What is the best way to make money?

[MoKuS]

So, I just started playing the game and I am lost. I bought a light freighter and I could barely make any extra benefit ( I bought the local map) and sometimes I even lost money on a promising benefit trip. I eventually was killed by a pirate after some deliveries that didn't change my total credit. So I was wondering how you make money and what are the safe system (pirate-free).

[Hecter94]

Make sure you're checking spaceports whenever you land; most of the most profitable jobs will come from Spaceport requests rather than the job board.

Also, make sure you're never wasting a trip, so if you have a job to go to a specific planet, check the map to see what commodities will bring you the most profit from that trip and fill your hold with them.

Early on, rush deliveries will make you a good income as long as you focus on them and don't miss your deadlines, You could also get into smuggling which has high profit margins but you need to avoid being scanned.

[noctilucus]

Indeed, rush deliveries help a lot in the early stages, complemented by cargo that yields the highest profit margin on that trip.

The pirate heavy systems tend to be more towards the borders of the initial map; missions that lead you there typically come with a warning.
Escort missions also lead to pirate attacks, even in systems that are normally pirate free. Better not to take those until you have a ship that can put up a fight.

However, it's quite common to die several times during the course of the game and especially early on it happens quite regularly... Unless you want to play "iron man", you may have to reload more than in a lot of other games. And jumping out of systems as fast as you can, also helps a bit.

[Startome]

As hecter mentioned, never ever take off without checking what cargo type will give the most profit in your destination system (or any fuel-up stops you'll make along the way) and make sure to fill any empty cargo space with that cargo.
Jobs generally pay more the farther away you go, so if you have the space available you can travel to a few planets on one side of space picking up jobs, and then cross space to cash in on all of them at once.
My preferred method, if you have the patience to get blown up a few (many) times in the process, is to sell all my weapons, and go somewhere that a lot of weak pirate ships spawn. Because I pose no "threat" the pirates will ignore me if there are other ships in the system. If I time it right, I can capture the pirates that get disabled and sometimes get paid by friendly captains for helping them out when the pirates disable them.
Because I only "take off" in the process of getting a capture, I only pay one day's worth of loan payments during the process. That helps a lot.

[76561199382900831]

If you want to capture pirate ships, you need to max out your crew with bunk rooms, which can purchased at an outfitter. You also need some "hand to hand" weapons, like laser rifles or preferably fragmentation grenades, when you can afford them. The southern systems near the pirate systems are good places for pirate hunting. Wait at the edge of the system where it's safe. The Republic ships will disable the pirates, leaving them vulnerable. But once you capture a ship, jump out of there as soon as possible, and find a system with a shipyard. You can sell a pirate ship for good money, or make the pirate ship your new flagship, if it's bigger.

[Startome]

Originally posted by Melchiz:

If you want to capture pirate ships, you need to max out your crew with bunk rooms, which can purchased at an outfitter. You also need some "hand to hand" weapons, like laser rifles or preferably fragmentation grenades, when you can afford them. The southern systems near the pirate systems are good places for pirate hunting. Wait at the edge of the system where it's safe. The Republic ships will disable the pirates, leaving them vulnerable. But once you capture a ship, jump out of there as soon as possible, and find a system with a shipyard. You can sell a pirate ship for good money, or make the pirate ship your new flagship, if it's bigger.

This.

Also, you can park your captured ships at any planet so they aren't vulnerable to attack and you don't have to pay their crew salaries. Go to a system where there is a shipyard and land. Then unpark the ships you want to sell, take off from the planet, and wait while they travel to you safely. (enemies don't attack your ships that are in other systems than your flagship)

[Level12Boss]

Originally posted by MoKuS:

So I was wondering how you make money and what are the safe system (pirate-free).

In the early game I like running passenger ships. It isn't glamorous but it's fast and safe and will pay you a lot of money to explore and chart the galaxy.

Any ship can be configured to add more bunks by burning a bunch of outfit space. Basically sell every outfit that isn't a bunk (incl weapon systems) and then buy bunks, the "luxury accommodation" upgrade (just need 1) and a few extra fuel tanks so you don't have to make stops. Jobs hauling "family settlers" and "rich passengers" in safe space can pay 35k-150k per trip. If you can get into hauling more like 20-50 people at a time you can edge into 250k-500k per trip. 50+ passengers will get you 500k-1M credits per run. It doesn't take that long to save up for a Blackbird if you want something more fun to drive, or go all-in on a Star Queen which is Space Bus but can carry 79 passengers even before modifications. With either of those you'll earn 10's of millions pretty quickly.

