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Author Topic: How to make money beside doing survey missions?  (Read 23451 times)

Darkreaver1980

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How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« on: May 14, 2017, 05:01:10 AM »

So, it allways ends up in the same way.

I get killed/destroyed/run out of supply/fuel and need to start over.

I do 1-2 survey missions to get 100-150.000$

I get killed/destroyed/run out of supply/fuel and need to start over.

I do 1-2 survey missions to get 100-150.000$

etc

Are there no other ways to make money? With every other activity i lose lots of cash. salvaging ships is a joke cos they sell for like 600-800$ and you need lots of supplys to even get em combat ready.

trading missions dont pay much at all compared to survey missions.

Im playing for the tri faction so im mostly on war with everyone else and even if i manage to kill a small pirate fleet, i only get like 2000-3000$ bounty payout.

ill got all savage skill to lvl 2-3 and a few combat/technology ones.



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Megas

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2017, 05:20:18 AM »

The easiest way to make money is to take Surveying 3, get Surveying Equipment hullmod on enough ships (to lower survey requirements to five supplies), and fully survey everything short of gas giants.  Then sell the datapads.  Yes, that takes six skill points away if you had no interest in Industry otherwise.

Without Surveying, grinding for cash can be a slog.  Exploration missions is the easiest way to raise cash early in the game, aside from fully surveying planets (which require Surveying skill).

For named bounty hunting, try to get two or more near each other.  Going after one bounty only before returning home is barely profitable, if everything goes well.
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nathanebht

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2017, 12:05:38 PM »

Keep an eye out for in system or adjacent system missions that you can do. Very easy money.

Two gotchas to look out for:
1) Make sure that the faction will actually let you take the mission. Don't buy the stuff and then discover that your reputation with whoever is too low.

2) Some missions want you to deliver the goods covertly. Which can be a pain or impossible.
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Alex

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2017, 12:12:48 PM »

Are there no other ways to make money? With every other activity i lose lots of cash. salvaging ships is a joke cos they sell for like 600-800$ and you need lots of supplys to even get em combat ready.

As a baseline: even straight up, no-bounty-paying combat can be somewhat profitable once you get the hang of it. Person bounties are good, especially (as mentioned) if you do several per trip. The payout and difficulty of those goes up as you do them, too, going into the... iirc 200k+ range or thereabouts.

There's also salvaging, which is the big one. If there's an "analyze derelict" mission somewhere, chances are that there's other stuff to find in that star system, also. Don't be afraid to "pound into scrap" anything you don't have the skill to salvage properly, and just scavenge through the debris.
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SCC

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2017, 12:24:29 PM »

For named bounty hunting, try to get two or more near each other.  Going after one bounty only before returning home is barely profitable, if everything goes well.
What do you define as "barely profitable"? I've been bounty hunting after switching from survey play style (after rising ship prices so I can spend all those monies on something) and even with 5 cruisers (including 1 Aurora) and 25-30 other ships I'm making profit on >150k bounties. Before I had been earning money with smaller fleet and smaller bounties too. I'm not sure if salvaging bonus is THAT good, though, and if it is, it's another reason that there are 2 misplaced skills in industry tree... That, or it's just me not buying anything and hauling lots of destroyers and other things back home.

@OP: you are NOT supposed to make money by selling damages ships, you're better off scuttling them.
There also was trading, but Alex decided it's not working out for him and now it's barely doable.
On top of that I think you've taken commission too early if you get killed all the time.

Flying Birdy

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2017, 12:48:23 PM »

Survey and derelict trips are the most profitable. You can easily earn 1million on one single trip by surveying and exploring multiple systems in the outer edges.

Bounty killing and regular killing is profitable, but only if you are careful and well-thought out with them. Losing ships without the proper salvage techs makes fights unprofitable. Attacking a large patrol is unprofitable even if you win. Over-deploying fleets against a small target is unprofitable. Chasing a small fleet in hyperspace for a long time using a huge fleet, is unprofitable. Anything that uses any resources than absolutely necessary is unprofitable. Fighting is just not a good way for making money.

