Gergin wrote: ↑Mon, 31. Dec 18, 19:24
Is there a way to change the amount of "points" required to rank up your trade and fight rank?
It's absolutely silly to complete one trade run in a TS and go from Rank 0 to Rank 8. Similarly, destroying a single M5 instantly bumps you to fight rank 5-6.
It also makes the progression all sorts of wonky because if you're running combat missions regularly, you will VERY quickly hit a point where they're throwing M7's at you but the income from the missions barely allows you to buy a few M3's.
I've tried to find an answer and haven't really come up with much information at all...
What combat rank were you when M7 started spawning?
I think i was around 23 and it takes a long while to get there. Sure the first 10 ranks or so are quick to pop and it's weird at first, but you understand a little later that those early levels don't mean much in the bigger scheme of things, that you still have alot of work ahead of you.
I was also grinding combat missions, but for rep to unlock bigger and better things - but as you touched on yourself salvaging/ship-flipping is by far the best and most efficient way to make money. So you need to do both. I was doing both and by the time i started facing M7 in an M6, i could afford an M7 after a bit longer. Same in my M7 once i started seeing M2. (i could afford a cheap M2 anyway.)
The balance is definitely way out of whack, but not in the way you came across - if you only spam combat then of course your combat rank will get too high: your economy can't handle the level you are trying to fight at. You need to find a balance between economy and combat activities - you can't rely on one thing (especially in a sandbox) to give you the best of both/everything.
The problem though is that salvaging/ship-flipping is as you mentioned in another post, boring - but is by far the quickest, easiest and most efficient way of making money early. I'm not a big fan of such design/balance either and did mention this a few forum pages ago, just recently.
1mil - 5mil in 5min with minimal to no investment, as opposed to the massive investment to minimal returns of a TL + ore mining fleet, TL + SCH's (and Plutarch) to sell/construct stuff and ST/UT (especially when UT regularly throw away 600k worth of fighter drones to get away from being attacked instead of just, you know, jumping away like every other ship ever haha) Making the rest of those options obsolete.
And if you think salvaging is OP, just wait until you see the mid-game+ absolutely insane and completely passive money making process (after a bit of setup.) You'll never need to touch economy again (except to increase the size of the operation once or twice.)
So the clearest and best option for your economy early, is to boringly salvage/ship flip repeatedly - then you figure out a crazy passive way of making money - and that about sums up the economy/money making. Not very exciting, not very fulfilling, not very challenging.
But you can't rely on combat mission money to support you alone: there's already clearly 2 best options - being able to live off combat money alone would reduce this further, to 1.
Edit: Litcubes mod is still awesome, i'm having a great time and the weapons/ship balance is some of the best i've ever seen (love it as a min-maxer/theorycrafter, not being able to find one single best setup) and the additions and upgrades he's made to features and gameplay in general is awesome, but the economy balance and challenge need alot of work (imo.)
About challenge: Even with Phanon+ mod you're rarely attacked by them, by lowbie stuff and then there's pirates that you choose when and where to engage and then it's the AFK (if slowly expanding and very strong) OCV end-game enemy, that sits there and waits for you to amass an army and go (eventually) fight and/or obliterate them.