How do you make money for your first station?

[An Ning]

How do you make the money you need for your first station in the game?

Do you rush to coreward sectors and sell ores?
Do you find and sell asteroids?
Do you fight and sell items you get from salvaging?
Does anyone ACTUALLY make 15,000,000 by doing missions for 10,000 at a time?

[Chaoslink]

I raid factions and sell the goods I loot from their stations. By the time I’m at the barrier, one raiding session takes roughly an hour to two hours from the moment I leave to the moment I finish selling off the goods and yields between 300k to as much as 50 million credits depending on the amount of cargo space I could afford. Once I’m a bit established, single runs start to yield 500 million or even billions per run. By that point though my cargo space is big enough to carry the entirety of the goods from 4-5 entire sectors of stations.

[DipperActual]

I leave the game running overnight as much as I can.

Early on the mining fleet begins with Lady Adventurous from the tutorial, just a ship with the best R-Miner and R-Salvager and cargo bay. Later on, make fighters with R-Miner and R-Salvager turrets. As I move toward the core, any sector with more than 3-5 wrecks in it, I'll mark for salvage.

(pro tip: often a tiny mine system (under 1,000 asteroids) will have an intact but wrecked station, lots of resources there, look around!)

Just about every sector I've been in I've noted if they have a tiny, mid, large or big (3,000+ asteroids) 'mine' in them. The ships that are devoted to mining aren't anything special other than having equipped the most efficient turrets.

When I'm about to call it a night, I'll retask one of the mining ships to salvage and mine where I've left wreckages.

I'm not sure that makes me any better than the Xsotan, hah.

[Multi Colored Psychopath]

I make many cheap, easy-to-make, and expendable mining ships to send them off to gather ores in asteroid-dense sectors.
With the resources they gather, I build more ships, buy more R-mining turrets, and sell the rest to the starting sector's resource depot. It's not the best way to make money, but if you're building a fleet of ships, this will get you the resources and funds you need relatively quickly.
Bear in mind that these ships die from giving it a wrong look, so keep them in friendly/neutral faction sectors. I've built only 4 mining ships so far, but they've generated a total of 15 million credits in just a few hours mining and selling Naonite and Trinium.

I've put a few hundred hours into this game, and I'm still not sure why you'd want to get stations. I have no idea how the trading works, and how you're supposed to generate millions upon millions of credits like you see people talking about in other threads.

As far as I know, you're supposed to buy multiple stations/mines to create a chain for a specific item, for example: like power armor, which sell for a lot but are very time consuming to deal with and actually create.

I believe you need to either sell the power armor yourself, or have another ship set on a loop to gather goods and sell goods.

I learned recently that the placement of your station matters greatly in how much money it will make. Apparently, it needs to be close/inside of another faction, but I'm not sure about this.
Edit: Upon doing more research, the placement is very important. You can see what stations in sectors need what with the Trade upgrade. For example, in the station's buy tab within the trade upgrade, it will say aluminum buys for $XXX.XX. Build an aluminum mine in the same sector, or a nearby sector. Establish trade route.

[FightinWelsh]

i do the same as chaos.. if a faction decides they don't like me ..fine.. they become my raiding ♥♥♥♥♥. esp if it has valuable stations. then whatever i dont sell off at black markets I dump into my personal station...Normally a claimed mine of some kind coated in seeker missiles and a local salvage ship :P.

by the time i'm close to the barrier I have more money than i know what to do with. like retarded levels of credits.... billions easy.

[LORDSOL]

Mining is the core of finances

[Jonofwrath]

I make a couple of miners and set them to mine and refine on repeat.

Also a couple of salvagers and a ship for fighting. The salvagers find a lot of turrets.

I use these turrets in research stations to make better turrets so I can operate in higher-level material areas.

[Jeb T. Firefly]

I may have taken advantage of a weird Body Armor Factory I found near my starting sector to make my first mine.
Basically, I was shipping Body Armor between this factory and the nearest Miitary Outpost, making a million or two at a time with a simple iron ship. On one of these stops, I noticed the Body Armor Factory had a contract. The contract was to 'Procure x Antigrav Units' for around 2,500,000 - I think it was about 40 Units. I did my usual scan of all the factories in the vicinity, and noticed that there was an Antigrav Unit Factory in the sector I was in!
So, I jetted over there and bought up my 40 Units, then delivered them. Ecstatic, I moved on, satisfied with trading for the day.
Later, doing the trading run, I found that the same factory had the exact same contract. So, never looking the gift horse in the mouth, I redid the mission. I managed to do the same contract a third time before I bought my first mine - and I haven't seen it since.
Well, it was good while it lasted.

Anyways, my favorite method of moneymaking is selling as much Body Armor as possible to military outposts, then fighting / mining / salvaging in between while I wait for the buying price to rise to 107,000 per unit again.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Jeb T. Firefly:

I may have taken advantage of a weird Body Armor Factory I found near my starting sector to make my first mine.
Basically, I was shipping Body Armor between this factory and the nearest Miitary Outpost, making a million or two at a time with a simple iron ship. On one of these stops, I noticed the Body Armor Factory had a contract. The contract was to 'Procure x Antigrav Units' for around 2,500,000 - I think it was about 40 Units. I did my usual scan of all the factories in the vicinity, and noticed that there was an Antigrav Unit Factory in the sector I was in!
So, I jetted over there and bought up my 40 Units, then delivered them. Ecstatic, I moved on, satisfied with trading for the day.
Later, doing the trading run, I found that the same factory had the exact same contract. So, never looking the gift horse in the mouth, I redid the mission. I managed to do the same contract a third time before I bought my first mine - and I haven't seen it since.
Well, it was good while it lasted.

