Beginners Guide. Part II. Building your Fortune.

This is the second chapter of my guide and deals with getting rich as fast as possible. To read the first part which deals with character creation. Go here.

Just like before, this guide is meant to provide the most efficient way to accomplish a goal, not claim to be the only way to do so. If you'd rather work as a factory worker for 2 weeks in order to be able to afford a clean bedroom because you think it's more fun from a roleplaying perspective, feel free to do so.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Combat is the fastest, most efficient, most lucrative way to make money, without question. Specially early game. There's no way around it. If you want to make money fast, you are going to have to go into the slums and unalive some raiders. Other forms of income can also be lucrative, but they'll take time to set up.

If you followed the previous part of the guide, you'll notice, however, that the character isn't build for combat. That's alright. Your character's combat skill isn't actually that important. This is because currently each character, no matter how powerful, only gets one attack per turn. Thus, it's far better to have a full party of decent fighters (5 attacks per turn) than one combat monster (1 attack per turn), making a combat build unnecessary.

While this isn't a combat guide, because money is inevitably tied to combat, we'll go into some aspects of the combat system in order to make things as profitable as possible.

THE BASICS

First of all, you should use guns. Every single member of your party should use guns. Melee weapons are terrible, the most powerful of them, the power katana only outperforms crossbows and handguns.

If you like Melee weapons, the good news is that a future update will revamp the combat system and possibly make swords and daggers more worthwhile. But for now, it's a waste of time.

Secondly, despite the importance of ranged combat, don't waste your time actually training it. Once you can access crystal hills, it's possible and relatively cheap to get a cybernetic implant that gives you +75 chance to hit, making you basically infallible.

SHOULD YOU HIRE MERCENARIES?

ANSWER: YES. 

Mercenaries are an essential part of making money through combat. While slaves can be taught combat, none of them except Aria and Rebecca are built for it. And even if you happen to roll a slave with the Steel Maiden trait, it will take you a while to train her to proficiency, which is the opposite of what we want.

Additionally, the main advantage of having slave fighters, which was the money you saved due to them using their own infinite companion ammo instead of depleting the MC's reserves, has been removed from the game. So hire mercenaries for combat and don't waste your time teaching slaves to use a handgun.

While keeping several mercenaries on your payroll will increase costs, there's no need to be scared. Think of it as an investment. The only part that matters is, are you making enough money each day to justify the expense?

WHICH MERCENARIES SHOULD YOU HIRE?

It used to be possible to put together a powerful party for a very efficient cost. However with update 0.8.1.1, most mercenaries were (temporarily) removed from the game, and currently, your only choice are the extremely cheap but terrible ones, or the extremely good but expensive ones.

Because of this, there isn't currently much strategy involved. Hire the cheap ones for the first few days, switch to the good ones as soon as possible.

EQUIPMENT

Early game, the rifle is the best possible weapon. It's decently powerful and relatively cheap and provides a bonus chance to hit. This is the weapon your MC should carry until you're able to access Crystal Hills and get the accuracy implant.

Update 8.1.1 made it possible to change equipment used by followers, both armaments and armor. However, slaves and most followers now require you to provide them with ammo, so you should never give them anything better than an assault rifle, and certainly not to more than two of them, or your ammo reserves and your wallet will suffer. Give them rifles instead. This is one of the reasons why you'll want to switch to the top tier mercenaries, since they do provide their own ammunition, which makes up for their cost.

When it comes to weapons, equipment should be looted, not bought. The only exception being the plasma rifle as you won't find it in any enemy. However, because of the outrageously expensive ammunition, never use the plasma rifle yourself, give it to the Black Guard instead.

KILL, LOOT, SELL, PROFIT

Unless you are completely new to games, you know that you make money by selling what you loot.

However, while it may be tempting DO NOT sell your equipment in the RedHaven market. Take the Ferry from Darkmere to Hamah Bay and sell in the local market instead. It's considerably more profitable to do so. Note that not everything can be sold in the Hamah Bay market.

THE ARENA

The Arena (located in Crystal Hills) is a moneymaker and the reason we want to unlock Crystal Hills as soon as possible. You can compete there personally, which is quite lucrative, but even if you're not inclined to do so, you should always assign a slave there as a gladiatrix, as this will make you between 1500 and 2000 dollars a day.

The best candidates for this job are either Rebecca or Aria.

With her initial stats, Rebecca can defeat mid tier fighters right off the bat and should be bought and put into the arena immediately after reaching 1500 influence (tested with normal dice). DO NOT give her a weapon, as she's capable of winning the fights using only her fists and this will boost the reward.

Aria is an excellent fighter and can defeat both Black Pearl and Raven, even without any additional training (though some save scumming might be needed).

Once you have access to them both, it's better to keep Aria in the Arena, as Rebecca is currently more developed (full story + full renders + reward).

Other ways to make wealth

REBECCA

A happy, loving Rebecca increases your business income between 30 to 50%. Though business income is nothing to write home about, it's a good way to ameliorate your daily costs, so it's a good idea to keep a good relationship with her. Not to mention her quest provides a good amount of treasure.

SLAVE TRADING

There isn't much science to slave trading: buy a slave for cheap, teach her a skill (or several) and make her obedient, then you can sell her for a profit. It's one of the reasons why Bondage is so important.

This is, of course, extremely lucrative and will make you piles of money in one go, but it requires you to spend time developing your character and teaching the slave, so it's not viable as a regular, steady source of income.

Also, keep in mind that there's good reason to keep slaves around, as not only will they bring in money or provide some other bonus, but a happy and loving slave will give you a powerful reward (as long as it's implemented), so choose wisely which ones you sell.

PROSTITUTION

Very lucrative, but requires girls to be well broken (either very low willpower or high corruption) or they will refuse, and it takes time before the girls will make a name for themselves and start bringing in considerable cash. It also works best with several different slaves, instead of just one, so it's generally not recommended for the early game.

BUSINESS

It's possible to invest in certain business ventures. Afterwards, they'll continue to pay a small daily trickle of money.

The main advantage here is that this takes no effort on your part. Currently, however investments are rather limited and unprofitable, taking a long time for you to see any real profit. So you should think of them more of a way to reduce your daily loses, as opposed to a way of getting rich.

Less lucurative assignments

WORK

Jobs get you at most 100 bucks and take most of your day. You get more money than that by simply beating up the dockyard punks. Other than roleplay, jobs have no purpose. Only time it's worth assigning a girl to a job is if you have literally nothing else for her to do and no time to train her. There's never a good reason for the MC to waste his day working.