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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Making money in the new version is too easy  (Read 21071 times)

DancingMonkey

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Making money in the new version is too easy
« on: March 28, 2021, 12:02:10 AM »

In the old version you could make decent money doing trading missions and the like.

Now there are no trading missions, instead Sindra and other planets have huge needs of resources.

I just spent most of the early game buying drugs from Tri-tech and selling them to whatever planet wanted them the most, usually at 3x or 4x the price. With 1000 cargo space you will be buying 150k worth of drugs, sell them for 300 - 400k without much trouble.

Then when I got to having a cargo hold space of 2000+ I can find cheap X and sell it to a planet that needs it usually for 10 times the price I bought it at. 1 dollar ore, sell it for 13 bucks each. Sure cargo capacity kinda limits you but not really. The lower supply use is a major factor to why this is so strong. I think I pay something like 2 supplies a day for 2000 cargo space thanks to two new skills. Always buy lobster when I am in the system too, and I am there a lot due to Sindra always being low on something it seems.

As usual I started a colony ASAP, I did this in the last version too, but now I don't need my fleet to defend it, before any raids start happening I already managed to get a space station and patrol HQ which so far have been enough. I got them by abusing waystation.

How to get rich using a colony:

Build a waystation, go sell supplies, fuel and crew to whatever planets offer more than their base prices. I carry off 2000 supllies for 100 bucks each and sell them for around 150. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. If your colony is close to the core worlds you can be raking in a lot of money this way.

I feel no need to do combat or explore as I can just keep making infinite amounts of money as my colony grows larger and larger and generates more money for me and I spend all my extra cash on more cargo space for my fleet. I currently have 0 weapons mounted on my entire fleet and just run with a bunch of frigates modified for max cargo space / burnspeed.

BTW I found some new items, no idea how to use them but they seem cool.

Overall I like the new patch / changes but the game seems a lot easier. Maybe cause I am used to playing with mods that make the game harder and don't have them currently due to them not being updated for the new version that I am finding it a bit easier.


Also kudos to the AI changes, I am no longer invincable taking out entire fleets of frigates using 1 cruiser, they now surround me quite well and kill my Cruiser.

This is just my initial early game trading / smuggling observations. I have gotten my fleet wiped like 5 times now but still make so much money with 0 effort unlike the previous version.

My character is lvl 10 which I guess would be considered midgame normally with the new patch but I editted the max level to 40 in the config file so I was still considering it early game. Size 5 colony that so far has been untouchable to raids sent against it without me helping out.


One thing I kinda don't like is how the story point cost for colony upgrades doubles each time and once you spend them on the colony there is no way to get them back. I kinda messed up and spent them on the first 4 buildings i made on my colony and now there is pretty much no way I am ever gonna stockpile up 16 story points when there is so much to do with them.

Anyways I am gonna focus on actual combat missions and exploration now and see how that is, but currently the colony stuff is too easy, in the last version it was a bit annoying but pretty similar, the worst thing in the last version was how slow colonies grew but now they seem to grow at a reasonable pace. I am not sure how you can really fix the way station thing, I did it much less in the last version cause cargo space, supply costs, and resource stockpiles were a bit harder to get / do but now it seems like a braindead way to make tons of money.

Kinda ranty, it's late, might edit this to make more sense tomorrow.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2021, 12:14:16 AM by DancingMonkey »
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Sordid

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2021, 05:59:49 PM »

I just spent most of the early game buying drugs from Tri-tech and selling them to whatever planet wanted them the most, usually at 3x or 4x the price. With 1000 cargo space you will be buying 150k worth of drugs, sell them for 300 - 400k without much trouble.

Yup, that's been my go-to strategy as well. I have yet to build colonies, but every other money source seems to pale in comparison to just dealing industrial quantities of illegal drugs on interplanetary scale. It's incredibly easy, too, since the drugs are legal in TriTach space where you buy them, and the demand is usually in pirate colonies, which don't seem to mind at all if you sell on the black market to avid the tariffs. I smell a nerf incoming.

