How to easily upgrade your starting ship/make money

[csaba]

With the 10 mill thread already going on this will be less important. However you can still get M sized ships/bombers for free this way without the faction reputation grind.

First you need to hire marines. Fill your ship full, the Elite can fit 3 and you.

Now go and explore. Fly around and use the long range scanner to ping stations. Although most free ships I found are near gates/highway entries.


Non owned ships are easy to spot on the map as they have no faction call sign. The Peregrine on the picture was only name "Peregrin Vanguard" instead of the usual "TEL Peregrin Vanguard" or others.

Once there beware of the mines. They are always around abandoned ships. Sometimes a few sometimes more. They have a yellow glow. Try to put yourself and the neutral ship in a position where the background is dark ideally black, they are easily visible that way.
Stay 1-2 Km away from the ship with the mines and start pocking at the mines from that distance. If the ships shield drops it will show up on the hud, normally it has no indicators above unless targeted. If this happens wait a bit it will recharge, haven't found a mine field yet that completely took out the shields of a ship if I took it slow.

Once the mines cleared select the ship, press F and chose claim. A small marine pod will launch towards the ship. Sometimes they bug out and orbit the target you can send another in this case and kill the loser.

Now pray that the marine doesn't blow up all the systems on capture.. It will sadly happen.

You can find small ships this way as well. Marines can't board those. You'll have to board those in the space suit after hacking.

TIP:When selling captured ships for profitssssss, first enter the upgrade screen and set the automatic upgrade slide to the minimum. This will strip everything from the ship including consumables.

Sometimes these ships come with a hella lot of laser turrets/satellites. I've got 2 million out of a pirate Kestrel this way where I forced the pilot to bail, simply selling it would have been a 1,5 million loss.

Found an Ospray, 2 Vultures, 3 Magnolias, 1 Elite and this Peregrin this way.

This was near the Eigtheen Billion Gate of Memory of Profit IX. However I think these ships are procedural.



Bonus: I've unlocked a Teladi start, not sure when it happened.

[SystemsEternal]

im having no luck finding ships with no owners.

How are you finding ships with the long range scanner?

Ive been sending out pings every where.

[Tomonor]

Oh fish. I saw one today in Antigone Memorial right next to the equipment dock, but I thought it was early spawned by a mission. So I went and searched the system for a mission instead. Lol.

[SystemsEternal]

well I finally found one, a Manorina(mineral) but i messed up and didnt save before trying.

My save before was about 30-40 mins before hand and it wasnt there after loading.

Ive been making money with 2 miners one mineral one gas, they make me about 100k to 200 k every hour.

Got a auto trader courier to help as well. Im sitting on 1.5 mil atm.


Edit. though I have been finding a lot of mines with nothing else around them in multiple areas.......perhaps someone beat me to the ships.

[Scoob]

Edit. though I have been finding a lot of mines with nothing else around them in multiple areas.......perhaps someone beat me to the ships.

I'm forever finding clusters of mines with nothing else...perhaps the spawning algorithm popping the ship in too close to one/some of the mines and it blows before we get there?

The only claimable ships I've encountered thus far are bails from combat.

Scoob.

[Nibel]

most broken exploit atm is First Aid crafting in my opinion.
buy all material from the station trader,craft 10-20 FA then sell them to same trader for 200K+ proffit.
you can do passenger mission AND craft FA at the same time.
crafting is broken in general. crafting delirium cost you like what ? 50K ? selling 600K,yea the only problem ACTUALLY selling delirium,but duh,who cares it's still 600K
i have 10M of delirium in my inventory nowhere to sell it

[csaba]

most broken exploit atm is First Aid crafting in my opinion.
buy all material from the station trader,craft 10-20 FA then sell them to same trader for 200K+ proffit.
you can do passenger mission AND craft FA at the same time.
crafting is broken in general. crafting delirium cost you like what ? 50K ? selling 600K,yea the only problem ACTUALLY selling delirium,but duh,who cares it's still 600K
i have 10M of delirium in my inventory nowhere to sell it

Yea I came across that as well. Essentially the same exploit XR had with the scrap meta-> alloy crafting. I was not too keen on station hopping for money as of yet but credits are a pain to come by after you reach M-combat ship level. Might as well do this or the mining one. Had 3 traders flying about in select sectors and that seems to help, one got killed by a faction ship for carrying illegal wares although I'm allied to them....

Anyone know how good money boarding is? Might try that, the surviving equipment in it self should cover a lot of expenses.

They undertuned the mission spawns a tiny bit.

[Scoob]

I've got thirteen hours in the game now, much of that spent exploring and mapping with some combat thrown in. Other than the ships I've forced to bail (just Kestrels) I've not encountered a single claimable ship in that time. I guess I'm just RNG unlucky lol.

I've found lots of mine clusters, but there's never a ship there. Would quite like to find something nice lol.

Scoob.

[csaba]

I've got thirteen hours in the game now, much of that spent exploring and mapping with some combat thrown in. Other than the ships I've forced to bail (just Kestrels) I've not encountered a single claimable ship in that time. I guess I'm just RNG unlucky lol.

I've found lots of mine clusters, but there's never a ship there. Would quite like to find something nice lol.

