Making money with sunslag
I have, in the past, gotten my "money economy" going by waiting until I could kill a salt kraken, which has a valuable corpse. Picking it up, then recoiling next to a merchant with a lot of stuff. Once that's going, it's cloning draught and metamorphic polygel.
But a much easier route: Just get some sunslag (found by exploring in the Palladium Reefs). Drop a dram into the river of primordial ooze in the Rainbow Wood. Wait a bit, and you'll have a monosludge with a radiant pseudopod forming. Then run around and let it throw dilute sunslag at you, which will generate a lot of that. Even dilute, it's quite valuable.
Maybe this was obvious to other people, but took me a bit.
Lol thanks for the suggestion. The liquid exploits are fun to hear about.
Been making my money usually from flipping scavanged crap from corpses. carbonite and crysteel weapons are easy pickings in goatman villages. Before that I did the same thing with snapjaws and steel weapons. I found that companions are at least worth their weight as cargo haulers though I wish I could micromanage their inventory directly.
Early game I got lucky the world gen hooked me up with like 50 sacks worth of wine just spawning in a random ruin outside the mushroom village. Ive been holding onto some desalination pellets in case I feel like getting clever with liquids. Right now I have more water and wine and unusable augmented parts than I know what to do with.
Ill trade an 'exploit' I found though its not related to money. I found that wardens are really good companions for survivability. And by that I mean they aren't useless in a fight and dont go down instantly in a tough fight sideeyes Joppa elder
Each settlements has a warden and they're ranked by certain strength+armor sets tied to levels. They all cost around 300-400 rep to become companions. Not all wardens are mad3 equal though.
If you have the rep and can take the risk, you invest in wayfaring all the biomes needed to make it to the village in palledium reef with the king flower. You get the warden there to become your companion. You now have a walking death machine for a friend armed to the teeth with late game weaponry + armor. Bring this warden back with you to lower level areas and steamroll.