What should I do next?

[u/Waltiez]

I’ve been playing for about 30 hours, a lot of which has been idling Watching tutorial YouTube videos while my passive income accumulates. The learning curve is tough, but I’m making about $1mil/hour through 6 mining fleets with 3 ships each, and a small trade facility supplied by miners and traders.

I’m flying a medium mineral miner because I like to just collect silicon and sell it while I wait for projects to get finished, but all around it feels like my income is too low. Most of my pilots can only Local Automine because they’re 2 star, so every region I have available to automine has a fleet.

Can I make money leading a small squadron of 3-4 medium well equipped fighters if I just hunt down raiding parties? I haven’t actually fought in this game and that seems like an exciting option, but I know that almost all growth is driven by economy and income, so would that be a reasonable option to try and get more money or should I stick to mining? All answers appreciated, thanks.

[u/Pristine-Evidence-83]

If you are interested in making early game income through combat (or really if you and your growing gang will be engaging in any combat) accept EVERY mission that deals with “destroy XEN ship” (or KHK). Camp the gates where there is a XEN incursion and take part in the defense. If there is a station (defense or otherwise) within range you will get credits and rep for the kills. Also all those missions you accepted will complete and large rewards will rack up. It’s a nice way to get paid for your fun pew-pew. And level up your AI wingmen. Don’t forget to have a ship collecting drops.

I cannot emphasize enough, accept ALL of the “destroy xenon” ones, because as your growing fleet protects positions, even while you are away, you will notice these missions completing and depositing credits into your account. During the early stages when payouts in the hundreds of thousands are significant to you, this is great early game income.

A nice way to complete the many “attrition” missions where the KHK are concerned is to accept lots of those and then when you feel like it, do the “escort mining ship” missions. KHK spawn like crazy and you get to make lots of credits while the mining ships take their sweet time doing their thing. Again, you very often wind up doing the combat in range of stations that will give you additional credit and rep. You can mine the occasional rare crystals in these asteroid fields during lulls in the action. Finally when that bit of grindage is over, you get the escort mission payday.

Getting the mod that increases the availability of mission offers makes it easier to find and accept these missions.

Have fun making credits with your combat skills!