I'm a free player for quite some time. There's a bunch of methods to freeplay tho even in rookie chat you will rarely see other methods except first two. I tried to make a compliation of methods how to "obtain ingame currency by ingame means" that are available to newcomers and a bit more experienced players.
Disclaimers:
1. Sweating
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: Aeglic Ring Adjusted (+12 hp, 30% faster hp regen)
How to do:
b) some may accept sweat as a payment for planetside taxi especially if u're newcomer
c) you may google "nisha tp runs" and try to get there on your own
d) if u're on Calypso and stuck in a remote outpost surrounded by mobs in the process - ask for help in #crt channel
e) sometimes Calypso Advisers may visit Icarus and open wormhole(s) to sweat circle
f) anything higher than 0.3 ped for such taxi is a no go.
2. Fruitwalking
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: Adjusted Harrier armor (gold pack) or Carona Jumpsuit (Carona mission), Maze Hammer (planet Cyrene -> Turrelion docks. U get one in exchange for 50k shrapnel), Hermetic ring Adjusted. Maximum acceleration bonus from items is capped on 25%.
How to do:
3. Trading mind essence / nutrio bars
Harvested sweat may be used for making mind essence which is used in teleportation chips. Because of somewhat low MU it's being sold primarily by those who don't want to trade sweat directly. Fruits are being used in producing pet food
Investments
Initial: refiner
Recurring: around 11/12 ped per each 1000 sweat bottles / fruits obtained
Recommended: Imperium Resource Refiner B1
How to do:
4. Swunting
U sweat the mob till dry then kill it. You get loot, sweat and defensive skills in the process.
Investments
Initial: weapon
Recurring: ammo, weapon repair / renew
Recommended: Aeglic Ring Adjusted (+12 hp, 30% faster hp regen)
How to do
5. Suicide running (somewhat nerfed after introducing progressive death timers)
You may use it not for gaining money but just to have some extra defensive skills
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: Empty skill implants around 10 ped TT value
Recommended: Aeglic Ring Adjusted (+12 hp, 30% faster hp regen)
How to do
6. Interplanetary taxi Calypso <-> Arkadia
Because two most populated planets so much easier to find travelers.
Investments
Initial: Quad-Wing Interceptor (L) + Space Thruster (L) + oil + Vehicle RK-5 + 1 ped TT of Welding Wire
Recurring: around 2 ped oil + 0.20 ped space thruster decay + 2 ped landing fee
Recommended: 1 common dung in cargo
How to do
7. Cutting huge trees
Huge trees are most rare thus having most MU. Trees are used to craft composite planks which are used
on building land plots.
Investments
Initial: 70-80 ped to buy 14-16 Terratech ph-1. You will have 60-70 ped back while leveling until lvl6 in Resource Gatherer. Use that 60-70 ped to buy Terratech ph-3 UL
Recurring: ph-3 repair
Recommended: Adjusted Harrier armor (gold pack) or Carona Jumpsuit (carona mission), Hermetic ring Adjusted (movespeed), any ground vehicle + Exploration Hoverpod (Arkadia free vehicle, doesn't share spawn cooldown with other vehicles)
How to do
8. Healing job
People hire healers while hunting so they could concentrate on hunting only and kill stuff more efficiently. Also healer may have more eco stuff than hunter may afford / have skills to use. Healers profit from ocassional tips and/or straight ped/hour tax in case they have good fap plus paying fap decay as well.
Investment
Initial: Free Vivo S10 upon finishing gauntlet stage 1 for the first time
Recurring: Vivo S10 repairs
Recommended: maxed Vivo S10 (Paramedic 5.2 level), 22 ped to keep Vivo S10 fully repaired, Hermetic ring, teleportation chip, VTOL, faster reload items
How to do
9. Free teamhunting
Currently known: none
Must visit a website, register for participating in chat on time and win a draw. You will be given gun and ammo, will be shooting tagged mobs upon arrival
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: open as much teleports on a planet as possible. Skills must allow using
Sollomate Rubio maxed
How to do
10. Free mining
Currently known: 1 mining job opportunity: greenleafmining.com
U receive free finder, extractor and probes, pick an area and start to mine. Then give mined stuff back. Profits/losses are shared on 50/50 basis. Must pass initial test on mining techniques in a form of test runs.
