Economy is the name given to how much money you get per hour in Astro Empires. There are several ways of getting money, or 'credits' as they are known in the game. Here's a quick look at economy, how you get it and how you can lose it again.
What gives you economy?[]
There are a collection of different places you can make money within AE. Some of these are gradual and will give you money over a long period (Ie, your bases) while there are others which will give you a big once off cash income (debris). Lets have a look,
Your Bases[]
Your base will be the first type of income you will work with. About half of the structures you build on your bases will give you economy. These are structures that improve production and construction along with specialist economy structures. Base economy is given to you on the hour every hour. Below is a listing of the structures that help raise your economy and how much by.
Metal Refineries +1/level
Crystal Mines +'Crystal'/level
Robotic Factories +1/level
Shipyards +1/level
Orbital Shipyards +2/level
Spaceports +2/level
Nanite Factories +2/level
Androids Factories +2/level
Economic Centers +3/level
Capital +10 (at base)/level +1 (all others)/level
Trade routes[]
Your bases have the ability to create trade routes along with its normal income. The number of these trade routes is determined by the number of Spaceports you have. You get one for the first Spaceport and then 1 more per five. IE, 1sp = 1 route. 5sp = 2 routes etc.
Trade routes allow you to connect to other players bases (or your own) and gain extra credits depending on the distance between the two bases, the economy of both bases and the number of other players you trade with. Find the way trade is calculated below. More information can be found on the Trade Routes page.
Income = Sqrt(Lowest Base Economy) * (1 + Sqrt(Distance)/75 + Sqrt(Players)/10)
Occupations[]
When you attack, conquer, and occupy another player's base you gain income from that attack in several ways. First you gain a pillage when you take down the base for the first time. This is known as the Conquest pillage. Below is the formula used to calculate it,
(number of hours since last pillage; max 100)% * (Base Economy/Total Bases Economy) * Base Owner Credits
By this formula -
your inital hit is 100% (unless you hit and pillaged this base in the last 100 hours). Since you can only pillage every 24 hours the minimum is 24%.
times - the base's economy ratio to the owner's totaleconomy. If he has an economy of 1300 and this base's eco is 130 then this is 0.10
times - the owner's bank credits.
So, if the player has 20,000 credits in the bank, and if this is your first hit on this base, and if the base is 10% of his total economy, you will get
100% * 0.10 * 20000 = 2000 credits
If you pillage him again in 24 hours, and everything is the same, you get 24% * 0.10 * 20000 = 480 credits.
Unfortunately you have no way of knowing what a player has in his bank, except perhaps if you have been tracking his growth. Players who rapidly expand bases are obviously spending their cash, and cannot have much in the bank. By the formula above, if that player had only 900 credits in his bank you would get only 90 credits for the first pillage and 21 credits for the following pillages.
However, if you hit a player with a lot of money in the bank you could make a very large sum. Some players make the mistake of hoarding their cash and keep hundreds of thousands of credits in the bank. This is especially true if they are building cash to make a major purchase like a high level Planetary Ring or perhaps a 15th or 16th base.
In addition, when you attack a player's base for the first time, and destroy their fleet, you will be able to pillage the player's trade routes running to and from that base. This means that the route will cease to exist and you get the credits it initially cost to create. This bonus will depend on whether the player has trade routes and if they are good ones, as the longer the route is the more you will get for pillaging it.
Along with these initial bonuses you get 1/3 of the players income at that planet hourly. This means that they lose that 3rd and its given straight to you. So on a base with 99 credits econpmy you will get 33 credits an hour more (Given on the hour).
Finally every 24 hours you will be able to do a daily pillage on the player (assuming they don't have any fleet in orbit). This will automatically take about 24% of the credits you got initally or perhaps less if the bank account is now lower.
Debris[]
When fleet is destroyed in AE a % of that fleet becomes Debris. 40-60% of the fleet depending on the Armour level of your technology. With Recyclers you can harvest this debris and make it credits. 10c an hour per recycler can give you a good bonus to your income especially when you have a lot of recyclers after a big battle. Debris is collected at half past the hour.
What costs you income?[]
There are only a handful of ways to lose credits in AE and most of them have already been covered in the first section. When you are occupied you lose money from your account and 33% of your income at that base. This also does not recover immediately. This 33% recovers at 2c's a day until the base has fully recovered. This means that If you have a high econ base it will take a while to recover after an occupation. For example, a 200 econ base loses 66 credits, that's 33 days to recover.
Similarly when you lose a base the enemy can pillage your trade routes which destroys them as well as forcing you to remake them when the base is freed. This can get quite costly in itself as with the right effort you can gain more income from trade routes than base economy.
However, it is generally accepted that threatening your neighbors will scare them in to giving you plenty of credits, eliminating the need for maintaining your own economy.