Talk:Jobs

Doing L75 Trade mission (Ambassador delivery 5625xp) from Chenrevog station to Fenris

Starting Terran Alliance faction -2440
Took 6 Terran Alliance ambassador missions
Wormholed to VT twice (once on way there, once on return)
Ending faction -2350. Net result +80. Expected result was 6 x 40 = 240

Completed same runs without wormholes. results
-2360 +240
-2120 +240
-1880 +240
-1640 +240
-1400 +240 (Gained access to 61 cygni gate at this point, research ended)

Trade job worth in XP/hr

From User:Codemonkeyx: "(though this is definitely not the case at OL135 when L150 Trade Jobs become available; they give substantially higher XP/hr than any available Trade Route and there are also better ways to make credits)"

This is objectively false. I tested on 3 characters.

Cargo slots (with Polar Express/without):

JE: 37 / 30
TS: 46 / 37
TT: 50 / 40

Those three were chosen because Negotiate 0, 5, and 7.

The data below comes from one side (FN->NV) of the trade run. The return leg is slightly more profitable. So this is literally the worst-possible-case scenario.

Class	Negotiate Level	Trade Level	Buy Price	Sell Price	Profit	Trade XP
JE	0	50	2020	3030	1010	565
TS	5	50	1717	3484	1767	1137
TT	7	50	1636	3605	1969	1312

Thus, here's the XP/hr. Here's an example of my math for the JE:

565 (XP/item) * 37 (slots with Polar Express) * 7.5 (runs/hr)

From testing (see Trade Jobs page), I know that FN->NV takes around 8 minutes for an OL 50 character, that has Navigate, with the Polar Express (and a bit longer without one).

Class	With Polar Express	Without Polar Express	Assumed one-direction travel time (min)
JE	156,787	127,125	8
TS	392,265	315,517	8
TT	492,000	393,600	8

Now, just for fun, let's say you had a Progen Warrior, without a Polar Express. The slowest possible combination with the smallest cargo hold, and least XP. Let's say it takes 10 minutes to do a run, so 6 runs/hr. That still earns 101,700 / HR at Trade Level 50 (so, more at lower levels, but close enough for TL150 jobs which would require *at least* TL 35 (assuming 50/50/35).

But how much XP/hr can you make with jobs? Well, the first thing is you HAVE to have a EL 70 JE, in order to get the Witberg weft. But some of the jobs go to Antares, so and the Vishao's Cove weft requires OL90. Without that, it's slower than trade runs instantly. But we'll give the best possible case for trade jobs, so we'll assume your PW already has a OL90 or better JE with the Witberg/Vishao's weft. Xipe jobs *can* produce jobs to Swooping Eagle, which can be completed in 1 minute, but most of the jobs are going to take closer to 4 minutes, especially for a PW that doesn't have instant warp and is at least 1000-2000 warp speed slower than the JE I tested with.

For data realism (and because I have a PS that needs some XP) I went ahead and did real tests of Xipe Jobs, an 'all factors' test, as it were. The PS is the best-possible-case. Level 8 engines, level 8 devices (ok, I could do lvl 9, but meh) and a 5649 warp speed. No navigate, so no instant warp; only the Lazarus for warp charge improvements.

It takes around 20 seconds for the job list to fully populate, and 2 seconds for the slow-text scroll on the job to reveal the destination. There are 17 jobs listed in Xipe, so that adds another 34 seconds if you want to be choosy and get destinations close to each other. As luck of the draw would have it, I got 2 jobs in Antares and 4 in Zweihander (there was no way to get 6 jobs in Zweihander without waiting 5 minutes for a job refresh). Because my PS was grouped with my JE, he actually got 6139 warp.