Investments
Initial: 200 ped, will be returned on quitting
Recurring: none
Recommended: Adjusted Harrier armor (gold pack), Hermetic ring Adjusted, any ground vehicle
How to do
11. Deeds (CLD, AUD)
U buy a deed and it brings you passive income either as a share of Arkadia Underground area tax (AUD) or as a share of planet Calypso profit (CLD) on daily (AUD) or weekly (CLD) basis
Investments: up to you
How to do
12. Reselling
Buy low, sell high. Use either direct trade, auction or shops to buy stuff and resell directly / thru auction / at a shop as well on this or maybe even other planet
Investments: up to you
How to do
13. Rigs
You can pick stuff spawning near "rigs". Different planets have different options. All rigs are in yellow pvp area (u might get shot but not looted)
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: Teleport chip (Nawa Temple on Toulan), VTOL
How to do:
14. Mothership repairs
You work as a repair crew member in a spaceship. You get specific repair skills then chip out and sell.
Investments
Initial: 8x Vehicle RK-5 + 40400 Welding Wire (around 160 ped) + Empty skill implant (20 ped TT minimum for around 180 ped)
Recurring: same
Recommended: faster reload items + skillpills
How to do:
15. Hunting Vixens
You hunt Vixens on Rocktropia using HTT gun named Pistol(SA)(L) obtainable in HTT trade terminal. Approximately 5% of your loot will be Vixen Android Gear which can be sold for 400% MU atm.
Investments
Initial: some Pistol(SA)(L) + 6880 ammo (low grade) per each pistol
Recurring: same
Recommended: none
How to do:
16. Hunting "AI"
You hunt AI mob on Rocktropia using provided gun (first one is free, next ones are for 0.50 in TT) and provided ammo. Upon completing 40 kills each day you will get 2 ped paycard (cash it in by selling to TT) and 1 ped ammo for the next day.
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: 0.50 ped for new AI Hunter Pistol per each 4 days
Recommended: none
How to do:
17. Arkadia moon daily mission
This daily mission offers a reward of 2 ped universal ammo
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: movespeed items: Carona Jumpsuit or Adjusted Harrier armor, Hermetic ring Adjusted, Maze Hammer.
How to do:
That's it. Hope that helps somehow.
upd#1: I forgot about rigs + #fap channel
upd#2: mothership repairing added
upd#3: lowlvl hunting added
upd#4: AI hunt daily mission added
upd#5: removed mentioning of external ped sites as it's not really "ingame means"
upd#6: Arkadia moon daily mission added
Disclaimers:
- Obtaining $ IRL and depositing usually provides better results especially if u're newcomer.
- These methods won't bring you a lot of peds. You may even lose your initial investment in some cases. You do that so you will know the game better in the process.
- Some methods require initial / recurring investments
- All methods have been tested, its not about "I've heard that works too so lets add it"
- Very basic level won't be covered. Find basic guide(s) on how to equip your sweat tool elsewhere.
- Some methods work well in combination
- Only repeatable methods are being introduced. Something like "Visit NI, get colorator, bleacher and falcata then return to Caly and sell it on the auction" isn't considered as a steady income thus not listed but mentioned. It actually gives highest one-time ped boost possible for newcomer.
1. Sweating
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: Aeglic Ring Adjusted (+12 hp, 30% faster hp regen)
How to do:
- find up-to-date sweat circles locations(ask in rookie/planet chat for nearest teleports)
- get all required teleports
b) some may accept sweat as a payment for planetside taxi especially if u're newcomer
c) you may google "nisha tp runs" and try to get there on your own
d) if u're on Calypso and stuck in a remote outpost surrounded by mobs in the process - ask for help in #crt channel
e) sometimes Calypso Advisers may visit Icarus and open wormhole(s) to sweat circle
f) anything higher than 0.3 ped for such taxi is a no go.
- participate in sweating events. Sometimes there are events which allow you to sell limited amount (like 1k) of sweat for much higher prices (providing u've meet the criterias and won the raffle / answered test question among the frst)
- join #sweatinfo channel to keep track of such sweating events
- u will have to hoard sweat and sell it maybe once a week if not on Caly/Ark or if u're trying to find a real buyer not reseller.
- Mind Essence is a lazy way to "auction" your sweat if u don't like (or become bored of) direct trades
2. Fruitwalking
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: Adjusted Harrier armor (gold pack) or Carona Jumpsuit (Carona mission), Maze Hammer (planet Cyrene -> Turrelion docks. U get one in exchange for 50k shrapnel), Hermetic ring Adjusted. Maximum acceleration bonus from items is capped on 25%.
