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[TJJ]

- Supply/fuel/crew replenishment cost
- Reputation cost
- replacement ship cost

Together these make combat unprofitable.
Note, I'm not saying combat is less profitable than alternatives.
It is, on average, a financially negative occupation.

The only mechanic that makes combat profitable is the money earnable from bounties & commission.
Named bounties always target pirates, so are useless if you're friendly to them.
Faction bounties are:
- Rare
- Essentially random in location & affiliation.
- Typically usable against only pirates, one of the belligerents in a [rare] conflict, or in/around Valhalla (Tri-Tach vs Hegemony)
Commissions are useless if you don't precisely share the relations of the commission giver.

I appreciate that we're supposed to be scraping by, so combat cannot be too profitable.
However:
- Trade/missions are low/no risk, high profit, and require minimal investment of time or money
- Combat is high risk, low/no profit, and requires huge financial investment of both time & money.

I find myself doing the boring/repetitive trade/missions just to build up enough of a bank balance to go wreck some shiz with some fun combat.

[Megas]

This is a reason (among several) why I solo fleets; the smaller the flagship, the better.  It is possible to profit without bounties or commission, if you can solo entire fleets with one ship, but the profits are low, and losses taken in combat will set you back (if player does not reload saves).  With even a paltry commission, money gained from soloing fleet after fleet will add up.

If you need to fight, campaign mechanics encourage solo or chain-flagships.  At least in 0.65, player can steamroll fleets with frigate swarms and mitigate the costs with standing down for 50% CR back.

One advantage of frequent combat is plenty of elite crew trained, even with no points in the Command Experience (or whatever the crew XP skill is called).  If you max that skill, then training more elites can be a revenue source too.

Also, with Advanced Tactics 5 (for Special Ops perk) and marines worth 233 credits at zero stability Black Markets, gaining new ships via boarding is cheaper than buying them.

[Cycerin]

I find combat to be the easiest way to make money. Sure, you need to respect bounties/commissions, but if you want to get real cheesy, it's possible to make a living by doing combat in the most efficient manner possible, and carrying as much loot as possible. Merchant fleets are pinatas.

If combat was inherently profitable, it would be way too easy to get by.

[Techhead]

I find myself able to do well enough in combat to make (on average) more fuel and supplies than I use, even early on. And then any weapons, metal, machinery, and other goods on top are pure profit. Using smaller fleets and not taking hull damage helps with this a lot.

If/when you hit -100 with a faction, rep drops are essentially free. Otherwise, you can minimize them by fighting with your transponder off and such.

And if you really want profitiable combat, try getting a cargo ship (shielded hulls optional but recommended), turn your transponders off, and attack Tri-Tach merchant convoys. Because they're the only non-pirate/smugglers that carry organs and drugs around. Just make sure you can handle the escorts. Just taking out a Venture and the frigate escorts gave me enough to fill a buffalo.

[TJJ]

I find myself able to do well enough in combat to make (on average) more fuel and supplies than I use, even early on. And then any weapons, metal, machinery, and other goods on top are pure profit. Using smaller fleets and not taking hull damage helps with this a lot.

Not taking hull damage? In an even fight?
With the AI controlling 9/10ths of the fleet?
I find that hard to believe, especially with the prevalence of Harpoon-laden Wolfs and AM Blaster Afflictors all over the place.
Quite the contrary, it's not so uncommon to lose a ship to the inept AI getting itself outmaneuvered & missile-ganked.

While preying on cargo fleets, and selling the cargo is viable in the short term, it:
a) isn't reliable. You spend a significant amount of time looking for things to attack.
b) is meager pickings. Even the biggest fleets will only drop a few thousand ore/food/metal/organics/machinery. All low value goods that need yet more time investment to sell at the right market.
c) is a net loss of reputation. As you say, you can focus down a single faction to mitigate the rep loss, but then you're restricting yourself to a subset of the map. (which impedes efficient offloading of cargo)
d) doesn't scale well. Your running costs grow with your fleet size. Trade fleets (as far as I'm aware) do not grow.
e) is the most boring/tedious type of combat engagements. Slaughter escorts 2:1 force ratio, then chase down cargo ships. Cargo ships need to be a part of the main battle.

