If you were among those farming your Elite Dangerous bajillions running bulk passenger transports to Smeaton Orbital (or various other well-placed stations), your fun has come to an end. Apparently, that’s been the result of a legal loophole many players have been taking advantage of for quite a while, but this week, Frontier disabled it.
“As some of you are aware, Passenger Bulk missions are currently generating extremely high credit rewards that we feel are excessive of what we would consider reasonable and balanced,” Frontier explained. “After a detailed investigation, we can confirm that this is due to an element in our mission generation algorithm that rewards credits based on the distance of the destination system from the star. Due to this, we will be disabling (until further notice) the aforementioned element of Passenger Bulk missions to reduce the amount of credits offered as a reward. Commanders will still be able to select and complete Passenger Bulk missions, but will see less excessive credit rewards. In the meantime, we will be reviewing the Passenger Bulk missions and correct the previously mentioned element – hopefully in time for you to test in the Beyond Chapter One beta.”
Of course, if you took advantage of the happy accident, you’re now rich, and those who come after you won’t have it so easy. Perhaps that’s why the community on the forums and Reddit is so divided. While some players are flipping tables because their favorite exploit has been patched, because they’ll never get to make use of it, or because Frontier said it was legal for month, still others are annoyed because the economy is hosed anyway, because the exploit illuminated extreme grind, or even because the passenger transport system is still too lucrative. Internet spaceships.