How to do:
- ensure u're in a 3rd person view and can see around 5 meters around in any direction, close/move any windows like radar, chat etc. for better observation. Detection radius is 5 meters, once detected fruit will stay visible within 7 meters
- ensure graphics settings are as low as possible
- you may fruitwalk in nighttime on sand / snow / other clearly seen type of areas only or else you risk to skip stuff
- try to pick non-populated areas for less competition
- try to pick flat areas for better visibility
- Arkadia have twice as big amount of everything on average but spawns are half as rare
- you will get 150-250 fruits per hour on average
- fruits are visible when running so running is preferred method
3. Trading mind essence / nutrio bars
Harvested sweat may be used for making mind essence which is used in teleportation chips. Because of somewhat low MU it's being sold primarily by those who don't want to trade sweat directly. Fruits are being used in producing pet food
Investments
Initial: refiner
Recurring: around 11/12 ped per each 1000 sweat bottles / fruits obtained
Recommended: Imperium Resource Refiner B1
How to do:
- buy 1000 Force Nexus / Sweetstuff per each 1000 sweat / fruit
- mix that in refiner
- put on auction
- stuff sells faster on Calypso. use 3-4 day long auctions on Caly and 7-day long on Arkadia. Sell on other planets only directly or better don't at all
- set buyout price slightly higher than weekly market value
- if u're buying fruits try not to buy them higher than (nutrio_MU - Sweetstuff_MU-10)/10 ped/k as u will have to pay auction fees
- Mind Essence is not lootable in space allowing you to gather sweat somewhere else. Nutrio bars are lootable
4. Swunting
U sweat the mob till dry then kill it. You get loot, sweat and defensive skills in the process.
Investments
Initial: weapon
Recurring: ammo, weapon repair / renew
Recommended: Aeglic Ring Adjusted (+12 hp, 30% faster hp regen)
How to do
- pick mob with low damage, low hp and high level on your planet (see entropedia -> creatures) or Caraboks on Arkadia (every firebase academy or Celeste Quarry north)
- mobs stop giving defensive skills after around 2 minutes, u want to sweat mob dry and kill it in that time to maximize defensive skills gained. Thus pick 20hp mobs at most
- pick kill mission on that mob
- using synchronization chips usually does not pay itself
5. Suicide running (somewhat nerfed after introducing progressive death timers)
You may use it not for gaining money but just to have some extra defensive skills
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: Empty skill implants around 10 ped TT value
Recommended: Aeglic Ring Adjusted (+12 hp, 30% faster hp regen)
How to do
- pick high lvl creatures (entropedia -> creatures)
- find high lvl creatures near respawns / outposts / teleports
- if near outposts make sure u have teleport chip or/and VTOL like sleipnir
- approach mob, let mob aggro on you and kill you. You will sometimes get defensive skills on mob attacks.
- repawn, regen hp and repeat
- once having more than 11 ped TT value of Evade, Courage, Alertness or Ahletics (around 2000 lvl of skill) buy Empty Skill Implant, extract skill and sell skill implant either directly or on the auction (find guide how to extract skills properly)
6. Interplanetary taxi Calypso <-> Arkadia
Because two most populated planets so much easier to find travelers.
Investments
Initial: Quad-Wing Interceptor (L) + Space Thruster (L) + oil + Vehicle RK-5 + 1 ped TT of Welding Wire
Recurring: around 2 ped oil + 0.20 ped space thruster decay + 2 ped landing fee
Recommended: 1 common dung in cargo
How to do
- your passenger must download space and desired planet
- never a mistake to ask around 4 ped beforehand so u won't be losing much in case something went wrong
- charge more for the trip if not EU/US prime time
- passenger must not have any lootables onboard
- relog is somewhat required after successful landing
- use #space_flight and #space_travel channels to advertise
7. Cutting huge trees
Huge trees are most rare thus having most MU. Trees are used to craft composite planks which are used
on building land plots.
