What's the point?

[CMDR Phantom Orion]

I figured a source and return mission for Tritium was going to be a good way to earn 50 million from trading. As the 1659 total cargo is an immense ask.
Doing this in a Panther Mark II, this was only merely two trips. I ended up losing 32,729,353 cr.

For the rewards it gave:

• 50 Mil, low rep and influence rise
• Medium rep, influence rise, cut in profit
• high rep and influence rise, no profit

The only benefit I got was raising my already almost finished Elite rank to Elite I, which I could have risen and made 100 mil off of 4 trades.. So, what's the point?

Edit: mission shown is not the mission I took. But you get the gist.

 

[alexzk]

Hard to say, 8 digits values are too small to track

 

[rootsrat]

I figured a source and return mission for Tritium was going to be a good way to earn 50 million from trading. As the 1659 total cargo is an immense ask.
Doing this in a Panther Mark II, this was only merely two trips. I ended up losing 32,729,353 cr.

For the rewards it gave:

• 50 Mil, low rep and influence rise
• Medium rep, influence rise, cut in profit
• high rep and influence rise, no profit

The only benefit I got was raising my already almost finished Elite rank to Elite I, which I could have risen and made 100 mil off of 4 trades.. So, what's the point?

Edit: mission shown is not the mission I took. But you get the gist.

To answer your question - the point is that it's a WING MISSION. If you split the cargo between 4 pilots, not only you do it faster, but you can earn quite a lot of money quite fast. See the blue icon in the bottom left corner. It indicates that the mission is recommended to do in a wing.

If you want to do it alone, you better know your trading routes and have a cheap source ready mate.

The way to do these is - all 4 people in the wing stack a bunch of those 50-million source and returns, and then all 4 of your work at it for couple of hours. You can end up richer for at least 500 million Credits

 

[FrogsFriend]

A Wing Mission will pay the 50 Million to every Cmdr who the mission is shared with (up to 4 people). So you get up to 200M between you.

 

[dcsignal]

it's a WING MISSION

They are annoying, there should be a way to deselect them, although, if we could, we may miss a potentially profitable mission doable in Solo. Even more annoying. We just need to check the details before accepting.

 

[Ted Maul]

It is frustrating, when I'm playing on my own, not a member of a wing (do they call them teams now?) and almost every source and return mission on the board is a team one. Some of them are still quite profitable, it's just that apparent 50m credit ceiling that hits them hard. It's still possible to make 20m just as a solo player from one of those missions, around 600 gold, palladium, in one run.

It seems to me that the multiplier, where every team member gets the full reward (not a proportionate one from a fixed reward pot based on their contribution) seems to be some kind of workaround based on that seemingly non-negotiable 50m credit reward limit.

It's also massively open to exploitation.

 

[DjVortex]

Yeah, wing missions are usually balanced so that it only makes sense to do in a wing (preferably of 4 players). Trying to do them solo is way too little reward for the effort. In a wing you usually cut the amount of work (per player) to one fourth (assuming four players) while receiving the same reward.

You'll usually get more reward per hour by doing four solo missions than doing one wing mission.

 

[Astrometer]

I figured a source and return mission for Tritium was going to be a good way to earn 50 million from trading. As the 1659 total cargo is an immense ask.

That doesn't seem like a good deal. Maybe look elsewhere.

 

[Macros Black]

I find delivering Bertrandite quite profitable for wings...

The Quest To Find Raxxla

Excuse me, but do you have the coordinates for the Brooks Tour systems? I was wondering... there are advertisements dedicated to the Brooks Tour at the stations (it appear at any station or outpost). Maybe it's a tribute, or maybe it's a direction. If we take your picture of the promenade from...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I figured a source and return mission for Tritium was going to be a good way to earn 50 million from trading. As the 1659 total cargo is an immense ask.
Doing this in a Panther Mark II, this was only merely two trips. I ended up losing 32,729,353 cr.

Two observations: One, according to your profile you're playing ED for ten+ years now. Did you really not know about team missions? And two: This is some very basic maths. Buying Tritium costs around 42k per ton minimum. 1600 tons of Tritium are an investment of around 67 million minimum - did you not at least do a back of the napkin calculation for that? It should have been crystal clear that you will lose money way before you hauled 1600 tons of Tritium at a giant loss. If you divide those 67 million by 4 on the other hand, it's an investment of 17 million per wing member, and suddenly each wing member makes a profit of 33 million. That's not exactly rocket science.

 

[dcsignal]

Two observations: One, according to your profile you're playing ED for ten+ years now. Did you really not know about team missions? And two: This is some very basic maths. Buying Tritium costs around 42k per ton minimum. 1600 tons of Tritium are an investment of around 67 million minimum - did you not at least do a back of the napkin calculation for that? It should have been crystal clear that you will lose money way before you hauled 1600 tons of Tritium at a giant loss. If you divide those 67 million by 4 on the other hand, it's an investment of 17 million per wing member, and suddenly each wing member makes a profit of 33 million. That's not exactly rocket science.

You don't even need a napkin, the mission details will tell you the average cost required.

 

[KRISXR]

I wanted to chime in to say, around late 2024 the balance between wing missions and single missions was fairly decent. Sometime around january of 2025 it doesn't matter what type of mission im looking for, most of the missions are for wings. Bounty hunting has been hit very hard with these, i use to be able to stack 20 at a time, now im lucky if i get 5-10. Not quite on topic, somewhat though. Its hard to find single player missions compared to just over a year ago. Easy solution, i think, just make or add more missions and make the wing and single player missions the same amount.

