User:Hordes/Money making guide

There are lots of ways of "making money" in RimWorld. Depending on a colony's location, progress, and inhabitants, certain means of production will be more viable than others. Some can give profit in the long-term, but require more set-up or work. And there are (at least!) two ways to measure "best" - making the fastest profit in the least time, or squeezing the most profit out of a limited amount of starting material, even if it takes longer.

This guide will give an overview of the different options, with links to guides that expand in more detail on that specific pursuit.

In no particular order:

Crops, including cloth & drug production
Animals, including textile crafting
Construction, art and crafting.
Prisoners, and their human resources

Note on trading

There is no "buy low, sell high" in RimWorld. In general, trader prices do not vary by a lot. At most, any faction base offers a +2% Trade Price Improvement. However, certain traders will only accept certain types of items. While a faction base will buy almost everything in their tech level, a combat supplier may not be interested in your human leather.

What's more important to note is the default 0.6x price multiplier for selling, and a seperate 1.4x price multiplier for buying. The Trade price disadvantage storyteller difficulty setting will make things even worse. Your trading disadvantage can be reduced by increasing Social skill (and other means of raising TPI).

All values in this guide assume Strive to Survive difficulty, and use Market Value instead of "actual" value. Difficulty impacts most item yields and the trade price disadvantage. If you have 0 Social skill, expect things to become 233% more expensive in Strive to Survive, and 350% more expensive in Losing is Fun.