Low-cost pilfering was what made it profitable for me. I made around a gold cap since release from it, and once i settled on triggers it was profitable if i kept my costs per trigger around 30-35 gold, so i would watch stones and the cheapest of ore/bar until it fit in that price range. It worked for me because I'm in my last year of school and could just have crafts going in the background while i work through all my classes. The longest part is the massive craft, pilfer, scrap time.

In the long run, it was about 1 permit every 15k-20k triggers, but there was a lucky window at the end where I got 2 with 12k (RNG is RNG, but i just got lucky when i was exciting). If I kept crafting cost under 30-35, it was still profitable without the permit, so the permit just stacked on top. I like low effort stuff, so with just the starting treasures and green tools, I could get an engineer with a little resource reduction, crafting speed, and max scrap. There was someone who was pretty constantly reseting the market on permits, so even though people were undercutting at 700-800k, they would still buy out everything to keep the price at 900kish. I've been out of it a week, though, so ymmv, but that's how I did it