Earning Money
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An important note!
Economy is not implemented for new-style cities yet, so all money minted is accessible to the player immediately. There are no citizen or government accounts currently. |
There are a number of ways to earn money, be it either for the empire's treasury or your personal wallet.
Minting
The first step in earning money is making the currency.
The currency is gold bullion cronodollars and they are made at a machine shop or bank using gold. There is no penalty for minting more bullion at once.
Acquiring the money
Withdrawal
The primary way of obtaining the money is simple - withdrawing it directly from any bank. All money in a city is immediately accessible to an avatar in its chain of command, with no consequence for withdrawing all of it.
The following methods were more relevant back when it wasn't possible to withdraw the money directly, and there were separate citizen and government accounts. However, if one wishes to do a challenge run, they could still be used and are kept here for reference.
Taxation
One way for an empire to make money is through taxation.
Trading between cities is considered wholesale, and as such is not taxed.
Income Tax
Every city report cycle all citizens are payed 25¢. This pay is then taxed by the income tax.
However, when a citizen is about to start a manufacturing process, there is a chance that it will not start the process that tick. Meaning that an income tax of 50% would essentially cut all production in half throughout the whole empire.
It can be advantageous to set the income tax to 100% for a hour and then change it back.
Sales Tax
The wage left after income taxation is spent by the citizen population based on the sales tax. This is also done at the city report cycle.
The optimal sales tax is 50%, that is where citizen spending and taxing is most profitable. But other avatars in the empire and company spacecraft are also affected by sales tax, so a high sales tax can be undesired.
Fleet Tax
Fleet tax is a special sales tax that only apply to fleet spacecraft, and has no other purpose then taxing trade transactions made by fleet spacecraft.
The tax goes into the fleet spacecraft's tax account. Whenever a fleet spacecraft hails an empire city, the money in the tax account is transferred to the account of that city.
Setting a high fleet tax is beneficial when using fleet spacecraft to accumulate income, since it minimizes the need to board the spacecraft and manually empty the ship account. Even a fleet tax of 100% can be useful for fleet harvester ships, but it would make all fleet trader ships go broke.
Spacecraft Income
It is possible to increase the government account income with the use of spacecraft. They can be automated using an officer, making it a good alternative to taxation.
Do note that fleet tax may make this harder or easier depending on method chosen.
Passenger Transport
Using a spacecraft to transport passengers between solar systems is static income. It also moves citizen money from one city to another as the passengers bring along their belongings.
The passenger capacity of a spacecraft is limited by its quality level, making it not all that profitable at the lower quality levels.
Cryo-berth passengers do not have any money, so there is no money to be earned transporting them.
| Third Class | Second Class | First Class | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Same city | 0¢ | 0¢ | 0¢ |
| Same world | 3¢ | 6¢ | 9¢ |
| Same system | 30¢ | 60¢ | 90¢ |
| Other system | 300¢ | 600¢ | 900¢ |
Trading
It can be profitable to automate a spacecraft to run trade runs between cities.
Buying low and selling high is key for it to work, but this only works if the city uses the commodities quickly so the storage is never full.
It is possible to intentionally cause short supply of some commodities in order to drive the price up. Caution should be taken though, doing so with critical commodities can lead to problems in the cities.
Harvester
Setting up automated spacecraft with harvester bays can be very profitable. Making them harvest resources and sell them to cities.
Especially profitable for advanced and rare resources.
Historically, preon harvesting was the primary money-maker for empires.
Personal Wallet
Filling your personal wallet is required in order to trade with cities and other empire.
Mayor's Money
Being in control of a city allows you to withdraw money from the city's account directly into your own pocket.
Worker Pay
A small pay is issued for doing construction labor and running manufacturing processes.
The pay accumulates as government debt, which can then be redeemed at a bank.
Jobs
Owning a spacecraft allows you to perform jobs given by citizens.
Jobs pay extra for transporting commodities and passengers to other cities, along with other types of jobs such as bounty hunting and pirate elimination.
For more information, see the Job page.
Loan
It is possible to take a loan at a bank.
The loan is taken from the city's citizen account and does not need to be paid off, this makes it a wonderful way to get some starting cash.
The maximum amount of the loan is dependent on the avatar's reputation.