Who would do This?

[Werewolf13]

Lately I've been flying mostly courier missions. This morning I logged on, went to the missions board and there were quite a few available. Except IMO they were really, really STUPID missions.

I was in a system where most of the factions were neutral to me except on Fed faction that I was allied with. Most of them were offering courier missions to Colonia and Tinjen, both 22K LY away. 5 star rep and influence payouts - as expected

What caught my eye though werre the payouts. Averaged around $900K. The only courier mission with a payout over a million was one from the faction I was allied with for $3.8M going to Tinjen.

For a 22K LY trip one way? That's chump change I can't imagine even a new player wasting their time on such a trip for such a little payout.

So - I just have to ask: Who would take such a mission? Who?

And better yet - Why?

 

[Factabulous]

People who want to do them, and ... because.

Not everyone wants to play the same game you do.

 

[Werewolf13]

People who want to do them, and ... because.

Not everyone wants to play the same game you do.

"Because" is not a reason...

And you are correct that not everyone wants to play the same game I do - but that is not an answer to the why.

What benefit accrues from taking such a mission? Maybe explorer's could make a bunch of money along the way scanning systems? Or is it something else?

I'd really like to know. Maybe I'm missing out on something I've never done in the last 4 and a half years of playing ED? Maybe...

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The only courier mission with a payout over a million was one from the faction I was allied with for $3.8M going to Tinjen.

Stack twenty of those (be allied with all the factions) and that's a payout of 70-80 million. Fast ship to Colonia down the neutron highway can be done in two hours. 35-40 million per hour (plus whatever you get in exploration data from honks along the way) isn't the biggest earner in the game, but it's still pretty decent.

Or, if you were heading to Colonia anyway, that's 70-80 million of basically free money. Would you rather fly to Colonia with nothing, or with 75 million of missions?

Like a lot of things in the game, the earnings from casually doing them aren't great, but if they made the casual earnings worth doing it (i.e. tens of millions for taking just one of those missions in a normal-speed ship), the min-maxed earnings for stacking twenty in a fast ship would be ridiculously high.


EDIT: oh, and they have a good chance of generating an extra "fast delivery" bonus when you get to the destination system, which was another million or so per mission the last time I did one, which if you're willing to exploit the generation rules on those a bit can get you another 20 million on the payout.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I always treat courier missions as 'freebies' and take them if I'm going to the destination anyway, just like I'll fill up my hold with cargo if I'm taking delivery missions. The great thing about that is that the delivery mission tells what commodity the destination wants, without having to figure it out.

 

[Variform]

Never been to Colonia and probably never will. Why would anyone go there. I think 120 ly is far away. And I moan about the trip. If I go there I want insurance by FD that they will pay for therapy afterwards or pay my funeral because I will die of boredom.
There is nothing out there anyway. It is all a lie.

 

[Arry]

For the time it take to do the 22kls missions, you could do 20 short hop missions and make more credits.

You only do the long haul missions, if you really want to go to those places. Otherwise, they are a waste of you time.

 

[Drelthar]

What caught my eye though werre the payouts. Averaged around $900K. The only courier mission with a payout over a million was one from the faction I was allied with for $3.8M going to Tinjen.

For a 22K LY trip one way? That's chump change I can't imagine even a new player wasting their time on such a trip for such a little payout.

So - I just have to ask: Who would take such a mission? Who?

And better yet - Why?

You pick them up before you head to Colonia doing any number of other missions (or just because you are travelling there for your own reasons - I personally can't see any but other do)

They are just extra cash, they aren't the reason to go there on their own.

 

[Factabulous]

You only do the long haul missions, if you really want to go to those places. Otherwise, they are a waste of you time.

So - long haul missions if you want to do long haul missions, short haul if you want to do short haul whodathinkit

 

[Arry]

So - long haul missions if you want to do long haul missions, short haul if you want to do short haul whodathinkit

The way I see it is this. Players see, missions offering 10s of millions and greed takes over. When in reality; the same amount of credits, can be made in less time, by staying closer to home.

 

[Codger]

I think the same thing about other missions, such as Massacre 50 ships. I'm like, who would want to shoot that many ships in one go? But of course, those missions are popular with a lot of people.

Different stuff for different people is a good thing.

