Red Dead Online: Best Ways To Earn Money, XP & Health Cores

Red Dead Online has arrived, and eager cowboys (and cowgirls) are exploring every facet of Rockstar’s open, online wild west world. Already, I can tell that items sell for a steep price — whether it’s clothing items or weapons, you’ll need to save your pennies to afford a nice upgrade. On top of that, lots of customization and weapon options are locked behind Rank requirements.

So you’re an enterprising outlaw looking to make money, earn XP, and enhance that valuable HP core. If you’re looking to improve fast and don’t want to mess around at the lower levels without much cash, we’ve got a few community-generated tips for you. You’ll want to grab a fishing rod and prepare for plenty of shoot-outs. Here are some of the best ways we’ve found (so far!) to earn money, XP, and enhance your health core.

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Best Ways To Earn Money, XP & Health Cores | Farming Tips Guide

To get you started, we’re going to discuss two particular farming methods. The first method will help you earn cash and raise your health core. The second method is all about ranking up and earning XP. They’re both completely different, and shockingly straightforward. But, these are (reportedly) the best, and safest ways to earn what you need.

These useful tips were originally shared by u/LastShigure on Reddit.

Method #1: Fishing For Money & Health Cores

Want money quick? There’s nothing quicker than catching fish. To fish without being killed by other players, set up your camp on the shore south of Valentine, southeast of Flatneck Station. With your camp on the shore, raise the white flag and enemy players won’t be able to kill you. You can fish at your camp indefinitely!

You can purchase a Fishing Rod from any General Store. You must be Rank 14 to unlock the rod.
Save your gold and purchase a Lake Lure. It costs one gold bar. Normally, the Lake Lure is locked until Rank 30. You can buy it early with a gold bar. Doing so makes it easier to catch fish, and you’ll only need one lure ever. You’ll never need to buy another one, or buy bait.

From this camp, fish for Steal-Head Trout. Each trout sells for $4.25 per head — you can collect a stack of 10 trout and sell them for a total of $42.50. It’s just a short trip up to the butcher in Rhodes to make the transaction.

You’ll catch other fish while you’re farming trout, too — obviously you can sell these too for extra profit. It only takes about a minute or less per fish.

There’s another benefit! For each fish you catch, you’ll earn +20 Health Core XP. This is an incredibly simple way to farm up your Health Core and earn more total health without getting into constant shootouts.

Method #2: Shooting, Honor & XP

The best way to rank up is a lot simpler. To earn fast XP, your best bet is to play through Cooperative Story Missions. For even more XP, it’s even better to play as an Honorable Outlaw. Always complete side-quests using the most Honorable method to earn +100 / +200 XP at the end of the mission.

Fast XP Options:
- Main Online Story Missions (Replayable)
  - This is (currently) the best way to earn XP.
  - Completing Honorable missions, or missions with the Honorable option, will earn you more XP. Some Honorable missions will reward you with 400-500 XP per completion.
  - Dying mid-mission and losing team lives will lower the amount of XP you earn. It’s about 50XP lost per life.
  - Headshots are very important. Headshots will double the amount of XP you earn from kills.
  - Purchase the Bow early. All kills get bonus XP, on top of regular kill XP and headshot XP.
- Bandit Hideouts
- Honorable Side-Quests

All three of these options will net you the most XP. Bandit Hideouts may also drop treasure maps, that usually come with valuable loot and pieces of gold bar.

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