What should I be spending my money on?

[Fried Noodles]

I've survived the 'early game' and am pretty decently kitted out, I think.
I had four ships, but scrapped two that I wasn't using and am down to just the nice wrecked Hauler with a billion inventory slots that I repaired fully and an Exotic ship.

I spent a bit of money buying and scrapping other starships to collect Starship inventory slots for my Exotic ship (it had so few to start!) and am now down to just under 6M units.

I have my free Capital Freighter (though it was totally surrounded by Frigates when I first met the thing, it now only has one), and I also became the overseer of a wretched little settlement that I renamed 'Forlorn Hope'.
I built a starport (or just a single landing pad) for the base and approved an expedition to march around and try to dissuade raider attacks (an effort that resulted in a few deaths).

The settlement is also in debt and is costing more money than it's making, and I am unable to do anything with them currently. (This isn't costing me my money, is it?


Frigates for the Freighter are pretty pricey, at about 2M each. I might be able to buy three of 'em if I chose.

[Psyringe]

If you have only 6m units, then my first priority would be to get more money. You can do that passively but slowly by setting up (and expanding) something like a large Activated Indium farm.

Or you could do it actively by trading commodities. Use an economic scanner to find systems of the highest tier (three white does on the summary popup in the galaxy map), one for each of the 7 economy types. Then trade commodity items from systems that produce them to systems that need them (e.g. from an Advanced Materials system to a Science system, from there to a Trade system, and from there back to Advanced Materials). That ought to earn you several millions per round if you have the space and money to buy all of the commodities from each system.

Personally I had fun setting up a crafting chain for Stasis Devices and Fusion Ignitors. Each of these sells for more than 15 million units apiece, and you can craft an unlimited number each day depending on how big you build your farms. It requires quite an elaborate setup though - You need to find mining spots for Nitrogen, Sulphurine, and Radon, have a reliable source for lots of carbon, build a huge farm for the 8 plant types that the process requires, and spend a good deal of time harvesting, refining, and crafting. I had fun with it and it gave me more money than I'll ever need (approaching 4 billion now), but it may not be enjoyable for everyone.

Frigates for your freighter are a good investment - you can buy them cheap when they are still C-class, they will slowly level up as they complete missions. But I'd focus first on building up a reliable, renewable source of income.

Regarding your settlement's debt - indeed it doesn't cost you money. It's the settlement's debt, not yours. You govern the settlement, but do not "own" its economy. However, the settlement will have to repay its debt fully before it can start producing extra items for you.

[Fried Noodles]

That does sound good.
I liked being a roaming trader in Bannerlord. I have noticed the flavor text of some items suggesting they'd sell better in certain systems but I haven't really tried hopping around that much yet.

Is the there a way to keep track if what systems I am buying and selling from?

I kind of get a bit lost every time I bring up the galaxy map and never find the same system twice.

Though I guess I could just use the magical teleporters and conduct all my trades on the space station. Though that seems less exciting and more loading screeny.

[frazzled]

For easy, steady income, I usually set up a little activated indium farm.

1st find a hotspot for activated indium on an appropriate world. Don't mind the weather. Once you have things built it won't be an issue. Plant a base computer close, but not on, the hotspot.

Build 4 mining units around the hotspot. Nearby, build 4 batteries, 12 solar panels, and 8 storage units. I like to organize them neatly on concrete floors or some such, but suit yourself. Connect them together so they can start mining while you do the rest.

Nearby, build whatever you like as a base. (I like two round rooms, a teleporter, a landing pad, and 4 solar panels and 2 batteries, as that usually keeps the base itself powered 24/7.) Once that's done build a 9th storage unit right next to your base entrance so it's quick and easy for you to access, and connect that to the other storage units.

Now you can teleport to this once or twice a day and retrieve a stack of activated indium to sell where ever you roam.

I also build these for activated cadmium and activated emeril. They don't sell for quite as much, but its easy money.

I also also do it for the non-activate forms of these, just so I can always get an easy stack of them when needed for hyperdrives or the Atlas and such.

I know other people build gigantic farms for this sort of thing, and make huge money. But I've found little mining farms like what I've described suit my playing style. I wind up over a billion credits without really struggling at all. Who needs more than that?

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

Is the there a way to keep track if what systems I am buying and selling from?

I kind of get a bit lost every time I bring up the galaxy map and never find the same system twice.

Though I guess I could just use the magical teleporters and conduct all my trades on the space station. Though that seems less exciting and more loading screeny.

When I was using trade routes, I gave each system a descriptive name and used the station teleporters. I just had to take care to do another trading round when the systems reached the end of the list of destinations. They can drop off the list if you don't visit them for a while (they get replaced by newer discoveries), but visiting them puts them back at the beginning of the list.

I found trading in NMS useful, but not very exciting indeed. It was fun figuring out the system, but once I understood how it works, it became very predictable. You can always switch to a different method if it gets too boring, though. The nice thing about a trading route is that it has no setup cost - you just buy what you can afford, sell the stuff where's demand for it, and have immediate profit. But the other money generating methods have their own advantages, take your pick. :)

[jonnin]

trading is annoying because the amount in the freighter base trade console is too little and you need to go to space station or planet side trade station or both to fill up all your slots.
If you could just freighter warp towards the center while buying and selling from inside... it would be much slicker.

what to buy near endgame...
cool looking ships
a and s class ships to melt to upgrade non maxed ships
frigates if you are into that. A and S class cost a few M each.
survival stuff that you are tired of farming (tritium, oxygen, batteries, etc)
stuff that is annoying to make for your town buildings
whatever else you want or need... new tool, new freighter, /shrug