early storyline money making

sell pods at prison do trading and all this to get some money and buy bigger ships and make missions where you earn half a million each mission. thats the way how i would try to get around the starting problems.

well, the problem with this is that at level two (which is right after the first mission I believe) you have no jump access, so you can't go to Texas to sell pods I'm having the same issue right now and have a suggestion for the next mod update:
either get rid of/decrease AI bats/bots usage in SP or plunk a prison in New York so its at least a bit easier. the first couple missions are absolutely painfully slow and tedious.

thats no option at all

how so? id think it would be easy enough to put a prison in New York... maybe so you'd really have to look for it but it would help people on the story missions hugely.

Is texas for a prison too far?

it is if the jumpgates to Texas are closed in normal SP!
in 1.81 this was not an issue, because the next level requirements were at like 15,000 and you could level up just fine. But with the level requirements in normal SP being so astronomically high it wrecked my enthusiasm for the campaign part of the game, because in normal SP I'm not looking to find cool stuff like I am in Open SP or MP, but to follow the campaign!

can you find the jumphole to custodian...find ship and trade opportunities there perhaps...that's what I did...

Juni will bug you, but just ignore her until you've made some cash...good luck acegard

ahh never thought of that.
and from there you can get to the prisons in the systems off of X-3043
But is that jumpgate closed like the rest of them are until the end of mission 2? becuase if so that theory is useless...

I just got to lvl 3 (from the place you guys were stuck at) with some simple trading in the New York System. The key is to first visit every base and battleship in the system so that you can quickly determine the best trade routes, as you would have had to do in vanilla if you weren't using a mod. Then, get a damn rhino and start trading. I leveled up in less than 30 minutes. Make sure you visit Rochester Base (behind Manhattan and next to the Custodian jump gate), as they buy something from Manhattan for a large profit. I did a big circle to about 5 different bases, determining the best trading deal available, and ended up leveling up at Rochester in just one complete circle. Don't bother with those chintzy job board missions that pay $5000 when you can make 20 times that much in a quarter of the time in one trade with the Rhino. Also, I sold all of those pods for $1 to maximize cargo space. When I get jump gate access, then I will worry about selling them at one of the Texas prisons.

Acegard, what systems accessible from X-3043 had prisons? I went there when I was lvl 2 and visited Tarsus and Vega, but there were too many to check out now in my pathetic excuse for a spaceship.

I just installed Crossfire yesterday and, so far, it is my favorite mod yet. I only play SP campaign, so I have enjoyed several of the changes you have made so far already (first of all, not leveling up just from looting the cardamine-filled Flint wreck, which was just silly). I liked Discovery Freelancer and TNG, but this feels way more polished, especially with the graphical enhancements and optimizations for campaign SP. And, unlike previous mods, I look forward to checking out the news and embarking on those new quests once I finish the campaign. I remember when I was working in downtown Manhattan (the island, not the planet), and picked up this game 7 years ago from Best Buy, and have played through the campaign so many times with so many mods, several times a year. Even though Microsoft screwed over the developer, and we still don't have the source code, it still turned out to be a fun game with great potential. This mod shows that potential far more than any other I have played, so hats off to you.

I have played Freelancer since it first came out and yes it can get frustrating just starting out, but as someone esle suggested to ignore Juni till you have at least 100k so you can purchase a decent low leval ship (go to Battleship Missouri and buy a frighter there) then do the next mission. Then go to the next level then ignore juni again till you have 150-200k and then do the next mission do this till you get to level 7 at this point you will have to go to Britonia purchase the best ship there that you can and do the same thing as before ignore Juni run mission and trade to get a good amout of cash and so on buy the end of the Missions with Juni you will have between 1 and 2 million credits, just be PATIENT this is a great game and it can't be rushed or you will screw up. Explore each system go to every station and you will find so many wonderful things.

With the Crossfire Mod it gives this game a wonderful new feel and many many new avenues to do things bigger and better, just the abilitie to collect the escape pods and sell those prisonors at your nearest prison is a great money maker. Just run alot of missions and collect the the loot and escape pods and you will never have to buy anything if you don't want to.

So have fun !!!

I downloaded crossfire two days ago and had a similar experience to dogeddies. When I saw that I needed a couple hundred k to get to the next level, I figured that I would get tons of money for completing combat missions. When I discovered this hadn't changed, I figured I was missing something. To be honest I thought the mod just really wanted people to have to practice trading (before I figured out the prisoner thing).

Anyways, as Skum said, buy a Rhino, do some trading. You can make the money in 15 minutes if you know what to trade and don't feel like exploring.

ok, thanks guys. This will help. And I think tarsus and Vega are the only ones off of X with prisons, unless someone wants to correct me...

Tarsus has a prison now?

@Shock: pls give this prison info into "spoiler" tags. ..And if I'm correct, this thread is about SP and beginning story-line

SP hard?... its really plain and simple, just take a look at Juni's tasks as main quests, and at trade and exploring..etc, as side quests (for RPG guys)

I confirm Custodian jumpgate is active even though others are closed at the beginning,
so you should be able to find things to do in order to obtain the money required to level up

ROFL Faaby .. good info

thanks Faaby helpful.

I am now saving up for a certain $4 million fighter ship sold on a certain battleship in a certain Liberty system before I do the mission from California Minor. I currently upped my freighter to this 250 cargo pirate ship that maneuvers like a cruise ship, so I am trading to get money till I have enuff dough to get that fighter, since the freighter is almost worthless in combat (not entirely, though...thanks turret view). I talked to Juni and declined, which I found is nice to stop the incessant waypoints from popping up.

For those having trouble finding wrecks/stations in different systems, or those like me who don't much enjoy the grind of searching every sector in each system, see the link below. I tried the reveal map option using IONCROSS (not so much to reveal the map but reveal trade routes so I wouldn't have to visit every friendly base in every system), but that doesn't work in this mod. Just as well, because it is more fun to explore on your own, and IONCROSS would ruin that enjoyment. However, if you need some help finding stuff (including new wrecks), check the link below.