Lack of cash death spiral

[aceman]

Jan 15, 2012 0:30:32 GMT -5 jonbig said:

I want to love this game, but I can't seem to get past the initial weak phase of difficult or higher. I take non-combat contracts to gain cash & experience, but somewhere along the way, I always end up ambushed by a pirate or bounty hunter and left with a damaged ship, far from home with no cash to buy fuel to fulfil a contract.

Trying to blockade an independent just doesn't bring in enough cash to pay for fuel. So I end up dead by mutiny.

How do I better avoid/recover from this?

get a fast ship so you can outrun them... The mortifier telum is a good choice

[bookworm21]

Yep, it may seem cowardly to surrender all the time, but it's totally worth it for the money you save in repair costs

[poryg]

Got to mention that this thread is 3 years old but ok, I will give my tips too.

When you go up through the difficulty, for the first time try to survive as long as possible. For me the best way to do it is either a merchant (except for impossible difficulty, the amount of money is just ridiculously low) or a stealthy captain. The key is to get used to the difference of difficulties, especially the captains level differences later on and water fuel consumption.
At the beginning, it might not be a bad idea to get trade permits with everybody, pirates will let you live (or, my favourite, use Aperio Calliga and stack up only 25 water-fuel and they won't detect your cargo, letting you live as well - in this case the stealthy captain might not be necessary, leaving room for experiments). At first it is pretty much a necessity to be a good guy and not try to get a wanted flag early in the game. Bounty hunters are despicable beings, along with badly timed aliens and pirates