Probably Stolen Beginner Tips

Start where the developer told you to

Apprentice is the tip the studio already wrote. On 27 October they called it the generalist start and the best for beginners. The specialized starts are honest about their trouble: water liability, stolen goods, weapon inspections, chemical customers who come back, crops, fish tanks, or a rat. Rock Bottom is labeled maximum difficulty. Take that label seriously. Two of the rarest achievements are winning from that start, which is a compliment and a warning.

There are four difficulties. The launch post describes them as a range from beginner-friendly to very hard, and suggests stacking the hard end with Rock Bottom. It does not print the four names. If a guide tells you the cozy difficulty is called Price Gouge, that name is unverified. Pick the description you can read on the select screen.

Pay rent before you buy a personality

The fantasy is a back room full of machines. The failure state on the store page is rising rent. Before you buy a second tool, find the lease and copy the next payment onto a note. Credits sitting in stock are not credits you can hand the landlord. Comfortably Afloat, one of the more common achievements, checks estimated total wealth above 10,000 at the start of a day, and community guides agree that stock counts. That is wealth, not cash. Rent wants cash.

If a deal only works when you skip the next payment, it does not work. Confiscated stock and a bad purchase are the two ways the store page says you miss rent. Both are choices you make at the counter, not ambushes.

Inspect before you fall in love with the price

The official item rules are short and worth memorizing. Cigarette packs need a visual check. Water must be tested and filtered. Weapons need permits and modifications. Chemicals depend on recipes the sellers do not hand you. Rare items need an appraisal so a smooth talker cannot set the price. You are allowed to cut quality, relabel a counterfeit, or move stolen goods. You are also liable when that choice meets security or the neighbors.

The labeller is real. Patch 1.0.0.5 mentions using it on an injector, and the most-unlocked achievement, Lower Levels Special, is changing a label. Relabeling is a tool, not a free profit. The store page pairs it with mob justice.

One production line is a business

Pick water, weapons, chemistry, plants, or fish, and learn that chain before you buy the next machine. Water is the lane the studio rebalanced first, which makes it the best documented. After 1.0.0.2 and 1.0.0.5 the Moisture Farm is 350 credits, the Water Filter is 25, and the Water Purifier is 250. Dr. Jackson takes a 15% markup on Normal instead of 25%. Offer water without the filter still sitting in the pitcher. Customers will tell you, but you should already know.

Leave the Chem Finisher dry inputs. The 1.0.0.5 notes describe an evaporator bug that left a trace of water and got an alcohol batch refused. The fix tells you the rule: dry means dry. Gunsmith players should read the 3D printer note that now ships with that start. Recipe chips and module requirements in community tables are on the recipes page and are not confirmed here.

Hiding contraband is a placement puzzle

Smuggler bays exist, including a mini bay and a mod from the Underground Exchange. The hotfixes are a manual. Do not leave the bay in the trash and expect an inspection to ignore it. Do not leave the mod in the trash overnight. Do not put a Hypertech Storage Bay inside a smuggler bay. A Current Converter still sealed in a locked crate will not unlock its nightly service. These are official bug fixes, which means the systems are in the game and the clever trick you invented may already be the bug they removed.

People are the economy

• Do not shoot Lou during a visit. Patch 1.0.0.2 made that impossible for a reason. Reporting her to Security no longer drops Black Market reputation, as of 1.0.0.1.
• Augs are the shoot-on-sight rule from the store page. A community item list describes an Aug Scanner that confirms a suspect. That device is unverified. If you do not have a sure tell, refusing the sale is cheaper than a wrong shot.
• Reporting criminals is a whole achievement, Snitches Get Riches, at ten reports. It is also a reputation choice. Read who loses standing before you make it a habit.
• The wanted board, the exchange sheet, and the tablet are real documents. Patch 1.0.0.1 fixed them snapping back to the wrong size on non-16:9 monitors, which is a very boring way to learn they exist.

Saves, cloud, and a fresh start

Steam Cloud and Family Sharing are store categories, so the game is built to keep a save and to be shared inside a household. Options include a 'saved days per run' slider. Patch 1.0.0.2 made that slider show its current value, and 1.0.0.5 makes Load Game open the newest run with earlier days already visible. Crate contents stay fixed once you reveal them, even if your luck later goes up. That last fix matters: do not reload hoping a crate rerolls.

There is a Mods panel on the main menu. It did not close with Escape until 1.0.0.1, and 1.0.0.6 then changed modding for security. Use mods after you have one clean run. They are not a beginner tool, and this guide does not document trainers.

Controls worth binding once

The store lists a mouse-only option, adjustable text size, and custom volume. It does not list full controller support in the category set checked on 31 October 2026. Keyboard binds do exist. Esc has a second Menu / Back key as of 1.0.0.6. The bell is B by default and can be rebound; hold it to dismiss the customer. Auto-rotate while sorting is off by default for new players after 1.0.0.5. The frame-rate cap defaults on, follows the monitor, and is VSync rather than a software limiter. Turn it off in Options if you want.

When something feels unfair, check the release notes before you rebuild your strategy. The first four days after launch were a patch a day. A tactic from a launch-night video may already be the bug.