Hey Gent, welcome!
I believe Jonathan answered your question in a best possible way, I'll add only ooRP laws are
server rules and these apply to all players everywhere.
InRP laws though, may and do differ from each other, for example what is contraband in one House is legal in another, i.e.
Blood Diamonds which are illegal in Rheinland and Liberty, but legal in Bretonia and Kusari.
In powercore nerf matter I'll show you how it works on an example:
Wraith very heavy fighter is marked as Rheinland Military tech, and Daumann ID card has "green cell" for it ( 90% of powercore) , what means if I use Wraith with Daumann ID, but with civilian guns only, I'll get 90% of initial powercore to use.
However, if I decide to use
Bounty Hunter Buckshot guns on that ship as well, I'll get 81% of initial powercore, as Daumann also has green cell for BHG ships and guns, mixed that makes 90% of 90%, and gives general powercore nerf to the level of 81%.
If you have any other questions, just ask, I'll do my best to answer them.
To start making money, I'd advise restart Miner, and mining helium in Pennsylvania, in that big blue nebula behind planet Erie. It's simple, you create new char, type in the window (doesn't matter is it local chat or console window) /restart Miner. You'll get disconnected from the server, and after you reconnect you're at planet Erie with
Surveyor light miner. Buy Rhino frieghter from ship dealer, and some civilian guns. Go to the Hallam nebula, switch to cockpit view ( ctrl V ), press space for mouse control, aim at small rocks floating in space and shoot them. "Ore", in that case Helium, will be transferred to your cargo hold automatically. You can sell it for good price on Erie, it's not worth hauling it further with Rhino's tiny 225 cargo space, though; you'll earn more by selling it on Erie and quickly mining another load in close nebula. Once you have 2 million credits of savings, go to New York, to planet Pittsburgh, and buy Camara freighter, it has 630 units of cargo space. Here you can decide do you want to mine more Helium and go out and start normal trading, initial routes are neon from planet Erie to Manhattan and Basic Alloys back, and, when you have bigger transport, Neon from Erie to planet Kyushu in Kusari, in Kyushu system, and Rice back.
Of course you aren't limited to these two routes only, trading system in entire mod is incredibly balanced, and general efficiency of standard trade route is around 10 000 credits per second, when done in some of
big trains, popularly called "5kers", due to fact they have 5000 units of cargo space.
Freelancer Companion, trade routes database, is very helpful to maximize your profits, almost all traders and "cashmaking" factions use it.
Roleplay however should be always prioritized, also while trading. For example it's bad RP to trade luxury goods like Cigars as Daumann IDed transport. Daumann is in mining and heavy industry, ores, refined metals such as Cobalt or Copper, Mining Machinery and Light Arms are examples of go-to commodities in Daumann trader's case.
Joining trading faction to earn some money for start, meet people and learn realities of the game is a good idea, if you are interested in Rheinland RP, want to make decent cash, enjoy RP, and PvP as well, Daumann Heavy Construction could be good choice, it's mixed mining/trading faction. For more info click my signature, it'll redirect you to our subforum, we provide free ships for new members if they need them, transports and miners.
I'm sure you'll like this game, have fun!
