Earning Money
There are a number of ways to earn money, be it either for the empire's treasury for your personal wallet.
Minting
The first step in earning money, is making the currency.
The currency is gold bullion and they are made at a machine shop using metal, magmium, or vulcium.
All the produced bullion goes into the citizen accounts.
It can be argued that a lot of minting isn't required, but it is better to have a surplus in the citizen accounts than letting them go broke. The minting process is also the only production process that can always be run, this is because there is no limit to the citizen account balance, this makes it a good source for taxation.
Taxation
The main way for an empire to make money is through taxation.
Trading between cities is considered wholesale, and as such is not taxed.
Income Tax
All every time a citizen works a job, it is payed 25¢. This pay is then taxed by the income tax.
Unfortunately once a city's inventory is full, any production processes that produce a commodity which's storage is full will stop being completed and thereby citizens aren't paid for working it.
Subsidized Tax
Subsidy tax is taken every time a subsidized spacecraft makes a trade transaction.
The tax goes into the spacecraft's tax account, then every time an empire city is hailed the ship tax account is transferred to the government account of that city.
A high subsidy tax is preferred when using spacecraft to accumulate income, since it minimizes the need to board the spacecraft and manually empty the ship account. Even a subsidy tax of 100% can be useful for this.
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 subsidized 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 money from one city to another as the passengers bring along their belongings.
The passenger capacity of a spacecraft is limited by its tech level, making it not all that profitable at the lower tech levels.
Passenger fares:
- Same city, none
- Same planet, 9¢
- Same system, 90¢
- other system, 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.
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 government account directly into your own pocket.
Worker Pay
An empire can set rewards for certain actions, such as exploration and fighting enemies.
A small pay is also issued for doing construction labor and running manufacturing processes.
The rewards and pay accumulate as government debt, which can then be redeemed at a bank.
Jobs
Owning a spacecraft allows you to preform jobs from the Jobs (F9) window.
Jobs pay extra for transporting commodities and passengers to other cities, along with other types of jobs such as bounty hunting and pirate elimination.
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.