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Author Topic: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits  (Read 4663 times)

goduranus

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Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« on: April 20, 2019, 10:20:34 PM »

Seems like 1 million credits is the point where the player can set up a colony that is guaranteed to becomes profitable as soon as all buildings are completed, this also includes the cost of all the colonists, supplies, heavy machinery, and transport ships. As commonly acknowledged on the forums, as soon as a profitable colony is set up, the game as is  as good as won. So, let’s speculate on how to get to that point the fastest.
So let’s brainstorm some ideas to reach 1 million credits from a Normal/Normal start by the earliest game date, barring finding an nanofores in one of the core world ruins, as that is dependent purely on luck.

My guess of the speed run “build order”, rather disorganized at the moment:
Pick the Wayfarer/Shepherd start get get some cargo capacity, install Safety Override-Unstable injector to escape from pursue enemies.
Go to Galatia to salvage wrecks, repair to 100% and scuttle all of them to obtain heavy machinery and supplies
Buy insulated engines modspec as soon as found to avoid patrols and pirates
Buying up Cerberus and Hounds and using them to smuggle supplies/fuel/drugs/organs/weapons from Hyperbasil to Qaras, and bring crew/volatiles/organics
Buy Augmented Drive Field and install onto speed 10 cargo frigates so nobody can pursue you, as soon as able
As soon as you get 120k credits, buy 500 marines and a transport and taid the space port of Qaras or Chalcedon to increase prices, then sell the marines again to buy more trade goods
Should get to 1M within two or three runs of conducting the raid.

I always go the peaceful route at the start, but if you are a really good pilot, might it be a good idea to get a faction commission and jump straight into combat and collect bounties?

Or maybe do shipwreck scanning missions? But that depends a lot on luck, if you get several scan targets close together you can do in a single run or not.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2019, 03:38:47 AM by goduranus »
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Morgan Rue

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #1 on: April 20, 2019, 11:20:08 PM »

Currently, there's a smuggling route from Echo Breus to Qaras which makes an absurd amount of money. Buy recreational drugs on the black and open markets at Echo Breus, sell them on Qaras. I *believe* this is because Qaras is not a freeport and thus has 30^ or less accessibility, so it cannot effectively import recreational drugs. This is probably going to be fixed in .9.1.

Also, you can set up a "profitable" colony with 150-300k. It won't be very profitable, but it will be fairly safe. I think it's good to set up colonies early on like this and leave them to grow. If you keep market shares below 5%, you will only get pirate raids, and a pirate raid hitting your colony does not matter that much.
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Thaago

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2019, 03:07:35 PM »

You know other than seeing it existed and doing a single run, I've never grinded on the drug trades to see how fast you could ramp up. Might be the fastest way in game time? Going straight into combat can be very profitable and fast if there are several bounties clumped together, but that is a bit luck dependent and I don't know how it compares speed wise to the drug trade.

The other side of the coin is that you need to find a good system and blueprints, things that won't happen at the same time as drug running, but will happen at the same time as bounty hunting.

I would agree that 150k is pretty much minimum money for starting a colony - I prefer 250k just for breathing room!
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Megas

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2019, 04:01:24 PM »

Named bounties are kind of lame unless they are picked off along the way of some other rewarding objective.  Exploration missions tend to pay as much as early named bounties, but can be done with a smaller and faster fleet (and thus, less maintenance cost).  Pirate base bounties (with incomplete tier 1 stations) are rewarding if player can avoid the big pirate fleets.

I would abuse the infinite money bug with Commerce industry, but that will go away in 0.9.1.
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Thaago

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2019, 05:28:10 PM »

Named bounties are kind of lame unless they are picked off along the way of some other rewarding objective.  Exploration missions tend to pay as much as early named bounties, but can be done with a smaller and faster fleet (and thus, less maintenance cost).  Pirate base bounties (with incomplete tier 1 stations) are rewarding if player can avoid the big pirate fleets.

I would abuse the infinite money bug with Commerce industry, but that will go away in 0.9.1.

I agree, the first 40k bounty or so is only worth it for that first initial boost, or if there are a few in a cluster. Once you get into the mid bounties though, they start outstripping the exploration missions - especially when you get several of them in a loop. They usually give a ton of fuel and supplies so I don't consider maintenance costs for those missions. Often times I need to leave supplies and/or weapons behind until I get a few transports or hybrid ships.

Still probably not faster than the drug run though for a speedrun - it takes quite a bit of in game time to travel and check systems if there is ambiguity in where the bounty is.
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xenoargh

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2019, 06:11:06 PM »

I usually hit Bounties in a cluster, with the expectation that I'm hitting 150K+ on my initial run, and it goes up from there.  There's no reason why you cannot buy an early Dram and just hit things hard to get that fast cash.  If you're lucky, you find [REDACTED] or other things along the way.  2 bounty runs later, you're usually positioned to either seriously tech up to an endgame fleet, or buy a colony that's pretty much ready to rumble.

