I think it is easier to break into the economy than people think. I wrote this up when reading the market economy thread and decided to make a fresh post. I hope this will be helpful to new players; feel free to chime in with other advice and thoughts! (and flames, probably, because internet). Sorry for the self plugs in some sections, haha, but I do think my two main bases are good spots to use as a noob.
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Find a market niche. All are potentially similarly profitable; I suggest picking a niche based on some activity you like doing. Do you like mining? Open a tile shop. Do you like complex recipes? Open a food or drink shop. Start small, and make a name for yourself selling a very limited stock of high demand items. Don’t spread yourself too thin. If you need help with this, post here or on forums and people can advise you. In general though, you can make a living doing pretty much anything in this game.
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Come up with a catchy name. Dat Blok Shop. The Pie Guy. Widgets Inc. Miner’s Surplus. I suggest a two word name, or three short words, so it will show up large on signs and render from a farther distance. If you aren’t creative with names, make a post and have the community help you make a name up, you’ll even get free advertising from the process.
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Pick a convenient planet to put your base on. Being near cities is great and all, but most people use portals or malls. So I recommend picking either a mall (I have one on Tana, DK’s Legendville Mall) or a high traffic planet with major hubs (DK’s Ultima Tree Eresho in my case) or one close enough that you can open 1x2 portals to a few locations. Eresho/Finata for Ultima hub, Grovidas for PS, I also think Biitula is a pretty hoppin’ planet. TNT is on circ but I probably wouldn’t put my first shop on circ since it requires protections. I have plenty of nice 1x2s and 2x2’s at my main base, DK’s Ultima Tree on Eresho for only 1c each, and its a pretty high traffic spot. I think it’s really, really important to have your main shop somewhere you can set up 1x2’s to if you are getting started; it’s ok for your shop and your base to be in different planets. Even if you are in a mall, I still suggest setting up 1-2 portals in your shop. If you are completely new to the game, or are super poor, I suggest starting with a mall shop, so you can get away with having no portals for a month or so.
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You could start off with cheap and simple stuff if you are truly too poor. Mine sand and dirt and make glass, for example. Or get a liquid breaker and sell water and lava. You can also harvest base materials and sell to baskets to get started if you are building up coin to start a shop; I have a bunch set up at my Ultima Tree on Eresho buying dirt, rock, wood etc to help newer players. @AeneaGames has an awesome baskets area at nova golda market. There are others of course. Posting on forums is also a great way to get “hired” for “jobs”; if you post that you are looking for paid work you will definitely get requests to gather specific materials or clear plots etc.
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Spend some time learning market prices by looking at active shops and boundlesstrade.net. I look at golden fist, mom n pop, TNT, nova golda and alutech to do a lot of my price checking.
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When you are crafting, it is very important that you always mass craft. This is a pretty big barrier to entry and it is why I suggest starting with a small selection. You also want to get max advanced coils ASAP (16 per machine I believe), and you want to use compressed coal to fuel your spark generators ASAP. If you post on forums you can probably get amazing prices on coils. Focus on these goals for crafting if you are new.
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Build something cool. A pretty shop gets more traffic. Put some time into it, and/or post on forums looking for help building. There are lots and lots of bored max level people on here who would be happy to help someone new build a shop. Don’t skimp on the building aspect; this is very important. You don’t need fancy materials, just creativity (take @Prome3us BCON BRGR for example, his awesome burger is mostly sand and dirt). I suggest both a cool base as well as something noticeable way up in the sky so people will notice the new sky thingy and wander by to see what it is. Could be as simple as a pillar with your shop name on it, but make it big enough people can read it on PS4 with our horrible draw distance. You might also get people using your shop as a waypoint to get to major hubs if it is easy to find, and thus you’ll get more foot traffic. I suggest renovating every few months, so people know you’re active.
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Pick out two or three major portal hubs and open portals. Again, ideally If you have a catchy name, people will wander in. I do this all the time, I wander around portal hubs going in random portals, especially ones with catchy names. You’ll be losing money at first on these portals, so plan ahead.
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Post on forums once you are set up. People love photos of shops and tutorials on how to get there from major portal hubs, so I suggest doing this, even though it is a pain, haha. Post when you fill your request baskets, post when you add new items or change prices, do occasional surveys for what prices people want or what items people want sold. Again, I’d start small with 2-3 portals and 5-10 shop stands and 5-10 baskets max; try to make a name for yourself in a limited market segment. Being active on the forums is important.
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Keep active on the forums and in game; show people your shop (people playing the game love meeting new players and seeing their shops and giving advice, so be outgoing) and keep your shop and portals active and up to date, and you’ll get there!
I hope this helps some people out!
Some very good points all round though!