 

[Factabulous]

If you add up all the complain threads of 'who would do X?' then you could remove all the missions. Then you lot can come to the Witch Head Nebula and repair some stations - it's great - 40 minute round trips to make a loss on the trip Who would do that

 

[Chaparral]

Procgenrngmissiongen=snafufubartarfu

 

[Aashenfox]

Lately I've been flying mostly courier missions. This morning I logged on, went to the missions board and there were quite a few available. Except IMO they were really, really STUPID missions.

I was in a system where most of the factions were neutral to me except on Fed faction that I was allied with. Most of them were offering courier missions to Colonia and Tinjen, both 22K LY away. 5 star rep and influence payouts - as expected

What caught my eye though werre the payouts. Averaged around $900K. The only courier mission with a payout over a million was one from the faction I was allied with for $3.8M going to Tinjen.

For a 22K LY trip one way? That's chump change I can't imagine even a new player wasting their time on such a trip for such a little payout.

So - I just have to ask: Who would take such a mission? Who?

And better yet - Why?

Cos you can stack 20 of em.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Because sometimes, maybe on the spur of the moment, you just decide you want to take a message to Colonia.

 

[Drelthar]

Cos you can stack 20 of em.

When you are already going that way anyway.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

If I were tooling around that system but planning to go out to Colonia anyways I’d take one (or more), just for some walking around money. Might even cover my structural integrity bill when I got there.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Never been to Colonia and probably never will. Why would anyone go there. I think 120 ly is far away. And I moan about the trip. If I go there I want insurance by FD that they will pay for therapy afterwards or pay my funeral because I will die of boredom.
There is nothing out there anyway. It is all a lie.

This is sad. 120ly is 2 jumps in some ships(only 1jump with boost). Get over yourself, fdev pay for your therapy. This has to be a troll post

 

[Drelthar]

This is sad. 120ly is 2 jumps in some ships(only 1jump with boost). Get over yourself, fdev pay for your therapy. This has to be a troll post

Pretty sure it's not a troll post, the differences in tolerance of looking at the same loading screen over and over again are very distant within the player base.

I can handle 120ly myself, my ships normally do about 30-40ly a jump. It's probably better to measure it in number of jumps. I start to get really annoyed after it gets over about 7 or 8.

 

[Werewolf13]

Pretty sure it's not a troll post, the differences in tolerance of looking at the same loading screen over and over again are very distant within the player base.

I can handle 120ly myself, my ships normally do about 30-40ly a jump. It's probably better to measure it in number of jumps. I start to get really annoyed after it gets over about 7 or 8.

100% Agree. Anything over 10 jumps (about 300 to 400 LY in my Asp) annoys me to no end.

Longest trip I've ever made was 1500 LY or so (yeah yeah - I know - some of you can do that standing on your head while reading War and Peace). Going out wasn't so bad. Every 6 or 7 jumps I'd break out the explorer gadgets and kill 15 minutes or so. Coming back though was a miserable experience and I knew that even if I didn't stop to play every now and then it was still gonna take 75 to 90 minutes of repetive, boring nonsense. 1500 LY's away from home and even though my Asp could do 49 LY jumps it still took 75 to get home (and no the route calculator wasn't set to economical - filtered though on refuel only stars). A quarter of the way home I started to wonder if just pushing the self-destruct button would be worth it? Decided not to though. Figured I had at least $25M in exploration data (turned out to be $22M). Half way home and I had to take a long break, 3/4 of the way home and all I could think was light at the end of the tunnel and when I popped into my home system the relief I felt was so great I chugged the beer sittin' on my desk and I never chug beer - what a waste. That was the single most boring Elite Dangerous experience for me - EVER. I will never repeat it (unless for some reason circumstances require it - can't imagine that happening though).

When all was finished and I added up the boring , the total time it all took to earn a lousy $22M (I can make that with just 4 or 5 good trades or hauling VIP's in an hour and a half or so without even breaking a sweat). So traveling that 3000 LY's - not a good choice for me at all.

As has been said by many and will be said again; ED is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Jump, jump again and again and again... and again 'till you get where you wanna be isn't fun - at least not for me. For those who it is fun - lucky you. Imagine how much fun you could have jumping all the way to the other side of the galaxy and then coming back 50 LY at a time.