Elite: Dangerous PvE - Mobius

As a new player I’m sure the common question comes up “How do I earn more credits?” I did plenty of digging and have found the resounding recommendation to be: to do Bounty Hunting.

Unfortunately every time I take down a few of the “wanted” ships in the Resource Extraction Sites they seem to only have bounties ranging from 300-700 credits, where in videos and tips I’ve looked at shows their bounties paying out 10s of thousands of credits.

Cross checking online it seems that nobody else is having this issue, I’ve been doing bounties in Asellus Primus and LP 98-132 and experienced the same problem in both systems, so I am wondering where I am going wrong, or wether that is no longer an efficient way to earn credits early on.

I've done a couple dozen, I'm no expert...went to high res in Azrael and Excioce. Some Anacondas and Clippers paid out 100,000+, some were only 20,000+, small ships like eagles and sidey were 6,000+. It was mixed, and felt random.

Warp out then back in?

Simple fetch and carry missions sometimes pay out well at first. BH depends which site you are using, as a new player I would not suggest a Hazardous Resource site but a Resource or High Resource. They are found around some ringed planets (eg Exioce 3) find a big ship that is already being attacked and pile in. Also look at the passenger missions. GL

300 to 700 credits sounds unusually low, the only time you tend to see this is when a previously clean ship decides to take a pot shot at a miner, you should really be seeing bounties in the thousands.

RES can be a bit random, and spawns tend to be poor if the system has a high security status, for a new player the best option is to go to a High RES and follow the police around then engage targets that they are already attacking, just make sure you are shooting it when it goes pop.

It's possible that the game is feeding you targets that are matched to your abilities. As a beginner, your combat status (right-hand panel) will not be high and you would soon be put off making progress if all you could find were wanted opponents with Elite status. Elite NPCs are not only better pilots, but they also tend to have better kit and can show you a really good time; they also tend to have bigger bounties, although the various RNG factors often obscure this feature.

Xebeth's advice to take on targets that the system authorites are already having a go at is good (and can be profitable), but the bad guys will still prefer to shoot at you rather than the cops. Every victory will add to your rating: the higher your opponent's rating, the better for you, so the choice of target is up to you - how lucky do you feel?

There is a similar mechanism behind trade. The better reputation you have with a faction, the better the payout on the missions.

Xebeth wrote:300 to 700 credits sounds unusually low, the only time you tend to see this is when a previously clean ship decides to take a pot shot at a miner, you should really be seeing bounties in the thousands.

RES can be a bit random, and spawns tend to be poor if the system has a high security status, ror a new player the best option is to go to a High RES and follow the police around then engage targets that they are already attacking, just make sure you are shooting it when it goes pop.

The above, combined with a KWS, has netted my hundreds of thousands. I do the highlighted, especially if the wanted ship is of a higher combat rank than me, wait until the authorities start shooting, then join in on the action.

Walter wrote:It's possible that the game is feeding you targets that are matched to your abilities. As a beginner, your combat status (right-hand panel) will not be high and you would soon be put off making progress if all you could find were wanted opponents with Elite status.

I've done a few more tests and doesn't seem to matter what combat rank the enemies are all of my payouts are either 395 CR or 790 CR
Took a few screencaps as proof: https://imgur.com/a/0Jskx. The only conclusion I can come to is that either I'm in the wrong systems or it has to do with my combat rank or credits earned that it is limiting the amount of credits I can earn. Even board missions are only showing up as a maximum payout of 3000 CR for far off and difficult missions.

Kcmacc wrote:

Walter wrote:It's possible that the game is feeding you targets that are matched to your abilities. As a beginner, your combat status (right-hand panel) will not be high and you would soon be put off making progress if all you could find were wanted opponents with Elite status.

I've done a few more tests and doesn't seem to matter what combat rank the enemies are all of my payouts are either 395 CR or 790 CR
Took a few screencaps as proof: https://imgur.com/a/0Jskx. The only conclusion I can come to is that either I'm in the wrong systems or it has to do with my combat rank or credits earned that it is limiting the amount of credits I can earn. Even board missions are only showing up as a maximum payout of 3000 CR for far off and difficult missions.

I had this problem when I first started. I'd read that res sites were the place to go, got some assists and got bugger all for them.
I tried hanging around the Nav beacon and got slightly better results but it was slow.

Eventually, I enrolled in the community goal that was up over Christmas and when I went to a high res in that system, I got the more typical results.
(which were magnified when I installed a Kill Warrant Scanner and used it where possible).

A CG is good way to get off the ground since I made around 15M from bounties + 21M from placing in the top 25% in the CG. (although the payout was delayed until the end of the GC).

After that, I bought a DBX and used the road to riches straight line tool to plot a course from the CG station to Maia (needed some dooflipper from there to unlock Felicity Farseer the engineer), then another from Maia to Deciat (where Farseer is based).

This made me about 60M with maybe 50 or so jumps along the way and skipping targets that were a long way from the star.

Then I engineered my 5A FSD to give me around 46LY jump range (after switching to an Asp X). Now I tend to travel in the Asp and transport my other ships after arriving.

With about 100M in the bank, I started running Kamuy to Medb passenger runs (first run in a type-9 with no shields. In a type-9, you don't orbit the planet, the planet orbits YOU!), then switched to a conda after one or two runs. After a week or so of casually running Kamuy -> Medb, I have just under 5 billion in assets and credits. Now I'm looking to see what the game has to offer in the long term.

So yeah, there's a bootstrapping plan for you. If you want more info let me know or shoot me a private message.

The road to riches straight line tool is here: http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php?a=v
The original static road to riches and info on your setup is here: https://redd.it/6hhcpq

With the 3.0.3 update I find the KWS more efficient - it actually detects additional bounties.
If you want to start making money bounty-hunting do a Community Goal and BH at a HIGH RES or HAZ Res (with no cargo) with a KWS in a wing.
If the system where the CG is does not have HIGH/HAZ RES sites, then you have the following options:

1 - look for HIGH/HAZ rest sites in neighboring systems
2 - take missions that ask to kill Pirates in neighboring systems (you will need a FSD Interdictor for this)
3 - Always hand in the bounties in the station where the CG is given.

In the end you will have earned credits from:
- bounties
- CG reward
- Pirate killing missions

CG are nice because there are always other players and it's very easy to wing up at RES sites