Anyways, my favorite method of moneymaking is selling as much Body Armor as possible to military outposts, then fighting / mining / salvaging in between while I wait for the buying price to rise to 107,000 per unit again.

See, that’s where I like to just go raid another faction for their body armors (amongst other things) then go sell that stuff to a friendly faction for an even larger profit. You might earn something like 10-30% profit buying and selling depending on the exact supply and demand situation. I make a pretty much guaranteed 50% profit on everything given how the cost of unbranding stolen goods works. More so even, since a portion of goods you get raiding won’t be branded as stolen since it comes from the wreckage of a destroyed station and is technically legitimate salvage at that point.

[AndyH]

None of the above.

By the time I'm halfway through the Titanium belts I can make enough cash with my ship and have found a large asteroid that I can set up a Plat/Gold mine which makes decent money at the beginning. I've also got a station that is mostly made of iron stone and is dirt cheap. That seed usually is enough to get me into microprocessors for my more advanced bases.

[An Ning]

Originally posted by AndyH:

None of the above.

By the time I'm halfway through the Titanium belts I can make enough cash with my ship and have found a large asteroid that I can set up a Plat/Gold mine which makes decent money at the beginning. I've also got a station that is mostly made of iron stone and is dirt cheap. That seed usually is enough to get me into microprocessors for my more advanced bases.

So you don't fight, don't mine, don't buy and sell.... what do you do?

[AndyH]

I was speaking in terms of progression territory without realizing it, as at that point its mostly gathering materials for your initial stuff on every map I've played (I play on Expert or above). Mine out the starting system, rush for Titanium, find equipment dealer is kinda standard operating procedure.

I have some incredibly cheap freighter BP's from the workshop I've scaled down so I can build them straight from the starting system. I think one costs 53k credits and has 1.5k cargo. So I rush forward for R-miners right away. Then jump out of the ship and tell it to mine out the system. Maybe I'll use the drone to fly through the gates for more locations or Alt-Tab to watch Netflix. Refine/sell the materials when notified it's full and repeat.

So in a way, you're right. What do I actually do? Watch Netflix and let the game play itself.

[Multi Colored Psychopath]

Originally posted by AndyH:

So in a way, you're right. What do I actually do? Watch Netflix and let the game play itself.

Do the storyline. Explore. Make your own, better ships. Amass a fleet of varying ships and sizes. Create a mining cartel, and sell their resources off to the starting sector. Become a salesman/courier and trade everything you get your hands on. Board stations, take them over, and create your own faction. Make money from those stations. Learn the trade mechanics of the game, and make your own stations/mines where they're needed. Make more ships. Take the galaxy over. Then when you're bored, create a new world. Do it all over again, but with even better ship and station designs. Try out some mods you might like. Maybe make your own mods, and upload them to the workshop so other people can enjoy them. Play with some friends, or play with complete and total strangers. Fight them, or take the galaxy over together with them.

The game is a sandbox, my guy. Do whatever you enjoy the most.

[An Ning]

I do.
I'm just seeing what other people do.

[Cat]

First increase hyperspace range jump with items. Rush to xanion - find a friendlier , large faction and explore sectors around them. sell asteroids for profit (ups your relationship and gives you a cash boost) spend the first few on getting the ship larger so that it has cargo space and can stand (and quickly escape) attacks. then with your starting capital from the asteroids trade with the faction, buy from factories sell to research stations tends to be the best , easy trade.

[DipperActual]

Originally posted by NightCat:

First increase hyperspace range jump with items. Rush to xanion - find a friendlier , large faction and explore sectors around them. sell asteroids for profit (ups your relationship and gives you a cash boost) spend the first few on getting the ship larger so that it has cargo space and can stand (and quickly escape) attacks. then with your starting capital from the asteroids trade with the faction, buy from factories sell to research stations tends to be the best , easy trade.

The trek to the Barrier always seems like a headlong rush. Each run I've made, I've made a deliberate effort to slow down compared to the last run and make Allies. (I think I'm up to 9, and the Master Tactician Achievement was still impossible at Expert, ugh) At some points Allied faction standing can be done in an hour or so without a grind, just being diligent with Paying Tribute, Selling Resources, Buying some pricey things and Killing pirates and Xsotan with a civilian witness nearby.

Yep, having a wide assortment of ships that you can keep on auto-mining and salvaging Orders will rake in Materials and that can be sold for lots of cash. Salvage also brings in Upgrades and Turrets that aren't left on the battlefield, so it's in your interest to Salvage as much as you can.

Yep, claiming the Claimables and throwing down simple mines that a Trading System shows as profitable will bring in cash. Heck, even the Other Stations like Trading Post, Repair Dock, et al will bring in cash as their occupants consume Trade Goods. Make a Village of all the Other stations. It's fun to have a base. It'll soon bring in traders and stuff and makes the game seem alive. Pretty soon money is no object and you can turn to finding that Unicorn turret you always wanted and then make 200 of them and then make fighters out of them and then make all your ships have 100 of those fighters and... you get the idea :)