Probably Stolen: Best Water Merchant Start Guide

Becoming a Water Merchant in Probably Stolen is one of the simplest ways to launch a thriving enterprise. Getting started right can set you up for success or lead to wasted resources, so focus on establishing a water purification system instead of splurging on upgrades. This early investment can significantly improve your income flow.

Your main objective is to have three water purifiers running by Day 8 to 14, ensuring a steady supply of quality water. This approach emphasizes regular income generation, helping you avoid unexpected costs related to inventory and random events. Keep your eyes on the prize: a sustainable income from your purified water.

Before diving into the specifics, gather your starting resources, check your water supply, and prepare to invest heavily in water purification. Your first few decisions can easily determine your success.

Here’s the lowdown on your Water Merchant strategy, emphasizing the key milestones you need to reach for a successful start.

In essence, you need to have three water purifiers operational by Day 8-14, produce a constant flow of quality water, and earn enough money to invest in your upgrades. This puts emphasis on creating regular income rather than quick profits. In addition, this will help you avoid unpredictable expenses related to your inventory, random events, and so on.

Here are the steps that will ensure efficient operation of your enterprise.

• TLDR: Best Water Merchant Operating Strategy
• Best Starting Perks and Setup for the Water Merchant
• Understanding the Water Merchant’s Starting Equipment
• Days 1–3: Get Your First Additional Purifier
• Days 4–7: Transition to High-Quality Water
• Don’t overpay for batteries
• Make Extra Money Through the Appraisal Board
• Your Daily Water Purification Routine
• When Should You Buy Insurance and Install Security?

TLDR: Best Water Merchant Operating Strategy

Here’s a summary of the entire opening strategy, including the milestones you should be aiming for.

Timeline	Main objective
Day 1	Process starting water, sell Base Water, purchase first purifier from Jackson.
Day 2	Continue selling Base Water, look for Jackson’s discounted modules.
Day 3	Sell Efficiency and Quality Modules, purchase a purifier from the Water Merchant.
Days 4–7	Clear remaining Base Water, expand storage, look for another purifier and battery.
Days 8–14	Get all three purifiers operational and establish daily production.
Day 4 onwards	Purchase insurance to protect valuable inventory.
After establishing production	Build a security alarm system using the saved Performance Module.

What follows is a detailed breakdown of how to achieve this cycle.

Best Starting Perks and Setup for the Water Merchant

Before starting your run, you will have some considerations to make. These perks provide you with the necessary capital that gives you flexibility in dealing with your purification business.

Starting choice	Why you should pick it
Water Merchant	Provides the starting equipment needed for water purification.
Working Pipes	Gives you 600 credits worth of starting value.
Savings	Provides additional starting credits to help fund early purchases.
Short Sleeper	Reduces the chances of missing potential customers.
Bad Lease	Increases starting rent by 40, but frees up resources for more important early purchases.

Your first major milestone is to acquire three water purifiers. Everything else should take a back seat until you have them installed and producing water.

Understanding the Water Merchant’s Starting Equipment

All Water Merchant operations have an identical set of equipment available from the beginning. One of them, the HydroTech purifier, is very valuable because it helps you to convert impure water into marketable one. Your goal is to increase the quality of water from Toxic Water to Base Water, High-Quality Water and finally to Pure Water.

But you do not have to pursue the maximum water quality straight away. As soon as the water becomes Base Water, customers start purchasing it, providing you with additional income source.

At first, you need to use your HydroTech purifier for processing of the whole jug of water. After producing one jug of Base Water, you need to divide the remaining water into another jug with about 1,500 ml of water inside and purify it with the help of purifier charges.

Then you need to place your Base Water jug in the display case. If you like, you can use the Water Neon Sign too.

But it is not necessary because water itself is able to attract customers.

Once your first customer comes along, try to sell as many bottles of your water as possible. Moreover, you will need to buy the empty bottles from customers as you cannot produce them yourself. There is no need to please all customers and purchase wholesale products right away; your initial money is for something else – buying new purifiers.

Days 1–3: Get Your First Additional Purifier

The first few days are devoted exclusively to earning money to enhance your purification ability.

Day 1: Buy your first purifier

As soon as you get through with your first day, go to Jackson’s store and look through his stock to see if there is any water purifier in it. In case there is, buy it right away.

In addition to that, you need a battery to power the machine. You can take the battery out of your Bottle Maker and put it into the purifier.

Then, take a regular bottle, fill it up with Rust Water at your faucet, and place it in the purifier.

And that’s your first purification machine set up.

Starting from now on, the machine will process one regular bottle of Rust Water per night and give you High-Quality Water.

Day 2: Preserve your capital

Keep selling whatever Base Water you have left from your initial setup. Try not to buy anything else from the wholesalers no matter how profitable it seems. At some point in time you will need to switch from Base Water and start storing High-Quality Water using the containers that you have at hand.

You might also run into Odin Haraldson at this early stage. If this is your first game, you would be well advised to ignore him and let him go through, since he might prove to be useful later on.

