Early game money making? I have played on and off but never got far.

[Bartowski]

I had some mining ships bringing me in income, not much though. Im wondering how i can go about getting this ship. I am wanting to get into a Osaka as my main cruiser but it is farily expensive. Who do i need to ally with to get it to begin with?

[SinisterSlay]

Every time I search this people say crystals. I think I have found 1 crystal ever,
I had better luck sending my starter ships off as local traders in bofu and energy cells in boron space early on. After a few missions I had enough for an M trader. Sent it off into boron space local trading bofu and got the money train moving. Swap the now trained S ship pilots into the trader so you can get auto trader quicker.
Using that money I set up a mining outpost at Pluto. That even in my late game continues to print money,
You don't have to do what I did, I am just saying there is a lot of ways to get started.

[Pathogenic]

Trade advanced satellites between equipment docks (that have high stocks of advanced electronics and scanning arrays) and wharfs (which have low stocks of these). You can typically make a profit of 20,000 credits per advanced satellite, and each small fighter can hold 50.

It's not technically trading per se, it is done using the upgrade screen rather than the trade screen, and it can't be automated, but once you've identified enough wharfs and equipment docks to make it work, almost nothing else will make you money faster early game.

As you buy advanced satellites from equipment docks, their supply of scanning arrays and advanced electronics (used to make these sats) will decrease, and the price for buying the satellites will increase, so that is why it is important to identify multiple different equipment docks. Same with selling the satellites to wharfs, as you sell to them, the advanced satellites will be recycled back into advanced electronics and scanning arrays, so the price they are willing to pay when you remove the advanced satellites in the upgrade screen will decrease.

Terrans/PIO are a bit of an exception, since they make advanced satellites from the same thing ships are made from (computronic substrate, silicon carbide, metallic microlattice), so the prices for advanced sats will be nearly the same between their equipment docks and wharfs.

[Zwapp]

crystal mining only works now if you have a mod that undoes all the nerfs it has had, it makes for a difference of earning maybe 20k after half an hour of hard searching in vanilla, vs like 1M in 10 minutes of casual strolling with the right mod.

[chronobomb]

Easiest way to make money in the early game is:
1. Capture pirates. Each minotaur raider sells for 1.5 million.
2. Pickup drops at battle sites.
3. Use money to get ARG and HOP economy going and watch them throw massive fleets at each other.
4. Repeat step 2

[Tomonor]

If you don't mind getting your hands dirty, if you find the right circumstances (Osaka being alone and you have support ships), you may as well try to board it. Just throw numbers at it, it will eventually yield.

Otherwise for money-making, there are quite a few great methods on Youtube. My personal method is similar to chronobomb's, but this does require some skill. You shoot the ships with a low-grade laser. Try to chip away their hull little by little when they are around 15%. You should also let their charge charge up from time to time. Eventually, the last crewmen will abandon the ships, you repair them up by the repair laser and sell the captured ships.

If you want to go big on the money however, try to concentrate on researching module hacking in the HQ. Then, you can unlock high tech production modules by scanning signal leaks on NPC stations. A properly placed high tech factory (hull part prod, weapon component fact, etc. around wharfs/shipyards) will result in good money. Just make sure to choose a sector where competition isn't rampant, otherwise you will have to lower your selling prices.