Guides // Getting Started

Making Credits

You can fly and dock. Now make some credits — buy a better hull, fit it properly, and build a rebuy before leaving the starter system.

Starter Credit Generation

You can fly and dock. Stay in the starter district and start earning — enough to buy a real hull, fit it, and keep a rebuy (The insurance excess to get your ship back after it explodes — about 5% of hull and modules.). You do not leave yet.

The loop is always the same: accept work, travel, do the thing, dock, get paid. Courier and delivery missions in high security will fund your first upgrades. Stack two or three jobs to the same system so one trip clears the board. A realistic first target inside starter space is about 100,000 CR sitting in the account — not already spent on a pretty module.

Stay in the district while you grind toward a Cobra Mk III (or the next hull on the beginner list) plus two rebuys (The insurance excess to get your ship back after it explodes — about 5% of hull and modules.). That is roughly a few million, not a few hundred thousand. Community Goals (Community Goal: A time-limited galaxy-wide effort with tiered payouts. Good money while one is running; never a plan.) pay well when they are up; they are a bonus, not a plan. Leaving comes after the ship is fitted and insured.

Look up the destination on Inara before you launch. If you cannot find the station, the commodity, or the ring, you are guessing. Guessing is how cargo gets dumped in a system with no demand.

Bank the rebuy first. Every credit you park in a module you cannot insure is a credit you do not have when the ship explodes. Outfit after the buffer exists, not instead of it.

Earning Credits Across Roles

Pick the loop that matches how you want to fly. Each one below is possible in a cheap hull. None of them need an engineered fit. Anti-Xeno (Anti-Xeno: Fighting Thargoids. Needs Guardian or AX weapons — conventional hardpoints barely scratch them.) is not on this list on purpose.

Exploration & Exobiology

Scan valuable worlds, sell the data, and — with Odyssey — sample plants on foot. This is the safest early fortune, and you can start it from the district.

What to do: Honk the Discovery Scanner on arrival, then use the Full Spectrum System Scanner (Full Spectrum System Scanner: The frequency dial you tune from the cockpit to resolve every unidentified body in a system.) to identify bodies. Map high-value worlds with a Detailed Surface Scanner (Detailed Surface Scanner: Fires probes at a body to map it. Raises the cartographic payout and reveals surface signals.). Terraformable water worlds, Earth-likes, and ammonia worlds pay. First-discovery and first-map bonuses are the real payday.
Where to search: Spansh Road to Riches builds a short route of valuable, under-scanned bodies from a start system you choose. You can run it from the district. You do not need Colonia, and you do not need to leave starter space for this to pay.
How to run it: Fit a Detailed Surface Scanner (Detailed Surface Scanner: Fires probes at a body to map it. Raises the cartographic payout and reveals surface signals.) and a fuel scoop. Filter the Galaxy Map to KGBFOAM stars. Fire probes at a body until coverage passes 90%. With Odyssey, land on atmospheric planets with biological signals, use an Artemis Suit, and scan three samples of each species.
Where to sell: Cartographic data at Universal Cartographics — any station. Bio data at Vista Genomics. Data lives on the ship until you sell it. Do not die, and do not switch ships, with a hold full of unsold scans. Hand it in before you take a combat job.

Combat — Nav Beacons & Low RES

Collect bounty vouchers on Wanted ships while police do the heavy lifting. This is how you learn to shoot without paying a rebuy (The insurance excess to get your ship back after it explodes — about 5% of hull and modules.) for the lesson.

What to do: Find Wanted NPCs (Non-Player Character: A ship or person nobody is flying — crew, security, pirates, and traffic.), scan them until the HUD says Wanted, then deal enough damage to claim the bounty when they die. You do not have to get the kill. In high security, System Authority vessels will tank and finish most of the work.
Where to search: High Security systems only. A Navigation Beacon (Navigation Beacon: The traffic marker every populated system carries. Scan it for system data; loiter for easy bounties.) is always there and easy. Low-Intensity Resource Extraction Sites (Resource Extraction Site: A spot in a planetary ring where miners work and pirates hunt them. Comes in four intensities.) in a planet's metallic or metallic-rich rings are the next step. Work up to a High-Intensity RES once you have a shield worth the name — the security wings there do most of the work. Leave Hazardous RES and Conflict Zones until the ship is engineered.
How to run it: Drop in, put four pips in SYS, and identify targets. Do not shoot Clean ships. Do not fire inside a station no-fire zone. If a bigger pirate looks at you, high-wake (Leaving by hyperspace jump to another system. Nothing can follow you through it.) out. A KWS (Kill Warrant Scanner: Reveals bounties a target carries in other jurisdictions, raising the payout when you kill it.) is optional — it raises the payout, it is not required to get paid.
Where to sell: Hand in bounty vouchers at a station aligned with the faction that issued them — Starport Services, Contacts. Interstellar Factors (Interstellar Factors Contact: A contact in low-security systems that clears fines and bounties from other jurisdictions, for a cut.) will cash vouchers anywhere for a cut if you are far from home. Do not fly around with a week of unclaimed bounties and no rebuy (The insurance excess to get your ship back after it explodes — about 5% of hull and modules.).

