Missions are overpowered

[Grumblesaur]

So I spent all of my money (I had like 15m left over lmao) on a cap4 cruiser to do missions. I took this approach as a normal player, not a tryhard. I took whatever highest missions were offered without resetting the board, I did them at a major base in house space, and I did them back to back (I'm subtracting an hour for setup/an RP encounter I had). Most of my missions were against gunboats, but I had 3 against high level fighters and 2 against cruisers (both failed, but one mission I killed a cruiser before dying)

In 2 hours (3 before the subtractions) I made 95 million credits. A real far cry from what I'd get from ore trading. If I minmaxed I'm sure I could have squeezed out some more, but I think it's best to approach this comparison under the 'typical player' idea.

To add another data point to this, I have done a similar exercise with an Enclave battlecruiser in Aquitaine a few times, and in the course of an hour I can usually make between 90 and 110 million credits. I have a CAU VI mounted. I lose to cruisers every time. The lighter gunboats (Rogue and Gaian) are generally not too much trouble, but the Bretonian gunboats can eat through more than half my hull if I'm not careful. Anything bigger than that will eat me alive while I'm flying solo, and anything smaller can scarcely drop my shields.

A less careful or experienced player, or one with less optimal equipment, will find more challenges in the missions, and have a higher failure rate. It's nonsensical to assume that every mission would be completed successfully, with so many players who don't know how to turret steer very well, and others who barely understand engine killing or weapon groups. It may be possible to earn 150 or 200 million credits via missions, but you'll have to be doing everything perfectly, and be in the right system with a short travel distance, plentiful spawns, and high payouts.

I don't think it's unreasonable to reward people for that kind of mastery of the game mechanics, especially when they're willing to pew at battleships in their Valor or Overlord and be easy prey for a few hungry bombers lurking nearby.

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A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay,
brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

[Karst]

Here's a brief video as a demonstration for those of you that might have been struggling with missions.
The risk to myself in this mission is zero. I have a CauVIII, but I could have done that mission with an AU or even no armor at all.
Missions are cool & good and all but the "challenge" of a six minute mission against gunboats is nonexistent.

I'm excited by the possibility of shipclass-dependent rewards, since doing a gunboat mission on a gunboat can actually be challenging, while with a battlecruiser you get....this. I think adapting the rewards to actually reward challenging yourself could solve the problem.

I also think (and this is something pretty much no-one has addressed) the general principle of making money substantially faster than was previously possible is fundamentally problematic. And it doesn't even matter that it's missions for that to be an issue, it'd also be problematic if there were suddenly a normal length ore route that pays 16k or whatever. Most people are aware that there's a lot of inflation in the disco economy, and we keep talking about "money sinks" and the need to have more of them. Well, if there's going to be a way to make a lot more money than before, there's an obvious need to take that money out of the economy again, too.

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[Groshyr]

Made 3.5 million mission on a cruiser, get 3.5m for mission and 6,4m for targets. Not OP, quite low, spent like 8-9 min to make this one.

Ed: maybe you should try flying other ships than your [ALG] BCR? You know, flying bigger ships for missions is kinda meh

[Egon Bigmemes]

I'm all for making missions harder, but I'm not for making them give less rewards.

I would like to remind people that much of the Ore hauling stuff had Karsts involvement. Make your ore system more profitable or more worthwhile, maybe make the routes shorter, or maybe turn your eyes to the regular trade and make trade routes that arent just "Pick up this cargo from <anywhere> and haul it to <anywhere> for the same exact credits per second"

[Groshyr]

I'd wish to have more anti-cap missions around, really. Many stations offer maximum GBs. So I agree with Saro, make GB missions harder if you can't add more spots for anti-cruiser+ missions

[Lythrilux]

It'd be nice to make missions more rewarding when done as a group without them becoming easier because the FL AI is so trash. Maybe reward goes up as the group increases, but NPCs get some kind of stacking buffs.

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[Lonely_Ghost]

Karst, sry man, no offense to ya,

But let the ppl make money fast. Srsly. Just literally let them make money fast within rules and RP, so they would be able to spend them on new characters, ships, fly around, explore and get better understanding of things and stuff happening in game.

It is very important for this game to make sure that players don't need to spend too much time on build-up. This is very discouraging factor, which could 180 potential new (to mod, not game)/old players to get into the game.

Leave it as it is, or even more make it simpler. People keep playing the game because they are having fun. I guess you know what's happens if ppl are not having fun.

So either, please, don't screw it. Or get used to love 20-30 players online at average.