Since there's been some activity here again, I'll post one more method of quick money we overlooked earlier. It's not much, but you are given the tools needed free of charge during the initial plot of the game.
Stealing and reselling via Cargo Bay Hacker max 2,246,016 per successful attempt
You are provided with one copy of the Cargo Bay Hacker equipment during the course of the initial plot of FL. This hacker can steal from
stations as well as ships. If you steal items from a Dock, you can steal then sell the same item back to the Dock again indefinitely. So what's the best thing to steal with the CBH?
That would be the Single Use Jump Beacon at the Terracorp HQ in Home of Light alpha, at 2,246,016 credits per beacon. So the steps are:
- Get friendly with Terracorp. You need to be able to dock to resell the beacons and friendlier relations may improve the odds of stealing successfully.
- Steal a beacon from the Terracorp HQ. Just one will do, no need to risk failure by trying for more at one time. Beacons are automatically replenished, just like Pods at Military Outposts.
- Dock to the HQ and sell the Beacon.
- Repeat 2 and 3 for as much money as you want.
It will take 446 successful steal and resell cycles to get one billion credits. Each cycle takes between 30 and 60 seconds, including time taken for the autosave, which also gives you a convenient retry point in case you fail an attempt, so you shouldn't bypass it. That lets you reach your first billion within 4 to 7.5 hours at this. You can do this with nothing more than what you are given at the completion of the initial plot.