Scoob.

One of my scouts just found another. This time a Perseus... He even called in that he found something lol.

Unowned ships stay on the map regardless you have active radar there. Look around the universe map they will stand out like a sore thumb. When I looked around I discovered that I past half a dozen M ships while I explored....


"'Advanced exploration:


Just use the "fly to" instead of the explore, it's much faster.

[Scoob]

Lol, I do all that, plus I'm looking to see what's near me all the time while travelling, yet I've found zero neutral ships. I think I just have bad luck, as these spawns appear to be random.

I have ships out scouting and trading, so they should alert me to anything they spot.

Scoob.

[VincentTH]

I've got thirteen hours in the game now, much of that spent exploring and mapping with some combat thrown in. Other than the ships I've forced to bail (just Kestrels) I've not encountered a single claimable ship in that time. I guess I'm just RNG unlucky lol.

I've found lots of mine clusters, but there's never a ship there. Would quite like to find something nice lol.

Scoob.

Same here, as an explorer start, I have not found a single abandoned ship!!! I think the reason is that we old timers play X4 the way X3 & XR was played!!!!!

LOL!!!!

[Scoob]

Same here, as an explorer start, I have not found a single abandoned ship!!! I think the reason is that we old timers play X4 the way X3 & XR was played!!!!!

LOL!!!!

I didn't find anything until I was over 30 hrs or so in. Then I found three ships in rapid succession! I found one in a remote sector while exploring, and found two close together when returning back to Argon Prime - they spawned right next to the gate I'd just gone through prior to finding that first ship. Now I'm finding ships quite regularly, I already have FIVE Frigates, an M-Class trader and an M-Class Gas Miner. I'm hoping to find a large vessel next, hopefully a destroyer or something...not holding my breath lol.

Scoob.

[captainradish]

Same here, as an explorer start, I have not found a single abandoned ship!!! I think the reason is that we old timers play X4 the way X3 & XR was played!!!!!

LOL!!!!

I didn't find anything until I was over 30 hrs or so in. Then I found three ships in rapid succession! I found one in a remote sector while exploring, and found two close together when returning back to Argon Prime - they spawned right next to the gate I'd just gone through prior to finding that first ship. Now I'm finding ships quite regularly, I already have FIVE Frigates, an M-Class trader and an M-Class Gas Miner. I'm hoping to find a large vessel next, hopefully a destroyer or something...not holding my breath lol.

Scoob.

You can always go grab the Zeus (or whatever it is) that spawns in Faulty Wiring.

[Scoob]

You can always go grab the Zeus (or whatever it is) that spawns in Faulty Wiring.

Funnily enough I was reading about that earlier today. I thought spawns were random, but it seems they might not all be. I know I've found ships in locations I've travelled through before, but simply weren't there...until they were.

Scoob.

[captainradish]

You can always go grab the Zeus (or whatever it is) that spawns in Faulty Wiring.

Funnily enough I was reading about that earlier today. I thought spawns were random, but it seems they might not all be. I know I've found ships in locations I've travelled through before, but simply weren't there...until they were.

Scoob.

There appears to be a handful of spawns that always exist (about four or five I think). One of them is a Teladi frigate and one is a Paranid capital ship.

[Scoob]

There appears to be a handful of spawns that always exist (about four or five I think). One of them is a Teladi frigate and one is a Paranid capital ship.

Sorta makes for an easy start once you know about them. In my current game, I didn't find ANY derelict ships until over 30 hrs in! I actually bought my first Frigate, my first M-Class Trade Ship, my M-Class Miners etc.

I think having the odd S-Class to claim in fixed places would be cool, keep the rest random. Though I'm not overly fussed either way, I can choose to claim them, or not after all.

Scoob.

[captainradish]

There appears to be a handful of spawns that always exist (about four or five I think). One of them is a Teladi frigate and one is a Paranid capital ship.

Sorta makes for an easy start once you know about them. In my current game, I didn't find ANY derelict ships until over 30 hrs in! I actually bought my first Frigate, my first M-Class Trade Ship, my M-Class Miners etc.

I think having the odd S-Class to claim in fixed places would be cool, keep the rest random. Though I'm not overly fussed either way, I can choose to claim them, or not after all.

Scoob.

To be fair, the Paranid destroyer is in the middle of a colossal minefield deep in Xenon territory. It's not too hard to get to, but it's a cast iron bitch to get out.

[Scoob]

To be fair, the Paranid destroyer is in the middle of a colossal minefield deep in Xenon territory. It's not too hard to get to, but it's a cast iron bitch to get out.

Erm, just fly up and over. Easy

Scoob.

[captainradish]

To be fair, the Paranid destroyer is in the middle of a colossal minefield deep in Xenon territory. It's not too hard to get to, but it's a cast iron bitch to get out.

Erm, just fly up and over. Easy

Scoob.

The issue is the Xenon capital ships that usually hang around the gate. It's a one-way sector.

[Scoob]

The issue is the Xenon capital ships that usually hang around the gate. It's a one-way sector.

I had several fighter squads lead by Xenon P's in my game - just had to zip past them. Guess it's random what you might face retrieving the Odysseus.

Scoob.