How do you start out / make money nowadays?

[Labargoth]

I can't seem to get anything starting with the game in its current state. All the money I make in the beginning from mining I have to spend on food and medkits, because bandits never seem to leave me alone, even in the city.

[Papasaurus Rex]

same as always pretty much, they lowered prices on many things but all the old tricks still work fine.

[Labargoth]

The old trick was to start out by farming ore though and I'm not making any profit that way.

[TehOuchies]

River raptors. Aggro, kite to holy nation guards. Profit.

[Mavrah]

Yeah, animal skins are good income, for now, but you'll need to get tougher to get to better loot areas.
Your best income will be collecting beak thing eggs, hunting large animals and looting skeletech.

[ipsos]

I usually nab the dust king (or the sand ninja oni) the first day, train lockpick and sneak the second/third day, and loot armories and ancient labs on the forth day onwards for a few days. Few hundred thousand cats and a bunch of ancient science/ai cores by the end of the first week. Then it's a visit to the armor king and the scraphouse to get equipped in MC/Edge3 gear. Then, finally, I start fighting things.

[999 IQ Super Patriot]

Rockbottom. Get food and maybe a backpack or two. Get Ells at Sho-Battai. Get Burn at his tower, loot his place, loot the other tower nearby, buy an arm at World's End. Loot abandoned town at coast, go to Drin and buy sake, stop at a hive village north if you don't have an arm yet and maybe some hashish. Go to Sho-Battai and join thieves, hire mercs for a day and have them fight stuff as you travel, go to waystation east of Black Desert. Loot the ruined outpost along the way to Sadneil. Go west towards a waystation and loot the ruin on the hill, get new mercs if they got them at the waystation. Go to swamps and buy as much hashish as you can comfortably carry. Get Doctor Chung in Mud Town, get Miu and Hamut at Shark. Sell hashish at Clownsteady, go back north and find Ruka in the shek town and possibly Hobbs if you haven't got him by this point. Go to Hub and decide what to do from then on.

[Bigweejoe]

I starerted of as an empire citizen and went to Bark? Most NE city. Recruited red for 200 cats(brilliant thief) and riddly for free(a decent warrior with armor) and headed towards the hub stealing in every town along the way with red.

[Ampitexture]

Started my first successful play through mining copper. Got enough to recruit a second guy to farm twice the copper and just snowballed it from there. Not the most auspicious start but I quickly got to the point where cats were kind of pointless.

[wordwaster]

Last couple play throughs I just went to bast and looted the dead

[DayChap]

Kill swamp turtles and sell cooked meat
Scavenge from bandits killed by city guards
Mine Copper

[Joshuasca]

Make Armor. Took me 40 days to get all the tech and buildings and skill up to 80. But now I can make 6000 cats with 4 leathers and half a fabric.

[TrollPlayerMx]

farm "heart protectors" when i can beat Desert bandits campments, i just farm them, i fight them and when i finish i use their sleepings bags, and i keep doing this , i train my guys and get 300 cats per each camp, usually each camp have 25-30 guys so its 9k-12k without big risks, if you cant beat the bandits, just fight them near guards ( shop guards or the sheks, hives works too)

[KaossoaK]

I always start in Heng I think it is. Shek kingdom. There is an iron mine right ouside the north gates (used to be a copper mine inside the town). I get attacked sometimes, but the guards are close by. I mine that till I am stocked on food, have all the tech you can buy and about eight in my group (a house in town too). Then I work on stealth to stealth my way to getting the higher technology. When I can make lvl 4 walls, hydroponics wheat and good guns for my walls, I start making a city. Also, I used to start "rock bottom", but I don't like the missing arm. This last time I started as a slave which helped me build up some stats before escaping with my partner.

[Fatbill]

Originally posted by wordwaster:

Last couple play throughs I just went to bast and looted the dead

This.

I did a rock bottom start, and went here after selling some animal loot and buying a backpack.

Easy money and you work up the strength/athletics a good bit.

After that, you'll have plenty to buy and sell in World's End and it is off to the races.

Another semi-cheesy thing to do is wait for the gate guards to beat whomever up and sell them to the slave shop. It is only 400 cats a whack, but if you have absolutely nothing, and can get 3-4 from them raiding the city at once, it can keep you fed, at least.

[Zombie101]

Rock bottom. I started out in hub. So I traveled to Stack and built a base just out side of town. I stuggled to get it working but day 94 I have hemp catus Wheat cotton if really needed. 1 restart do to patches to keep from having glitches.

I'm now training my 27 humans and 2 animal to survive.