Trading and Fences

Hey everyone. Still just getting a feel for the game, but I’ve been finding it very hard to make any money off the start. So far as I can tell, the only two stations inetrested in selling to/buying from me are the common metal mine and refinery.

Although it makes sense to me that I need to upgrade my status with a faction to have them work with me, 20k is a steep bill when you’re only making 50cr per pod!

As such I decided to turn my impatience into pirating. At first I was super excited, picking and choosing the best pods to steal and bring to a fence. Much to my suprise, the fences kept refusing to trade with me and I had to take the pods to the scrapper. Still twice as much as I’d have made normally.

I know now that I probably need to improve my standing with the Kong as well for them to trade with me. However, I can’t find them on the list of factions!

So my 2 questions are:

a) is there a better way to trade off the start that earns more than 50cr a pod?

b) how do I get the fences to trade with me (which faction to I have to upgrade?)

Thanks in advance!