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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: How to get rich in Starsector?  (Read 5528 times)

JAL28

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How to get rich in Starsector?
« on: July 23, 2021, 06:36:27 PM »

Everywhere I look, everyone is getting rich off presumably colonies. Everywhere, I see monthly incomes in the several hundred thousands. Meanwhile, my balance is somewhere in the low 30 thousands, decreasing further every month. Despite running 2 colonies, they are barely pulling their own weight(only one even earns over 10k a month nowadays), and my operative/administrator/SPECIFICALLY officer salaries are cutting deep into my income.

What am I doing wrong? Am I not spamming enough colonies? Am I holding good relations with the Hegemony too preciously? Am I just not selling enough drugs? Am I over-worrying about money when I really shouldn't be?

Some complications I have regarding the usual alpha core free moneyprinter setup:
-Commission with the Hegemony. I don't feel like dealing with inspections and risk losing the commission, the only thing that's keeping me from going into negative on my income
-Hegemony allied with Luddic Church, which would mean I would have 2 enemies. Not to mention they are literally the second largest alliance in my game
-Non hostile to Remnant due to Midnight Dissonant, but not high enough relations with them to get the free AI cores. This makes AI core farming more tedious since I don't feel like going back to hostile with them but I can't to get missions from Midnight that aren't bounties for the same factions I am commissioned with or trade disruption(pretty sure those are indie convoys which would be...issue riddled)
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Kohlenstoff

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2021, 06:56:32 PM »

The most people telling about easy money had either luck or read some kind of tuturial or forgotten their struggle to learn how to make that so called easy money. But reality is, that it takes a while to find the right ways to get and keep the required steady flow of money. Colonies are only one of these ways. Bounties are also quite effective, if you dont pick the largest or smallest. Usually there is an optimum size, where a bounty is quite profitable and causes no mentionable losses. But having too big fleets or the wrong ships makes bounties somtimes even completely unprofitable.

Your colonies are maybe still so unprofitable because they need to import too much. 2 Planets are not enough for a single system. Take at least 3 per system. Look in the same system for a way to produce as much as possible in your own colonies in the same system. Hazard rating is less important, than being able to produce everything in the same system and being close to core worlds.

JAL28

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2021, 07:16:28 PM »

My 2 colonies are actually in different systems, a jungle and a terran.

The terran usually makes about 20k+ profits but that has reduced to ~6k. I am suspecting pirate disruptions though I am still surprised at how terribly they have impacted my monies.

Unfortunately the jungle only has 2 planets, the terran has 3 I believe, havent found any other systems that wouldnt kill me through hazard related expenses, and in fact most of them dont have habitables which is something I usually like to go find first
« Last Edit: July 23, 2021, 07:20:32 PM by JAL28 »
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Sutopia

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2021, 07:20:46 PM »

Just be Kosher






[close]

Commission means hostile toward certain factions which reduces accessibility
Pirate activity reduces accessibility
Accessibility is life.
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Since all my mods have poor reputation, I deem my efforts unworthy thus no more updates will be made.

JAL28

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2021, 07:25:36 PM »

The thing is, the commission is the only thing keeping me from dipping into negative income as both my colonies cannot support my egregious expenses(seriously I need to pay 25k+ to my officers monthly) and that would be kinda bad no cap

Also I am running nex and I do want to experience 4x gameplay in starsector

(also is it me or is commerce necessary for mad profits? all of those colonies have commerce installed)
« Last Edit: July 23, 2021, 07:45:56 PM by JAL28 »
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Kohlenstoff

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2021, 01:52:59 AM »

To make the profits really good, you have to do as much profit increasing things as possible. Currently you don't want AI-Cores, are commissioned and are not able to have at least 3 colonies in the same system. Any of these 3 things means about 20 % less of the maximum possible profit.

The remaining 3 main constants are the general accessibilty (pirates!), correctly chosen improvements and the colony items (Especially the Holosuites). Any of those 3 can also mean 20 % less or more profit.

