First-run decision flow
A run follows the same order each time. Use this as a checklist for your first few days:
- Choose difficulty and a starting scenario
Four difficulty levels and nine starts. Apprentice is the developers' pick for beginners. Compare the trades.
- Read what your start gave you
Machines come with instructions, and some interfaces have a slot for the manual. Patch 1.0.0.2 added the missing instruction note to the Gunsmith start's 3D Printer.
- Inspect every item before paying
Suppliers and customers can overstate value. What to check.
- Treat the first price as an opening offer
Haggling is part of the game, and what you're asked isn't what you have to pay. Read the deal.
- Keep rent money aside
Rent rises over time. Spend what's left over on machines that pay for themselves. Operating cash.
- Load machines before you sleep
Most production runs overnight and appears in OUTPUT the next morning. Nightly checks.
Choosing a starting trade
The Steam page frames each trade as a choice of trouble: weapons bring inspections, chemicals bring addiction, water brings liability, contraband brings raids. Some trades need heavy machinery and permits, others mostly a good hiding spot. The table pairs the developers' description of each start with the risk they name for it. A dash means the official text names no specific risk, not that the trade is safe.
| Start | What the developers describe | Risk they name |
|---|---|---|
| Apprentice | Generalist start. The developers call it the best start for beginners. | — |
| Water Merchant | Test and purify water, then decide whether to re-label it honestly. | Liability for what you sell |
| Fence | Buy and resell stolen goods at a discount. | Security and raids on contraband |
| Gunsmith | Weapons and weapon mods, with high margins. | Security inspections; weapons need permits |
| Chemist | Profitable chemicals from closely guarded recipes, plus repeat customers. | Addiction |
| Hydroponic Farmer | Grow crops in small spaces, later genetically modified breeds. | — |
| Aquafarmer | Breed fish and manage tank water quality. | — |
| Rat Wrangler | Raise rats. The pitch is simply “Can you grow a healthy rat?” | — |
| Rock Bottom | Start with nothing. | Maximum difficulty |
Descriptions paraphrase the developers' “500,000 Wishlists!” post and the Steam store page. According to ShowGamer (October 29, 2026), the Hydroponic Farmer start includes hydroponic equipment, seeds and a farming manual, with higher starting rent. We haven't confirmed rent figures for any start.
If this is your first run, start with Apprentice, as the developers recommend, and learn inspection and haggling before adding machines. If you already know you want production, pick a start whose machines come with it. Then the crafting guide applies from day one and you don't have to buy equipment on a tight budget.
This is our suggestion for learning the game. It isn't a ranking of the trades: the developers don't publish one and we can't verify one.
Explore the production routes in the Aquaculture & Aquafarmer guide and DNA Manipulator guide.
Inspect before you pay
The store page is direct about it: anyone at the counter might be trying to scam you, and if you misjudge an item or the seller, the loss is yours. What it says to check:
- Cigarette packs: a visual inspection before resale.
- Water: test it and filter it.
- Weapons: need permits and modifications.
- Rare items: appraise them so you don't overpay. Fakes exist, and the game lets you knowingly relabel counterfeits too.
- Contraband: problems often show up only after the deal is done.
Patch notes add a few details that affect inspection:
- 1.0.0.5 Scanners now round liquid volumes down to the hundredth. A 1,996 µl reading shows 1.99 mL, so a scanner never shows more than the container actually holds.
- 1.0.0.5 The fuel inspection guide image was improved. If you started on 1.0.0.4 or earlier, take another look.
- 1.0.0.5 Water customers now tell you to remove the Water Filter when you hand over a Water Pitcher with the filter still inside. Before the patch they just refused.
For water quality, use the Pure Water guide to distinguish purifier limits from the actual batch reading.
Appraisal: check each feature before changing the price
Ribwich, cybernetic hand and plasma-cartridge appraisals use different inspection criteria. In a post-launch Steam discussion, players disagree about which is hardest, and a rejected cartridge estimate prompts a specific check for exposed screws that the calculation may have missed. The useful lesson is to inspect every listed feature rather than repeatedly nudging a total.
Keep the relevant in-game reference beside the item. Work through its checks in order, record each adjustment once, then calculate the total. On a rejection, revisit the observations before guessing a new price. Do not carry a Ribwich rule across to a cartridge or assume a similar-looking condition has the same value.
