Pirates and Colony Income

[patekm]

I have searched for this a bit and found only some very old posts on it. I am playing the latest Distant Worlds Universe on Steam, and I have found that playing as a pirate, I do not collect any tax income from colonies after I establish the criminal network and take over my first world. It also seems that the income from the pirate bases also dries up from that world so I'm left with no income at all, legal or illegal. I did set the tax rate on the planet but no money came in. Is this an intended feature (ie no tax income for pirates even if they own the planet outright)? If so, why would a pirate player ever want to take over a planet? If it's a bug, does anyone know if it's actually been brought up in the bug forum?

Thanks so much.

[Nanaki]

I got colony income from the planet normally. Infact I have a hunch that, for the planet you have your criminal network on, you get money from both the pirate base and the colony taxes. Planets normally acquired (through invasion or colonization) do not get this bonus income though. This could have changed with the most recent patch, though.

[CaptainBipto1]

Yah when I start over colonies my economy starts to tank. I think it is best to leave low pop colonies as controlled and high pops taken over.

[patekm]

Just to confirm, Nanaki, did the income show up on the income/expense report screen? The few times I've played, it's always zero across the board. I'll just have to try again - perhaps I haven't tried this with the latest few patches.

[Nanaki]

IIRC, one of the screens did incorrectly report 0 income but I forgot which one... I usually look at the colony list to know how much I am making from each colony.

[CaptainBipto1]

So if I control a colony at 20% that makes 40k revenue how much would I get roughly?

[Nanaki]

No clue. The calculations that are made are somewhat of an enigma. From what I did gather, though, control seems to have very little effect on the $$$ made. The main things that will impact your income are the presence of pirate bases/fortresses.

[CaptainBipto1]

Okay thanks anyhow! Guessing it is a flat rate "tax" maybe it is related to the corruption you generate.

[NephilimNexus]

As far as I can tell, you do make some tax money off conquered planets, but the amount is trivial. Even with a 20% tax rate and a population of four billion you'll be lucky to make even 5,000cr per year in taxes.

However, as already pointed out above, your corruption is where your real money comes from, and that is calculated against the GDP of the planet as a whole. With a Hidden Pirate Base you siphon off 10% of their GDP. Add a fortress and it goes up to 30%. So what you actually have is more or less a fixed tax rate based on your bases.

The income drop is obvious: Due to coding oversight, once you own a planet your pirate facility income stops and gets replaced with taxes, which unless are at 30% are going to be a lot less than what you were making before. What's worse, I strongly suspect, is that your pirate facility corruption is now counting against income - siphoning off the GDP and throwing the money into oblivion.

[Jndion]

That's true.

Making money as a pirate is awfully hard in a late game. Tax money from colonies cannot even cover a portion of defensive troops and facilities' maintenance from it. I have to do a lot of stealing and selling and I still cannot defend myself from rich empires. So it seems obvious that I have to rely on true empires for money and I certainly cannot fight against one empire who's main target is just me.

Best way to win a pirate game is to let the empires grow and fight with each other, and gradually defeat all other pirates, and we pirate to survive by drinking the their blood and live in the dark corner. There seems to be no way to fight against all empires and take over the entire universe as a pirate, because we can never make money like a true empire do.

[NephilimNexus]

Others have said that once you actually own a planet that the corruption from your own pirate bases starts counting against your income, instead of adding to it as it did before. After observing this phenomenon for a while I am starting to believe that is indeed the case.

Sadly it is just another in a long list of pirate bugs that the developers have shown little interest in fixing.