If you're going to fleet salvage route, then money is just for supplies, crew and fuel. You do not buy ships. If you need a hammerhead, kill a fleet and take it. If you need a drover, kill a fleet and take it. Money becomes a bit of a secondary resource.

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Pushover

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2017, 05:53:52 PM »

Once you have a decent pile of money (200k or so), procurement missions can be very profitable, as they typically ask for a price of 1.5-2x of the buying cost, and then rush delivery can be another 50%. Build up a stock of goods (especially Organs and Drugs, since those are high profit missions) and only take the easy and profitable missions. Pretty safe if you only need to stay in system. Great for building rep for a commission, too.
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TheWetFish

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2017, 11:45:50 PM »

Regular old battles can be profitable too, even without bounties.  There's a small but steady income of credits from destroying ships and efficient deployment can often recover far more supplies than incurred costs

Costs of battle can be minimised by deploying as few ships as practical, using ships with cheap total deployment costs relative to what they can do and avoiding excessive damage.  A Lasher is often ideal for this, with a Wolf  being another popular choice

These strategies stop recovery costs from becoming prohibitive, as deploying relatively smaller forces than the enemy results in some free CR recovery after the battle.  Total deployment costs in supplies is ( CR per deployment / Recovery rate ) * Recovery cost , or auto-calculated on the wiki.  Not taking excessive damage will also avoid paying daily recovery costs while repairing.  Repairs and CR recovery occur concurrently and you only ever pay 1x recovery cost if either or both is occurring, so a little damage repair while incidentally recovering CR is fine

There are other strategies as well but that should at least let you battle without turning a loss
« Last Edit: May 15, 2017, 12:00:00 AM by TheWetFish »
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Megas

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2017, 08:19:39 AM »

@ SCC:  If I go for a single bounty, then return to town, then much the earnings is spent on replenishing supplies and fuel consumed.  Assuming nothing went wrong and I have all of my ships and weapons, I have a modest profit, maybe enough to buy a small ship or to outfit the new acquisition recovered from battle.  Not really enough to upgrade or expand comfortably.  However, it may be a better idea to leave that profit unspent as a cushion for setbacks.  However, it is not sustainable if the bounties upgrade faster than I can keep up.

One point in the midgame, bounties were starting to outpace my fleet, and it was a razor's edge between survival and ruin.  I had to do a few exploration missions to get more of a money cushion before I resumed bounty hunting.  Things got better when I recovered my first Legion, then an Astral soon after.

One time, I tried to use a smaller fleet to match the enemy instead of bigger fleets.  I lost ships and it was simply more profitable in the long run to overwhelm the enemy with more and/or bigger ships (especially when my ships are unskilled zombie clunkers and theirs are often not) and suffer maybe one or two casualties every few fights.

P.S.  Harvesting system resources (like abandoned stations and derelicts) only works once.  Once harvested, they are gone.  I often visit the same systems repeatedly for bounties, who just cannot stop spawning there.  One time, I had new bounty pop out of thin air seconds after I killed the bounty living next to the planet, and I smashed that one too.  Bounties are the perpetual gift that keeps on giving.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2017, 08:24:11 AM by Megas »
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Cheenis

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #9 on: May 15, 2017, 08:28:06 AM »

Make sure you don't bloat your fleet with too many ships. At a certain point you're spending way too much on supplies and fuel because you feel the need to use EVERY single destroyer or cruiser you've salvaged. Really ups your margins when you go out on runs.

There's also a character perk that halves the amount of supplies used for maintenance.
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Megas

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2017, 08:51:22 AM »

I know that.  Like I said, it may be more profitable to over-deploy and spend a little extra on supplies and fuel than to replace the ships that fell and the weapons lost.  There is always more supplies and fuel in town.  Rare weapons?  Not so much.  The one time I tried to fight a bounty with a smaller fleet, I lost at least a third of my ships and said "screw it" and reloaded and resumed my tried, tested, and true method of crushing the enemy with a superior force.