There's no need for a million credits; you can do Tech-Mining Popups for less (not that they're usually worth it unless you get amazing Blueprints early, imo).  The chief thing is that either you need to put up defenses early or keep Access low until you're ready to make a play.
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Megas

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2019, 06:30:06 PM »

Named bounties upgrade quickly, around late 206, often before I can acquire a fleet powerful enough to kill them.  Time based scaling upgrades early game fleets straight to mid or late game fleets before I acquire a similar fleet of my own.  From that point, I cannot catch up until much later.

I tried Tech Mining pop-ups early, but got expeditions I could not repel.  Two fuel is enough to attract League.

Then, if my colony upgrades to size 4, I may need to start hunting for Pathers.  If so, I need to be endgame ready for those.
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Thaago

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2019, 12:44:32 PM »

Named bounties upgrade quickly, around late 206, often before I can acquire a fleet powerful enough to kill them.  Time based scaling upgrades early game fleets straight to mid or late game fleets before I acquire a similar fleet of my own.  From that point, I cannot catch up until much later.

I tried Tech Mining pop-ups early, but got expeditions I could not repel.  Two fuel is enough to attract League.

Then, if my colony upgrades to size 4, I may need to start hunting for Pathers.  If so, I need to be endgame ready for those.

I think it depends on what skill path a player takes - combat skills + a decent cruiser = named bounties are reasonable throughout, except for the really top ones.
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Morgan Rue

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2019, 12:38:03 AM »

For reference, when I did a spacer start I ran the Echo Breus to Qaras route, I believe I ended up with 300k in six months maybe? Running drugs from Echo Breus to Qaras caps out at somewhere around 500k due to Qaras's demand getting sated for a time.

The route is profitable enough that I made around 4-5x the money I started the run with each time.
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RawCode

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #9 on: April 23, 2019, 01:20:45 AM »

1kk is relatively low amount, you can earn this much by smuggling drugs for 20 minutes, then taking minor loan, pay it back and take major one instantly.

also you can break game logic instantly by looting score and setting inside core sector, you will get 300k doing nothing instantly, first extermination expedition can be "averted" with just 50k.
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Rap1d

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2019, 05:30:38 PM »

As others have mentioned already, having 1mil credits and some ships to move cargo and fuel around is a great start, however to overtake the galaxy you need a fleet of high quality ships, or at least a good capital ship, or better yet - blueprints. Some AI cores help. And you need to salvage stuff and explore ruins to get those. Also, if you find a synchotron core or a forge along the way, that helps a colony to get profitable a ton. My go-to strategy for this is to rush a small fleet that can kill any sized derelict drone fleet and a mothership, and after that just take some exploration missions that are bunched together and run to the edge of space and start salvaging and surveying everything, top to bottom, left to right. My go-to fleet is one sunder with some range upgrade and a high intensity laser and either graviton beams or ion beams, depending on your skills so you can stay flux positive to keep the 50 speed boost, and 2 omen frigates. With these 3 ships you can destroy pretty much any number of derelict drones. The rest of the fleet is a couple of shepards and drams and cerberus frigates, just to carry around enough crew and machinery to be able to survey every planet and have some salvaging bonus for the juicy research stations, survey ships, etc... You need like 260 machinery and 300crew, you won't be able to survey gas giants but there is nothing on gas giants anyways mostly...



It works really, really well, kinda makes the game a bit easier than I'd like, but getting the sunder initially is a bit about luck. It's not that uncommon, but you can get pretty unlucky with that.
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goduranus

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2019, 07:53:24 PM »

Actually, just take 4-5 Cerberus and hit all the black holes, then hit all the neutron stars. They have a 50/50 chance of containing a research station. You'd get 90% of all blueprints after doing this. I think you get pristine nanoforge from derelict mothership and synchrotron cores from mining stations.

Thaago

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2019, 09:39:42 PM »

You can get nanoforges, including pristine, from research and mining stations as well.
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Rap1d

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #13 on: May 06, 2019, 03:53:37 AM »

Quote
They have a 50/50 chance of containing a research station


Wow is it really 50/50? You got that from some game files, or is that a sort of guesstimation?  That's insane if it's true.
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goduranus

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Re: Speculation: Strategies for speedrun to 1 million credits
« Reply #14 on: May 06, 2019, 04:27:02 AM »

Just my estimation but the chances are pretty good.

Edit:
Actually some other things you can do to get yourself started early game:
1-accept transport missions but sell the goods
2-get a loan from Tri-tachyon bar and don't pay back
« Last Edit: May 06, 2019, 06:07:14 AM by goduranus »
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