NEW PLAYER WARNING - FIRE YOUR CREW MATES

[Seifan]

... Dont be like me and discover YEARS later you have been flying around, grinding passenger and rank missions, mining your face off, and making BILLIONS in credits to get your own fleet carrier...

...only to discover that you have paid out over 3 billion credits to your 3 "crew mates" you hired the top tier of that first time you fitted out an Anaconda with a fighter "just to see how it all worked"... Well darn that fleet carrier would have come a lot sooner...

So it hurts when you realized you been loosing 30%+ of your income since basically week 6 in the game (I have taken some long breaks).

Of course NO WHERE its explained you will be paying these fools NO MATTER IF A FIGHTER IS IN USE OR NOT or IF THEY ARE EVEN WITH YOU ON YOUR SHIP. THEY GET PAID PASSIVELY AND AS LONG AS THEY ARE "HIRED" - FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY!

Why the devs decided to put such an egregious new player credit trap/sink into the game, is just beyond me, but hell this is ELITE.

You have been warned

[Robert Morris]

I did the same thing. It hurts bad I know. So many lessons you have to learn in this game. But I still love it.

[Sedonis]

It´s explained at the stations hiring board. That´s why i never took a mate so far.

[TiberiuS]

thing is you pay them a percentage, even if you don't actually use them. That's what made me fire mine and hire one if I need them for SLF work.

[Elitewrecker PT]

There's also no point in getting more than 1.

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by Seifadius:

... Dont be like me and discover YEARS later you have been flying around, grinding passenger and rank missions, mining your face off, and making BILLIONS in credits to get your own fleet carrier...

...only to discover that you have paid out over 3 billion credits to your 3 "crew mates" you hired the top tier of that first time you fitted out an Anaconda with a fighter "just to see how it all worked"... Well darn that fleet carrier would have come a lot sooner...

I'm not going to fire Elsa, thank you very much. My crewmate is extremely useful and she has actually managed to make a few kills on her own, even in a situation where I was already preparing myself for a retreat: the FSD was charging then all of a sudden "b000m" and the hostile was dead. Thank you Elsa!

What I don't understand is why you'd hire 3 crew members without ever trying to use all three of them at once? I once hired 2 and then I learned that you couldn't have them active in a multi-crew ship. Then I read up a bit and learned that this only applied to fighter hangars. So I got myself a fighter hangar with a dual bay, only to discover that I could still have only 1 crew member active. So why keep the other one around?

Originally posted by Seifadius:

Of course NO WHERE its explained you will be paying these fools NO MATTER IF A FIGHTER IS IN USE OR NOT or IF THEY ARE EVEN WITH YOU ON YOUR SHIP. THEY GET PAID PASSIVELY AND AS LONG AS THEY ARE "HIRED" - FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY!

Actually, the profit share is mentioned in the crew lounge but I definitely agree that the rest of the documentation is plain out poor, this isn't even properly explained in the official manual!

Fortunately this is where the E.D. wiki can help: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Pilot


The best and most satisfying strategy (in my opinion) is to hire a low tiered pilot. Either a complete noob if you have patience, or maybe a slightly better than bad one. Then you train them: by having them fight and do stuff their skill level goes up. And every time they get a new skill level their profit share goes up by only 1%. Meaning? My competent pilot earns a 6% profit share instead of 9%, once she's an expert it'll only cost me 7% and not 12%. And I hired her for a meager 30k.

No way that I'll be firing her anytime soon :)

[Seifan]

You arent trying to make Elite credits

Originally posted by ;3001047413716198728:

Originally posted by Seifadius:

... Dont be like me and discover YEARS later you have been flying around, grinding passenger and rank missions, mining your face off, and making BILLIONS in credits to get your own fleet carrier...

...only to discover that you have paid out over 3 billion credits to your 3 "crew mates" you hired the top tier of that first time you fitted out an Anaconda with a fighter "just to see how it all worked"... Well darn that fleet carrier would have come a lot sooner...

I'm not going to fire Elsa, thank you very much. My crewmate is extremely useful and she has actually managed to make a few kills on her own, even in a situation where I was already preparing myself for a retreat: the FSD was charging then all of a sudden "b000m" and the hostile was dead. Thank you Elsa!