As for skills, Fleet Logistics 1 is for maintenance.  That is not my primary drain of supplies, repairs and CR recovery are what drains my supplies most.  That said, Fleet Logistics is one of the power skills of the game, with that very good combat-friendly level 3 perk.  Navigation 2 and 3 are highly desirable, but I do not know if I can afford that given the skills I want.

Also, I did not want skills for my first game because I wanted to see how far I could go and to have maximum points to play with for simulator experiments.
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SCC

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2017, 10:27:08 AM »

-snip-
Based on that words... You didn't spend any points in industry, right? Because it's goddamn good cushioning even if I didn't realise that. More salvage = less money spent on supplies and fuel. Easier recovery = no money spent on new ships. Lesser (D) drawbacks = less ships to restore. Honestly, those skills in industry would fit combat play style much more than any kind of industry.
So... Yeah. Industry = easier game (mostly).

Make sure you don't bloat your fleet with too many ships. At a certain point you're spending way too much on supplies and fuel because you feel the need to use EVERY single destroyer or cruiser you've salvaged. Really ups your margins when you go out on runs.
Funnily enough I somehow can ignore that. I keep Shade with me even if I use it every 10 fights, I keep SO Brawler even if I won't  use it. Heck, I even have an Eagle which doesn't get deployed every time because I don't always need it (and because I love my Aurora). A Condor that doesn't get deployed every time, 2 Hammerheads, 1 rarely used PD medusa, fragile Omen... I probably wouldn't notice if they weren't there (except for Eagle and full-spark Condor) and yet I earn money even on the farthest trips. I should try no-industry BH run...

ArkAngel

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #12 on: May 15, 2017, 10:39:22 AM »

Make sure you don't bloat your fleet with too many ships. At a certain point you're spending way too much on supplies and fuel because you feel the need to use EVERY single destroyer or cruiser you've salvaged. Really ups your margins when you go out on runs.

There's also a character perk that halves the amount of supplies used for maintenance.
I just realized this. I was doing survey missions with a large fleet, and 50 fuel usage a day. For survey and explorating. >_<;; maybe I don't need three moras, 2 condors and a bunch of other ships.
I was still profitting by taking two survey missions a time, but sheesh.
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Megas

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Re: How to make money beside doing survey missions?
« Reply #13 on: May 15, 2017, 10:49:45 AM »

Based on that words... You didn't spend any points in industry, right? Because it's goddamn good cushioning even if I didn't realise that. More salvage = less money spent on supplies and fuel. Easier recovery = no money spent on new ships. Lesser (D) drawbacks = less ships to restore. Honestly, those skills in industry would fit combat play style much more than any kind of industry.
So... Yeah. Industry = easier game (mostly).
I know, but that means I am down six points if I do not want Industry otherwise (or less if I get other industry skills).  It is the classic gaming choice:  sacrifice max endgame power for easy start now, or not.

Even if I do not take those skills, I still have enough trouble getting what I want without sacrificing something with only 42 points.

It hurts not having Surveying and Navigation 3.  If I get those, I will not be able to afford some of the combat skills I really desire, like Helmsmanship or some pilot-only carrier skills if I want to pilot a Legion or other carrier... or any warship with Converted Hangar.  It also means no battlestation killer Paragon if I want to indulge in that while it lasts.

Even the whole Industry tree can be the early-game tree if a game drags on long enough that the player grinds so much cash and hardware that he can afford to restore everything and mount whatever he wants.  My game has not gone long enough to reach that point, although I have progressed enough that I no longer need Surveying 3 for cash.  Could use Salvaging to get Converted Hangar and more rare weapons, but I think I will grind for cores and exploit commissions and reputation for that even if that way is much slower.

@ ArkAngel:  If you want to kill enemy AI, you may need those ships.  Also, having a few big capitals with Surveying Equipment helps with costs.  That said, traveling light and avoiding combat and salvaging hauls too big for your fleet can be a good idea.
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