perhaps not in terms of raw profitability, more in terms of how interdictions are done.

 

[crushdepth]

If pirating became wildly profitable it would become wildly popular. You need a lot of traders to support a few pirates. The food chain has to thin out near the top.

Mining needs a boost in fun IMHO. Its like train spotting at the moment.

 

[shrinkshooter]

And sadly only one of these activities is actually worth doing money wise.
If we take bounty hunting for an example: bounty hunting is absolutely fine to make money up to buying a viper (and maybe even a cobra) but after that the ship costs scale up so incredibly high that bounty hunting doesn't really cut it any more (and neither do any of the other methods besides trading).

This has been mentioned many times so far, but you're right, and you'll find that many of us agree. Some will probably jump in and tell you that you're not being forced to do anything for money, and that not all professions should pay the same, etc etc., which usually miss the point. I would like a Python eventually, but if I only stuck to bounty hunting, my calculations showed it would take me 220 days. Even being conservative, it would take me six months with top notch profits, minimum, to just get the cash for the hull itself, not even the modules.

If they somehow managed to figure out how to make profitability scale exponentially to the same degree it does in trading, then everyone would be happy. As it is, though, profits are "capped" per unit time at some point for all professions except trading far earlier than trading, which also has a steeper exponential curve. Before someone tries the "this game isn't about money" counterargument, note that I'm not trying to imply that; but for any realistic, reasonable timeframe for me to get my Python, I DO feel forced to trade to get one AND to maintain it.

 

[Ghostickles]

Payouts suck in this game. There, I said it.

 

[anikaiful]

TL;DR Trading is ok, bounty hunting, mining, pirating needs a boost.

TL;DR - yea, they need a bit of boost in one way or the other (mining in its mechanics mainly). BH/Pirate/Trader is a bit of a food-chain issue. Pirates could do with better tools for their trade. And BHs can't really do their job because wiping bounties is laughably easy.

 

[Drakh]

Trading is also by far the least enjoyable. I trade (grind) when I need money for something, insurance, upgrades or a new ship . When I have what I need for that moment I refit or switch ships to do the others for fun and don't worry about needing to make any more money than I spend on those activities (insurance, fuel, repairs, munitions). Trading is the grind to allow you to obtain as much money as you want, but it's really the rest of the game that the money enables. Seems ok to me.

 

[Kirthalion]

This is all regarding to open play, doesn't apply to private group or solo.

Trading is highest risk, highest reward. Make the most money but risk getting blown up along the way - biggest loss because of lost cargo in addition to insurance cost. Currently in a Type 6 I can average 1mil an hour - traditional cargo, not sharing location.

Bounty hunting is a step below, given you can get NPC kill missions that range from 120k-200k and I personally can knock out a few in an hour. By being allied in a system(or 2) you can pick up several kill missions at one station, this happens on the regular for me. This puts my earnings an hour at around 500k. Assuming no deaths, which most often occur now from collisions. Assuming I am paying attention I can avoid most conflict with players and given I'm in a combat vessel much less likely to be caught unawares, escape is easy.

Exploring, I've gone on only a single exploration trip and logged over 2,000 light years and about a hundred systems surveyed. Took me about 5 hours (I was meticulous which I realize in hindsight I should have just been after earthlike planets) and I made 520k. So average of 100k an hour. Certainly has its risks in terms of just lonely death in space. The risks here are the most unknown, you may overextend to a star that can't be fuel scooped, interdicted on your way out or way back in and get yourself killed. Total loss of information on death means it is an all or nothing deal. Fun to do but also serious penalty if you die on your return trip.

Mining, how I made my money to start trading. Little risk in my experience from other players attacking you, slow progress, can be sped up with some research to find pristine systems. I could average 150k-200k an hour.

Pirating I cannot speak to as I haven't ventured down that rabbit hole as yet.

This has been my experience so far with the game, I am a competent rated pilot, merchant level trader and surveyor level explorer.

 

[ollobrains]

A mix of everything is keeping me going.

 

[Urzorn]

not all professions should pay the same

well I definitely agree with this. But lets look at it this way: bounty hunting is dangerous in multiple ways. Of course you are always in direct combat with something so there is always the chance of being shot down. you need to be able to survive on the battlefield. then after that you don't even get the credits directly. securing a kill is actually only half the job. after a couple hours of bounty hunting you also need to find stations that belong to the alliance, the federation and the empire to turn in your vouches for the actual credits. Should you die at any time before this you lose everything. Plus the flying to the stations is often very annoying because a ship fully outfitted for combat usually has lackluster FSD but that's just a personal problem. I can deal for the sake of simulation/immersion.
If my transporter gets shot down (which so far only happened due to my own stupidity) I can usually make the loss back in a fraction of the time it would cost me to get the same amount of money with hunting pirates.

