Business And Economy Archive
Thread: How to Make 1 Million Read this first
There have been a lot of threads that talk about the ‘messed up economy’ or ‘spiraling inflation’, or complaints that the rich get richer and the poor simply get poorer. I realise that this is a common feeling, and a common source of frustration for many players. I personally believe that the reasons for this belief aren’t what they seem, and aren’t because of a decadent economy, but that’s been argued to death in many threads. Rather than simply making another series of posts defending the SWG economic system and trying to show that inflation doesn’t exist, I thought it might be more useful to have some helpful threads, where people can post various tips or techniques to help ease this feeling of economic frustration that those without steady incomes in SWG have.
Basically, without flaming, without using phrases like ‘if u can’t do xxx then u suck’, or anything like that, let’s just try to put down some constructive ideas as to how people can get some creds together and actually afford some of the things they want. SWG is not a zero-sum economy – you don’t have to screw someone to get ahead, despite what loot campers and KSers believe. Everyone can get ahead – at different rates, yes, and with differing levels of success, but everyone can get ahead. So rather than reinforcing the perceived (and artificial) divide between haves and have-nots, let’s just try to show people how many ways there really are to get ahead.
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Someone in another thread put it nicely – credits are a means of exchange so that we don’t have to find what the guy we’re trading with specifically wants. They allow us all to do business universally. And in SWG, despite the fact that we are now moving towards a system where you can do absolutely everything yourself easier and easier, interacting with other people is still the fastest way to get ahead. Thus, the easiest way to get yourself a minimum purchasing power is to get yourself something to purchase with, ie. credits.
Credits come from, basically, the game or other players. There are ways and means to get them coming in from both. Since the topic of this thread is focusing on how to make smaller, regular amounts of money, let’s concentrate on tips for newer players or those who don’t have mastery of many professions yet.
Equipping yourself. Even without novice in an elite combat profession, you are still fine against many things without buffs, and without top armour. Get medic and make yourself your own stim As if you have to – it’s easy, and they are all you need. Failing that, stim Bs are regularly on sale for 2k per, if your budget extends to that, which for most people it should. Look for low level armour on the bazaar – grinding mabari, or maybe just a few cheap pieces that people are giving away. Even 1% kinetic armour gives you AR1, which means that against anything on a low level planet, you are taking half damage at least. That’s more than enough. Don’t think yet about the 200k weapons or full suits of 90% armour. Just get yourself what you need and work on it from there.
Missions. Mission payouts are the stock way to generate creds. Even at lower levels, you should be able to handle a 1-2k mission without any hassle. I personally would suggest either taking missions for low level NPCs, such as Chunkers, Meatlumps, and the like, or going to an Explorer terminal and taking a hunting mission for a common creature type that exists in the chaff around a major NPC city. For instance, missions to kill 35 rills on Tat, or to kill 35 nunas on Naboo. These are easily found in vast numbers, and pay more money than standard destroy missions. And it doesn’t take anything above Novice brawler or marksman, though having Pistols 4 or an equivalent would make them go much faster. These will give you a very steady income stream on the ground, and also a constant xp tick. Even if the xp is small for each creature, the numbers you will be killing them in will give you a surprising amount of xp. Try it sometime if you don’t believe me.
Looted creds. Just as with xp, don’t underestimate the ability of small increments of looted creds to stack up. They are a significant source of income if you kill enough things. Try joining a Neighbourhood Watch – go and farm the thugs and low end NPCs in a city for a bit. It’s a surprisingly large source of looted creds – 30k an hour at novice brawler/marksman is quite standard. For a guy with a T21 or hammer, this can become a lot more, even 100k an hour. And you can do it unbuffed and unarmoured – the cost is nothing except time.
JTL. JTL is a very easy money maker for those that get it. Even at 1111 pilot, which takes about half an hour to get with the free ship, you can do basic duty missions that will get you a lot of free creds, generally more so than you would get on the ground in the same time. The loot is readily available and always useful to someone – even L1 loot is valuable to a shipwright looking for a Firespray schem. And if no shipwright will buy, the Chassis dealer in every starport will convert all your loot to creds at 1k per level. Depending on how much you fly, this is a significant amount of money, and best of all it’s money that you can generate without costing you any skill points. I would think it is quite possible to finance yourself to mastery of a ground profession with your JTL income alone.
Crafting. Low end crafting is probably the hardest way to make credits. A new 10 pt master or a non-master crafter generally finds that everything he has is totally worthless, and that can be very discouraging for those starting a profession. What I would suggest is to apprentice yourself to a more established, dedicated crafter. Not somebody’s crafting alt, but someone for whom crafting is a major part of their game. Crafting takes a lot of time – more so than combat. There’s a lot of components to run back and forth, a lot of stocking and experimenting with different combinations, a lot of surveying – not to mention the actual crafting. Apprenticing yourself to a busy crafter and doing some of this legwork for them – such as surveying out and mining new resources, running their factory components back and forth, and so on. I did it myself as a non-master crafter – I used some of the stash of resources I was accumulating for my own business, the master did the crafting, I did all the factory work and offered them to his vendor for him to sell. I made 2 or 3 million just on a few days work and factory time, and that was not small change, not in those days and at that level.
Gathering Resources. Use your lots, use a survey tool, or just get scout and harvest while you gain xp. Find someone who wants to buy resources before you get them, and make a deal – tell them how much you’ll get of something and agree on a price beforehand. It’s much more reliable than just gathering and hoping it’ll sell. Talk to people and find what they want, then get it for them.
