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[Galdred]

I tried to get some money through bounties, but between the ship damage, supply and fuel cost, it soon appeared not to be a wise way to make money, so I ended up with a small group of phase ships to explore space, complete stealth missions, and smuggle. Then I ended up supplying luddic path planets and it became the most lucrative activity.

I did that until my colonies could print money, then afforded a combat capable fleet, but I ended up "completing" the game (ie, winning the dorito fights, having an income of 1M/month), without really having fought much at the time it mattered (I did a lot of redacted ordo farming, but that was also at the time everything was already over, and they didn't provide me with much in term of loot anyway).

I really loved the combat, even though I was not very good at it, but I had the impression that succeeding or failing at it was not super important to progress in the game.
The exceptions were the first Luddic Path base destroying operations(until it degenerated into whack a mole), and the first inspection fleet ambushes, as they felt like the stakes were high.

The only battles that felt rewarding were the ones that gave me the unique storyline ship, and the ones that gave me the omega weapons but both also happened quite late in the game (and I had virtually nothing worthwhile anymore to test these weapons on).
I started getting rich when I abandoned the idea of taking risks with my ships, and I think I finished the game without becoming too good at it.
Defending colonies was cool, but they too didn't bring much money back before things were virtually over (I mean, a simple waystation close to the core would have worked as well in getting cheap supplies in sufficient number to dump on the same supply starved planets).

Which mods should I use to make fighting more rewarding?

[Grievous69]

Yeah I agree, bounty hunting is my favourite activity in the game since I like combat so much but you really need to have near perfect battles for it to pay off. Maybe with a full Industry build you can make it more worth, but other playstyle don't require that amount of investment, and also obviously way less risk. Feel like some bounties should straight up pay double than they now do. Like I'm currently in mid game with a fair amount of cruisers and almost every bounty that's not a joke to me (couple of frigates, 40k credits pay) has multiple capitals and pays for around 200k or 250k. Sure I can take that on if I want my fleet size cut in two thirds. And those few bounties that are actually decent for me, basically end up with just 50-100k net positive which really isn't much considering the risk and skill. One exploration run can net you the same money as 3 bounties back to back, that's insane.

[SCC]

Bounty hunting has high risk and low rewards. It's still possible to earn a lot of money with it, but you need to be good at it. Exploration and trading are lower risk, higher rewards and lower skill floor. Trading (smuggling) is the single best moneymaking activity in the game probably. In theory there is some risk, but it's easily managed, especially if you're non-hostile with pirates and pathers. Exploration isn't as good for money, but it you get more varied rewards for it (colonisation spots, ships and weapons, blueprints), some of which are unique to this activity (colony items). Exploration might be sorta-kinda balanced through time it takes to explore, even with JD, if there was any time pressure.
I cannot say how much to buff bounty hunting or nerf trading, because I don't really engage with the latter and I don't know how much money a month you get through it. Trading should be improved anyway, but not with the focus on making it balanced, but on making it more interactive and dangerous.

[DaShiv]

One thing the game does well with colonizing is by using multiple mechanisms to tie it back to the main combat gameplay loop: not just pirate raids, but Luddic Path interest, expeditions tied to market share, AI inspections, etc. On the other hand, exploration has fairly weak combat ties and trading/smuggling has virtually none whatsoever.

For exploration, this seems pretty simple: combat risks should ramp up the further away from the Core Worlds one ventures, and there are a lot of fun possibilities (for example, extra spooky hyperspace ghosts). For trading, there definitely needs to be more reactive mechanisms so that trading isn't so completely divorced from combat consequences as it is now, so that serious trading (on par with bounty rewards) would carry the same degree of risk/reward considerations as there is for establishing/growing colonies or hunting bounties. For example:

• Buying a lot of commodities at once above a certain threshold could spawn pirate fleets (proportional to the cargo you took on) to hunt and plunder you, with an actual option when they catch you to surrender your cargo. This makings finding "free" cargo during exploration (or using combat to plunder convoys) a lot more meaningful, since it doesn't attract the attention that comes from loading cargo portside.
• Selling a lot of commodities at once above a certain threshold could spawn guild/mercantile reprisal fleets from affected commodity producers to protect their economic interests, similar to expeditions with market share for colonies.
• Relations impact for supplying commodities to factions that are hostile to other factions could be much more meaningful, again based on volume sold. Supplying the Hegemony if they're hostile with the League should drop your relations with the League; supplying Pathers or Pirates should make all lawful factions take notice. Obviously this shouldn't mean instant hostilities from a single small trade, but war profiteering to the tune of millions from Pathers/Pirates should eventually make you an enemy of all lawful factions. Right now there's a weak "trade with enemy" impact for all trade, but for commodities that are purely economic (that is to say, not tied to the player equipping themselves for combat but instead active commodities trading with a clear profit motive) the relations consequences should be much more significant. After all, supplying one's enemies is an indirect act of war, and thus should be viewed as a milder form of attacking a faction's fleet with transponders on.
• Excessive suspicion levels from smuggling could spawn bounty hunter fleets, instead of a mere cargo scan.