I started a stopwatch when I opened the job terminal, and here are the running total times:

45 seconds: Finished picking my jobs and left terminal. 4 to Zweihander, 2 to Antares (no possible way to get all 6 at the same dest)
3m 55: docked at EarthCorp High Command
- I got unlucky, of the 4 Zwei jobs, they went to all 3 possible destinations (Jotun, Adriel, and Rag). There is no way to pick/control the drop off, it's random. Yes, I did WH to Witberg directly from outside EHC
5m 50: Docked at Arx Ymir
7m 30: Docked at Trader's Fort
WH to Witberg (forgot to grab time, stopwatch was still running though)
9m 30: Dock at Adriel Prime
11m 3: Dock at Antares
- I got unlucky and got both destinations Kailaasa and Menorb
11m 44: Dock at Paren
15m 35: Dock at Menorb station
- WH back to Swooping Eagle
17m 10: Dock at Xipe
17m 37: made it back to job terminal

So, 11,500 XP per job, * 6 jobs = 67,500. 17m 30s to run those 6 jobs (to be honest, this was about the worst possible case, but also HIGHLY realistic) means you can get 3.4 runs in per hour. 69000 * 3.4 = 229,500.

"But what about only running the 4 Zwei jobs and then getting 6 jobs for Antares?" It adds 2 minutes to WH to SW and dock at Xipe, 1 minute to pick jobs, walk back to the undock, and get into space, then (on average) another 2-3 minutes to get to your destination station. So you're adding 5-6 minutes to *maybe* pick up 4 more jobs for the same destination, and getting 0 XP for it, when there might be 0 jobs for that destination in the terminal. It's a gamble that breaks even at best, and loses at worst.

The other issue is scaling. Yes, for one character, who has no navigate and no negotiate, then jobs may be better XP (if they already have the JE). But you cannot run trade jobs on multiple charcters. There are 15-17 jobs in the terminal and that's it. Period. That's enough for *maybe* 2 characters. But that means both characters are going to have to visit all destinations, unless you have two JEs.

Trade jobs scale infinitely. The limiting factor on trade jobs is your ability to keep alts moving while one character at a time (ideally) is walking around the station. This is the spirit behind that AHK macro I put on the forums. I am going to work this information into a new section on the page so people can make an informed decision.

Re: Objectively false... objectively, the dumbest way... under these conditions... lol

Apparently I shouldn't have said "definitely", but as is often the case for you, you fail to see things from the perspective of anyone who is not you, or doing the same things you're currently doing and for the same reasons you're doing them. It causes you to have some very weird takes on things, like how sectors are "designed badly" because they contain more types of ores IN THE ENTIRE SECTOR than you can have in your hold at one time, lol. As though MINING OUT AN ENTIRE SECTOR is something people normally do, when in fact it was something YOU were doing for a VERY specific data gathering purpose. This kind of bias pervades everything you do.

Let's consider your preconditions one at a time:

You are trying to level 1 character only

This is the common case for most normal people and the perspective from which a general purpose wiki like this should be written. Yes, multi-boxing exists, and yes it is more pervasive in this game than others, but even among multi-boxers a lot of people level characters individually or a couple at a time. I haven't seen many people doing what I started out doing (leveling my first 6 characters in parallel) or leveling groups of characters like you do; 6 TT's at once, 6 JE's at once, etc. I recognize us as outliers and not the general population of the game. If we're going to write the wiki under the assumption that people are running 6 characters at once we should probably be providing a lot more content on how to do that and making it very clear that is the assumption. As it stands this sort of bias would be better relegated to a "Notes for Multi-Boxers" section.

At most, 1 other person is using the job terminal

I can only provide anecdotes here, but for the time I was leveling from ~TL41-45 I never saw another person at the XT terminal. I never even saw another person go into or out of the station. For people playing at peak times this may be an issue, I can't say. In general though, I don't think this is an unreasonable assumption to make. How many 135+ characters are there really going to be doing trade jobs at any given time?

That character does not have negotitate (sic)

I have negotiate, but it didn't make the trade routes feel any faster, even after I automated the IS<=>61 route (which I prefer due to being shorter and simpler so I can interrupt it and change to doing something else more easily) it was taking me ~5 legs per level, and trade jobs were ~3 per level.