Tinfoil hat time- I thought the unbalance of wing and single player missions was a veiled attempt to force me into joining a squadron and flying in a wing (group) lol

 

[dcsignal]

I wanted to chime in to say, around late 2024 the balance between wing missions and single missions was fairly decent. Sometime around january of 2025 it doesn't matter what type of mission im looking for, most of the missions are for wings. Bounty hinting has been hit very hard with these, i use to be able to stack 20 at a time, now im lucky if i get 5-10. Not quite on topic, somewhat though. Its hard to find single player missions compared to just over a year ago. Easy solution, i think, just make or add more missions and make the wing and single player missions the same amount.

Tinfoil hat time- I thought the unbalance of wing and single player missions was a veiled attempt to force me into joining a squadron and flying in a wing (group) lol

I came back to Elite when the ability to colonise started. It was when I started working a little on the BGS in my systems that I also noticed a lack the Solo stuff I remembered doing a lot of before.

 

[Rock Hunter]

I wanted to chime in to say, around late 2024 the balance between wing missions and single missions was fairly decent. Sometime around january of 2025 it doesn't matter what type of mission im looking for, most of the missions are for wings. Bounty hinting has been hit very hard with these, i use to be able to stack 20 at a time, now im lucky if i get 5-10. Not quite on topic, somewhat though. Its hard to find single player missions compared to just over a year ago. Easy solution, i think, just make or add more missions and make the wing and single player missions the same amount.

Tinfoil hat time- I thought the unbalance of wing and single player missions was a veiled attempt to force me into joining a squadron and flying in a wing (group) lol

I have to agree with those observations. I spend far more time in Elite playing alone than in a wing and have always liked the ‘dip in’ nature of the mission boards simply for something to do when I’ve no great urge to do any one thing. Currently that’s stifled massively by the number of Wing mission compared to Solo missions, certainly with either trade or combat.

I had hoped that FDev may consider a specific wing mission board but can’t see them spending more on additional servers (or server capacity) for that. A little balance would be appreciated though….I’ve been playing long enough to know balance isn’t an FDev forte so I won’t hold my breath.

 

[Fixitman]

The point is the same as it always has been in ED: Pay attention, or suffer the consequences.
Note: Not trying to be a jerk, I've suffered plenty.

 

[CMDR Phantom Orion]

Two observations: One, according to your profile you're playing ED for ten+ years now. Did you really not know about team missions? And two: This is some very basic maths. Buying Tritium costs around 42k per ton minimum. 1600 tons of Tritium are an investment of around 67 million minimum - did you not at least do a back of the napkin calculation for that? It should have been crystal clear that you will lose money way before you hauled 1600 tons of Tritium at a giant loss. If you divide those 67 million by 4 on the other hand, it's an investment of 17 million per wing member, and suddenly each wing member makes a profit of 33 million. That's not exactly rocket science.

So it punishes you for doing the mission by yourself?
On top of that, I read, and figured I would be paid for finding them tritium. After all, they couldn't and they require someone to find it for them and deliver.
I don't know how a team mission changes this, as the entire team is still giving more than they get. The total is still the same.

 

[dcsignal]

So it punishes you for doing the mission by yourself?
On top of that, I read, and figured I would be paid for finding them tritium. After all, they couldn't and they require someone to find it for them and deliver.
I don't know how a team mission changes this, as the entire team is still giving more than they get. The total is still the same.

I agree, economically it makes no sense.

 

[CMDR Phantom Orion]

I agree, economically it makes no sense.

I agree that I forgot about team missions, but in a logical sense - If I require someone to find me car parts and ask them to source it for me, I pay them for the part and the labor. Or else, I should find it myself.

 

[BradHann]

Maybe the game expected you to mine it instead of paying for it.

(Still wouldn't be worth it as far as I'm concerned, but YMMV)

 

[Jmanis]

First up; mission rewards are capped at 50m credits. Beyond that crashes the mission servers for.... some reason.... don't ask me why but there was a whole thing where we accidentally got missions to deliver Thargoid Probes/Sensors like they were normal commodities, and the payouts were in excess of 200m and... crashed the game when you tried to cash them in.

Secondly; "Source" wing missions are terrible; don't do them.

Reason is, "source" missions derive their reward from the value of the goods. Fine for regular "solo" missions... but wing missions pre-split the reward as if up to four commanders (i.e a Wing) were doing it. This is easiest to compare in Wing Delivery and Wing Massacre missions, compared to their solo counterparts.

So, if a mission to source 100t of goods valued at 10,000/t rewarded you (for example) 2,000,000, that'd give you 1m credits profit.

So a mission to source 1,000t of the same goods would theoretically reward you 20m cr, for 10m credits profit.

But because wing missions have a pre-split reward based on 4 commanders participating, the reward for that mission would be 5m.... because 4x5m is 20m (what the value would be if this were a solo mission)... the problem is if you're a solo commander doing that mission, you'll earn 5m... but spend 10m getting there, so you'll lose 10m. This can only happen with source missions, as wing delivery/massacre/assassinations have no up-front cost.

Now in your case, tritium buy price is, what, 50k on average? So 1659t is ~82m. Although it's been a while since I've run the math... sourcing is meant to reward ~2.5 times the value of the goods when all other conditions are favourable... so that's meant to reward ~200m total.... but we're pre-splitting, and capped at 50m credits.... so even if the pre-split reward was higher (which i think it is more than a quarter of the expected reward), you're only going to see max 50m.

This is a big reason why Wing missions just need to be removed; just make them "hard" missions with commensurate payouts... fix whatever causes rewards over 50m to crash the mission servers & game, and just split mission rewards of any mission with the wing members regardless of what type it is.