JAL28

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2021, 05:32:50 AM »

are not able to have at least 3 colonies in the same system.

Regarding this, my main system has 3 planets which I am aiming to make self sufficient in most aspects, with the only necessary imports(actually covered by a gas giant colony 5ly from the main system) being volatiles and/or Domain-era artifacts(boggled's terraforming mod)

I think I may have been overreacting when I said I wanted the absolute most profits. What I need are colonies that can back anything I wanna do financially, like buying Paragons at Prism/building ships/getting AI cores from midnight or funding war efforts/keeping my crew and officers paid, not anything too extreme
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KDR_11k

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2021, 06:59:03 AM »

Generally, yes, commissions for the early game, colonies for later on. I still think it's a good idea to go for a low hazard (especially habitable and arable) planet for your first colony since that means lower investment. Personally I don't mind the hostilities from the commission or fighting pirates and luddites, after all I want to use those guns I buy with all that money on something. If you don't absolutely have to use administrators then make sure they're actually worth their keep, especially the 25k ones will often cost you more in salary than they add to your colony's income. The 5k ones are more likely to make a profit.

Now those are your monthly income, you can definitely generate money pretty quickly by doing missions. Do the missions for Galatia Academy using a lean fleet (you don't need much firepower for them though having a bit of it can be useful when you're exploring and the ruins or stations have automated defenses) for some easy money.

Don't worry too much about Hegemony AI inspections, they can be bribed with a single story point (or is that different in Nex?) and their frequency is based on the amount of AI cores you use so a few AI administrators won't get you inspections more than once every few cycles.
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hydremajor

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2021, 09:44:51 AM »

Can't help but feel like the game goes out of its way to punish the player for having more ships/stuff than absolutely needed, how many is that ? *** if I know
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SCC

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2021, 11:04:48 AM »

Hegemony commission doesn't stop their AI inspections from coming. Maybe it decreases their frequency, but the only sure way is to get rid of Hegemony entirely.

Kohlenstoff

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #11 on: July 25, 2021, 03:24:12 AM »

Another way to prevent AI inspections is to fill a 6-10 planet system only with self sustaining level 3 colonies and to make them profitable you can now core them up. At level 3 no AI inspection and no luddic will come. Hazard and no freeport will reduce grow. But this requires planning ahead and a suitable system close to core worlds and a noticable amount of starter money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqhN-MuvQdM
« Last Edit: July 25, 2021, 03:30:40 AM by Kohlenstoff »
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hydremajor

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #12 on: July 25, 2021, 10:18:58 AM »

selling excess heavy machinery and fuel can net a pretty penny depending how much you accrued...
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JAL28

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #13 on: July 25, 2021, 08:25:38 PM »

Update: Now with commerce my main colony(Terran) is pulling an average of 70k-110k a month depending on who I’m at war with, plus most of my colonies are finally beginning to earn profits even with hazard pay, which is cool

Of course my balance is still dropping because I spend money like crazy on various things
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JUDGE! slowpersun

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Re: How to get rich in Starsector?
« Reply #14 on: July 26, 2021, 12:29:29 AM »

It may not matter since everything was supposedly changed in a manner that should have canceled out any negative effects due to the changes, but I am curious how much (or how little) capping the growth of player colonies to size 6 limits total colony income due to population size... I guess because calculating population growth using a sigmoid curve is too much maths!  I only half joke about this, since it took Paradox like 16 updates to Stellaris before figuring out a sigmoid growth curve, and they can afford to run teams of people to crap out DLCs while fixing the previous team's screwups AND still finding time to also add their own screwups.

Although some of the issue with player colonies is that they don't generate any income from trade with other colonies in the player's faction, and you never get any income from tariffs even though it's YOUR colony (regardless of whether you're also trading using the commerce improvement, which supposedly doesn't pay you tariff money since it's "run" by Independents to cover up code that will hopefully be improved by 1.0 release).  You apparently can conquer the entire sector using Nex mod and trade income drops to zero since you don't get any money from trade anymore!
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I wasn't always a Judge...
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