15KK CR in about two weeks

[Mad Hollander]

... playing for a couple of hours a day.

I'd be VERY curious to learn how you earn a million a day in only a few hours a day.

Ok, read carefully: http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/text/
Just 6 hundreds of jumps required to earn 1mln in the standard game with max cargo of 35tons !

600 jumps take about 100 hours if the jump lasts 10 minutes. So, about 7-8 hours per day you need in the standart game to earn 1KK in two week time.

As I said, the Oolite is very imbalanced ! You need to decrease amount of jumps, increase profit per jump and decrease the time of jump:
A starting capital
B big cargo bay
C fuel injectors and docking computer

1 Find the systems that close enough, <1LY, and have extreme difference in prices. These two systems are used to earn boa cruiser.

2 Then you need the fuel injector, docking computer and start capital. So, sell the default cobra3 and buy cobra1.

3 Don't spend money on anything - neither weapon, nor equipment except large cargo bay and shields/unit.

4 Don't fight, just run away on fuel injectors. The only laser you need - is rear. With full tanks it is quite easy.

5 Never fly directly to the station - the path the station should be like the big rectangle or trapezoid or arc.

6 First couple of days are required for first hundred or a bit more of jumps - they will give you a python.

7 The only thing you need python for is the cruiser boa. The rest of time you need to deliver gold, gem-stones and platinum and trade along the long-range delivery route.

8 Choose the biggest route along the diagonal and start collecting contracts. You need to be in a proper galaxy, because some of them are not good for delivery balance exploit.

9 Single route, end to end, from corner to corner can give you up to 500K CR and even more !!! You should not deliver neither on cobra nor python, because cobra won't be able to take 10 contracts each for 1000...6000kg of Gold/Platinum and python is
too slow even on fuel injector.

10 Until you reached first 1KK keep trading during delivery. Then stop and fly from corner to corner on the route where as much jumps as possible - they are obviously safer and profitable. After 1kk trade will give less 10% of entire profit.

Thanks.

P.S. 8 of 10 steps are exploit of game balance holes. I.e. ship prices are far away from the balance.

P.P.S. 15KK / 14 days is close to 1kk per day.

[phkb]

You need to be in a proper galaxy, because some of them are not good for delivery balance exploit.

Question: what do you mean by "proper" galaxy? Do you mean that your system doesn't work in some galaxies?

[Mad Hollander]

You need to be in a proper galaxy, because some of them are not good for delivery balance exploit.

Question: what do you mean by "proper" galaxy? Do you mean that your system doesn't work in some galaxies?

It works but requires much more time.

[ffutures]

If you don't find the standard game challenging enough, why not add some of the many expansions? Add a war, an evil criminal organisation, or whatever else takes your fancy.

Anyone can make money on straight cargo runs but you need a shedload of money to start with, or you can't afford the deposits on the cargo. And if you can afford that, why do you need to make more money? The trick is simply to start with a long-distance high-value cargo run, take minimum time routes, stop at every station, and pick up any valuable cargo or parcels along the way provided they're headed to somewhere along the route you're already following. Do three or four runs across the galaxy and you have a million credits or so - provided that nothing goes wrong. Since I have a lot of expansions loaded things I've had go wrong with this include a pirate ambush that burned through my shields and vapourised 2300 kilos of platinum in the first volley of shots, repeated misjumps, and an accidental jump into a nova system, so I'm actually working much harder than you to get my money, I suspect. Even so I'm rapidly working my way through the galaxies, moving on once I've earned a million or so credits in each galaxy, once I've done that I'll probably go through again using another money-making scheme - maybe salvage work with the Towbar add-on, or one of the piracy scenarios.

[Wildeblood]

So all you're really saying is that the contracts system is too easily exploitable and belongs in an OXP, not part of the core game. That shouldn't be news to anyone.

[Mad Hollander]

If you don't find the standard game challenging enough, why not add some of the many expansions? Add a war, an evil criminal organisation, or whatever else takes your fancy.

Anyone can make money on straight cargo runs but you need a shedload of money to start with, or you can't afford the deposits on the cargo. And if you can afford that, why do you need to make more money? The trick is simply to start with a long-distance high-value cargo run, take minimum time routes, stop at every station, and pick up any valuable cargo or parcels along the way provided they're headed to somewhere along the route you're already following. Do three or four runs across the galaxy and you have a million credits or so - provided that nothing goes wrong. Since I have a lot of expansions loaded things I've had go wrong with this include a pirate ambush that burned through my shields and vapourised 2300 kilos of platinum in the first volley of shots, repeated misjumps, and an accidental jump into a nova system, so I'm actually working much harder than you to get my money, I suspect. Even so I'm rapidly working my way through the galaxies, moving on once I've earned a million or so credits in each galaxy, once I've done that I'll probably go through again using another money-making scheme - maybe salvage work with the Towbar add-on, or one of the piracy scenarios.

I need not just challenge, but some significant changes. Actually, when I was thinking on starting development of my own game, I came up to some ideas, that later were seen in the ED.

[ralph_hh]

No more questions. With lots of capital already earned, to get more is easy. Same as in our real life here on earth.
And.. risking ones life in the galaxy, there's nothing wrong to be paid well, I suppose.

[Sendraks]

600 jumps take about 100 hours if the jump lasts 10 minutes. So, about 7-8 hours per day you need in the standart game to earn 1KK in two week time.

7-8hrs a day is not "a few hours" a day. It is waaaaaaaaay more free time than most working folk have. Certainly more than I have.

3-4hrs a day (on average) is a relatively dedicated amount of play time, at which point you're looking at a solid month of very dedicated play to hit 1 million credits. Which doesn't seem that problematic to me.

And this assumes that you've done nothing else for a month but grind the cash out as per your suggestion. Which, frankly, a pretty dull way to play the game.

So yeah, go you, on finding a very dull, very grindy way to play the game. Nothing imbalanced here.

[fronclynne]

Just faff around till you can afford a python. Your first million can be had in less than 20 hours of gameplay from there, though admittedly it's the first 400k or so that take most of time.

[ffutures]

If you concentrate on precious metal and gems (and parcels) you can do it in something smaller - of course getting to the point where you can afford the deposit on those cargoes can take a very long time, a big ship lets you start with the bulky low-value stuff and gradually work up. But valuable cargoes have their risks - as I mentioned above, it's possible for forty or fifty thousand credits worth of cargo to be wiped out in a single hit, I've had this happen three times now.

[heir]

I made 3KK easily doing cargo runs. Can't seem to get my rep up for parcel runs, as by the time I've finished a run, the rep goes back down.

Now with that money I've earned, I got nothing to spend it on. Still haven't worked out what to do. I'm just now hunting the lanes to pick off rogue ships to get my kill rate up.

[Wildeblood]

I made 3KK easily doing cargo runs... Now with that money I've earned, I got nothing to spend it on.

Buy a Vortex.

[Smivs]

... that money I've earned, I got nothing to spend it on..

Go have some fun , and with a few repair bills like this, you'll soon be broke again



(Needless to say, they paid a higher price!)

[Dawn Trader]

With that said... that screen shot looks a lot like the Dubious Profit and everyone knows that it is permanently in that kind of condition

[heir]

My ship self heals. Saves money, I just take less risks when its healing.

Don't use missiles so not much cost there. I'm thinking of giving up cargo runs as I lose items and its a pain.