Trading is still boring as sin. Are combat and exploration fixed yet?

moleman122

moleman122
Hi all, stopped playing a month after launch because of the lack of a large amount of promised features (wings, actual stuff to do, system takeovers, etc.) that everyone was angry about at launch, me included. Updated game last week to see if they added at the very least wings, and they did, and a few new ships, so i'm back in the game for the time being to test the waters. Things i've noted:

PVP is still broken as hell, why did they not remove shield cells from the game, they're pointless timewasters. i can see that they seem to have modified the mechanics slightly but broken is still broken, 5 months later.

Trading is still boring as sin, which is to be expected, given that trading is boring as sin in all space games.

My main question is this: Is combat reasonably profitable yet? Is exploration reasonably profitable yet? When I left in january it would take hours of grinding or maybe getting a lucky anaconda assassination contract to earn a few hundred thousand credits, whereas right now all i have to do is hop in my type-6, go to an elite trading website, find a profitable loop route, and do that for an hour to get a million credits at the very least.

Secondary questions include, but are not limited to: Did they add all the features they promised and didn't keep up on? Is online still glitchy as all hell? Are system takeovers still effectively not working unless done through the shiny new ~powerplay~? Is the empire main questline still horrendously broken beyond progression?
 

ChubbyBunneh

ChubbyBunneh
RES camping for bounties in Duval space earns more than trading in a Type 9 or Anaconda. Is that reasonably profitable enough?

RES camping anywhere else earns more than trading in any ship smaller than an Imperial Clipper.

Basically there's no reason to do anything else unless you're going for Elite Trader or Elite Explorer. RES camping is where the best money is at. Hauler, Type 6 and Type 7 have no reason to exist because you earn far more camping in rings until you save up enough to buy a Clipper, Python, Type 9 or Anaconda. If you move to Arissa Duval space and rank up you still earn more squatting in a RES than you would trading in those big ships.
 
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ChubbyBunneh

ChubbyBunneh
Those Resource Extraction Sites you can find in planetary rings. They spawn endless streams of pirates worth up to 400-500k each if you turn them in at the right place.
 
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veryinky

V
ChubbyBunneh said:
RES camping for bounties in Duval space earns more than trading in a Type 9 or Anaconda. Is that reasonably profitable enough?
If you move to Arissa Duval space and rank up you still earn more squatting in a RES than you would trading in those big ships.
Click to expand...
Arissa Duval territory is going away next week because players under her were too greedy.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Exploration payout was doubled. Its reasonably profitable now.

However OP, your lack of knowledge over things like wings could have been answered simply by looking at the launcher patch notes, where it shows quite clearly 1.2 Wings listed there.
 

jacozilla

jacozilla
Isn't this like commenting that Civ 5 is boring as sin because turn based games are boring as sin, and where's the RTS combat?

Some of your points are just fine, and I too would like to see continued updates/expansion to the sandbox we currently have. But Elite since the 1984 intro has made it's mark and reputation as a space TRADE game with other elements including combat mixed in. But the core reputation is space trade sandbox - similar to Civ series has always been 4x turn based.

If you find trading boring in space games, that's fine - your money, should play what you like - why the heck did you come to Elite given the franchise's entire history?
 

Jason S

J
Trading could do with the interdictions being more fequent to add events, but to say trading is boring, what do people expect, dancing saucy girls smooching around the cockpit or something like that ?
 

askavir

askavir
Trading is boring only if traders play it in a boring way.

If one only thinks about credits per hour, and does the same route over and over, and use the docking computer (when you are trading docking and undocking is probably the only thing you can really do manually, besides pressing J for FSD, then its like the game is playing itself after a while.
 

Jason S

J
Rubellen said:
Oh my, you should be the lead game designer :p
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Well if I was in charge I would at least have one of the paid expansions the option to take on board rather nice "crew" ladies on board cockpits as part of a paid expansion called "ED Crew" ... And of course you could dictate the ship uniform :)
 

Chaodiurn

Chaodiurn
I don't mind trading being "boring". If it's monotonous it's constant. Action means interruption from the main task: trucking between station. As long as it is perceived as "boring" it is profitable to the max.
 

SchroedingersNeko

SchroedingersNeko
Jason S said:
Well if I was in charge I would at least have one of the paid expansions the option to take on board rather nice "crew" ladies on board cockpits as part of a paid expansion called "ED Crew" ... And of course you could dictate the ship uniform :)
Click to expand...

And that's the reason you are not incharge, if you want that go play ST:O instead imo. :p

Anyways as others have pointed out OP a lot of the info you want to know could have easily been found out through the launcher, but in a short sentence, a lot has changed, most for the better but some for the worse, your best bet would be to read all the patch notes from when you stopped playing till now i'm afraid to say.

As for trading being boring that is relative, but that's likely because I gave a goal instead if just mindlessly grinding out credits.
 
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