Newcomer / Intro Best way to make $$$$ for Beginners

[Galco]

Hi,

I just got into Elite Dangerous, didn't play the beta or anything, but I am rlly enjoying the game so far. Frontier did a great job.

I was wondering what is the best way to make money starting out? All I have done up to this point is transport missions earning a few thousand cred for each trip. It pays well enough ( I was able to make about $40,000 in one day) but I'm wondering what are some faster ways to make money?

I've heard that upgrading your ship can give more cargo holds allowing you to transport more and make more money, but they are all so expensive. Also I see missions in the Bulliten Board that give more creds but dont know how to do them (I.e - Kill bounty (which I can never find), or Find this food and bring it back (which I can never find), or Find slaves and bring them here (ok where in the heck do I Find them?!)

Any info on how to make money Fast? Plz explain in lamens terms I'm Newb here

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Trading is the defacto the quickest way to make money. Especially in rare commodities. These are commodities that only appear in certain stations and you have to take them very far away to make good money from them.

If you are doing missions, then unless you stay and do missions for one particular faction, you will not get the big earning missions. There are some bounty missions that pay up to 750,000cr. But you have to raise your reputation with the faction in order to get those missions.

Bounty hunting can also be quite profitable. With skill you can earn ~60,000cr an hour picking of pirates in Resource Extraction Sites (Mining)

The bounty missions: Go to the last reported system or systems and search the Unidentified Signal Sources (USS) Target them as you would a station. Eventually you will come across a pirate "You just got away with his life" and he will tell you which system the target is in. Go search the USS in that system and you will find your target. The bigger the reward on that mission, the tougher it will be. If you find an Anaconda there... stay away from the pointy end!!!

 

[Galinet]

I've been doing "fetch" missions, where I have to go to a region to collect items floating in space and bring them back to that station. Each time you complete a mission you gain some faction with that station and eventually will have access to better/more rewarding missions.

Once I saw a "bring me supplies" mission. It cost me 52k (of the 54k I had) but rewarded me 91k, so a nice, fast profit.

 

[ChrisUK27]

If you like trading find a spot where you can do a round-robin of collects and drop offs. If possible check the BB for cargo jobs along your route.

You could also try exploring which can be rewarding and gets you out of the area that you started in. It's fairly straightforward to do with a basic discovery scanner, just bang out the pulse, discover the bodies then lock onto them one by one to get a better scan. If you work at several systems at a time you can make ok money - remember you must travel 20+ ly from them to trade in the information. Extra cash is paid for habitable planets (Which is a great feeling to find a planet with indigenous life!).

Merc work I've found can be a bit hit and miss, they ask you to kill five pirates but you spend ages trying to find them and inevitably the counter runs out - although you'll get the bounties for the ones you kill. Just be really careful where you shoot if other ships are in range, any stray rounds and the Feds will come for you!

 

[lestat2150]

If you like trading find a spot where you can do a round-robin of collects and drop offs. If possible check the BB for cargo jobs along your route.

You could also try exploring which can be rewarding and gets you out of the area that you started in. It's fairly straightforward to do with a basic discovery scanner, just bang out the pulse, discover the bodies then lock onto them one by one to get a better scan. If you work at several systems at a time you can make ok money - remember you must travel 20+ ly from them to trade in the information. Extra cash is paid for habitable planets (Which is a great feeling to find a planet with indigenous life!).

Merc work I've found can be a bit hit and miss, they ask you to kill five pirates but you spend ages trying to find them and inevitably the counter runs out - although you'll get the bounties for the ones you kill. Just be really careful where you shoot if other ships are in range, any stray rounds and the Feds will come for you!

This. I've noticed extremely early on, to make quick money, just go to the nav beacons in the core worlds and sit there. Eventually a wanted pilot will warp in. I found one that was just a novice and was worth 23k. You just have to be careful because after killing even one, the police show up and patrol the area. They will shoot anything else that is wanted in that area and most likely take the bounty. Retrieving bounty tickets is all about getting the final shot.

Once you get bored of that, go exploring and take a fuel scoop with you. Exploring breaks the tedium. Once you learn how to use the D SCanner, it gets easier and adds a sense of wonder. Personally I find trading to be very boring. If I have this right, you pretty much need to remember which systems are desperate for what products as the market wont tell you where selling that product will make the most money. So in order: Nav beacon bounty hunting then exploration. Once you get a couple hundred thousand, you can buy a decent hauler if you'd like or upgrade those guns.

 

[Heimer]

Another option is to super-cruise around planets. Unidentified signals spawn at random and can be a good source of income, just be ready to get out of a signal site as some are pirates or players. If you use your free Sidewinder to do these you can make some good early on funds.I found 4 high value paintings (loot) in one that sold for just under 10k. Granted you have to be careful and go to a station with a black market or it could end badly.

 

[Whelp]

They will shoot anything else that is wanted in that area and most likely take the bounty. Retrieving bounty tickets is all about getting the final shot.

Pretty sure the cops won't come and steal your kills if you turn off "report crimes against me". They might still show up randomly ofc.

 

[Richard]

Right at the start, diversification is the name of the game. Run bulletin board missions, do some trading on the side, scan anything unexplored that you find and sell the data to Universal Cartographics. The Sidewinder isn't much of a cargo hauler, so relying on trading alone won't get you that far. If you feel like living a bit more dangerously, lurk around nav beacons as lestat2150 said.

