The best way to make credits per hour is by long distance smuggling, at the stations that offer good missions. If you want to question that, go and check the Frontier forums and the Elite Reddit page. Both have their fair share of threads whining at how much money can be made with such little effort. Bawling ahoy.
The majority of the complainers are those who have been playing the game a long time and they can easily navigate whatever the game throws at them. For most, long distance smuggling ends up in failure.
However, if you're well equipped and know what you're facing then it isn't so bad, this is probably what really offends those players who have seen new players work out smuggling. To be truly successful, you'll need a ship that can happily travel long distances and you'll certainly be shafted without a fuel scoop. An Asp or Cobra are your best choices for 2 separate reasons. Asp will take more cargo and has the potential for a very nice fuel scoop. The Cobra will outrun anything once interdicted and therefore avoid scans, but at the cost of cargo space and poor options for fuel scoops in comparison to the Asp.
There are many systems out there that offer smuggling missions. The most well know to myself at the moment are:
Robigo
Sothis
Ceos
Draconis 17
Maia
When looking for missions, you'll want those that pay for at least 500k per ton. That's the best deal. Anything less isn't worth the effort or your time unless your rep or trade rank is low. You're a high class smuggler, you're worth it. Please note: the more missions you take on during your smuggling run, the worse your trip will be. Expect to be harassed by security forces and NPCs all the way if you decide to tank up on 10 or more smuggling missions. If you've got a lot of missions when you get interdicted you may find 4 or 5 ships spawning near you... in fact they can spawn in front of you. :icon_eek:
If you don't see many missions, switch between private, open and solo. Some more will show. If you're getting nothing, quit the game. Restart and you'll be given a new server and more options. You can often find many missions going to the same station, this will help your overall journey.
Once you've got sufficient missions, you'll of course need to jump through many systems to complete your objectives - refueling when you can. If you get scanned then you lose. So you'll need to ideally avoid any interdictions from security forces. Often you can tell if it's safe to start scooping due to the type of NPC messages you receive once you jump into a system. Also, you'll be better off avoiding accepting any smuggling missions that go to stations.. unless you're that confident that you can avoid security. I usually include one or two and visit these last on my delivery list. Outposts are better. Planetary bases are the best, if you have Horizons that is. No security will follow you to a settlement.
If on the rarest of occasions you're getting pursued by police when you arrive at an outpost that is a destination for one of your missions, jump to a nearby system and then back again.. you'll have to start your journey all over, but you don't get scanned at least.
If you get interdicted then your best bet lies in deploying your weapons and targeting the security ship whilst facing them. There's a large chance they won't even start a scan. Then you can jump away once FSD has recharged.
If they start a scan, shoot them. It stops the scan. You'll get a small bounty if it's an occupied system but heh, that's nothing compared to the amount of money you could lose in missions if they finished that scan.
If your interdiction is less lawful (ie a merc after your cargo) you can either just jump away or show them who is boss by blasting them into space dust depending on relative strength.
In an Asp, a journey from the bubble to Robigo including the time needed to stack up on missions, deliver them to at least 9 systems and avoiding any nasty action = 2-3 hours. For 40-50 mil. You can really abuse it if you wish to by accepting missions selling the cargo (it doesn't result in failure) and then picking the cargo up in a system nearby. This way you can go past your maximum cargo capacity. Possibly being a bit too cheap.
I grinded trade rank to tycoon before i found smuggling. Don't get me wrong, I've had many failed runs, which made me feel very sad. But the ones I've managed to complete at great risk, are the ones that have given me the most satisfaction compared to anything else in this game.