So there is definitely an issue with the whole risk/reward thing going on here.
And I'm not saying "hey bounty hunting should make the most because it's combat" I'm saying "I enjoy bounty hunting and I would like it to be actually worthwhile for more than just buying Eagles and Vipers." At a certain point you just get this nagging feeling of "there is no way to progress doing this. If I want to be able to buy another ship I absolutely MUST trade, it is the only option"

 

[Ghostickles]

While a trader should be able to make limitless credits in time other professions should earn enough to progress at a comparative rate. That's called balance.
Trade is also Elite's punishment for failure, especially if you had a nice ship.
.
A mining accident should not be a sentence to hours of Trade.
A bounty hunting loss should not be a sentence to hours of Trade.
Poor trip planning should not be a sentence to hours of Trade.
A notorious Pirates defeat should not be a sentence to hours of Trade.
Situations involving Player encounters should not be a sentence to hours of Trade.
.
It feels like punishment after awhile, IMO.
.
As for PvP combat, most players will only accept one or two losses as 'enough' because they don't have the bankroll for respawns and investment capital so they go off to trade some more, which isn't what they want to be doing, but its what the 'game' dictates must be done because the other payouts SUCK.
.
My advise; save until 100 million cr. and then kit a Viper or Cobra, you'll have plenty for insurance and less worries overall.
You'll have to grind it eventually anyway.

 

[BlackReign]

Trading is the most lucrative way of making money, as it should be. Trading has significant impact (positive or negative) on systems and their respective factions. Individual kills (bounties) do not. Some quick points:

- mining payouts should be improved significantly
- Exploration payouts should improve based on distanced traveled as well
- Exploration based missions should be added.
- Rares should be nerfed big time.
- Rares should be mission based.

 

[Urzorn]

I don't think rares actually need to be nerfed. Yes they make really good money in low cargo ships but as soon as you upgrade to a ship with more than 100t cargo they are easily outperformed by normal trades. If anything I'd say leave rares as they are.

 

[shrinkshooter]

Trading is highest risk, highest reward.

I'm tired of hearing this, but it's understandable because people fail to differentiate between the risks. There is the risk of losing potential profits, because your cargo hold is full of valuable things, and then there is the actual threat to your ship, the risk of actually getting destroyed. When you're trading, the first risk is huge, because you're carrying potentially millions of credits in your hold. The threat to your ship, however, is pretty small. Trading is not dangerous, and if it is, you're doing it wrong. It has the highest reward with VERY little risk, outside of you failing to submit to an interdiction and immediately jump away, or you crashing into the side of a station.

The "highest risk" is any profession that presents the most danger to you actually losing your ship, which is bounty hunting.

So there is definitely an issue with the whole risk/reward thing going on here.
And I'm not saying "hey bounty hunting should make the most because it's combat" I'm saying "I enjoy bounty hunting and I would like it to be actually worthwhile for more than just buying Eagles and Vipers." At a certain point you just get this nagging feeling of "there is no way to progress doing this. If I want to be able to buy another ship I absolutely MUST trade, it is the only option"

Yes, and that's my point. Not having every professional technically pay the same is totally fine by me, and it'd be unrealistic if it were like that anyway. But as it stands, they're not even comparable, and it's due entirely to the scaling. Like I mentioned, if they could find a way to somehow get the profit curves to average out as roughly even over time for all the professions, most people would be happy.

 

[Ghostickles]

Trade in and of itself is fine, it has a good thing going, now to balance out the rest of the careers so different player types can feel as they are progressing equally is the trick.
Don't force us to be Elite Traders, we should have to want that FD.

 

[Vincent Starson]

I think trading scales well with ships and is fine for the most part in terms of profit per hour. I just wish other professions scaled in each of their ships a little closer as well.

What would help this vast difference in income is advanced missions worth a million or so credits that can be completed in under an hour, that are difficult and encourage pairing up to increase profit.

 

[Hamerstein]

It's a perception issue in my opinion, reinforced by lack of alternative gameplay.

Why do people want to accrue large amounts of credits?