Loot. Even at this low level, there are still things you can loot that are of value if you know how. The problem is selling them – loot generates income from other players, not from the system, and so you should know some business basics before you sell them. You can either sell them on the bazaar and hope for the best, or, ideally, you can make a deal with someone to sell to them specifically before you go and get them. For instance, the last new player who came to me asking for low end equipment got a fantastic deal. I said, okay, on one condition – I want paint cartridges. You can get them at this spot in Dearic. Here is a speed sliced scout blaster (he wasn’t brand new) and an encumbrance sliced composite chest. I want you to go and farm the NPCs at this spot, and bring me paint cartridges. I will pay 2k for every cartridge, you can have everything else you get. Now, here’s the beauty of the deal. He got free low end equipment, he made 40k just in looted creds standing at that spot for an hour and a half, and he got a mess of loot. Most, of course, was junk. But I paid 2k for every paint cartridge just as I promised, so this newish player got 50k+ creds, some xp, and some free equipment, which is not such a bad day at that level. For my part, I gave away some equipment I couldn’t really sell, I paid a small amount of money for my budget, and I got some paint cartridges I otherwise would have had to either afk camp for, with an empty inventory, or spend an hour and a half for. I saved myself time, which is extremely precious to me, and I made a friend. I have other friends who want paint cartridges or similar, common, low end items from time to time – I gave them his name. For all I know this guy did the same thing for 5 other guys and made 250k in free money. The point remains – you can sell your loot before you get it if you know how to make a deal. And this example ties in nicely with the next couple of tips.
Make friends. Everyone can do this – combatants, crafters, entertainers, everyone. Whether you want to make more money from the system (loot, missions, etc) or from other players, making friends is your biggest asset. Make friends who seem to you to be trustworthy and honest, and be trustworthy and honest yourself – if you say you will do something, do it, and watch to see that they keep their end of the bargain too. If you are an entertainer, even a conversation can make you money – so many people tip novice entertainers large amounts to flash some cash around if they are talked to nicely. I’m not suggesting that you should tolerate every fool who crosses your path, or that you should allow yourself to be used – just make friends, and be smart about your dealings.
Diversify. As a low level player or a total novice, you have one arena in which you are on a totally level playing field with every single player who has been playing since launch – you have 250 skill points and 10 lots. Use them. Use them all. Rent your lots, even if you aren’t interested in placing harvesters. Rent them out, there’s always someone who needs more lots for something. Use your 250 skill points. Get every novice profession; they’re cheap and you can always give them up. Even if you have a fixed plan to be the best smuggler/armoursmith or whatever in the galaxy, use your skill points at the start – moonlight in other careers, use everything to get an advantage or to save yourself some money. Heal wounds, harvest creature resources, survey for people, even just healing battle fatigue for someone who desperately needs it can make you friends and make you money.
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That’s it from me for starters. Please, everyone else who has a tip or an idea, post them. There are obviously enough people having a problem making money that they are needed. Thanks.
Great post like someone already said five stars....Everything that you said is so true on how to make money…the biggest thing that I have seen lately is that people don’t want to make money thy just want to beg for it. Get out there and make your money ... There are ways to you just have to look for them.
Exhibit69 wrote:Oh you missed one more great way to make credits. Find yourself a pair of starports that both hold 70% resource deposits of metal, gemstone, or inert petrochemicals. that sounds hard but its pretty easy to do. Now, take the biggest survey missions you can find for these resources and travel back and forth between the starports surveying. I am making on the order of 1000 cr a minute using this method. I did have to buy and equip a novice level certified weapon to pull down the 1500-1800 cr missions, but even with no weapon and no combat skills i could pull survey missions for 600-900 cr.
Starports? Forget about the wait....
Find 2 player cities further apart than the min range for survey missions and just drive back and forth with 2 missions each for whatever you find in the area. Just keep refreshing the mission terminals until you find what you want.
BOOORING! But steady income whether you want survey XP or not.
Kept me in creds for my harvesters while I worked on my other professions (crafting).
Quick, and no risk whatsoever.
- Do easy quests and get the rewards. Alot of these can be auctioned for quite a bit of money. A bunch of them don't even require combat or require killing a 100 ham thug or something.
- Rent my lots out. I paid some guildies 100k per lot per month recently
- When I had some cash, I'd buy fusion power harvesters, and start a power business. Easy to do, always high demand.
I bet i could think of more but if you did these things you'd have over a mill in no time.
Your wealth is determined also by the time you are willing to invest in the game. Campers spend a great deal of time on line, and while they may be AFK, their toon is there so they get the rewards. People (like my friends) who will spend a full buff session killing Nyms on Lok or NPCs in Coronet looking for that ONE good attachment are rewarded monetarily for their dedication. Money will not fall into your lap, you have to be proactive and put in the hours to arrive at any sort of positive result. Casual players don't get rich. At least not easily...
As I said before, having money, makes getting more of it easier. Friends are not a bad way to go, but being a leech will eventually get you 'off the tip' and breed animosity between yourself and fellow players. If someone is willing to give you a loan, or you have a modest nest egg stored up, make your money work for you (i.e. buy some harvestors, pull some resources and sell at a profit, or spend it on armor, buffs and weapons and go run some higher level missions, or pull organics that crafters are buying at high CPU), instead of blowing it on a bunch of stuff that looks cool but has no benefit (extra cash for this 'fooling around' will come later).
