Tips and Tricks

**Information**

Trading is the easiest way to make money in Interstellar Pilot 2. Trading is also the most economical of all the ways you can make money. The first objective is to locate a station that sells the goods you want to trade. After buying the items, you find a buyer and sell the cargo. In mid- to late-game, it is highly recommended to build your own stations. Stations with proper placements will help you earn more money.

**Tips**

- It is advised to put cloaks on all trading ships. While cloaked, they cannot be attacked and the player does not have to worry about upgrading their weapons/shields or repairing them, unless they get damaged in a crossfire. Make sure they are set to **Prefer to cloak**, and that **Attack Hostiles**and **Intercept Hostiles** are off.

- Set up a "Trade Base" in your universe. To build a Trade Base, first, find a suitable place to build the Trade Base, its highly recommended for it to be placed in a planet sector in the middle of the universe with ice asteroids or normal asteroid sectors surrounding it. Second, build your Trade Base with all the stations in the game, especially with the Orbital Farm, Ration Factory, and Brewery.

- Set up a patrol to protect your trade routes and Trade Base. The Ares-Class, Thunder-Class, and Drake-Class are the best patrol ships, being both fast and powerful. The patrol must have maximum **Aggression** and **Intercept Distance**.

### **Mining**

**Difficulty: Easy**

**Information**

Mining is the safest way to make money in Interstellar Pilot 2. It mines minerals from asteroids and and sells them to refineries or traders. Mining is slow and boring but very important in the economy.

**Tips**

- Use fleets with maximum of 3 ships when mining.

- Upgrade your ships with **Advance Mining Laser** in all of the turret of the ship. It increase the drop rate of minerals from the asteroid.

- In mid to late-game, build a **Refinery** in a asteroid sector where traffic of miners are high which increase money.

### **Scavenging**

**Difficulty: Moderate - Hard**

**Information**

Scavenging is an easy way to make a quick buck. All you need is a tractor beam, and a place of conflict. When a battle happens and the fog clears, be the first to snatch all the cargo, missiles, and mines. You can then sell this stuff at stations around the universe.

**Tips**

- Use fleets up to 8 ships when scavenging.

- Scavenge in conflict zones/borders of factions. A good example of this is Dymapa 753, Androla, Terekos, Helemus. Skirmishes always happens in these sectors.

### **Bounty Hunting/Missions**

**Difficulty: Moderate - Hard**

**Information**

Bounty Hunting got a lot harder on Interstellar Pilot 2. Doing missions or hunting for a bounty is always dangerous work. Most of the time, bounties are placed on ships who have seen several fights, often against larger vessels.

**Tips**

- **Don't fight battles you can't win!**

- Use fleets when doing Destroy Missions. Use fleets with up to 5 agile ships when Bounty Hunting.

- Stay in the good graces of the Factions and take out the freelancers, as they have no association to any of the Factions and they're mostly easy pickings!

### **Transporting Passenger**

**Difficulty: Moderate**

**Information**

Transporting passengers is one of the easiest way in earning money. They're usually a profit only strategy so you wont loose any money.

**Tips**

- **Upgrade your ship with at least a Small Cloak Mk1.**

- Use "P" ship variants in Passenger Transport.

### **Raiding**

**Difficulty: Hard - Extreme**

**Information**

You can always go for the evil way and destroy traders for their loot. Just be sure that you won't get destroyed instead. Generally, the best places to raid are the gates of a sector with trade stations, but you can camp specific stations such as Arms factory or Vehicle plants. Bounties are placed on you with every kill and theft, unless you are attacking solo traders.

**Tips**

- You can kill **freelancers** with little to no penalty at all. As their "factions" would be destroyed, no bounty would be placed on you.

- If your raiding targets are honorable, gentle, paragon, saintly. It is suggested to start the game in the **Plunderer** mode to have pirates and rebels to sell to, as the moral factions will not allow you to dock without using the game menu, and this will keep you from selling your loot.

- Be sure to scan your target's cargo! It would be disappointing after a long head to head battle with an Ares trader, just to have it drop a couple lancers. Be careful! Sometimes, factions can get mad at you when you scan their ships and declare war!