Low volumes of trading to help the player get on their feet should not risk attention from factions, but high volumes of trading with the aim of getting rich should carry colony-level consequences. At bare minimum, there should be active considerations and strategies such as "playing both sides" with trade to avoid angering warring factions. In terms the campaign-level gameplay, trading as an activity is currently too easy, safe, and divorced from the combat loop. At the end of the day, the game should be primarily about combat.

[Salter]

I think the combat bounties are pretty okay. Knocking them out on your way through the sector is just easy money, considering even the ones that get into the 200k+ range are not that dangerous if you have your fleet well equipped. IMO if you can fight ordo fleets with your own and win then high bounty fleets aren't that dangerous. Its until they start having S-mods that it becomes very interesting, and also very dangerous.

[Galdred]

I think the combat bounties are pretty okay. Knocking them out on your way through the sector is just easy money, considering even the ones that get into the 200k+ range are not that dangerous if you have your fleet well equipped. IMO if you can fight ordo fleets with your own and win then high bounty fleets aren't that dangerous. Its until they start having S-mods that it becomes very interesting, and also very dangerous.

It is not only the difficulty of the bounty: getting there with a good fleet, and paying the repair bill afterwards will typically cost a lot of supply, which will eat a lot of the reward.
On the other hand, an exploration mission is typically easier to combine with another one in the same sector, and can be carried out with a very small fleet for minimal cost.
It feels more like the other activities can subsidize bounty hunting.

[Megas]

Normal named bounty hunting is only good when your fleet is overpowered enough to crush the enemy flawlessly.  Otherwise, it is better to do trade runs with Black Markets, or clean up system bounties when they happen.

Yeah I agree, bounty hunting is my favourite activity in the game since I like combat so much but you really need to have near perfect battles for it to pay off. Maybe with a full Industry build you can make it more worth, but other playstyle don't require that amount of investment, and also obviously way less risk. Feel like some bounties should straight up pay double than they now do.

YES!  Named bounties need to pay at least double to be worth it (for those without perfect fleets).  Contact bounties pay double than normal named bounties, and it gives some leeway for casualties.  In addition, station bounties need to pay much more like they originally did.  While named bounties are awful, some bar missions that want you to do stuff like raid a planet pay even worse when revenge fleets are taken into account.

I have Field Repairs and Hull Restoration, and while it greatly mitigates the cost, it does not always work perfectly (either more d-mods and/or need story point for difficult recovery), and you have less combat power.  If you have Automated Ships too, then you want to use your d-mod a month removal on recovered automated ships because you have no blueprints to build new ones (which means you do not want your regular ships getting d-mods).

[Salter]

It is not only the difficulty of the bounty: getting there with a good fleet, and paying the repair bill afterwards will typically cost a lot of supply, which will eat a lot of the reward.
On the other hand, an exploration mission is typically easier to combine with another one in the same sector, and can be carried out with a very small fleet for minimal cost.
It feels more like the other activities can subsidize bounty hunting.

I normally take a faction commission so in addition to the fleet bounty there is also a per ship destroyed bounty I get.

Considering that a round trip from and back to the core can take months, thats the bounty +several tens of thousands of credits of monthly income and it adds up over time. So it works if you arent too big on exploring and just like big space battles.

Also finding worlds that are worth a damn is hard so I rather just focus on hunting ships and making money then mapping the sector out.

As long as you have something to do and arent wandering the sector blindly, you usually turn a profit. The higher your level, the better the commission pays and at high levels, you can easily afford a full contingent of 10 officers & around 3000+ crew with marines and still turn a profit. Im currently in a save with no colonies of my own and im taking down full Ordo stations with just a faction commission, so its not like colonies are essential. They just help finance your fleet projects and make life easier for you. The reality is while colonies are nice, they arent essential to get into endgame, save for coronal hypershunts which is when you will invest into a colony or two so you can fight the more powerful redacted enemies.

[Amoebka]

As for the mods that make bounty hunting more alluring - trophy s-mods and anything that adds unique bounties with special flagships (SWP, Varya, etc). Credits are a worthless reward in the lategame, only unique ships/weapons can make combat worthwhile.

