View source for Essay:A few tips on making money

;Essay<nowiki>:</nowiki> A few tips on making money…

There are a few ways to make money in Star Sonata. As you move up from low-level to high-level you will need to progress from one to the next.  I’ve put them here in order of income.  Of course, the more time that you spend on it, the more money you make. 

== Mining Traginium (0-100s mil per hour) ==

Absolute pure profit. Traginium is easiest found orbiting around Arena Lobby (Arena Central). It is semi-rare but worth 5 mil+ each. TIP: When mining go for the slow and mid sized asteroids. Like really slow. And use a relatively fast ship with great turning, because they'll come and go really quickly even though they are slow. Traginium is very heavy so only hold a max of 8 per trip.

Where to sell: Traganium can be sold to players and player bases. Try advertising in Trade Chat.

== Trading (1-20m per hour) ==
Buy low and sell high.  As you found out in [[preload]] (or will find out) preload has a nice microchip trade route.  Other trade routes like that exist throughout the universe, but it is sometimes tough to find them. Get familiar with the tools provided to you in the trade tab at bases and you’ll find it can be quite rewarding… for a while.  Crack whores, Nuclear waste and Baobabs tend to have the widest price swings. Finding a public player-owned base selling one of the above can be extremely profitable, if the price is right.

== DGing (5-20m per hour) ==
Low level [[DG]]s often have prizes that might seem worthless right away, but can be quite useful. Not only do lowbie DGs give you experience and cash when you kill the AI, they also give you a special prize when you kill the boss.  Sometimes the prize is worthless and sometimes it can be quite valuable. Keep a lookout for Biowall shields (5m), Arson Drone blueprints (50m) and Pickpocket Drone blueprints (100m). Some of the other drops are worth holding onto as well.

Higher end DGs can drop some truly valuable gear: DeathWarmedOvers (175m), Liposuctions (50m), Misdirections (600m) just to name a few. 

== Capping (50-100m per hour) ==
With [[Remote Control]] 6 and a Prismatic Converter, you can make quite a bit of money capturing ships.  To start Goldenboy Coins and Goldenboy Statues are quite good.  There are always a few systems with quite a few hanging out in them. With RC 12 you can capture Serenities and make quite a bit. Ghostships, while hard to see and hit, also provide good profits, as you can sell the ship as well as its gear.  Infernos can be capped and sold at certain AI stations.
Also....If u can do it...Paxius is a non-protected gal. at least in this uni. and u can get like 10serens or so at once there.

== Bases (100m-1bill daily) ==
Building [[bases]] can make you a lot of money.  It can also lose you a ton of money.  You should really wait until you’re about level 100 before even thinking about building bases.  Not only do you need [[Station Management]] to at least 9 (bases weaker than Adonis rarely survive long), you need your primary skills high enough to equip your base gear as well.   At level 100 or so you should have the experience with the game in general to start to experiment with bases. Don’t expect your first few bases to last long.  Treat them like what they are: learning experiences. Being on a good team with experienced players helps with this tons.

Eventually when you get to understand bases, it’s not to hard making 100m per day with them. Bring in peasants and silicon with slaves, and use Crack Houses (or Dens) to convert them into Crack Whores. Then, slave the CWs to a nearby AI base with a high enough price.  If you can get a volume of about 6-10k an hour you’re sure to make about 50-100m per day until the price bottoms out and the AI base fills up on them.

The next step is to get your own [[colony]].  If you have a good one with good suitability it should grow quite fast.  Once it’s large (1 bil population) you can start to sell huge amounts of Crack Whores to it… and here’s the good part: you can buy peasants from the colony!  Unlike selling to AI bases this can be quite a stable source of income for as long as your base lasts.

There are ways to make more then 1 bil per day from a colony, but I’ll let you figure those out on your own.

== Ending Note ==
This was written 08/10/06 and the prices are only accurate for today and perhaps a few weeks.  Lots of things change and the prices can fluctuate wildly depending on many different factors.  Fashion, new gear, nerfs, new AI and whatever new tactic is out all play a big role in determining what the prices are.

There are a lot of other ways to make money. The trick is finding one that you enjoy doing. 

[[Category:Essays|A few tips on making money]]