How are you so rich?

Preamble

The question I am most frequently asked is "how are you so rich?", and so I felt compelled to created this quick guide so that I no longer have to answer this question. Some preliminaries:
 * 1) I did not become rich by hacking, my handle to the contrary.
 * 2) I did not become rich by stealing bounties.
 * 3) I did not become rich through exploits or bugs.
 * 4) I don't remember how long it took.  Sorry.

The key to becoming rich in Outer Rim is a little bit of basic economics, and a lot of grinding. There is one guiding principle: ''Always be doing things that make the most money. Never be doing things that don't make the most money.'' As of this writing, the following things make the most money:
 * 1) Capturing bounties
 * 2) Returning carbonite

The following things do not make the most money:
 * 1) Fighting with other players
 * 2) Fighting NPCs
 * 3) Riding around looking for bounties to steal
 * 4) Chatting
 * 5) Making fashion decisions
 * 6) Guild recruitment
 * 7) Role-playing
 * 8) Anything else that is not capturing or returning bounties

You may ask "Guthacker, what about scrapping?" Yes, scrapping makes money. Does it make the most money? No, and you're going to need that scrap later when you want a gold-plated Lamda.

Target Selection

The first part of bounty hunting is selecting a bounty. You can keep sitting down with the guild brokers until you get one that you like. At each level, have a dollar value in mind that is your cutoff. My current dollar value is 8500 credits -- I will always take a bounty for 8500 credits or more. This strikes a nice balance between how long I have to jump from booth to booth, and how much the bounty is worth.

At lower levels, another consideration is gang size. If you do not have a jetpack yet, or you do not have enough jetpack fuel to fight an entire battle airborne, then a big mob of NPCs can be dangerous (depending on the planet). If your bounty is likely to spawn in an enclosed space like a hideout or a cave, maybe sacrifice some credits for a smaller gang size.

Finally, note the species of the target. This will help you pick them out at a distance. More on this later.

The Hunt

From the jump, the #1 danger in Outer Rim will be other players. Outer Rim is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. To combat this, I recommend the Guthacker method of hunting: absolutely minimize the amount of time that your bounty is exposed to the world. That means don't get within 100 clicks of the target until it is either already dead or you can make it so within seconds. Any closer, and that big red "BOUNTY" flag will show up for every player on the map.

At lower levels, this means sniping. I absolutely recommend spending some early credits on a sniper rifle, and then eliminating your target from outside the 100 click range. Then dash in and grab the bounty, so that another player can steal it on the way back to town (ha ha, just kidding...no, not kidding).

Once you have some flamer levels and jetpack levels under your belt, I recommend flying in and torching the target from the sky. A well-aimed, full burst of level 10 flamer will take down almost anything, and you can finish it off with your pistol if you need to. Then grab it and run.

One key rule I always regret ignoring: KEEP YOUR WEAPONS LOADED. I always take a moment after a capture to reload my flamer and my guns. You can even do this while riding a speeder. Ignore this rule at your peril. Plus, one of the most satisfying experiences in the game is incinerating a bounty thief while his flamer makes sad little clicking noises.

The Escape

So, you killed a bounty. Well, camper, that was the easy part. Now you need to get it back to Nevaro Town, while every unscrupulous ruffian that is hungry for credits, human misery, or just lulz tries to take it from you.

Honestly, at lower levels, you are just screwed. Sorry. Run as fast as you can, but get used to losing bounties. Unless you are fantastic with that new sniper rifle, in which case I say "Good job, Annie Oakley!"

Once you can afford one, get a speeder. This is a game changer -- it is very tough to stop a fleeing hunter on a speeder. Once your bounty is secured, get on your speeder and don't look back until the planet is in your rear-view. My approach is to drive as fast as possible to an unoccupied shuttle and launch that bad boy. If someone is hot on your tail, just GO...your bounty will cover the cost of a second trip from Hoth Badlands to Nevaro Town. If someone is super on your tail, you can take some time to lead them on a wild goose chase. I like to lead bounty thieves into banthas and see how that goes for them. You have to make your own fun. But, I must stress, RUNNING FROM THIEVES IS NOT A THING THAT MAKES THE MOST MONEY. So don't spend 20 minutes driving around to preserve a 1000 credit bounty. Just go for it.