As for fighting pirates, the early game human weapons and ships are very weak at combat. You should have low expectations for fun, easy and profitable conquest. At a minimum you'll need a small fleet with 2-4 attack ships to quickly take down SOME pirates. Frankly I really don't dabble in combat and capturing ships until I make my way to some early game alien technology with fat shields...

[MoKuS]

Originally posted by Hecter94:

Make sure you're checking spaceports whenever you land; most of the most profitable jobs will come from Spaceport requests rather than the job board.

Also, make sure you're never wasting a trip, so if you have a job to go to a specific planet, check the map to see what commodities will bring you the most profit from that trip and fill your hold with them.

Early on, rush deliveries will make you a good income as long as you focus on them and don't miss your deadlines, You could also get into smuggling which has high profit margins but you need to avoid being scanned.

Thanks for the information. I checked several spaceports and so far I only got one delivery with an amount of delivery less than my cargo space so I could buy and sell stuff during the trip.

By the way, does a fuel pod take cargo space? How much does 100 fuel cost? Is there any cost for landing?

[MoKuS]

Originally posted by noctilucus:

Indeed, rush deliveries help a lot in the early stages, complemented by cargo that yields the highest profit margin on that trip.

The pirate heavy systems tend to be more towards the borders of the initial map; missions that lead you there typically come with a warning.
Escort missions also lead to pirate attacks, even in systems that are normally pirate free. Better not to take those until you have a ship that can put up a fight.

However, it's quite common to die several times during the course of the game and especially early on it happens quite regularly... Unless you want to play "iron man", you may have to reload more than in a lot of other games. And jumping out of systems as fast as you can, also helps a bit.

Thanks for the information. I checked the rush deliveries by now and most of the most profitable one was very far in the area that I hadn't explored yet. Maybe I try them later when I explore a good part of the map.

[MoKuS]

Originally posted by Startome:

As hecter mentioned, never ever take off without checking what cargo type will give the most profit in your destination system (or any fuel-up stops you'll make along the way) and make sure to fill any empty cargo space with that cargo.
Jobs generally pay more the farther away you go, so if you have the space available you can travel to a few planets on one side of space picking up jobs, and then cross space to cash in on all of them at once.
My preferred method, if you have the patience to get blown up a few (many) times in the process, is to sell all my weapons, and go somewhere that a lot of weak pirate ships spawn. Because I pose no "threat" the pirates will ignore me if there are other ships in the system. If I time it right, I can capture the pirates that get disabled and sometimes get paid by friendly captains for helping them out when the pirates disable them.
Because I only "take off" in the process of getting a capture, I only pay one day's worth of loan payments during the process. That helps a lot.

OK, thanks for the information. I will try that later.

[MoKuS]

Originally posted by Melchiz:

If you want to capture pirate ships, you need to max out your crew with bunk rooms, which can purchased at an outfitter. You also need some "hand to hand" weapons, like laser rifles or preferably fragmentation grenades, when you can afford them. The southern systems near the pirate systems are good places for pirate hunting. Wait at the edge of the system where it's safe. The Republic ships will disable the pirates, leaving them vulnerable. But once you capture a ship, jump out of there as soon as possible, and find a system with a shipyard. You can sell a pirate ship for good money, or make the pirate ship your new flagship, if it's bigger.

OK, thanks for the information. Do facilities for more crew take some of my cargo space? And how much is the salary of each crew member?

[noctilucus]

A fuel pod takes outfit space, you can see this information at the outfitter. Outfit space on a ship is separate from cargo space, but if you have spare outfit space, you could add a cargo expansion which makes the 2 communicating vessels. In the other direction, adding outfit expansions does take away cargo space.

In the early game you will in most cases not need to bother with fuel pods, as you should have planets along the way where you can land and refuel.
Just avoid ending up without fuel in a system without planets (grey systems on the map) - when planning your route on the map, the color of the route will tell you whether:
- you have enough fuel to make it = green
- some ships in your fleet have enough fuel to make it but not all of them = yellow
- you don't have enough fuel to make it = red
If you end up in a space without planets, hail other (friendly) ships and ask them for help.
I don't remember whether ramscoops are available from the start, but this is a piece of equipment that slowly refuels while your ship moves. Faster when you're hovering over a star in the system; usually I end up moving in circles as close as possible to a star.