[coldiceEVO]

Compares to other activities in a trip stepping outside of the core, bounty requires a bigger fighting fleet that eat up supply and fuel fast, especially hyperspace stormed, than making planet survey(surveying ship cutting supply cost), derelict location(salvage ship for bonus) and sensor packaging(no cost at all).
Risk for bounty is losing some ship, can turn into logistic disaster when crew and supply are drying out, or capacity loss, and/or ending up costing sp inorder to save sp invested earlier. Potentially taking longer time to look for as many dwarf and barren worlds are presented in the same region. Similar risk of getting lost also presents in exploration, but still within a designated system, and giving up cost a little relation, looking for a ship in foggy system's vast asteroid ring far away is peak pain.
Reward for bounty, beside money, is to farm relation supply xp sp, ships and weapons outside of typical market, the ideal snowballing gameplay in mnb type of game, restricted by how much one can chew, and it still cost sp for good ones because free salvage is taken up mostly by trash. However, similarly gain can be done by farming redacted for weapon, and ship if skill permitts, while exploration gives unique items and blueprints, sensorpackage on a ship at rare chance may lead you to some high end yet well preserved ship, multiple if its in a battle field at chance, and high lv officers at chance.
Ultimately money conveting to supply or gains is still inefficient and restricted.
The need for traveling with giant combat fleet is less consider sp allows small fleet to get out of jail free with sp manuver, while bigger fleet attempting escape harassment cost a huge amount of cr, thus a dent in supply, or out right can not get away.

[koprus]

Imo if you play vanilla a small sector size is way more comfortable. Logistics are such a huge pain in a normal sector. Things can be completly different in a normal size properly modded game.

[Salter]

Compares to other activities in a trip stepping outside of the core, bounty requires a bigger fighting fleet that eat up supply and fuel fast, especially hyperspace stormed, than making planet survey(surveying ship cutting supply cost), derelict location(salvage ship for bonus) and sensor packaging(no cost at all).
Risk for bounty is losing some ship, can turn into logistic disaster when crew and supply are drying out, or capacity loss, and/or ending up costing sp inorder to save sp invested earlier. Potentially taking longer time to look for as many dwarf and barren worlds are presented in the same region. Similar risk of getting lost also presents in exploration, but still within a designated system, and giving up cost a little relation, looking for a ship in foggy system's vast asteroid ring far away is peak pain.
Reward for bounty, beside money, is to farm relation supply xp sp, ships and weapons outside of typical market, the ideal snowballing gameplay in mnb type of game, restricted by how much one can chew, and it still cost sp for good ones because free salvage is taken up mostly by trash. However, similarly gain can be done by farming redacted for weapon, and ship if skill permitts, while exploration gives unique items and blueprints, sensorpackage on a ship at rare chance may lead you to some high end yet well preserved ship, multiple if its in a battle field at chance, and high lv officers at chance.
Ultimately money conveting to supply or gains is still inefficient and restricted.
The need for traveling with giant combat fleet is less consider sp allows small fleet to get out of jail free with sp manuver, while bigger fleet attempting escape harassment cost a huge amount of cr, thus a dent in supply, or out right can not get away.

Ive not really experienced supply issues, considering fights will usually give back recovery supplies and then some after the fact.

It may just be your fleet composition. Look at each of your ships maintenance cost for monthly upkeep. If your supply consumption is over 10 units per day, your fleets eating way too much because of supply demands.

A good general rule of thumb for supplies is that you should have enough for at least half a years worth of supplies in space without having to scavenge. For example, if your supply cost per day is 10 and there are roughly 29-31 days in a month, round up to 30 and 10x30=300. 300x6=1800 supply unit's needed for a round trip to deep space and back to the core. This will be enough to get you through a dozen or more fleet engagements without having to run back early for more, especially if you subsidize alot of the repairs and upkeep from supplies you salvage from defeated fleets.

This is also why every fleet needs an Atlas superfreighter or three. The more room you have, the less issues you will need to deal with when it comes to resupplying or bringing salvaged good back to the core.

Keep in mind bigger is not always better or stronger. Frigates on their own can take down capitals if used right.

[geminitiger]

Ive not really experienced supply issues, considering fights will usually give back recovery supplies and then some after the fact.

/doubts

[Nimiety]

If you're having supply problems, you're not bringing enough salvage rigs/shepherds or using way too many cruisers and capitals. rig plus salvaging skill makes a huge difference and you only need 2 cruisers, a handful of destroyers and frigates to defeat all bounties up to 400k. You can also bring marines along to raid pirate and pather bases opportunistically. Like, I have 2 military contacts on Sindria. Whenever they ask me to extract a prisoner I can raid 200-300 supplies at the same time, and thats just with 150 marines and no ground support or tactical drills. Same thing whenever I run across a pirate base in the outer sector, easy 300 supplies.

Are you using solar shielding? Its worth it, just to avoid the storm damage in hyperspace.

[Salter]

Ive not really experienced supply issues, considering fights will usually give back recovery supplies and then some after the fact.

/doubts

If you doubt me then I can provide vids/pictures to show you how my current endgame fleet is performing at the level to take down Ordo stations without guzzling supplies and fuel like a madman. Logistical issues are due to deficiencies, and deficiencies are born of poor design choices of a fleet.

Money & Ring Gate access is another matter that factors into it, but I frequently find myself with too much supplies.