Elite: Dangerous PvE - Mobius

So, despite playing since standard Beta, I've not really had enough consistent play time to make any real money. I've mainly pootled about Nav Beacons collecting bounties, and worked my way up to a decent Asp/Vulture. I recently traded that in for a T7 and am starting to haul cargo, and using some trade tools have started the income ticking over.

My question, triggered by a couple of comments on the forum, is whether Bounty Hunting is now a path to greater riches? It seems changes in recent versions (I didn't play for a couple of months) have made that a more viable cash cow. If so, what sort of ship would be recommended to be able to realise 'T7' like returns or better? Also, do they tend to be going after 'innocents' and cause you get a bounty, or are the targets generally 'guilty' and you don't need to worry about the rozzers.

I guess my question is - if I need to grind to build up some cash, is trading still the best route, or is there not much in it now? I'd rather grind by shooting stuff over trading, but not if it's going to take me several years to be able to afford say an F-D-L, or Python, and the costs associated Or if I'll need a Python to get reasonable bounty returns to start with anyway....

Cheers
R

Depends where in funding but with a vulture you should be good on your way.

Bounty hunting can be very profitable but you will still have to work for your money and can be about the same as trading on a good route.

The trick to getting the most out of bounty hunting is to pledge for power play faction that gives bonus to bounty payout. But signing up for power play will also cause you to get interdicted more often so trading in a type X ship might be riskier.

its a long road and the destination isn't necessarily the goal so I find myself switching up play styles often, I hunt, I trade and I run missions and I have been on a few exploration runs outside the bubble.
One trip to Barnard's loop and one almost out to the cats paw nebula.

I started playing in April but according to steam got about 900 hours of fligt time now...

What is your ultimate goal ?.......

See....I have none......I just play the game the way I want to......

I have an Asp and it can do everything I want to.....Trade.....Combat and explore.......

Never let me down yet......

Just because some people have millions/billions in the bank...So what !!

Do what you wanna do......

Take a step back from real life where everyone is worried about money and trying to impress......

*Kin ell*

*Edit*

*Lies down*

*Falls down*

It's ditto with Kharma other than when I need a upgrade for Escocia my ship I tend to trade a couple of close by routes and in-between if they offer Pirate kill missions take them on. Ensure a full cargo so I seem to get the Pirates come after me rather than going after them with a empty hold

Just now doing all Mobius missions and trading between worlds. But enjoying the game especially with our expansion hopes much better than aligning with a super power my thoughts only.

Vex

Not worried about timeline, but these are my goals.

1: want to own every ship in the game.
2: get back to my Python
3. Get Elite in Exploring before any other.
4. Want Combat Elite to be last.
5. Do not want to use outside tools to get my trade rank, will achieve it only by BB mission.
6. Want to drive a buggy somewhere in Sol System.
7. Become King/Admiral
8. Spend some time as a Miner far from the bubble.

If you are pledging to Emperor Arissa L-D, you would get a big bonus for bounty hunting, which is a good thing if you are going the combat/Vulture path.
However, with 1.4.1 I would advise to be VERY careful when entering Crime Sweeps (often an excellent source for PPoints, which you need to get those Bounty boni). I found my Python squared by a gang of ... well almost every red-blinking ship when I entered those, since you don't choose faction after entering as in Combat Zones but are automatically assigned to A L-D's forces (=you can't gain distance first and start fighting then, but start right in the middle of the furball and 80% of all ships really get annoyed by your sight).

So fly safe.

Thanks for all the answers - all interesting and useful.

Goal wise - long term I don't really have anything specific at the moment. Short term I want to amass enough cash so that I can afford one of the circa 50M to 70M ships, and run it for a while without worrying about denting it, or getting it exploded a couple of times. I'd also like to be able to switch about if I fancy it, so maybe try an F-D-L or a Python.

I'd probably be interested in the Mobius missions mentioned by Vex to give some focus as well, but haven't really figured out what all that's about yet. (I've joined up with Inara, but not figured out how Mobius/Inara translates to the tangible missions / home base in game?)

I did pledge to Emperor Arissa L-D for a bit but was away from the game for a while and just went independent again so I could trade without being continually harassed. I can't really get invested in PP unless it's for a specific reason (like the bounty vouchers, but I found it tough to find enough time each week such that I can increase my rank and make it worth my while).

So my question wasn't really about keeping up with the neighbours, more about the most efficient way to establish some in-game financial freedom, at least within a limited scope, so I can arse about in bigger ships for a bit :p

Cheers
R

Lavigny's smaller bounty bonus is unlocked at a mere 100 points, yes it's not the big 100% bonus the creds\hour crowd goes on about but seriously if 10 hours a week is an insignificant amount of in game time, go for it.

Personally I went rank 5 for two weeks and it completely burned me out so I didn't want to play until I had to log in and grind more points. So what's the point of that?

A hundred points is however easy, since interdicting enemy supply ships now earns you 30 merits each I would go spend maybe an hour or two hunting in hostile space and make rank 4 without really trying, and it gives you 5 mil bonus each week.

It's not needed by any means, if you can hang in a high\haz res you should make decent money now regardless, just not as much as the guy with rank 5 but who cares about him ?

The OoM sections on forum and inara is mostly to coordinate meta efforts to manipulate the background sim, running missions for the order is one way to do this but since many normal activities can go against us (like shooting wanted ships from the order in exioce) we communicate strategies and what not to as many as possible.

I think we are still working a lot of this out and the background sim is fairly bugged as well so it's a wait and see game at this point.

As for ships, I would hang on to the vulure, maybe look into an Asp for multi role stuff or missions, can carry quite a lot of cargo, pack a punch and defense while maintaining high jump range.
FDL is like a beefed\tanked viper with more guns, a bit tricky to manage power on and personally I prefer the vulture for combat (at 1\3 of the price)
The clipper is an option, but it is a strange ship, it's got cargo and decent combat capabilities but is almost as wide as a Type 9, and requires a large pad, so no outpost trading it's gorgeous looking though.

Just as recommendation, I'd keep the vulture and the type 7 for now, eventually invest in an Asp for multi role purposes (could cost maybe 20-25 mil fully fitted) and then just hang in for a python, sure you can try other ships in the meantime but that's my personal recommendation, you could probably afford a type 9 around the same time as a python if not before (and that could be a real money maker) but it's called the space cow\whale for a reason, and if the game decides to kill you in it, there's hardly anything you can do, and loosing 500t of imperial slaves hurts..

Another suggestion, is to take advantage of Li Yong-rui controlled space, he has a permanent discount on ships and ship modules of 15%!!
And between Diaguandriand Lembava(two of his systems) you can pretty much A-rate any ship in game apart from imperials, this also affect insurance cost so even dying becomes less expensive.
All my big ships has been bought there and that includes two anaconda's :S
The last of which saved me a total of 70+ million in fittings and ship cost.