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Found a good way of making money for all you starters like me that want to run vanilla. Head over to Omicon Lyree and watch the terrans and argon duke it out pick up all missiles they drop and BOOM!!! money galore. Ive had them drop 10 missiles that cost 80k each and sometimes they drop firestorm torpedos which also sell for 80k each, ive racked up about 8 mil doing this.

I'm assuming this is in X3AP?

Must be AP, OL is only in AP filled with missile drops.
A Ways to make money:
AP 2billion in 2hours: get a freigter filled with nividium let it enter the sector PTNI HQ, but all stockexchange shares for nividion in PTNI HQ, let the freigther leave the area, sell all shares, repead.
Or do anything that work in TC but free spit(they are now randomized)
TC much slower: collect the free ships from any table, sell what you don't need:
Now you can:
Exploit Nividium once again, but you have to sell it by filling and selling freighters at the shipyard.
Use boarding to steal capships on mass.
Universe traders.
Combat Missions.
...

X3 R
use the Nividium exploit like in TC
somehow e.g. by collecting free ships again get 5mil and a station(can be cheap), get the Hyperion and some PSGs kill Xenon Caps on mass, soon they start dropping PPCs in large quantities.
build a complex from their sells

X2
Get any ship that can use PSG and a control thrusters extension. kill Xenon Caps on mass you wont be hit, as the AI ignores you drift when calculating your velocity, soon XI mission will appear, do the first an buy a decent ship with PSG form the money, get a second but don't take it but wait in the offering station with seta on for a minute, dock agait, the mission has dupplicated, do them one by one (the is no extra money gained for doing many of them at the same time and they become unstable)

XT build Food productions, buy resources at low prices and sell at extreme prices, to earn the starting money capture ships and do manual trade sili and crystals are most effektive, for crystals better get a jumpdrive and a navsat close to any crys fac.

XBtF build stations, any stations you can get e.g. a SPP for 7200 so there is no real cost involved.

How did we go from good respectable salvaging operations to cheesy exploits in just three posts?

Timsup2nothin wrote:How did we go from good respectable salvaging operations to cheesy exploits in just three posts?

by forgetting to mention the used game.
btw. collecting missiles in a war zone is more or less and exploit, too.
no disturbing enemies, regular high value loot, nividium is just even faster.

A crate dropping from a ship is at the mercy of RNG. Finding ships that duke it out is somewhat under the rule of RNG too. Admittedly, the X3AP War Sectors have "fairly good odds".


What is "honest", what is "exploit"? Is there a difference between cheesy and sugar-coated?

A stereotype is that mobsters own and run the waste management (trash collection) business. Legit facade, but not entirely clean. Is that honest?

Someone stated that Japan at some point had four classes: farmers, merchants, samurai and clergy. In practice the farmers were the least respected and poor, but formally the merchants were the lowest social class because they did not do honest work to get money.



I think it was near beginning of my game of X3TC, when Kha'ak invaded Treasure Chest, the Argon's responded, and I saw a crate of Hammer heavies. 20+. I had no way to pick that up. A fortune for a starter, yet just beyond my grasp.

I prefer to kill for money. Honest work.

oopse Yes, in AP

LOOOL where do you get a freighter filled with Nvidium

PowerTrip wrote:LOOOL where do you get a freighter filled with Nvidium

Remote mining with special command software.

That's the core. There's a whole textbook on specifics scattered through this forum.

Can someone list what the "war sectors" are in AP?

Or any other sectors that often have skirmishes? It's very hard to get money in the beginning (Brant Kert start).

The war sectors are the ones that show up red on your map, on both sides of the Argon/Terran 'border' at Heretic's End. It isn't just that skirmishes happen there, it's that both sides tend to commit, and lose, significant numbers of capital ships that drop big loot when they destroy each other.

But, IMO there are easier and more entertaining ways to make credits than just watching them slug it out and sweeping up at the end of the bout...and a Nostalgic Argon start puts you far from the front in a very slow ship, so salvage ops in the war sectors are not immediately available anyway. Elena's Fortune is close, and sometimes you can get good salvage there after a pirate invasion.

For that start I usually use the starting Buster to cap a freighter...either a Paranid in Argon space, or if I make the long flight to Split Fire without finding something suitable then once I get there anything goes. By the time I get one capped there's usually enough spilled freight to scoop up with it and send it off to sell that I can get some useful equipment to make progress easier, like more guns.

Timsup2nothin wrote:The war sectors are the ones that show up red on your map, on both sides of the Argon/Terran 'border' at Heretic's End. It isn't just that skirmishes happen there, it's that both sides tend to commit, and lose, significant numbers of capital ships that drop big loot when they destroy each other.

But, IMO there are easier and more entertaining ways to make credits than just watching them slug it out and sweeping up at the end of the bout...and a Nostalgic Argon start puts you far from the front in a very slow ship, so salvage ops in the war sectors are not immediately available anyway. Elena's Fortune is close, and sometimes you can get good salvage there after a pirate invasion.