For any profession/pursuit outside of Trading, there is no tangible benefit to having a ship larger than an Asp.

True you can aim for a Python as the ultimate in combat engineering, but it's a very expensive ship to be taking into conflict against players and it's completely unnecessary overkill vs. NPCs. At most you would aim for an Asp, but more likely a Cobra, Viper or even an Eagle - because the rewards for performing combat actions in these ships is proportional to the costs for running them, and the cost of insurance and hull damage makes the proposition of damaging one more palatable.

For exploration - the Asp, with it's huge jump range and plethora of utility and module slots. Size doesn't reflect on profitability or capability of this activity beyond this size of ship. You could also manage well in a Cobra.

Mining - Asp or Cobra - you need a ship with a decent array of module slots for Refineries and a decent amount of cargo space but with the capacity to defend itself or run away effectively in a pinch.

Piracy - Asp or Cobra, cargo space, module slots and utility slots, plus combat capability.

Only the trader sees a better return for larger ships, so only the trader actually needs to pursue such.

So why look to money for anything other than trading?

Because currently it's the only thing that helps a player measure their success that has any meaning outside of the aesthetic (even to themselves). Reputation is fairly meaningless and easy to achieve, Military rank is the same. You can set yourself goals in the game of course, and perhaps that is the point - for some players anyway. But in my experience in many other games, players like to see a tangible reward for the time they spend, and money and the rewards it facilitates is the only one on offer in ED at present.

If military rank were more difficult to obtain, or at least involved an engaging activity to progress, so that there was a focus other than garnering cash. If rank and reputation unlocked better benefits for players than just a screen full of green NPCs and a polite welcome at stations. For instance if certain upgrades were only available to those who had earned the trust and respect and demonstrated the tactical acumen to warrant such rewards, we might see a different kind of player focus emerging.

I rather hope we see those things in the future, perhaps then this debate wouldn't be so important.

 

[kungfubiker]

Trading is the only way to accrue significant wealth. Period, end of story. The question then becomes, is that what it is supposed to be? Should trading be the only way to become very rich?

My opinion is that rares are still overvalued and need to be changed. I would like to see the area of profitability be around ~200 light years if not a bit more. Piracy needs to be significantly changed, but perhaps not in terms of raw profitability, more in terms of how interdictions are done.

ummm disagree on the trading bit....it is but ONLY if your grinding the **** out of it.... im making most of my cash by missions ( a mix of all) yes im relatively cash poor ( a fully A equipped Cobra an less than 6mill credits but im having a shed load of fun).... Piracy and Bounty hunting could use a ....not a buff per-se but maybe a simplification to increase the credits earned? things are only unbalanced if you think credits are an end in themselves ....just my opinion of course and im sure lots will disagree and thats ok too.....your allowed to be wrong ( nb thats tongue firmly in cheek btw.....for the literal minded amongst you)

 

[Ghostickles]

I had a hard time reading all that, sir, I think I am confused.
Did you ask why a pilot would want a Python or Anaconda for anything other than trading?
Then did you say they aren't balanced to Combat in the game?
I had to stop there because I became so confused, it almost seems like you havent played games in 30 years, and it didn't make sense.
Have you even had a fully kitted Cobra destroyed and compared the cost/incentive values?
I suppose Opinions don't have to make sense though, they just are.

 

[malicious1]

I'm tired of hearing this, but it's understandable because people fail to differentiate between the risks. There is the risk of losing potential profits, because your cargo hold is full of valuable things, and then there is the actual threat to your ship, the risk of actually getting destroyed. When you're trading, the first risk is huge, because you're carrying potentially millions of credits in your hold. The threat to your ship, however, is pretty small. Trading is not dangerous, and if it is, you're doing it wrong. It has the highest reward with VERY little risk, outside of you failing to submit to an interdiction and immediately jump away, or you crashing into the side of a station.

The "highest risk" is any profession that presents the most danger to you actually losing your ship, which is bounty hunting.



Yes, and that's my point. Not having every professional technically pay the same is totally fine by me, and it'd be unrealistic if it were like that anyway. But as it stands, they're not even comparable, and it's due entirely to the scaling. Like I mentioned, if they could find a way to somehow get the profit curves to average out as roughly even over time for all the professions, most people would be happy.

in large tradin shiploss/cargo loss are about the same when your dealing with the big pricetag items....how many bh's and pirates you see running with zero shields to max profit.and yes ive died with half my net cash in the cargo a few times