Quote
Sindra always being low on something it seems.

Ah, that reminds me of the blessed days of .65a, where colonies would buy unlimited amounts of stuff at shortage-inflated prices. Back then I used to just ferry massive quantities of food from the Luddites to Sindria storage and then dump them on the market when the periodic famine hit.

Never change, Sindria. Never change.
[close]
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Steven Shi

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2021, 10:16:08 PM »

Well, drug dealing IS suppose to be insanely profitable...

Maybe Alex need to code in an event where the equivalent of INTERPOL busts your ass in a sting and you have to cough up a massive fine or be black listed on all non-pirate worlds. Current patrol inspection just doesn't have enough risk vs the reward of drug money.

Anyway, Alex really need to take a long look at the economy balance and add some self-adjusting mechanics or players will just min/max all the fun out of the game.
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Goumindong

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2021, 10:57:56 PM »

I mean. Its not even the easiest way to make money. Why do you even pay for the drugs in the first place? Just steal them with marines!
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Megas

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2021, 04:30:39 AM »

I mean. Its not even the easiest way to make money. Why do you even pay for the drugs in the first place? Just steal them with marines!
I made good money stealing stuff from stations.  Even pop-up pirate bases that I cannot kill yet are a good source of free supplies and fuel, which means less money spent keeping my fleet feed and happy.

However, some of the core worlds have less stability than before (thanks to Commerce), and it takes months to recover stability from unrest.  Player can easily send stability of a core world to zero (and risk decivilization) if he is not careful.
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rabbistern

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2021, 08:07:39 AM »

i dont know man, i think its quite the opposite.
in my midgame fleet the 150k--250k remnant/derelict/deserter bounties dont even pay up for fuel and supply costs to travel the 40 light years and back, base strike bounties barely even pay up your recovery costs.
colonies used to be able to make you millions per month, but for me theyre total liabilities now. using hazard pay to keep my mining colony from having -10% growth my 2 colonies give me a total profit of -30k. thats a loss of 30k, not a profit. my main source of income is just my tritach commission, and i have to pay out of my pockets for my colonies to stay afloat, which by the way are really close to the core worlds and have megaports for over 100% accessibility.

the only thing i can really agree on being a fat win is the ship jacker guy, i mean come on youre getting combat ships at like 30% of market price, without any repercussions at all. it just seems so stupid to me, its a space faring civilization with FTL travel, that has the means to survive for over 200 years, life support systems for years in space(and hyperspace), the technology to colonize and thrive on volcanic, irradiated, toxic worlds etc, yet somehow security cant figure out whos behind a 19th century style train robbery? i steal a good half of tritachs combat cruisers and they remain 100/100 cooperative with me, now thats cheaty.

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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2021, 09:33:10 AM »

@rabbistern
I had some supply upkeep issues, but I took the 50% supply upkeep reduction and that mostly solved them. Idk what your specific situation is, but that helped me.
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BHunterSEAL

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2021, 11:27:51 AM »

Question along the lines of this thread—I’ve downloaded the new patch and a few mods but am busy with work so have limited time to dig through jsons and make edits. Plus I have a hankering to jump in and play. One thing that has bothered me about the recent releases is the massive monthly payments that ostensibly come from the tutorial quest, whether or not it’s skipped. Are these still in the game / do they affect all starts?
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Sarissofoi

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2021, 01:24:07 PM »

One thing that has bothered me about the recent releases is the massive monthly payments that ostensibly come from the tutorial quest, whether or not it’s skipped. Are these still in the game / do they affect all starts?
Yes
Go find settings.json and edit
   "enableSpacerStart":true,
   "enableStipend":false,
Spacer start is extra hard start where you start with unarmed shuttle and need to pay child support that is increased as you level up.

Back to the topic.
Smuggling or even dark market trading always was broken.
You can make obscure amount of money from it and consequences are almost zero(if patrol catch you up you may lose some rep points or goods if you don't use smuggler vessels).
Black market trading suppose to be high reward - high risk to earn money but its actually high reward - almost zero risk.
I do not even imagine what going on in Alex head.

