Did anyone manage to survive hardcore difficulty? There just isn't enough time to train your sexbot to B level to sell it for 50000 cash.
I have survived it yes, but it takes luck in the 1st day.
You MUST find a bot on day 1
OR
Get stupid lucky from mods and find an "A" Bot with functioning "A" components, already holding some skills.
You must find a bot that doesnt need a LOT of repairing
If you dont hit on 1 f the 1st 2 AND the 2nd, both, you're prolly gonna be in trouble.
I just recently completed a Hardcore run on v0.4.1 modded. My mod list was pretty much every functionality mod and every 3D bot, including all of Mineride's current roster (which is 34 mods currently, with some mods having multiple variants like the Pharahs and Widowmakers). And I still had to save-scum
like a little bitch like I was playing XCOM, and I still failed once. The most important thing is to get a decent bot in the first few days, ideally A or B, then fix it while waiting for a Neuro V4 to pop up on Grey net. Then install it and get the bot's Social and Sex to D rank. Those skills, plus the quality of the bot, means you can max out at 50K at the Club. A C bot or lower doesn't scale as high, and you spend too long having to fix it's skin from sex training. If you get a Skill Dumb trait somehow, either power through to D rank, or save scum. In hardcore mode, the negative psychocore traits will take you multiple time periods to clear out, which is lethal in early Hardcore.
You really have to know the game mechanics well in Hardcore, and I still learned something new. For example, you need D rank Electronics/Mechanic to make Storage, which means you can't store S rank bots for later (again, this is a modded playthrough).
Once you get past the first bill period, keep grabbing decent bots to train up sex and social. When you get your mechanic skill to D, there is a (modded) grey net job for "Business booming, buying new techie." It requires a bot to have Mechanics C+, and Electronics D, and it pays a maximum of 75K. It pops up decently often, but its more cash than the club.
I'll skip over the other (modded) grey net posts that will be your bread and butter, and point out that the best (modded) grey net job is "Need Escort For a Business Meeting". That one seems to have an uncapped payout, but requires a Bot to be A+, Combat C+, and Sex & Social A+. An A-rank bot with mediocre parts can pay out 1 million, and a S-rank bot can get 4-6 million. I once had a modded bot (Mineride's Aerith bot) that was S-rate with all S parts, and when I got all her skills to S (this was a non-hardcore playthrough), that job paid 12 million for it.
However, for a hardcore run, once you are in a comfortable position, once you find a decent S-rank bot, train it up so it can be a shopkeeper (for the social skill training) and as much combat skill as you can. Then look into the (modded) Missions. Avoid Radnor's Fighting mission, that one has a chance of bot death. Look for the night-time only mission of "Illegal High Stakes Fight" which will cost you 2500. While it only pays out in cash and some amount of combat XP, I have never once had a bot destroyed even with all my save scumming. In fact, I've lost a bot much more often from the Porn Bot job.
Once you get a Bot's Combat to B or A rank, you can start sending it to the night-only "Illegal Death Match" Mission. I don't know if there's a risk of bot death for a high rank combat stat, but failure doesn't necessarily mean bot death, and win or lose, your bot should be earning a ton of Combat XP.
For Sex XP, the Porn Bot Mission is a great option, and it's not night time only. However, as mentioned above, I have lost bots to it's crit-fail roll, so save before you send a bot to that mission.
Once you have a good bot tick over to A Social and Sex (and ideally A Combat), keep an eye out for that "Need Escort for a Business Meeting" post. I had a S-ranked Mineride's Akali bot (that came with most S-rank parts, except my lower ranked fixes), it had A Combat and Social and S Sex, and I got paid 7 million. Which covered my remaining 5 million debt, plus 2 million in bonus money. This was accomplished by day 140 or something, I forgot to write that down.
But again, I was save-scumming like a little bitch at pretty much every step of the way. it's possible, but the RNG aspect can be killer, especially in the first few days.
PS. The Mission mods are very much an assist, so I'll point out that I have both Mineride's Mission mods, plus Radnors mission mod. Shaky's Illegal Fights mod. Pretty much most of the functionality mods from
HERE.
Eventually replacing parts will add some risk of damaging or even destroying parts involved, if related skills are too low, balancing it a bit.