Investments
Initial: 70-80 ped to buy 14-16 Terratech ph-1. You will have 60-70 ped back while leveling until lvl6 in Resource Gatherer. Use that 60-70 ped to buy Terratech ph-3 UL
Recurring: ph-3 repair
Recommended: Adjusted Harrier armor (gold pack) or Carona Jumpsuit (carona mission), Hermetic ring Adjusted (movespeed), any ground vehicle + Exploration Hoverpod (Arkadia free vehicle, doesn't share spawn cooldown with other vehicles)
How to do
- hover cursor over any tree to see if its cuttable fron higher distance than glowing yellow point marker so u don't need to approach each tree
- upon leveling cut small and large trees found, write coordinates of huge trees
- trees respawn at exact same coordinates, not necessarily same level, may be wise to track coordinates somehow
- if on Arkadia, north of IFN Supply depot (carabok forest) contains most trees
- upon reaching lvl6 try to sell small moonleaf boards on the auction if on Calypso and TT if on Arkadia
- cut huge trees only with ph-3, don't waste it on lower trees
- on average your decay will be 0.10 ped per attempt, you will be getting 1 long moonleaf board 0.06 ped TT value + 0.03 ped TT wood shavings. Feed wood shavings to TT and repair ph-3 with that money. Thus you will be getting around 6 ped TT of long boards for 7 ped decay of ph-3
- sell long boards on the auction
- cut huge trees on Caly only as there's currently almost no demand on other planets.
- move between forests / tree groups using vehicle. if tree groups are sparse use Ark free hoverpod as well
- cuttable trees on Calypso looks more light-green than non-cuttable versions of same trees. Ensure u have as high draw distance as possible.
8. Healing job
People hire healers while hunting so they could concentrate on hunting only and kill stuff more efficiently. Also healer may have more eco stuff than hunter may afford / have skills to use. Healers profit from ocassional tips and/or straight ped/hour tax in case they have good fap plus paying fap decay as well.
Investment
Initial: Free Vivo S10 upon finishing gauntlet stage 1 for the first time
Recurring: Vivo S10 repairs
Recommended: maxed Vivo S10 (Paramedic 5.2 level), 22 ped to keep Vivo S10 fully repaired, Hermetic ring, teleportation chip, VTOL, faster reload items
How to do
- try to complete "grave errand" mission (requires flight to the volcano) to get a significant boost to Paramedic profession
- when using "heal over time" faps like Vivo S10 make sure u don't overheal when not needed. Ask hunter if he wants to be healed immediately or in a more eco way to fully utilize heal over time effect
- never let hunter's hp go below mob critical damage
- all details about payment scheme must be discussed before first mob killed
- never agree on conditional payment (pay if HoF, pay if instance finished within time etc.)
- use #fap channel to offer services, always state on what planet you are.
9. Free teamhunting
Currently known: none
Must visit a website, register for participating in chat on time and win a draw. You will be given gun and ammo, will be shooting tagged mobs upon arrival
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: open as much teleports on a planet as possible. Skills must allow using
Sollomate Rubio maxed
How to do
- if received an item in case of global/hof trade with party leader immediately
- shoot only mobs tagged by party leader or assigned tagger guy
- u're allowed to keep all loot obtained in the process except valuable one. Party leader usually share ped value of this item among all team members
10. Free mining
Currently known: 1 mining job opportunity: greenleafmining.com
U receive free finder, extractor and probes, pick an area and start to mine. Then give mined stuff back. Profits/losses are shared on 50/50 basis. Must pass initial test on mining techniques in a form of test runs.
Investments
Initial: 200 ped, will be returned on quitting
Recurring: none
Recommended: Adjusted Harrier armor (gold pack), Hermetic ring Adjusted, any ground vehicle
How to do
- all mining advices/techniques apply
- Arkadia only
- weekend trades frequently got cancelled
11. Deeds (CLD, AUD)
U buy a deed and it brings you passive income either as a share of Arkadia Underground area tax (AUD) or as a share of planet Calypso profit (CLD) on daily (AUD) or weekly (CLD) basis
Investments: up to you
How to do
- if u want to sell some deeds, split them and put unused in the storage before making transaction trade
- note that deeds are the only stackable items that display its markup as TT+ so its very easy to auction 10 deeds for the price of one
12. Reselling
Buy low, sell high. Use either direct trade, auction or shops to buy stuff and resell directly / thru auction / at a shop as well on this or maybe even other planet
Investments: up to you
How to do
- some stuff like Calypso Bone Sample have value in large numbers and almost no value at small numbers
- some stuff from trade terminals on other planets may be valuable (yes even after VU 15.2) but not worthy to travel to that planet specifically for that item. You may buy this stuff in bulk and resell directly.
- big stacks of stuff on auction usually have lower MU than smaller (as smaller stacks are affordable by more players). You may try to resell this in lower stacks or directly but care about listing fee in case of auction.