Good luck Commander! Come back here if you need help with any of the above!

 

[Galco]

Good tips, Yeah I don't get the trading at all. I've made a profit all of 1 time and it was by coincidence that the place I went to sell animal meat just happened to buy for a slightly higher rate. And even then I only made like 400cr I think. I guess I'll just have to study the map a bit more any advice on that front? like I turned off all the trade routes except animal meat in that scenario but what do the arrows/ directions mean? basically from what I gather if the trade route arrow is flowing towards a system then they are in high demand of that item and if it is flowing away from that system it is in low demand right?

I had a couple things I could use some further detail on

1) I tried the signal beacon thing to find random loot about 20 times (was looking for gold) but I was never able to find anything except I did find toxic waste once. Later I was in a system where toxic waste was illegal so I'm guessing I could have made some money there. Anyway my question isHow do you find good places to loot? are there certain systems I should super cruise in? and once I get the loot do I have to sell it on the black market? if so how? how do you know if a system has a black market?

2)Do I have to select a bounty mission to kill a bounty? or can I just come across one, kill it and go collect the reward? Also what tools do I need for bounty hunting? any scanners or anything or can I find them with stock sidewinder like the first guy said and just search USS until someone tells me exactly where the bounty actually is? How do I collect my reward?

3) How does the Discovery scanner work? what purpose does it serve?

 

[DangerousLarry]

I just did the courier missions. Some were 4k others were 7k for delivering cargo. Nice profit from them. I skipped buying materials because it was a pain in the ass and would only accept them and complete them if a station I visited had the items required. Usually a nice profit but otherwise I wasn't too bothered with them.

That's pretty much all I did and upgraded to a Hauler then to a Viper. I miss my hauler because it had good jump distances and could carry more across bigger distances. If you're trading/courier just stick with a Hauler in my opinion.

 

[Dewar]

I can answer some of that at least.

2) Without any special equipment, when you kill an enemy with a bounty in your current system (often because it's attacking you,) it is logged. The next time you are at a base of the appropriate faction, you can pull up the Contacts menu in Starport services and get the credits. If you buy a Kill Warrant Scanner, you can hold a target on another ship and read the bounties it has in all systems, meaning that you can double-dip on rewards for enemies that are already attacking you as well as find ships that show up as clean in the current system, but have bounties elsewhere.

3) In a system without a lot of traffic, when you warp in the star will show as Undiscovered. If you are close enough (200 light seconds for larger bodies with the basic scanner, closer for smaller bodies and asteroid fields) target it and stay aimed at it and you should see a little animation on your targeting pane. Once that animation completes, you should get some more information. Additionally, it shows up as a weapon in your fire groups display on the right console. Assign it to a fire group and hold down the trigger and it will charge up and fire out a pulse finding any other unknown bodies close to you (300 ls by default I think, longer with better scanners.) You can then do the same process as above on all the planets you can find. That data can now be sold at any port more than 20 light years away. Depending on the location, you're probably looking at 500 - 2000 credits for an entire system that's already been discovered, but the reward can increase quite a bit if you manage to be the first person to sell a piece of data. I was able to find a system to explore within 5 jumps of my starting location, so even in populated areas there are still remote systems that don't start explored.

 

[Galco]

I've come to the conclusion that bounty hunting is not profitable at all. It seems to be what you spend money on as opposed to what you make money on. I did exactly as ppl on here told me and camped out near a Nav Beacon. I killed a Wanted bounty for about 1400cr, but that used up all my secondary missle ammo which costs 6,000cr to refill. So essentially I lost money on that venture.

How do I Maximize profits on bounty hunting? What are the best weapons to use to get the most easy kills for profit. I want to get into this I rlly do, I just cant afford to haha

 

[Dewar]

I've come to the conclusion that bounty hunting is not profitable at all. It seems to be what you spend money on as opposed to what you make money on. I did exactly as ppl on here told me and camped out near a Nav Beacon. I killed a Wanted bounty for about 1400cr, but that used up all my secondary missle ammo which costs 6,000cr to refill. So essentially I lost money on that venture.

How do I Maximize profits on bounty hunting? What are the best weapons to use to get the most easy kills for profit. I want to get into this I rlly do, I just cant afford to haha

Well the obvious choice for problems like this is energy weapons, as you don't have to pay to refill them. I imagine that as your combat rating goes up, you will be more likely to see larger ships, but I dunno.

 

[CMDR Saari]

How do I Maximize profits on bounty hunting?

First: Don't use missiles! Missiles really should be saved as a last-ditch self-defense tactic (say you're sitting on 50k unclaimed bounties and get jumped by a superior ship).

Second: Learn to Love your Lasers

What are the best weapons to use to get the most easy kills for profit.

In my (admittedly limited) bounty hunting experience, I've found that choice of target is more important than having a specific "best" weapon. I made a tidy profit today hanging around a resource extraction site picking off wanted Sidewinders and Eagles that were harassing the miners. This was in my freagle with 3 basic fixed pulse lasers. I wasn't making a killing (no pun intended...), but it was more money at one time than I've made running cargo missions and trading since launch.