Probably Stolen Shop Guide — Professions, Rent & The Buyout Goal
Your whole Probably Stolen run is organized around one question: can you earn enough to buy out your shop before rising rent forces your hand? The shop is not a theme you pick — it is a choice of which kind of trouble you are willing to monetize.
The Six Starting Professions
The confirmed starting paths are gunsmith, chemist, water merchant, fence, farmer — or absolute rock bottom if you want the hardest start the game offers. Your choice shapes what you can buy cheaply, what sells fast, and which inspectors, addicts and raiders come looking for you.
Weapons bring inspections. Chemicals bring addiction. Water brings liability. Contraband brings raids. Choosing a profession is choosing which of those hazards becomes your daily routine — and which margins you are chasing.
Understanding Your Customer Base
The station is a tower split by wealth and corruption, and its customers are the ecosystem. A security fisher may be browsing for evidence. A revolutionary may need leverage. A fallen elite may be testing whether you are still useful. The official description is blunt about it: you never really know who is on the other side of the counter.
Every sale is a gamble with four options — approve it, refuse it, report it, or look away. Report a customer and you may earn goodwill with the authorities while making enemies with their faction; look away and the margin is yours, but someone is always taking notes.
Rent, Reputation and the Buyout
Rent is the clock. The game's headline goal is earning enough to buy out your shop before rising rent forces your hand — which turns every profit decision into a question of pace: safe margins that grow slowly, or gray-zone margins that grow fast and attract attention.
Reputation is the second currency. It buys access and protection, but it also paints a target on your back. Spending it wisely — on the right faction, at the right time — matters more than hoarding it.
FAQ
What do you do in Probably Stolen?
You run a storefront on a dystopian space station, crafting, trading and smuggling goods of questionable origin while managing factions, reputation and rising rent.
What are the starting professions?
Gunsmith, chemist, water merchant, fence, farmer, or an 'absolute rock bottom' start.
How do you win in Probably Stolen?
Earn enough money to buy out your shop before rising rent forces your hand — that is the stated core goal.
Is the shop choice just cosmetic?
No — each profession's product line has its own profit curve and its own consequences, from inspections to addiction to raids.