What's the most efficient way to collect money as solo? I haven't played in two years but been keeping up with updates.
I rarely solo sloop, but IMO the best way to make money as a solo sloop is the sunken ships as a merchant. I did a lot of it early on, but I've made some pretty good friends through the game and now I rarely run solo.
at the outpost, buy every single commodities crate they sell (the sugar, minerals, etc.) you can flip these at different outposts, and make a lot of money when reselling at level 5 emissary
do 3 sunken ship merchant voyages. as soon as you finish one, pop the next
hit 5 emissary, go to different outpost (the voyages will put you near a different outpost so you don't have to go out of your way), sell all commodities for huge profit, buy more voyages
having said that, I only solo sloop when I plan on being on for 1-2 hours only and I'm usually just messing around with PVP or just doing whatever.
I know a lot of people like this game solo but I have 100x more fun playing with friends. you'll make a lot more money too if you get some friends who can efficiently do something like FOTD, world events, or legend of the veil.
I do FOTD when I need gold, world events when I need gold but am tired of FOTD, and LOTV when I want to mix things up. I recently hit 30 Athenas so I'll probably take a break from LOTV, but it is a good gold maker. I still need to do 100 veils to get the commendation, so yeah.
if you can even find one buddy to play with, merchant sloop voyages will be a lot easier, faster, and more fun.
EDIT: I would recommend dropping your emissary each time you return to an outpost then re-raising it. you'll unlock commendations and be a much smaller target for reapers if you're emissary 1 vs emissary 5