It's just so much more efficient to do missions; in a fraction of the time you earn millions, and have a net gain of reputation.
Thus my original observation; the campaign discourages combat.

[xenoargh]

Just hang around Maxios; take a Hegemony Commission and kill Tri-Tach and Pirates all day long.  If you're not making money, you're doing it wrong.

The problem with the campaign mechanic is largely fixable:

1.  The drop rate on Normal difficulty is absurd, to the point where you pretty much must plan to Pursue and get all of the cargo ships to make money (but it works just fine then) and it just doesn't make much sense to hit non-cargo fleets.  Easy difficulty, things are fine without bothering.
2.  The freighter fleets aren't carrying sensible cargoes that are actually worth money, other than Tri-Tach.  They may be traveling to X Market that wants Y commodity, but that's not they're carrying.  This is a major oversight, because it largely breaks piracy as a thing and makes being a privateer artificially difficult.
3.  It's still oriented towards one-ship-kill as a strat, because of the way CR works and how it's scaled; if the solo-killers cost a lot more supplies to field, we'd all be using fleets, other than die-hards.
4.  Early game remains the place where things are painful.  Once you've gotten a second Frigate with a leveled Captain, the difficulty begins dropping very fast.  

The difficulty ramp in general remains the opposite of what it should be; leveled Captains have largely helped the player overcome the CR system, rather than producing a difficult late-game threat. 

That said, I've found that mixed fleets of Destroyers and Frigates can be very very effective, simply because they can jump multiple fleets in a very short time period, win all Pursuits and because then you get killing power and cargo enough to make steady income.  

In my current test game, I've amassed well north of 3 million credits in two days of playing; I've killed about a million in Bounties and I took a Tri-Tach Commission to boost earnings a bit, but largely it's been about cashing in cargo.  I never had to use anything past Destroyers in this game; a single Medusa can kill practically anything with a little support.

And yes, you really can build fleets that largely don't take Hull damage, ever.  PD is a thing; perhaps you're simply not optimizing correctly?  For example, a two-Flak Enforcer with a trio of Shepherds is remarkably good at nullifying every missile-boat and fighter in existence, while continuing to kill Frigates and most Destroyers like it's going out of style, for a very low cost in Supplies.  The biggest thing here is that, if you want that to happen, expect to spend time grinding Captains and Dismissing Captains that get sub-optimal tree choices; a Captain that doesn't get Power Grid Modulation early is not worth investing in, because it's a life-or-death thing for AI ships, as is getting Gunnery Implants and Helmsmanship at 10 and Evasive Action at 5, imo.

[TJJ]

Right, but you can make 3 million credits profit from 2 cargo delivery missions.
This isn't a "I'm finding the game hard" thread.

This is a "combat isn't worth it" thread.

Just hang around Maxios; take a Hegemony Commission and kill Tri-Tach and Pirates all day long.  If you're not making money, you're doing it wrong.

As I hinted at in the OP; I'm friendly to Pirates, so Hegemony Commission is a no-go.
Thus there's little of interest in Maxios, except a load of terrain to slow down deliveries, and poor markets that don't carry any cargo to deliver.

[xenoargh]

Well, I guess then it's largely about what's "hard" or whatever.  Until there's something to actually spend money on, it's really kind of beside the point to talk about whether the game "discourages a given play-style", so long as it's viable.  I'm kind of ignoring whether something is easier or harder until we're at the end of Alpha, personally; what's "hard" or is "encouraged" will probably keep changing a lot once Industry is a thing.

[Copperwire]

I think combat is significantly encouraged.  It is fun whereas trade is kind of boring.  Seeing as I play games for fun, I feel unduly pressured to play combat.  The only solutions are for combat to be made boring or for trade to be made more fun.