Fuel is free. So is landing, except for pirate planets which will require a hefty bribe to land.

[MoKuS]

Originally posted by Startome:

Originally posted by Melchiz:

If you want to capture pirate ships, you need to max out your crew with bunk rooms, which can purchased at an outfitter. You also need some "hand to hand" weapons, like laser rifles or preferably fragmentation grenades, when you can afford them. The southern systems near the pirate systems are good places for pirate hunting. Wait at the edge of the system where it's safe. The Republic ships will disable the pirates, leaving them vulnerable. But once you capture a ship, jump out of there as soon as possible, and find a system with a shipyard. You can sell a pirate ship for good money, or make the pirate ship your new flagship, if it's bigger.

This.

Also, you can park your captured ships at any planet so they aren't vulnerable to attack and you don't have to pay their crew salaries. Go to a system where there is a shipyard and land. Then unpark the ships you want to sell, take off from the planet, and wait while they travel to you safely. (enemies don't attack your ships that are in other systems than your flagship)

Oh, I didn't know that I can park one of my ship. How I am supposed to do that?

[MoKuS]

Originally posted by Level12Boss:

Originally posted by MoKuS:

So I was wondering how you make money and what are the safe system (pirate-free).

In the early game I like running passenger ships. It isn't glamorous but it's fast and safe and will pay you a lot of money to explore and chart the galaxy.

Any ship can be configured to add more bunks by burning a bunch of outfit space. Basically sell every outfit that isn't a bunk (incl weapon systems) and then buy bunks, the "luxury accommodation" upgrade (just need 1) and a few extra fuel tanks so you don't have to make stops. Jobs hauling "family settlers" and "rich passengers" in safe space can pay 35k-150k per trip. If you can get into hauling more like 20-50 people at a time you can edge into 250k-500k per trip. 50+ passengers will get you 500k-1M credits per run. It doesn't take that long to save up for a Blackbird if you want something more fun to drive, or go all-in on a Star Queen which is Space Bus but can carry 79 passengers even before modifications. With either of those you'll earn 10's of millions pretty quickly.

As for fighting pirates, the early game human weapons and ships are very weak at combat. You should have low expectations for fun, easy and profitable conquest. At a minimum you'll need a small fleet with 2-4 attack ships to quickly take down SOME pirates. Frankly I really don't dabble in combat and capturing ships until I make my way to some early game alien technology with fat shields...

OK, thanks for the information. I will try that later.

[MoKuS]

Originally posted by noctilucus:

A fuel pod takes outfit space, you can see this information at the outfitter. Outfit space on a ship is separate from cargo space, but if you have spare outfit space, you could add a cargo expansion which makes the 2 communicating vessels. In the other direction, adding outfit expansions does take away cargo space.

In the early game you will in most cases not need to bother with fuel pods, as you should have planets along the way where you can land and refuel.
Just avoid ending up without fuel in a system without planets (grey systems on the map) - when planning your route on the map, the color of the route will tell you whether:
- you have enough fuel to make it = green
- some ships in your fleet have enough fuel to make it but not all of them = yellow
- you don't have enough fuel to make it = red
If you end up in a space without planets, hail other (friendly) ships and ask them for help.
I don't remember whether ramscoops are available from the start, but this is a piece of equipment that slowly refuels while your ship moves. Faster when you're hovering over a star in the system; usually I end up moving in circles as close as possible to a star.

Fuel is free. So is landing, except for pirate planets which will require a hefty bribe to land.

Ok, thanks for the information.

[Startome]

Originally posted by MoKuS:

Originally posted by Hecter94:

Make sure you're checking spaceports whenever you land; most of the most profitable jobs will come from Spaceport requests rather than the job board.

Also, make sure you're never wasting a trip, so if you have a job to go to a specific planet, check the map to see what commodities will bring you the most profit from that trip and fill your hold with them.

Early on, rush deliveries will make you a good income as long as you focus on them and don't miss your deadlines, You could also get into smuggling which has high profit margins but you need to avoid being scanned.

Thanks for the information. I checked several spaceports and so far I only got one delivery with an amount of delivery less than my cargo space so I could buy and sell stuff during the trip.

By the way, does a fuel pod take cargo space? How much does 100 fuel cost? Is there any cost for landing?

A fuel pod only uses outfit space, and fuel is automatically refilled for free at any established spaceport without any effect on your cargo space :)