Am I doing something wrong?

[Rothgar]

Just dropping my head in here and wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or if the game is being cruel : I got an alert in my game about "jobs," with it telling me that it can rake in enormous amounts of dough in a single day, and basically telling me I'm being stupid grinding the work crews in the slums.
I'm probably something like 400 turns into my current character, and I've got $800 to my name, am I doing something wrong? I'm looking at the cost of a buggy and it's nearly double everything I've earned over the last few hundred turns. Am I just missing something, or is the game simply that unforgiving?

[orcaa]

The game is tough no doubt about that. Raking in tons of dough kind of opportunities do not come around much. So basically at the start ( for me anyways ), staying in the borderland scrabbling through the dirt looting scraps. Hung around the border guards and got rumours of stashes. Looted stashes to slowly get going. Work at the market selling stuff for other people is a job I still use.

[Renoehe]

1. There is a quest in the Bordertown where you get a fuel tanker and have the option to sell it (easy but pays less overall) or turn it into your first job (hard but pays more, better if you already died and came back). This is basically the game giving you some starting capital.
2. The game opens up gradually and you're going to see more options. The stats you can think of as your "levels" which will let you see more of the game are Familiarity, Reputation, and Personal Security (this last one is not so much for seeing more as for preventing yourself from getting killed). You want to focus on raising these in the early game.
3. The game doesn't tell you this but it is a lot more beneficial to stockpile moods than to use them as soon as you have them. Whenever you get a mood card scroll down and pick "Hold the Feeling." Once it is past 6 you get more options like converting them into skill experience or into an equippable mood or social resources like Well Connected and Hostile Forces. These are always more valuable than what you can get from using them below 6.
4. The same is true of information(Rumors and Hard Facts). You want to save it and use it to level Familiarity. Once your Familiarity is high enough these resources will be given to you in buckets, but if you spend them all raiding stashes you'll get trapped in a grinding cycle.
5. Work Crews is okay even after you get the tanker until you're sure that there are better things to be doing with your actions. As long as you can feed yourself and pay rent, it isn't all bad.

[Sador]

There are couple of things early on that give you a relative large amount of money fairly easily. These includes the hauling metal oddjob (which is needed for the fuel tank, which is a -large- amount of money potentially.. The loan shark quest (which you can get from Raff) which is an interesting quest and pays a decent amount no matter what you do. I definitely recommend doing (and selling) the fuel tank as that'll set you up pretty nicely for a while. Later on in the game you can use Working the Streets to make a good chunk of money as well in various ways, as well as get access to useful stuff more cheaply and sometimes in bulk.

Like Fauxy said, try to get your familiarity in different places (early on especially the Slums and Borderlands) up to a fair amount (12+ at least) and try to increase your reputation as well. Then explore, try things and you'll find interesting stuff over time. Also make sure you have a strongbox so you can keep your money safe.

[Rothgar]

Thank you for the answers, guys. I'll go back to the borderlands and grind up some cash - the game places such a heavy emphasis on getting out of there and getting to the Slums that I just thought I wouldn't really have to go back.
And thank you for the familiarity tips, I thought having 6 area familiarity was a lot - if I've gotta get 12+, I've got my work cut out for me, haha.

[mlangsdorf]

WIth a decent Charisma, you can get $25-40 per action by working the stalls at the Borderland market, and it's pretty trivial to get $400/day while still doing other stuff at the Borderlands. You can also sell cheap amphetamines to the borderlands "doctor" for $30 per 5 (and 1 action), and it's not hard to pick those up for nearly free while doing other stuff.

I had $10K in hand when I started setting up my Fuel Depot, and ended up spending $9K. It takes a while to make back the investment. Which is how a lot of things in CPD work. Even things that make money (like selling catfish filets from your Borderlands home, or working the junk trade at the dump) tend to pay pretty low on a per-action basis, but you can come out ahead over time.

[Rothgar]

Yeah, after a day (about 30-ish turns) in the Borderlands, I made about $200. Hopefully I'll be able to buy the truck soon, and get started on some of the real money-making schemes now that I've got the dump unlocked.
Thanks for the advice, guys, I just thought that with how the game really emphasizes how much you have to get out of the Borderlands, there wasn't much there - I was totally wrong.

[Malv]

When the badlands are implemented there'll be even more opportunity out there. Once you have a decent amount of starting cash and familiarity built up, try investing in some product from the gangs in the slums. You'll be able to make good margins off sales from working the streets every day (the first sale of expensive spikes is a guaranteed dopamine rush).

[Sador]

The borderlands, especially prior to getting into Cinci, are a bit of a tutorial area where you can get some money, skills and gear before moving into the big bad city. That said, you don't have to keep hanging around there, and the game doesn't really begin opening up until you get in there. The money options especially increase massively once you cross the border. The borderlands beyond that is more of a safe(-ish) zone rather than a massive money maker (other than the fuel tank) so it's good to keep that in mind.