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[Nivri]

Soooo I'm in the point where I have atleast 2 colonies. They are growing slowly. I find myself at times having a ton of cash, then spending it all on the colony which only gives me atleast 40K back each month R.I.P.

Anyways, does anyone have money making tips to counter this never ending cycle of: Lots of money, spend in colony, die from sadness, do missions again/ or bounties, then repeating the process... I also have problems with trading because when I try to trade with pirates, persean, and luddic path, I tend to get raided/stopped and killed...

Any tips or link to tips would be much appreciated.

[prav]

Raid, raid, and raid some more. It's like trading but on a five-finger discount. Simply chaining big bounties is also effective if you have a solid fleet.

Another option is asking yourself if you really need that Battlestation right this second.

[Nivri]

Raid, raid, and raid some more. It's like trading but on a five-finger discount. Simply chaining big bounties is also effective if you have a solid fleet.

Another option is asking yourself if you really need that Battlestation right this second.

I actually have a question about raiding... do you raid the core worlds?? Or do you wait for the AI made Pirate and Luddic Path bases outside the Core worlds?? If you do raid the core worlds, what should I look out for, supplies? fuel? drugs?

[Talkie Toaster]

You can raid pirate/pather core worlds stations without getting into (more) trouble.

[MajorTheRed]

Staking several exploration missions in the same star cluster: salvage cover your travel fees, obtained resources can be stored in colony until you have several K of high value resources (machinery, transplutonic metal, volatile) you can sell in one batch, and you will make several hundreds K (200-400K$) from the pay itself.

Alternatively, aligning to a faction will provide free cash each month. Not that much but ultimately it's free cash anyway.

Finally, colony management can be made profitable early by not using administrators (they cost too much for a small size colony) and designing colonies so they support each other. A classic is one low hazard farming colony supporting a high-hazard rich mining colony. Add refinery to the first one and both colonies produce stuff for the other one (food and ore). Ultimately I tried to have one profitable colony (the mining one, 60-80 K per month), supported by others to lower upkeep costs.

Hope it helps!

[isyourmojofly]

Pouncing on supply fleets carrying high-value commodities (heavy armaments are a good one), then selling them off can make a lot of money.

If you can't hit them yet, smaller drug-smuggling fleets are also a good target.

[Drazan]

Piracy.
If you have a solid fleet with fast ships go out to hyperspace and prey upon mercentile convoys coming from colonies with heavy industry. They have a ton of supplies and heavy armamnets wich can usually be sold to pirates at ridiculus prices.

[Pappus]

I like to do the 200k bounties. Most of those fleets are really feeble or full of dmods.

[KDR_11k]

A commission is a good option, will more than cover your fleet's expenses.

Doing exploration missions while stashing everything except the bare minimum needed for exploration is quite profitable too, the smaller your fleet the lower your monthly expenses.

[Talkie Toaster]

A commission is a good option, will more than cover your fleet's expenses.

Doing exploration missions while stashing everything except the bare minimum needed for exploration is quite profitable too, the smaller your fleet the lower your monthly expenses.

This is also a *lot* easier with high-tech fleets. Clearing out drones from probes requires a much larger low/mid-tech fleet than it does a high-tech one. A couple of phase lance Tempests and a Medusa or Aurora will deal with almost any fleet without taking a scratch.

[Megas]

The pop-up bases have plenty of supplies, fuel, and drugs to raid from, and you do not care if the decivilize, if they can.  Core pirate worlds' commodities can vary by world, and can decivilize.  (Kanta's Den is an exception if you did not free Zal yet.)

Often, I just raid for supplies so I do not need to buy them for my fleet, although I sell them if I can get 200 or more per unit.  If some planet will pay overinflated prices for drugs, I may steal though instead.

Another decent money-maker:  In Askonia, steal lots of Volatiles from Umbra (they have huge surplus), then sell them to Sindria (they usually have shortage).  Even with 30% tariff, player can make close to about 200k.

[Rayneth]

Bit of a tangent, might be worth having one High Command industry on your hot or extremely hot planet if you have one. They spawn superior fleets in greater numbers than just a normal Patrol HQ but consume an industrial slot, which is well worth it to prevent jealousy-induced disruptions and raiding.

Else you can make quite a lot of cash selling AI cores to Tri-Tachyon. If you've been sitting on a horde, it's worth it to sell Gammas and Betas which you can farm from certain dangerous areas of space. Alphas I like to keep for later.

Chaining bounties is also a pretty decent way to make money when they get to the 200-300k range, especially if you have a strong enough fleet to take them without any losses.

[Albreo]

The best quest so far is the old cargo delivery quest which will scale with your cargo capacity. Lately, it's a bit harder to find with more quests in the RNG pool but you can get a quest that net you 300k pretty easily with 10000 cargo capacity. Heck, I found one to deliver 24000 ores for 1 million credit. Once you dump the cargo out that colony will also suffer surplus and you can buy it back very cheaply.

The most reliable source of income is to raid the pirate world for loot that you know are in shortage somewhere, usually Organic and Domestic Goods. Also, spawned pirate station has infinite loots you can raid it over and over every day. Don't destroy them if they spawn in a very favorable location like Tia or very far out near systems you haven't explored yet.

Or you can also talk with trade type contacts, sometimes they will sell you commodity at half price.

To start a colony, you need proper preparation to reduce the stress on you from babysitting them or running quests to keep yourself in the green. I like to start 3 colonies all at once with Nanoforge on hand and a few other useful items, so, go exploration early is recommended. Some other advice: Getting faction trade synergy early can cut large chunks of upkeep up to 50%, hence I start 3 colonies that can encompass all resources. Aiming for one High Command, first rank station, and Orbital Works with Nanoforge so your colonies can take care of themself with most raids and you're free to do more quests. Boost the colony accessibility with story points is worth it and is a great way to increase income somewhat. Hazard pay is very expensive and Cryorevival is a better alternative. Any planet you are not keen on opening free port should have Commerce.