You already have an OL 70/90 JE with the Witberg (absolute requirement) and Vishao's Cove (optional, but reccomended (sic) requirement) wefts unlocked via the Extended Wormhole skill.

I used Witberg exclusively and even non-multiboxers either have a JE of their own, or a friend with one. The game is basically unplayable without it unless you have a LOT of patience. But I would agree an OL70 JE is a requirement to consider L150 trade jobs as an option.

Then I would add on to the above some things that are implied in your data that people should consider:

This assumes you're using Doctor's AHK script to automate the whole thing because you will never achieve these times without it.
This assumes you have the same screen resolution and color settings as Doctor because his script will constantly fail on you if you don't.
This assumes you're too impatient to wait 5m to get jobs which go to the same place and instead spend 17m going to 3 different places and can't see how that might be an issue.

I asked around as to what people felt the fastest way to level trade at TL40+ was and unanimously people told me trade jobs which I was surprised at specifically because of your data and your TT's, etc. This is why I started out doing trade routes (on all 6 characters at once) but it was horribly slow going. After people just kept telling me trade jobs were faster I asked some more questions and got the low-down on the what and the how.

People sit there for the few minutes it takes to get 6 jobs all going to the same place. It doesn't typically take more than one "refresh" of the jobs, which is every few minutes. I would typically get 2-4 jobs at the same place from one refresh, then the remaining 2-4 on the next.
They do the prisoner transfer jobs because no matter where they pickup, they all drop off at DCO which is one sector from the nearby ABB weft.
I exclusively grabbed the EarthCorps jobs which send you to pickup in Zweihander because, again, one sector from weft.

I didn't use a stopwatch or track any data, but for getting my one character to TL45 (my goal) it felt WAY faster. Even with Negotiate 5 (max for TE).

I don't dispute that if you are leveling 6 characters at once, the trade routes are better because they scale, especially if you can automate them reliably (though with the state of the servers, gating, disconnects, etc. it's rough even if the automation isn't screwing up constantly because a pixel is the wrong color -- I didn't bother with that and used the zoom and scroll method I once described; I found that zooming the map with right-click drag from one corner to the opposite gives a reliable max zoom... the mouse wheel and scrollbars on the other hand are a mess). But I just don't think either of these things (multiboxing or automation) are the common case... by a very long shot.

I also don't dispute that FN<=>NV is more efficient, and maybe it would have felt different if I was doing that instead of IS<=>61, but that route basically requires that you automate it for it to not be miserable AND it's longer so if I decide I want to stop doing trade routes and switch to doing something else it takes me longer to get out of it without just losing the value of whatever goods are in my hold (admittedly minor given how poor the credits from trade routes are, but OCD). I just don't like that route, heh. I fully admit that's completely subjective and may affect my perception, but I also think a lot of people would agree with me. Warping around gravity wells and keeping track of a longer route in both directions is a big problem for anyone not automating it (which is, again, most people).

— Codemonkeyx (talk) 02:15, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Doctor Reply

Trade runs vs jobs Yeah, that's fair. People do play differently. And, I get it, trade routes are mind numbing. I could one more bullet point to that list: if you are a miner, explore jobs yield more trade XP than trade jobs. But, that one is kinda hard to prove, so I didn't. I'm not going to sit and add up every single mined roid XP gain, plus, it only works if you're already EL50. :p

If everyone wants to play in a manner that is easier to them, so be it. But when it is objectively false that it is 'the best way', I do take issue with that.

Sector Design Again, somewhat fair, but somewhat not. I started out wanting to map out the ores for the Mars Construction Project, so that meant sticking to just Rock and Hydrocarbon types. In Varen's Girdle, that meant you needed 3 mules, even if sticking to just a couple roid types, because the level spread and spawn mechanics are such a PITA. Why? I'm being disciplined and picking just the ore sources I want. Why can't that be a solo mining job? If the roids were tighter level, say, 5-6, instead of 4-7, it would work. That's all that would have to change.

