In Earth, besides quest items, ONLY mine from the (orange planet)Jupiter's moons, note that you cannot mine from Jupiter itself, because it is a Gas Giant.

Sell the Gun that you start out with !
Buy some fuel, maybe 30 or so, and about half upgrade the engines and turning jets.

Go to Alpha Centauri, just to the bottom left of Earth.

Alpha Centauri contains 2 "Ruby Worlds" these have a small amount of fire,(2) but you can save on the planet scanning screen by choosing the "game" option, so you can mitigate the danger. Make things safer by bailing out and accepting the need for 3-4 trips.

With both of these mined, you can return to earth and purchase a full set of both turning and Engines, as well around 180 Fuel (which requires purchasing three more fuel tanks)

From here you can re-purcahse the Gun - You have enough cash to really play around very comfortably at this point, but if you want a little more -

Fly Straight East of Earth for a while: the 2 main hostile aliens in this area are the least mobile in the game and with maxed out speed and turning you can easily farm huge amounts of cash off of them using your flagship for combat with almost no risk.

(moreso the second one further out)

The first group is also very vulnerable to the Earthling Cruiser, while the second is vulnerable to fast ships if you are coming back later in the game and don't want to use all flagship combat.

From a new game

You can sell the Flagship's gun, cargo bay (it can still pick up quest items) and even fwiffo (remove all crew through the fleet management screen)

This will give you enough money for 161 fuel and max engines (but not turning) all without leaving the solar system (cutting out Jupiter's Moons)

If you want to keep Fwiffo, Alpha Centauri's 2 Ruby World's allows you to get this amount of money equally fast - after these 2 planets, you will never need minerals again!

Once you have 161 fuel - leave Earth and go directly to Alpha Pavonis, land on Planet 7 (the Light Blue one in the upper right) and get the Warp Core.

Go to Beta Pegasi Planet 1 (closest to sun) and Scan it (picking up minerals is not neccesary or recomended, since it is Weather 4 instead of the tame Weather 2 of Alpha Centauri)

Go to 42:637 and wait for the portal to open, then get the Portal Spawner

Go to the nearest Left Portal (492/492)

Visit the Pfunk at 52 : 52

Go to the nearest South Portal (504/474)

When you return to Earth, talk to the Commander, and you will receive 3 Arilou because of your visit to their homeworld earlier-

Now Sell some of your ships - The Arilou are worth 1500. and Pfunk 2000.
If you do not like this idea, "temporarily' sell all your flagship turning jets.

From here Purcahse 134 fuel

Use the 530:528 Center Portal to arrive in Utwig Space,

There are three Rainbow Worlds near here
Beta Leporis (766:866) Gamma Aquarri(853:879), and the slightly out of the way Groombridge (996:904)

We only need a total of 2 visited, including Beta Pegasi, so skip some of these if you want.

Use the Bottom-Leftmost portal to travel near Arcturus

Collect the Burvixese Caster from Planet 1's moon.

Use the 504/474 portal

Use the Melnorme on Alpha Centauri (or through the caster) and buy upgrades, We have 1500 credits (or 2000) due to the rainbow worlds
The only upgrade we care about is High-Effiecency Fuel tanks, the sixth upgrade (900 credits spent) - spending all the way up to 1950 will give all 13 technologies, since the fun flagship stuff is probbably what you want to work towards once we're rich anyway.

Go to earth and equip 15 HI Eff Fuel tanks(16 if you also drop crew down to) You WILL need to sell all of your Turning jets and 1-3 Engines ~ to afford the 15,000 RU this costs

You need at least 15 fuel leaving earth

Use the Topmost portal

Fly to 946:260, and sell the Caster to Druuge, refuse to take the special offer of the Rosy Sphere - and he will give you the usual price -

Return to Earth

It will take nearly 2 straight minutes to sell all the fuel, but you'll have About 40,000 RUs (including selling all but 1 of the now empty fuel tanks)

From here you are free to do what you want - Super Flagships? A full flight of 12 Escorts? The sky is the limit.

The Speedrun.com Star Control 2 board

For the idea to sell off earlygame freebie ships

The Ur Quan Masters Wiki[wiki.uqm.stack.nl]

For the Selling Fuel to the Druuge Part


Druuge is the single highest profit in the game... but getting the 15,000 to pay for the fuel tanks themselves always seemed to make it a chore - You had to be moderately rich already before you could do it. So I'm glad I thought to combine it with the things speedrunners used to beat the game under an hour (on a very tight budget)

At last, the war to end Resource and Mineral Gathering is Complete!