How do you guys make money in rimworld?

[cmitc1]

I have found making cowboy hats easy, and profitable early game. I tried drugs before, but they never really felt like they were worth the amount of time it takes to make them?... statues can be profitable, but, cowboy hats are faster.

[PotatoeTater]

I make yayo and beer. I enjoy being a drug cartel and with the mods I have on it fits right into our cult.

[forestfey]

...stomping the local food market by establishing a year-round influx of produce and refined products made from them, and thus putting the local agriculturists out of work with superior, technological advantage.

Of course I could establish an local education programme to show them how to proper- and abundantly grow their own forage and improve soil-conditions... But where would the profit be if I gave them this autonomy?

You want canned baked beans, coconut-milk, berry-wine or pineapple fruit-pies? Come to my place... We are the only ones on this planet able to provide such a high standard of quality! 

(Rather a roleplaying approach, granted. But meals are quite valuable if you can spare the food...)

[b0rsuk]

Depends on biome and colonist skills.

Sculptures are an okay method, fit for a mountain ice sheet colony.

A year-round growing zone lets you make FAR more money by selling devilstrand parkas. I like that method because devilstrand is very low maintenance and parkas have the highest price/stockpile density ratio (although storage is less of a problem now that we can have 1 wall tile surrounded by "roof build area" and no walls). Smokeleaf probably makes more, but selling devilstrand crafts earns enough that a typical trading ship runs out of silver.

[TheMeInTeam]

Devilstrand has such a long time before payoff though.  Even if you plant it pretty fast, we're talking ~ half of a year, and even that's only viable in year-round climates.

As building and cooking both level up very fast anyway furniture and food are underestimated as income sources too.  Human leather armchairs are no joke, but armchairs aren't bad in general.

[Catastrophy]

Yayo and apparel mostly. Coupla thrumbo horns and occasionally meals but I tend to hold on to them.

[SilentP]

I sell everything that isn't nailed down.

Dead man's clothing and any weapon below "normal" is immediately sold.  Then it's a combination of sculptures, smoke leaf, stone blocks and human leather products.

[Limdood]

pemmican and smokeleaf joints are incredibly profitable and easy to mass produce for tribals (getting convenient, small, high priority stockpiles is absolutely key for efficiency).

Selling clothing/cloth (i sometimes play with a mending mod, but i always play with the ability to break down clothing into a small amount of resources, cuz it just makes sense)

Sometimes i try to set up a yayo/beer production line, but it feels inferior to smokeleaf for growing space/profit.  I sell excess art, but also use it liberally all over my base. 

[mrm]

Money... i have a problem with storing them, i have 150K+ silver. Just from trading, no deep drilling. Just selling useless junk, not making stuff for profit. I thought that i make some art out of silver, but i hit another problem. How and where do i sell a grand legendary silver sculpture? Its pretty impossible. Well, i can buy lots of gold and make gold art... Money is overrated, it is needed maybe in first year, maybe two. Afterwards you get tons of it, not even trying.

But yeah, smokeleaf (or other drugs in general, but watch out for chemical interest pawns, smokeleaf is pretty harmless), good quality devilstrand clothes, deep drilling chemfuel (or plasteel), art (basically any quality will do), scyther blades and other exotic stuff like thrumbo horn (its worth to hunt them down).

[TheMeInTeam]

pemmican and smokeleaf joints are incredibly profitable and easy to mass produce for tribals (getting convenient, small, high priority stockpiles is absolutely key for efficiency).

Selling clothing/cloth (i sometimes play with a mending mod, but i always play with the ability to break down clothing into a small amount of resources, cuz it just makes sense)

Sometimes i try to set up a yayo/beer production line, but it feels inferior to smokeleaf for growing space/profit.  I sell excess art, but also use it liberally all over my base.

I like how you can just spam dining room chairs and double beds with a builder --> get art.  I have seen pawns walk up to the bed to view the art when leaving it outside a bedroom, pretty amusing.

I hear people use actual artist/sculptures but I don't have much experience with its profitability.

[Sola]

Any abundant resource, craft it, sell it.

Wood?  Make dining chairs.
Textiles?  Make clothes.
Components/steel?  Make weapons.

Silver is not hard to come by once you know what you're doing.

[Beider]

I generally like to start by selling food, you need a good food supply anyway so I just cook tons of normal meals and sell the surplus.

When I can afford it I usually branch out so I have something to sell to all kinds of traders. This means making beer, drugs, food, parkas, sculptures and even furniture. I find this more efficient as amassing too much of a single product makes it impossible to sell it all.

The only things I don't tend to produce to sell is weapons and prosthetic as the materials tend to cost more than what you get from selling them. I also tend not to breed animals as the food they eat is usually worth more than you can get from selling them.

Money... i have a problem with storing them, i have 150K+ silver. Just from trading, no deep drilling. Just selling useless junk, not making stuff for profit. I thought that i make some art out of silver, but i hit another problem. How and where do i sell a grand legendary silver sculpture? Its pretty impossible. Well, i can buy lots of gold and make gold art... Money is overrated, it is needed maybe in first year, maybe two. Afterwards you get tons of it, not even trying.

I wish I had this problem. I usually always play with expanded prosthetics and organ engineering, every time I got money I blow it instantly on bionics. To fully kit out a single colonist cost something like 150-200k silver... then they run off and die and you start all over again.

[skullywag]

Flake, tonnes and tonnes of flake....fields of the stuff. I just plant a stooooooooopid amount and store in freezers, by the time i have the research done I have a silly amount of psychoid stored I setup a few drug labs and go to town, I probably pull 20k+ in my first few caravans.

[b0rsuk]

Devilstrand has such a long time before payoff though.  Even if you plant it pretty fast, we're talking ~ half of a year, and even that's only viable in year-round climates.

Yes, mostly year-round, but there's only initial delay. Later, you're limited by the speed of your best tailors. You end up getting regular influx of devilstrand. I mean devilstrand apparel, not raw devilstrand.

[RimworldOx]

Crafting high quality clothing and selling it.