In my current run, I am yet to trade besides selling drops from combat at the first port.  I have not taken a commission.  My main economic complaint is there is nothing I want to spend money on; a lot of time is spent checking markets, finding nothing interesting, getting bored, and finding something to kill.  I have about 700k on hand and the largest single collection of weapons, ships, and cargo in the game is sitting in my hangar on Maxios.  

So far, my loses for the game are one Wolf and one Kite.  I have been fighting fleets much larger then my own since go, as that is where the fun is.  My fleet is a collection of fairly common frigates and one Medusa, which gets deployed if I fight a cruiser or larger.  Basically, I am fairly confused that you are taking hull damage in most fights.

Can you share what you are doing in combat where you are having these results?  Armed with that, I bet we can improve your experience.

[Alex_P]

(I'm my first time commenting here. Hi, folks!)

Combat is profitable if you've got a government reimbursing you (either via bounties or a long-term commission), or you're knocking over trade fleets hauling lots of goods. But there's typically not much economic benefit to just taking your warship and flinging it at other warships arbitrarily.

I think — at least until we see more of the "Industry" layer — that's about right. If combat is universally profitable then the game's more likely to fall into a pattern that afflicts many RPG games, where the player is inexorably acquiring more and more rewards that just push them further and further from the "sweet spot" of fun interaction.

I see your point about how taking a net loss is discouraging. But, in my experience so far, that's mostly something that happens only when Fuel and Supply costs rise too much (in comparison to Machinery and scavenged weapons, especially). Also, a bit of pressure like that is good since it means you have to engage with other aspects of the game: for the campaign mode to really work, it's important to have some enticements to act like pirate or privateer or military captain rather than straight-up genocide-running your way across the map.

[TaLaR]

I'm generally able to get at least persistence level income from combat, but to really profit and grow my fleet I need bounties. Maybe looting specific faction's trade fleet works too (haven't been doing much of that, pursuing cargo ships is too boring).

This leads to very repetitive playstyle - just fly wherever juiciest bounties are, bash em, and periodically return to largest available military marker to buy new stuff and stockpile valuable weapons.
Even Nexelerin doesn't do much to change this simple formula (although Conquest missions are definitely step in right direction, and having commission in sync with your relations helps too), bounty hunting is still my main activity till I get enough spare cash to afford faction war just for fun.

I hope bounty hunting in it's current implementation is intended only as a placeholder, and eventually we will see more interesting strategic gameplay.

[chillthebone]

The slow start is the killer really. Every time I decide to play a new campaign it's pretty dreadful for the first 100k. Past that it's all about persistence.

What I'm running into of a problem is the endgame scenario I'm in right now, where I'm lvl 50, got a Dreadnought, got a max size fleet, and I spend the majority of my time jumping from planet to planet buying up ALL supplies they have to offer just to play the game. I do have an Imperium comission/partnership but that doesn't help me when I'm on the other side of the map. Not sure what I'm doing wrong...

[Cyan Leader]

I've been playing this game for 2-3 years and I have yet to do a single run that I'm not bounty hunting. The thing about combat is that it forces you to pick your battles. It has a ton of factors to screw you over if you make the wrong call but once you learn who you should fight, when and where the game works really well. In the current version all you need is a few kills in Corvus at the beginning of the campaign to upgrade your starter ship and get enough XP to and go hunt your first named bounty. From there you can just snowball, they don't even level up until after you kill three of them, giving you plenty of cash to go for a decent destroyer.

[nomadic_leader]

Yes, reality also discourages combat. Destroying things is dangerous and expensive. This seems reasonable to me and this is why in war nobody goes around trying to provoke confrontations unless they have at least a 3:1 forces ratio. They pray on lightly transports convoys instead.

[Umbral Reaver]

Yes, reality also discourages combat. Destroying things is dangerous and expensive. This seems reasonable to me and this is why in war nobody goes around trying to provoke confrontations unless they have at least a 3:1 forces ratio. They pray on lightly transports convoys instead.

Reality isn't designed to be a fun space battles game.