The Injustice

So, some nerfherder just stole your bounty. Time for some good, old-fashioned revenge, right? This is the way, right? WRONG! The #1 obstacle to making money with this approach is ego. Yes, Bubba Fatt just stole your hard-earned bounty, and that stings, but you have to get over that mess. The 10 minutes you spend hunting down Bubba and making him pay was time you could have spent cashing in three more bounties. Again, BASIC ECONOMICS: hunting down jagoffs is not making you the most money.

And remember, a carbonite is only 1/2 of a bounty -- you already got paid when you shot the guy.

If there's a chance to quickly recover your bounty, then go for it. But don't throw good money after bad; go get another bounty and get back to work. Don't even speak to them -- time spent sending abusive messages is time you could be spending returning bounties (this is a case of do as I say, not as I do -- I often have choice words for bounty thieves).

Priorities

It takes money to make money, so you're going to have to spend some of that hard-earned cheddar to make your life easier. I would say the following things are priorities:


 * 1) Sniper Rifle: As mentioned earlier, this make the early levels a lot easier.  And you'll be using sniper rifles for your whole career, so you may as well have a good one.  You only need one.  All of the other heavy weapons are crap, so ignore them.
 * 2) Flamer and Jet Pack: My #1 method for killing bounties is fly in with the jetpack and torch 'em.  Once you start piling up ability points, but them into Flamer and Jet Pack (and scraphound, if you have some to spare).  Practice hovering at a fixed distance above the ground, which will allow you to torch consistently.
 * 3) Speeder: Also as previously noted, this will dramatically increase the number of bounties you successfully return.
 * 4) Pistol: Don't underestimate pistols.  At close range, a DH17 will be a lot more useful than your sniper rifle.  I recommend buying one of the Hoth pistols when you can afford it.  You only need one.
 * 5) Armor: Upgrade your armor whenever possible.  The Armor type (Mando, Zeetek, Boba) is irrelevant, but you want your armor to be Superior quality.  Eventually, you will also want some pieces of fully-upgraded stormtrooper armor to cap out your defense, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
 * 6) Ship: Yes, eventually you will want a ship.  It will save you 600 credits per bounty, which is nothing to sneeze at.  But this is the lowest priority thing to spend money on (outside of vanity purchases, like snazzy armor or ship re-decoration).  As for which is the "best" ship, I prefer the Lamda, because the entry gantry is very easy to get into, very easy to close behind you, and the narrow hatch makes it possible to burn someone's face off if they try to follow you.

Conclusion

All editorializing aside, the primary rule is this: if you are not actively hunting a bounty, killing a bounty, or returning a bounty, you are not making the most credits that you could be. That is my personal opinion. Some folks swear by stealing bounties for profit, but I do not subscribe to this model: yes, you are grabbing an extra 1/2 a bounty, but in return you have at least one person trying to hunt you down, and you are making yourself a bigger target by pulling multiple bounties. I also do not recommend taking "found" bounties -- bounties that have spawned, but their hunter hasn't gotten to them yet. Yes, it's a quick couple of bucks, but it just sucks. There, I said it.

So that's it. The rules are:
 * 1) Always be hunting or returning.  Never be not hunting or returning.
 * 2) Always keep your weapons loaded.
 * 3) Hunt or return as fast as possible.  Spend money on things that increase your speed -- you want to move faster and kill faster.
 * 4) Leave your ego at the door.  Don't waste time on fighting or arguing.
 * 5) Minimize exposure.  Either kill your target from range, or zoom in and finish them off quick.  The less time the world knows about your bounty, the better.