Sutopia

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2021, 02:01:40 PM »

Easy fix: pirate now have a chance to rob you on their doorstep because that’s what pirates do.
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Pushover

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2021, 03:48:19 PM »

Question along the lines of this thread—I’ve downloaded the new patch and a few mods but am busy with work so have limited time to dig through jsons and make edits. Plus I have a hankering to jump in and play. One thing that has bothered me about the recent releases is the massive monthly payments that ostensibly come from the tutorial quest, whether or not it’s skipped. Are these still in the game / do they affect all starts?

Pretty sure the monthly payments are paying your crew wages, and it should only be on the order of ~5-10k early on. If you skip the tutorial, you start with the bonus as if you had completed the tutorial, which is a 15k/month income for 3? years. This should be enough to offset the wages of your crew.
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Arcagnello

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2021, 03:57:18 PM »

While smuggling and smart selling has become more profitable, raiding planets is now the best way to make disgusting amounts of money fast even in early game if you've got a lot of supply efficient storage, around 1-2k marines and the  Ground Operations Leadership skill. All you need to do is follow the following rules (they're not supposed to be in order, you should try and follow them for the best results tough)

1)Sell to Pirates and Luddic Path and do not sell over their demand to get the most profits. They are by far the two factions with the most overall demands.

2)The primary target for raiding are mining planets as they'll have quite the storage of one of the most valuable, easy to fit in your cargo resource: Recreational Drugs. Reasonably large colonies will likely fetch you over 1000 units of it per raid

3)When raiding, always make sure to never suffer anything higher than "marginal" losses since that will mean more marine replacements and no chance to level their proficiency up.

4)As a rule of thumb, you should stop raiding a colony if its stability risks to go under 1-2 as that poses a risk of your ever so precious money farm to Decivilize.

5)Always make sure to perform a Tactical Bombardment before raiding as that will increase your raid effectiveness

6)If you plan on raiding a planet for the same resource more than once, make sure your first raid does not cause said resource to go into deficit as that will cause more Marine losses.

7) Do not use civilian transports for carrying your troops. Use Militarized transports instead wich not only do not need Militarized subsystems but usually also come with the Ground Support Package, wich increases your raiding strength. You'll easily be able to obtain a couple of Valkyrie troop transports raising your raid strength by 100 early game, but the real prize if finding some of those elusive Phantom class Phase transports wich carry more troops, have all the detection benefits of phase ships AND give you 200 raid strength!
« Last Edit: March 30, 2021, 03:59:24 PM by Arcagnello »
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Linnis

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2021, 11:27:02 PM »

While bounty hunting has you kill one captial and 6 high tech cruisers for 250k...
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Arcagnello

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2021, 02:28:17 AM »

While bounty hunting has you kill one captial and 6 high tech cruisers for 250k...

Bounties are only a fraction of missions that won't properly scale as the game and difficulty progresses. Smuggling missions, dead object delivery, pirate syndacate bounties, raiding missions, disruption missions, they all fail to be worth your time after the early game.

While there are solid consequences of raiding planets,  they too do not scale all that well and can be dealt with ease if you know what you're doing. Increasing the retaliatory fleet strength and making them spawn with more likely hood and track you faster as you keep raiding the same faction's planets would go a long way towards giving the currently most profitable way you can spend your time have adequate risks in pursuing.

See to that AND make missions scale better with time and the game will feel much more varied in options!
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Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.
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Pushover

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Re: Making money in the new version is too easy
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2021, 03:38:31 AM »

After testing, it was fairly trivial to achieve ~10m value (ships + equipment + money) within the first ingame year, starting with the Wolf start. Mostly due to Pirates/Pathers having permanent shortages that don't get solved by the player's black market trade. Almost purely done through trading. Raiding alongside could probably earn even more, but I'm always hesitant to raid the Pirates frequently, because if you do it too much, they decivilize and you kill your golden goose.
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