Take all 3 loans ASAP. The amount is random between 1 and 3 thousand, so it might be worth starting a new save if you get through the tutorial and end up with 3x $1,000 loans. Getting a $3,000 loan means extra to get some upgrades after getting tier 1 machines. The earlier you can refine scrap into higher tiers the better, definitely worth the interest. I noticed new loans after about a week. I don't think additional loans are worth it anymore once you have all tier 2 machines.

At 9pm night falls and you can no longer drive anywhere besides your home base. You have infinite time at this point to process scrap, make goods, take and fulfill contracts, and upgrade your base. When you get trash collectors, they start arriving back at 4pm.

After the tutorial, unless needed to get a bit of extra money for a scrap deal or something, always fill contracts rather than selling on the marketplace. Negotiating for extra money is essential. My initial offer is usually their initial offer + 25% of the market value of the contract before getting the negotiation upgrade, and 50% after.

Your top priority should be getting all the scrap deals every day. Scrap is the source of all progression in this game. You can salvage everything yourself, taking a midday trip back to partially unload and make room for the last stops when necessary. This lasts up until you get the assistant, then it is worth investing into trash collectors and trucks. Search for a 3 star assistant, who can give you 7-8 (with upgrade) extra scrap deals at a fixed price each morning. Definitely keep checking until you get a 7.5 (rounds up) or 8 contract assistant.

Initially I thought the forklift physics were realistic, needing the pallet jack to properly lift up the pallets, but you only need to have the front jammed up against a pallet. Once the light turns green, then the pallet will warp onto your pallet jack when you lift up.

Get the roombas as soon as you unlock them. Probably the best QoL upgrade in the game, although scrap radar is a close second. Just mark a pallet and they will take it and sort it into the designated zone in your warehouse. Saves a lot of headache driving the pallet jack back and forth, now you just have to load your piles of processed goods onto pallets.

You gain flat reputation points for completing a sort regardless of how many sorts you made, while you only get 0.5 rep for a successful individual scrap sorted. Exploit this early on by piling up your scrap near the sort button, dropping 1 item into the hopper, sorting it, and repeating. Boring but worth early. I recommend repeating this as much as you can stomach, up until you unlock assistant. The reputation levels and various bonuses associated with those levels are worth more than an extra potential +25% scrap early on. You miss out on the combo bonus scrap, but this will give you days and days worth of progress. The sorting minigame is fun, although doing it quick enough to sort all the scrap before it hits the bottom and piles up can be challenging. As you get more and more scrap it becomes more worth just having the sorting worker do it. It will take minutes of essentially counter strike aim training to get through a full truckload. I haven't manually sorted since getting the assistant, I don't need to make my carpal tunnel any worse.

You have a maximum of 10 scrap deals active, preventing you from taking any more contracts from your PC if this limit is reached. However, if you first take your PC deals, and then take the assistant deals, you can break this limit. Saves you from running over to send out your collectors, then running back to pick up the leftover deals.

If you click during the zoom in animation when you start the lockpicking minigame, your lockpick will be invisible. You can still pick the lock by listening for the audio cue, but it's a pain, so be careful if you're spam clicking to pick up scrap near a locked door.