What I don't understand is why you'd hire 3 crew members without ever trying to use all three of them at once? I once hired 2 and then I learned that you couldn't have them active in a multi-crew ship. Then I read up a bit and learned that this only applied to fighter hangars. So I got myself a fighter hangar with a dual bay, only to discover that I could still have only 1 crew member active. So why keep the other one around?

Originally posted by Seifadius:

Of course NO WHERE its explained you will be paying these fools NO MATTER IF A FIGHTER IS IN USE OR NOT or IF THEY ARE EVEN WITH YOU ON YOUR SHIP. THEY GET PAID PASSIVELY AND AS LONG AS THEY ARE "HIRED" - FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY!

Actually, the profit share is mentioned in the crew lounge but I definitely agree that the rest of the documentation is plain out poor, this isn't even properly explained in the official manual!

Fortunately this is where the E.D. wiki can help: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Pilot


The best and most satisfying strategy (in my opinion) is to hire a low tiered pilot. Either a complete noob if you have patience, or maybe a slightly better than bad one. Then you train them: by having them fight and do stuff their skill level goes up. And every time they get a new skill level their profit share goes up by only 1%. Meaning? My competent pilot earns a 6% profit share instead of 9%, once she's an expert it'll only cost me 7% and not 12%. And I hired her for a meager 30k.

No way that I'll be firing her anytime soon :)

Ok thats great, if you are only looking to Elite PVP/PVE Combat... FOR ANYONE ELSE, You should never keep that leech around

[LoboFH]

It's explained and anyways you should notice when you hand combat bonds in, for example, that you don't get all the money even if the NPC is not onboard.

You only need one and you should hire a harmless one and trrain to Elite. They are very useful and fun. Credits are not a concern in the long run.

...and yeah, mine is close to 3 billions gains, this was a mechanic that was not balanced in its moment, unlike Fleet carriers and the adjustement of upkeep in the beta and beyond.

[impeteswain]

I love that my crewmate keeps pirates off my back when I'm mining, well worth the creds for the improved gameplay. The game is meant to be fun unless you're driven to make money

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by Seifadius:

You arent trying to make Elite credits

Hmm? I only own all Kraud Suger ships, both Kraits, the Anaconda, kept my Cobra and got the ASP-X as well.

Originally posted by Seifadius:

Ok thats great, if you are only looking to Elite PVP/PVE Combat... FOR ANYONE ELSE, You should never keep that leech around

Did you know that the Beluga (= passenger ship) can also house a fighter bay? And that passenger runs become a lot more profitable if a passenger is wanted. And well.. a fighter can be quite useful to brush of attacks.

[Agony_Aunt]

If your crew has earned billions then you must have earned tens of billions.

How many credits do you need? You must now have enough for a fleet carrier carrier!!

[Kaitsu]

I trained with Krait fighter my very average pilot on to top, I just can´t fire him after all this, I might even need him later (I wish)!!!

500+ mil on that pilot during last years is nothing compared what I made with Robigo-Sothis passenger runs (about 8 billion in just couple of weeks, maybe a bit more), with very little effort...

So, looking forward somebody trying to take on my fav BGS minor faction with my trusted mercenary, neverthless it will cost me so much more than it could earn me (well would not be doing BGS for a minor faction in the first place if this game for me were just about gathering credits).

[Myrmidon]

I've been debating firing my pilot too who is 'dangerous' rank. Often thought I could just hire an expert when I need one and then fire again. But thing is you can't get any pilots above expert that you haven't trained yourself and between expert and elite you have master, deadly and dangerous, 4 ranks more and I've heard dangerous and elite NPC pilots are very very good. Quickly re-training an expert to elite for a few missions or tasks is anything but a quick affair though.

[CEPHY]

One of the reasons I only ever hire the cheapest crew possible - what I do pay them barely has any impact on my finances, and they'll get better the more I use them.

[StewiePlaysPC]

but who now will keep them in the life style they become accustomed to ? 4 small moon's and 15 ex-wives per crew members wont pay for them selves lol

[Boomer]

Yeah never once bothered with ship crew for this reason. Its ridiculous.