Pirates cannot gain income from conquered planets

[Raap]

Having conquered planets using troops, I quickly noticed I didn't gain any income from those planets.

Apparently, conquered planets in pirate mode will default to a tax rate of 0%. If you manually increase the tax rate it will still list tax income as (-1k) for that planet, i.e. same as with 0% tax, and it soon resets the tax rate to the 0% default. This part makes sense, since pirates don't actually have a tax income and it would require a change in game mechanisms to make that happen.

At any rate, this is avoided on colonies where you have pirate facilities built, since you effectively gain a percentage of the planet's GDP equal to the % of control you have. But you can't build pirate facilities unless you have a certain amount of control, and you can't get any control over high population planets. I'm also not sure if you can get more control over planets you already own.

I see two solutions to this: One is to add tax income to pirates( which might be a lot of work, considering pirates don't even have a civilian economy), and the other is to have colonies owned by pirates automatically become 100% controlled by that faction. This would have to apply even beyond the regular 3billion population limit, or you'd still end up with no income from larger colonies that you conquer.

However, that latter option might prove too advantageous for the pirate player since it would effectively mean he gets to tax every conquered colony at a rate of 100%, leading to ridiculous income. Perhaps a better solution would be to let the pirate player automatically receive the equivalent of a 15-20% tax rate on owned colonies...? Then again, that would conflict with colonies where you both own the planet and have 100% control due to pirate bases and are thus effectively gaining 100% taxes from that planet.

[Erik Rutins]

Could you upload a save file for this please?

[Raap]

Uploading save as Raap 27.05.2013 No income from captured colony.dwg. The main colony in question is Dagru 5, in the Dagru system currently in view. I believe it's highly likely that this applies to pirate-colonized planets as well.

Having messed around with it some more, I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. I set the colony's tax rate to 20% and now it shows I get an income of 42K. However, some seconds later( maybe a month of in-game time) it resets back to 0% tax rate automatically. This also happens to my colonized(not captured) colonies Kuan Major 3 and Akthul 8. This being pirate mode, there are no tax automation options that I can see.

I'm also unable to determine, had the tax setting managed to stick, if I would actually be receiving that income. Would it be listed under 'controlled colonies'? Or 'Bonus income?' Given that there's no tax field, I mean. At any rate, as far as I can determine, I'm not making any more cash after capturing the 12billion strong planet than I were before. Most of my income comes from the smaller population planets where I have 100% control, including one that I both own and have 100% control over.

[YourConscience]

I just want to chime in and say that the exact same thing happens to me as well. Some more peculiarities: I cannot even change the tax rate of the first colony where I built the criminal network. In all subsequent colonies I can change it, but after a couple of seconds they will always fall down to zero. The economy of my previously strong-going pirate faction is now deep in the red, because the previously very money "fertile" planets, now being in my direct control, do not turn in any money anymore.