For that start I usually use the starting Buster to cap a freighter...either a Paranid in Argon space, or if I make the long flight to Split Fire without finding something suitable then once I get there anything goes. By the time I get one capped there's usually enough spilled freight to scoop up with it and send it off to sell that I can get some useful equipment to make progress easier, like more guns.

Is this state of affairs present in the very beginning (no plot done) of the Brant Kert Argon start? If so, I'm half-way there already. Scavenged enough to max out speed, get 6 IREs, and increase cargo hold a bit.

mistercat wrote:Is this state of affairs present in the very beginning (no plot done) of the Brant Kert Argon start? If so, I'm half-way there already. Scavenged enough to max out speed, get 6 IREs, and increase cargo hold a bit.

Yes, the Argon-Terran war is in effect from the start of the game, and continues until you decide to end it (or it doesn't, if you choose otherwise ) VERY late in the game.

As Tim pointed out, Elena's Fortune also gives salvaging opportunities - nowhere near as lucrative as the War Zone, but that can be an advantage when starting out in the game and learning the ropes. In fact, this applies to most sectors neighbouring pirate sectors, though Elena's Fortune is probably the most reliable one, as it borders a major pirate territory on two sides.

An alternative early-game money-spinner for a player starting in the Argon Prime district is to smuggle Space Fuel from the distilleries to the trading station in Herron's Nebula - ideal because a fast ship is best (you want to avoid getting pulled over with the stuff, as it's contraband), and not requiring a large cargobay. That trading station is unusual in that it offers the top price for the hooch, so it's profitable to run it even if you're not getting it below average market price.

Talking about making money honestely, started as a Nostalgic Argon the other day and the toughest parts is getting started with only 1k credits. Usually I traffic space fuel like RAVEN pointed out but this time I decided to stay close to the starting sector and see what else I could to.

Turns out patrol missions are very profitable at this point. Most of the time you can't even reach a sector in time, or the enemies you see get blown up by friendlies, but most ships drop a missile when destroyed. Up to hammerhead missiles from blastclaws. So after only 15 minutes I had an excess of 100k from the leftovers of just one mission.

@MrFiction: that's not shabby at all - enough to get you a jumpdrive, if you like (not necessarily right away, of course), which is one of the most important income-enhancing pieces of tech...

My most commonly used approach to Nostalgic Argon involves the IR missile fab in Argon Prime. It frequently starts out full of mosquito missiles. Shuttling them to the EqD is a bit dull, but after a handful of round trips you build up enough Argon rep to buy a Disco. At that point I trade the barely equipped Buster for a fully kitted Discoverer and get about the business of starting the game.

Timsup2nothin wrote:My most commonly used approach to Nostalgic Argon involves the IR missile fab in Argon Prime. It frequently starts out full of mosquito missiles. Shuttling them to the EqD is a bit dull, but after a handful of round trips you build up enough Argon rep to buy a Disco. At that point I trade the barely equipped Buster for a fully kitted Discoverer and get about the business of starting the game.

I do something similar from in the early game when starting in the Argon Prime 'hood: the Dumbfire Missile Plex fills up periodically and can be emptied for good profit. This is by no means the main income, but it boosts my finances most handily from time to time...

If I start with a Buster, I tend to trade it in for a truck first, sharply steepening the income curve, then get me a nice little bike (aka Market Discoverer.) Second truck starts training CLS2 (usually my first one does, too: I use CLS2 commands as MORT instructions while the first truck has no jumpdrive - the trips take the same amount of time, but the flight time starts adding up right from the start.)

Nah the first 3 reputation steps are easy to get, dock at any TS and repeatedly buy and sell any ware.

ubuntufreakdragon wrote:Nah the first 3 reputation steps are easy to get, dock at and TS and repeatedly buy and sell any ware.

Yet ANOTHER exploit! Sigh...

RAVEN.myst wrote:

Timsup2nothin wrote:My most commonly used approach to Nostalgic Argon involves the IR missile fab in Argon Prime. It frequently starts out full of mosquito missiles. Shuttling them to the EqD is a bit dull, but after a handful of round trips you build up enough Argon rep to buy a Disco. At that point I trade the barely equipped Buster for a fully kitted Discoverer and get about the business of starting the game.

I do something similar from in the early game when starting in the Argon Prime 'hood: the Dumbfire Missile Plex fills up periodically and can be emptied for good profit. This is by no means the main income, but it boosts my finances most handily from time to time...

If I start with a Buster, I tend to trade it in for a truck first, sharply steepening the income curve, then get me a nice little bike (aka Market Discoverer.) Second truck starts training CLS2 (usually my first one does, too: I use CLS2 commands as MORT instructions while the first truck has no jumpdrive - the trips take the same amount of time, but the flight time starts adding up right from the start.)

As an Argon I'm less inclined to buy freighters early on. I usually have far more of them than I can get shields for pretty early. In my current newly started game I have a CLS Mercury running unshielded to supply the shield fab in CBSE, and two Vultures and a Dolphin that I haven't gotten pilots for yet but also don't have shields for. And my personal use Toucan has only one out of three. The only shielded freighter I have is my Mercury that supplies the Dockmeter freighters welded to the distilleries in Herron's.