Just upgraded both my suit and ship inventory to 48 slots each. Feels good.
For the suit just keep an eye for drop pods on planets, especially in barren planets they are easy to spot from the air.
For the ship i upgraded all the way to 48 just repairing crashed ships on planets. I just keep the repairs to the minimum cuz was always changing ships. Every time you find a crashed ship that ship will have 1 more slot or 1 less slot than ur current one, so just keep repairing the ones that have 1 more slot and soon you will be at maximum capacity.
How to find crashed ships locations easy:
1- Find a scanning beacon (the ones with an orange beacon on many outposts, easy spoted from the air) and scan for transmissions. You want to find a "Transmission Tower"
2- Inside a transmission towers solve the puzzle to scan for crashed ships locations. You can repeat the scan to show you many locations.
3- Keep repairs to the minimum, the materials neened to repair are very easy to find in all planets. Except for zinc, if the planet dont have any flora.
This way u can upgrade ur ship to maximum and save ur money to the exosuit upgrades.
These are good tips. I hadn't realised the ships were always within +1 or -1 of your current level. I was holding out to find a bigger ship. Duh.
Anyway, the methods you listed are good but there are alternatives.
For suit upgrades you can get the Atlas V1 Pass. I was given it after completing the first task from Polo and Nada while following the Atlas path, I don't know if there are other ways.
That pass allows you to open cannisters on planets for hyperdrive fuel ingredients. It also allows you to open the locked door in the hangar of space stations. Behind these are exosuit upgrades.
For ship upgrades an alternative is to buy them off other traders.
Getting the cash is usually a slow process. There is an exception. Some planets are full of Gravitino Balls (or Albumen Pearls or the cubes) which can be harvested.
Planets containing them often have aggressive sentinels but picking them up will always trigger an immediate level 3 attack.
The trick is land somewhere in your ship, do a scan and see if there are and Gravitino Balls nearby. Ideally plan a route that will allow you to get quickly back to your ship picking up 2-4 balls in one run. Once you pick up the first one you will be attacked run and use the jetpack to get as many as you can and get back to the ship before your shield depletes.
The balls sell for 30,000 each, give or take.
Do a few runs filling up all the spare slots in your ship and suit and you'll have a couple of million Units. That will be enough to get you w ship with cargo space in the low to mid twenties.