Trading & Courier Missions

The lowest-risk credit loop. Data first, then a single-hop commodity run once you have cargo racks. No combat required if you stay off illegal goods.

What to do: Data courier missions move nothing but a file — accept, jump, dock, complete. Commodity trading is buy-low, sell-high on the station market. Stack two or three jobs to the same destination so one trip pays several times.
Where to search: The mission board at any large, busy station. For trade, Inara Commodities: pick a cargo, ask who is selling cheap nearby, then who is buying expensive. Agricultural into industrial, and extraction into refinery, are the usual loops. The Galaxy Map trade view works, but Inara is faster.
How to run it: Start with couriers in high security. When you fit cargo racks — a Cobra Mk III is enough — fill the hold with one commodity, one hop, sell, repeat. Avoid illegal cargo (slaves, drugs, weapons in some jurisdictions) until you can read the fine print. Do not fill a hold you cannot afford to lose.
Where to sell: The destination station's Commodities market, or the mission board / Contacts for courier hand-in. Check the demand and price on Inara before you launch. Outposts have no large pads — fine in a small ship, a trap later.

Mining

Laser-mine high-value metals in a pristine metallic ring, then sell where demand is actually high. Slow to kit out, steady once the limpets (A single-use drone that collects, prospects, repairs, or researches. Weighs a tonne and rides in the hold.) are flying.

What to do: Prospect a rock, laser it if the fragment values are worth it, scoop with collector limpets (A single-use drone that collects, prospects, repairs, or researches. Weighs a tonne and rides in the hold.), refine, and fill the hold. Platinum is the usual early target. Core and subsurface mining pay more and need extra modules — learn lasers first.
Where to search: System Map: a ring that says Metallic, reserves Pristine. Hotspots inside the ring raise yields. ED Tools and Inara mining maps name systems so you are not guessing. Stay in high or medium security until you can fight off pirates in a mining fit — you cannot.
How to run it: Minimum kit: mining lasers, a Prospector Limpet Controller, Collector Limpet Controllers, a Refinery, and a hold full of limpets (they are cargo). Prospect first. Ignore rocks the prospector calls out as poor. Bring more limpets than you think. A Detailed Surface Scanner finds the ring for you; it does not mine it.
Where to sell: Do not sell at the closest station. Inara Commodities for Platinum (or whatever you mined): sort by demand and price, plot a station you can actually dock at. A full hold sold in the wrong economy is a wasted session.

Passenger Missions

Move people instead of crates. Economy and Business cabins on a small hull are enough. Sightseeing pays more and asks you not to get shot.

What to do: Accept passengers from the Passenger Lounge — a separate contact from the mission board — and deliver them to a station or a tourist beacon. Point-to-point economy jobs are the safe start. VIP sightseeing is the upgrade once you can fly a clean route.
Where to search: High-population tourist or service economies. Any station with a Passenger Lounge. Inara can filter stations by passenger lounge and economy. Avoid bulk refugee missions that dump you in a war zone, and skip "wanted" or illegal passengers until you know the difference.
How to run it: Fit Economy or Business cabins. The Dolphin is the usual trainer: small, cool, and cheap to rebuy. Check cabin class against the mission. Luxury jobs need Luxury cabins, which a Dolphin does not have. Plot scoopable stars. Do not take a sightseeing tour you cannot fuel.
Where to sell: You are paid on drop-off at the destination, from the Passenger Lounge or Contacts. There is no cargo market. Fail the mission if you get scanned with illegal passengers, or if you dump them in a firefight. Fly clean routes in high security until the payouts are boring.

What You Are Earning Toward

First hulls after the Sidewinder. Cheap enough to learn in, useful enough to keep. Buy these in the district. Do not rush a large pad, and do not leave until the hull is fitted and the rebuy (The insurance excess to get your ship back after it explodes — about 5% of hull and modules.) is in the bank.

The Cobra Mk III exists for this: small pad, cheap rebuy (The insurance excess to get your ship back after it explodes — about 5% of hull and modules.), enough internals to try a role without a second mortgage. A Python or Anaconda is a later platform, not a first payday.

Ship	Class	Price	Description
Sidewinder Mk I	Small	4.6K CR	Your free starter ship. Learn the basics, complete a few missions, and save your credits for your first real ship.
Cobra Mk III	Small	208.4K CR	Your first true all-rounder. Cheap, versatile, and capable of combat, trading, mining, exploration, and missions without a painful rebuy. You do not need any modules except for trying different roles.
Cobra Mk IV	Small	623.4K CR	A natural step up from the Mk III, offering more internal space and better staying power. A great early ship if you want to experiment with different activities.
Cobra Mk V	Small	1.5M CR	If you have the credits—or an ARX-backed prebuilt ship—the Mk V is the fastest way into a capable modern small ship. It can comfortably explore multiple roles while you build your fortune.
Python	Medium	55.3M CR	Your first serious multirole ship. Excellent internals, cargo capacity, firepower, and flexibility make it capable of almost anything you want to try.
Anaconda	Large	142.5M CR	A powerful large multirole ship with enormous potential. Use it as your long-term general-purpose platform while you build the credits and experience needed for specialized ships.

The sticker price is not the flying price. Modules, a fuel scoop, and a rebuy buffer cost extra. If the hull empties your account, wait.

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