This isn't a thread about where to make the most money in the shortest time, although that information might actually be helpful now that I think about it.

This is mostly for me, and maybe for others, to get a bit of a grip on the moneymaking balance when trying to set a reward for missions. It is so much a question of how much do you earn as well as of how much do you think you should earn in how much time at which point in the game. Note that by time here I mean mostly play time, not time passed in the game world. I'm trying to estimate of how much the players real-life time is worth in ingame money to strike a good balance between motivation and difficulty.

It is clear that rewards increase the further one advances in the game, that's the usual use of the skinner box. In Frontier, and therefore in Pioneer as well, there's two ways to regulate this. The more obvious way is that for traders, the cargo space and capital increases over time, leading to more profit per run. It is the quite unavoidable economic effect of a trade system, and therefore natural. Trading profits are therefore the natural base metrics to balance by, so they're what I'm most interested in. It should be possible to make a similar amount of money by doing whatever occupation as you can make with trading consuming a similar amount of playtime at a similar stage of the game.

Risk in a computer game where you can load the last savegame is a non-factor when it comes to reward calculation (this would change significantly if Pioneer were to support an Ironman mode, but with unlimited saves and reloads, risk is just simply non-existant).

Risk simply serves the purpose of limiting higher rewards from new players, as it is not as such "risk" as in "something might go horribly wrong but we can't really tell" but more of a danger level indicating the amount of equipment you'll need to complete a mission. Risk thus is a mechanic similar to a small cargo hold, i.e. a restriction to keep higher level rewards from lower level players. It shouldn't figure in these metrics directly, it will take some further analysis to determine what threat level should be tagged to which rewards.

Anyways, enough mad raveing. In the end, what I'm most interested in, is how fast (real time) you guys can make how much money by trading or other means at which point of the game. Please share!