- street trade offers are commonly either highly overpriced or highly underpriced
- be cautious reselling real high MU% items on the auction as sales fee might eat you profit
- prices are slightly higher when its not EU/US prime time and on lower populated planets thus u may squeeze higher than average MU. In exchange u risk your item not being sold at all so consider setting 7-day auctions in that case.
- you might get frustrated easily dealing with near TT MU% items as u freeze a lot of peds for 1-2% MU
13. Rigs
You can pick stuff spawning near "rigs". Different planets have different options. All rigs are in yellow pvp area (u might get shot but not looted)
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: Teleport chip (Nawa Temple on Toulan), VTOL
How to do:
- Ask for locations in planet-specific chat
- Ashi rig (Calypso) provides most income but heavily camped. On death u will revive at an outpost surrounded by mobs so have to either use tp chip or VTOL to get to the rig / teleporter
- Rocktropia beer kegs have markup. Avoid pulling in mobs.
- Arkadia rig is surrounded by oratan mobs. Must avoid mobs walking nearby rig. There is visual+audio effect on oil spawn.
14. Mothership repairs
You work as a repair crew member in a spaceship. You get specific repair skills then chip out and sell.
Investments
Initial: 8x Vehicle RK-5 + 40400 Welding Wire (around 160 ped) + Empty skill implant (20 ped TT minimum for around 180 ped)
Recurring: same
Recommended: faster reload items + skillpills
How to do:
- Might not be profitable at all without skillpills
- Must calculate all the prices beforehand, might not be profitable at current ESI/skill MU
- Must consider 10% loss on skill gains while chipping out
- Must consider auction fees on all skill chips before calculating projected income
- Need 20 ped ESI at least to properly chip out (Vehicle Repairing skill must be chipped out last as it have most TT value)
- Need at least 10 ped TT of Vehicle Repairing skill to properly chip out
- Hard to have a repair run in non EU/US prime time
15. Hunting Vixens
You hunt Vixens on Rocktropia using HTT gun named Pistol(SA)(L) obtainable in HTT trade terminal. Approximately 5% of your loot will be Vixen Android Gear which can be sold for 400% MU atm.
Investments
Initial: some Pistol(SA)(L) + 6880 ammo (low grade) per each pistol
Recurring: same
Recommended: none
How to do:
- Proposed gun have 1.0-2.0 damage thus producing least possible overkill on 10hp mobs providing maximum TT% return
- Area is small. Many people are hunting. Consider creating/entering killteam to make killsteals less painful
- 10 hp vixens are: Cyber Street Vixen Shy, Digital Club Doll Shy, Electro Dance Machine Shy, Glamour Girl Drone Shy
- Consider direct trading as you will likely have small amount of stuff, plus escape auction fees, plus market on RT itself isn't as good
- Only one android gear may be looted per single mob. That's why hunting only 10hp vixens yields better average MU
16. Hunting "AI"
You hunt AI mob on Rocktropia using provided gun (first one is free, next ones are for 0.50 in TT) and provided ammo. Upon completing 40 kills each day you will get 2 ped paycard (cash it in by selling to TT) and 1 ped ammo for the next day.
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: 0.50 ped for new AI Hunter Pistol per each 4 days
Recommended: none
How to do:
- AI mobs have bright green-yellow color, can be easily spotted from long distance and in a nighttime
- You will also get pay stub card. It's promised that upon collecting 260 cards per year you get something as well
- AI hunter pistol works only with provided ammo and not even with universal ammo
- 1 ped of provided ammo is well enough for a daily quota
- Approximately 1.5-3 hours required to complete that mission
- 0.50 ped for next gun can be obtained simply by selling all AI mob loot
- You may as well use any other gun to kill AI mobs
- You may mix this with vixen hunting since respawning area is the same
17. Arkadia moon daily mission
This daily mission offers a reward of 2 ped universal ammo
Investments
Initial: none
Recurring: none
Recommended: movespeed items: Carona Jumpsuit or Adjusted Harrier armor, Hermetic ring Adjusted, Maze Hammer.
How to do:
- the mission requires you to visit 10 drill platforms
- it's a good idea to use notes for storing coordinates of each platform entry point
- time to complete the mission is around 20-30 minutes if running to each platform
- there's nothing else you can really do on Ark moon atm
That's it. Hope that helps somehow.
upd#1: I forgot about rigs + #fap channel
upd#2: mothership repairing added
upd#3: lowlvl hunting added
upd#4: AI hunt daily mission added
upd#5: removed mentioning of external ped sites as it's not really "ingame means"
upd#6: Arkadia moon daily mission added
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