Take advantage of Jackson’s friend discount

At some stage in the early game, Jackson may give you a special price for three modules. In this particular case, I was given such an offer on Day 2. If you have enough credits, then accept his offer.

You can then sell these modules to the clients who want to purchase upgrades, and earn some additional money in order to buy more purifiers. But you need to be careful and not sell all the modules. You will need the Performance Module for the security alarm system that you are going to build in the future.

Day 3: Turn modules into additional capital

Once you are ready to sell these modules, you have to keep those items that you want to sell only in your display case. This will make it easier for you to get the right customer as well as Low Level Inventor will help you in this situation since they are willing to buy modules.

The sale of Efficiency and Quality modules will bring you about 160 credits which is indeed a good amount of money.

Buy your second purifier from the Water Merchant

The travelling Water Merchant is yet another key supplier of the required equipment. Contrary to Dr.

Jackson, who sometimes has purifiers, the Water Merchant always has his. Whenever the Water Merchant visits, be sure to buy his purifier provided you have enough money to do so.

This is yet another reason why you should not spend money unnecessarily at the beginning. You do not want to miss out on purchasing the equipment due to lack of funds on something else.

After buying the equipment, go back to Jackson once more and try to find a battery there. Place it inside and pour some Rust Water into a regular bottle.

Days 4–7: Transition to High-Quality Water

By Day 4, your task is to get rid of all the Base Water left. You want to make space for your jugs and bottles that you will use for gathering and selling High-Quality Water. This is the stage when the Water Merchant game becomes a little more complicated, as with several purifiers on hand, you will have to transport empty bottles, fill them with dirty water, and move products to storage.

Fortunately, there is a much quicker method of dealing with all these bottles.

A useful bottle-management trick

Rather than dragging each bottle separately, you may choose to drag several bottles at once. Just point your cursor slightly away from the inventory slots, hold down your mouse button, and drag your cursor over all of the bottles you want to drag.

Letting go of your mouse will highlight them all at once. Now drag them over to your Rust Water faucet, filling up all of your bottles at once.

It is a minor tip, but a very helpful one when you have many purifiers working at once.

Don’t overpay for batteries

You will not always adhere to the same timeline. Some random occurrences may affect shop stock and equipment costs such that at times, you might need to hold off your purchase.

A power outage could lead to high costs of batteries. In such a case, it would be advisable to wait until the occurrence ceases rather than spending an unreasonable amount of money.

What matters is that you keep your focus. Your target is three working purifiers and not necessarily three purifiers bought on a certain day.

With careful spending, you should have all three operational somewhere between Day 8 and Day 14.

Make Extra Money Through the Appraisal Board

Another useful early-game opportunity comes from the Appraisal Board. You’ll eventually be approached and offered membership in the organisation in exchange for credits. It’s worth accepting the invitation.

Once you’re a member, you’ll receive an additional magnifying glass that can be sold to the mysterious black-suited customer. This customer purchases certain items at a discount rather than paying the usual marked-up price. While that might sound like a poor deal, the magnifying glass provides an opportunity to generate additional income without having to invest in wholesale inventory.

You can also display your Appraisal Board membership item in your shop to attract customers and generate further sales. It’s a relatively low-effort way to supplement your earnings while your purification business gets established.

Your Daily Water Purification Routine

After setting up several machines, running your business becomes very easy.

You just have to follow a simple procedure each day consisting of these steps:

1. Collecting your High-Quality Water: In the morning, you collect the High-Quality Water from your machines and store it in the containers.
2. Refilling your bottles: Fill the empty bottles with Rust Water and put them in the purifiers.
3. Selling your products: Display the High-Quality Water for sale.
   Follow this procedure every day.

If you use three machines producing one bottle every night, then you will be making three bottles of High-Quality Water per day. As the price of one bottle is 50 credits, you get a daily income of about 150 credits.

Keep an eye on your finances, particularly your upcoming rent payments. You’re still balancing equipment purchases, battery costs, and occasional unexpected expenses, so don’t assume every credit you earn is available for upgrades.

Maintaining enough cash to cover rent is just as important as expanding your production.

When Should You Buy Insurance and Install Security?

At Day 4, you would need to begin buying insurance since your equipment and inventory would need protection from being stolen. Being deprived of precious resources at the stage when you are just creating your company would hold you back to some extent. At this point, insurance can be considered a wise spending.

Yet, this should not turn into a lasting strategy. Next, you should invest in an alarm system.

Do you remember the Performance Module that you saved from Jackson’s sale? It comes in handy right here.

You would need to use it at the process of installing the alarm, thus meeting the required 49 Performance. This way, having your security system working will ensure safety of your business without paying the constant insurance fee.

When all this is done, you can choose what you want to develop your business further.

What is the most significant blunder you can make at the early stage of being a Water Merchant in Probably Stolen? It will be to diversify your spending too much.

The chances to buy your inventory in bulk, try different types of items, and develop your store are numerous. Nevertheless, nothing is more important than having a stable flow of income.

Having three water purifiers, you get a more or less stable income cycle that allows getting 150 credits a day.

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