If a certificate tooltip is hidden behind its window on an ultrawide display, check your build: 1.0.0.1 fixed that display problem. An unreadable tooltip and a wrong appraisal are separate faults. We have not verified a complete current appraisal-value table, so this checklist does not supply invented prices or guaranteed scores.
Asking price vs. the actual deal
Haggling is a listed feature, and the store page warns that every bargain has a trade-off. Two patch fixes show that the price you hear and the price you pay can differ:
- 1.0.0.1 The Merchant used to always say he wanted a 15% discount. He now states the discount he actually takes on your difficulty.
- 1.0.0.2 Dr. Jackson's markup on his stock was lowered from 25% to 15% on Normal. The patch gives no figures for the other difficulties.
Before you agree, look at the final price you're agreeing to, not the opening ask or what the other side says about the discount. Compare it with what inspection or appraisal told you about the item. For anything you plan to resell, the margin should still hold up after the haggle.
Operating cash and rent
Rent goes up over the run. The store page warns that confiscated stock or one bad deal can leave you short for the next payment, and that every purchase needs to earn its keep. Paying rent reliably is what lets you expand, run more than one business and unlock new merchandise and production.
Machines are a big part of early spending. Prices changed in the first week, and these are the ones the patches confirm:
- Moisture Farm 1.0.0.2
- 350 cr
- Water Filter 1.0.0.2
- 25 cr
- Water Purifier 1.0.0.5
- 250 cr
Work out the next rent payment first and keep it untouched. Use only the rest for stock and machines. Inspections and raids can wipe out stock overnight, so don't spend everything on one shipment. A machine only pays off once it has inputs and power, so price those in as well.
We don't list rent amounts or a target cash reserve. They depend on your difficulty and start, and we haven't verified them.
Loan Shark: financing the shop
The Loan Shark offers a way to buy the shop with a down payment followed by instalments.
Once you accept, mortgage reminders appear in the shop’s payment countdown, calendar and nightly report. The lender collects on rent days, so include the next payment when planning your operating cash.
If you are undecided, asking him to return later is different from refusing permanently: permanent refusal closes that round of loan offers.
Before accepting, read the property value, down payment, interest rate and repayment period in your current save’s offer. Difficulty affects those terms.
If you cannot pay, stock can be repossessed. The Repo Slip records what was taken; the exact item-seizure rules remain unconfirmed here.
Mortgage terms, reminders and repossession: Bhawna Sharma’s October 31 Indiatimes guide; the financing role is also listed in Wikily’s character directory. These are post-launch third-party sources with unspecified builds; conflicting rate, term and appearance figures are omitted.
Nightly production
Most production happens while you sleep. Load a machine with inputs, an Energy Cell and, where needed, a recipe chip. End the day, and finished goods appear in OUTPUT the next morning. Some recipes take more than one night. The crafting guide covers slots, chips and what to check when nothing comes out.
- Vending Machines keep selling overnight after you close (1.0 feature).
- 1.0.0.5 A store with its power cut now stays dark until the next night's power check. Before the fix, an afterhours trip could turn the lights back on.
- 1.0.0.5 A Smuggler Bay Mod from the Underground Exchange no longer gets thrown out if you leave it in the trash can overnight.
Before you sleep, open each machine and check four things: power, inputs, chip and an empty OUTPUT. In the morning, check OUTPUT and progress before deciding a recipe failed.
Patches, saves and mods
- Demo saves carry over to 1.0, but the developers recommend a fresh start so you don't miss new storylines.
- 1.0.0.2 The “Saved days per run” option now shows its current value. Use it to check how many past days you can return to.
- 1.0.0.5 Load Game opens your most recent run with its earlier saved days already listed, so you can go back to an earlier day from there.
- 1.0.0.5 Opened loot crates now keep their contents. Before the fix, reloading after your luck increased re-rolled them.
- 1.0.0.5 Bell hotkey: “Call next customer (Bell)”, B by default, rebindable. Hold it to dismiss the current customer.
- 1.0.0.6 A modding security change breaks some mods until their authors update them. If a mod stopped working after this patch, check whether its author has released an update.
Full changelogs: official Probably Stolen announcements on Steam. We paraphrase only the changes that affect a new player. We don't give mod installation steps, because the mod system changed in 1.0.0.6.