What is the fastest money-maker?

[Pokeboy]

I have played for a long time, about 2.5 years, but for a lot of that time I was inactive. I have never really used mines or SOS missions. I get pretty much all my money from converting my daily AP to QP to Solars, which is really slow and is probably the reason I am such a weak player after so long.

So, I thought, I need more money to get better and make up for that time, but I don't know whether to do mining or SOS or COM. I have a low level SOS runner from the corp. and we are working on a pretty decent (when it is done it will be in the millions on power) COM ship. Anyway, what is the fastest way for me to make money?

It isn't really that important to me whether I'm powerful or the weakest player, because I can still come up with ideas like the GCA, explore the galaxy, and design the perfect corporation. However, if I'm not powerful, many will not listen to my ideas.

[Publius]

AP -> QP -> solars is a 20:1 loss.  Now that we have GCA (thanks Pokeboy!) you should be able to sell your QP for almost $1m :-)  
However, you'll need VIP and a one time cash donation of $5 to transfer the QP (if you don't already have those).

Scatter/gather mining costs very little, pays little, and you're very vulnerable.
SOS (see Odlid's new, excellent guide http://forum.astro-galaxy.com/index.php/topic,9989 ) pays very well, and scales nicely as you invest more in it.
PT (Prospector Treasure) mining pays well and scales nicely, but requires either SOS (to find PT's), or a marketplace for PTs.  Investment is high, and diligence required is high as soon as the strength of your mods passes the 6-hr VIP auto-upload threshold (forget to click upload and your mod is soon clogged at 100% until the next auto-upload..)
COMs (especially when many are stacked on a single timer ship) pay even better, but require very high investment.  However, they require very little diligence other than bookkeeping.  Most high level players invest heavily or even exclusively in COMs for the convenience even more than the payout.

[spacebird]

AP -> QP -> solars is a 20:1 loss.  Now that we have GCA (thanks Pokeboy!) you should be able to sell your QP for almost $1m :-)  
However, you'll need VIP and a one time cash donation of $5 to transfer the QP (if you don't already have those).

Scatter/gather mining costs very little, pays little, and you're very vulnerable.
SOS (see Odlid's new, excellent guide http://forum.astro-galaxy.com/index.php/topic,9989 ) pays very well, and scales nicely as you invest more in it.
PT (Prospector Treasure) mining pays well and scales nicely, but requires either SOS (to find PT's), or a marketplace for PTs.  Investment is high, and diligence required is high as soon as the strength of your mods passes the 6-hr VIP auto-upload threshold (forget to click upload and your mod is soon clogged at 100% until the next auto-upload..)
COMs (especially when many are stacked on a single timer ship) pay even better, but require very high investment.  However, they require very little diligence other than bookkeeping.  Most high level players invest heavily or even exclusively in COMs for the convenience even more than the payout.

How can you convert QP to 1m?!? it only gives you 50K and not 1m

[Publius]

Maybe offer to sell them for say 515-diamonds each through GCA = $901,250?  That's nearly a 10% discount on what it would cost to buy them directly (= 20AP = $1m), so someone's (not me ;-) likely to take you up on it, especially if you're selling more than a couple.

[spacebird]

Fastest money making in order:

1. Voting.
2. SOS missions.