As time went on, I wanted to find other ores, and it became expedient to just mine out whole sectors and catalog them. true, basically nobody will do that. Here's where I disagree though, The minimum spread for a field is 2 levels for Hulks and 3 for normal roid types. But, roids can always contain ores that are 1 level below, so the minimum (real) spread is 4 levels. Let's say that field is only Rock type asteroids. From List_of_Ores#Resources_per_level_by_Prospecting_Node. Pick any 4 level spread there and add them together:

1-4: 27
2-5: 25
3-6: 25
4-7: 25
5-8: 24
6-9: 26

So, if you're only mining a pure rock field, you can mine out everything. But, sectors don't *just* contain fields of, say, 3-5 rock, they also contain a field with 4-6 rock. And they're usually overlapping. So you're left with a choice. Either you don't mine out the field, and you lose the Field Clear Bonus (which was put in to bring EL gained from mining in line with other XP sources) or you bring mules just to handle a single roid type. Really? Really?

The fix is easy: make field spreads 3 levels at most for pure fields, and 1 level for mixed fields. My argument is that no single field should take more than a single ship's cargo hold to mine. If I can get a field clear bonus without mules, then that's fine. It's when I have to have 4-5 mules just to get a field clear bonus that I get real testy (go try and get a field clear bonus in Lagarto, near Pax Decima, go ahead, I'll wait). And zones like Freya, Yokan, and Varen's Girdle all offer such frustrations. The level spread on ores is just too damn high.

If this were EVE: Online, and you could spend an hour sucking down ore of a specific type you needed, it wouldn't be a problem. But the goal of mining in E&B is to mine out fields, let them respawn, and do it again. In such a setup, it is only fair that a field should fit in a cargo hold.

Codemonkeyx Reply (completely off-topic for this talk page, heh)

Yeah, mining is far from perfect and there are definitely some MAJOR outliers where I can only assume that getting a field clear wasn't really the point (i.e. LARGEarto), but most people aren't going to lose much sleep over that and will just move on to another field if XP and field clears are what they're after. One could even argue those crazy outliers are there for group/multi-boxer mining. Hell, you could take a whole guild out to Lagarto it's so stupidly oversized!

Whether intentional or not I feel like these sorts of things are what bring a game to life and make it complicated / get us invested in figuring out how to conquer it. If every field fit nicely inside your hold and you never had to make a decision about what to hold on to vs. what to space I don't think it would have as much draw. There is no problem to solve, nothing to overcome, etc. Now maybe cargo hold ore bejeweled isn't really the game you want to play and you would want the challenge to come from something completely different (e.g. better guardians, or some kind of mining mini-game, or a more involved process for identifying and getting the specific ore you want) and that would also be completely understandable.

— Codemonkeyx (talk) 21:00, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Codemonkeyx Reply 2: Electric Boogaloo

As I push toward finally having my first max level character (I'll be a real boy soon!) I've been finding that the L75 Chernevog Station <=> Fenris Prime Observatory trade jobs for TOURISTS or DIPLOMATS (but NOT PRISONERS!) are shockingly efficient, so much so that they might even beat out L150 trade jobs. There are a lot more of them that all go to the same place (i.e. the tourists and diplomats) so it's far easier to get a full set of jobs that go back and forth. Because the VT WH is right in between the two you can cut the trip significantly on both ends if you have a JE. On the flip side, this seems to be pretty widely known as I've seen FAR more people doing these TL75 jobs and have had some difficulty getting them at times as a result, though when there isn't anyone else there I've easily been able to run two characters at once with minimal waiting. This might be some of the highest XP/hour you can get at OL60 without a max level character feeding you trade or combat XP or a full group of 6, etc.

— Codemonkeyx (talk) 16:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)