Generating large incomes

You can also acquire and develop economic resources, which help a lot.

Trade routes coupled with econ starbases that have all three trade modules will also help.

Developed morale resources will help you get the morale higher, so taxes can be raised.

Trade goods like Frictionless Clothing, Ultra Spices and Virtual Reality Center help keep morale higher too (so yet higher taxes).

Go evil, and build a mind control center. income = income*2;

good economy (50-100k bc per turn even??).

Try 1.3M bc per turn at the end of a v1.31 game with the economic prosperity event, 6 economic resources and 438 planets.

This involves a *lot* of planet specialization. With 20 planets it's difficult to specialize much. With only 20 planets, if I were to try to duplicate what I do on a gigantic map, I'd say you'd need 15 planets with only stock markets, one or two farms and one or two VRC's (assuming a couple of morale resources to mine). With the remaining 5 planets, I'd have one research planet (the highest PQ that I had) and four manufacturing planets. Hopefully you could have a single array of 16 econ SB's to boost your tech and manufacturing planets. The tech planet should have nothing but research buildings, tech capital and omega research on it. The manufacturing planets should have only factories and a starport. With the econ SB bonus you should get research values on the order of 5000+ RP's per turn and production of somewhere between 1000 and 2000 MP's per turn on the manufacturing planets. You should be able to easily achieve an average of 1000 bc's per turn per income planet. 15K per turn isn't an unreasonable assumption with 20 planets specialized like this. Double that if you get the prosperity event. As you conquer planets immediately convert them to income only and when you get a good system of planets with a juicy high PQ planet convert the cluster to another research/manufacturing center. Keep doing this and you're on your way to a high income.

Oh, perhaps I have been specializing the planets incorrectly. I've been farming on the high PQ planets thinking that they would eventually reach a higher pop cap (a few have 20-30M). For my PQ 10 planets, I usually put 2-3 research, 2 industry, 2-3 market, morale, farm and have them pump out constructors. I was lucky enough to grab 7 planets in the same sector and put up a 4 starbase econ array there.

As for trade goods and achievements, I've been on top of them since I just buy them when they become available. But I haven't gotten any good mining resources, most of them were too far from my starting position and have been claimed. I'm starting to claim some back by parking constructors at them and claiming them after they were destroyed in a war. Might have to declare war to claim more.

I am using all trade routes, but they only generate about 700-800 bc per turn. I don't know if it is worth it to pump out another 16 constructors just to gain 30% on that. I'll be needing my constructors elsewhere to build up on newly claimed mining resources.

And yes, I have a mind control center. Those things are too good!

Lastly, what kind of population do you aim for on your farms assuming they are about PQ 10 or 11?

I'll use any PQ planet as an income planet but if you're only going to have a few then the higher the PQ the better. As far as pop that depends on morale which depends on the version. In v1.31 I went with two farms for 19B on all income planets regardless of PQ. If you're on v1.4 you'll also need 2-3 VRC's but otherwise there should be nothing else but stock markets on an income planet. No research, no factories, no starport. That's what specialization is all about. A manufacturing planet needs a starport, but no farms, no stock markets, no morale buildings, nothing but factories, starport, and manufacturing bonus buildings. This way you get ten planets worth of manufacturing out of a single planet which is what allows you to give up production on your income planets which thereby increases your income.

If your going to pump out some constructors don't waste them on trade. If you only have four econ SB's you should increase that to 16. All 7 of your planets won't get the full effect but you should at least double if not triple your output from these planets. That should allow you to convert some of your PQ10-11 production planets to income only as well.

SPECIALISE! (large planets)_never mix resource structures. A planet produces either income or science but never both.

never build one off projects on large planets unless they boost that planets specialised resource. small planets are normally best for one off projects.

I tend not to specialize the vast majority of my planets and you can still get impressive incomes. With ~260 planets and no special events I can get just shy of 250K a turn (should be ~500K on a gigantic map). Under this scenario, all planets have at least one factory (usually three or four) and a star port. Typically one VR center and two farms. Max taxes and just let the population stop growing as they become less happy. No economic bases. Mind Control Center. Max economic race bonus and a racial morale bonus. This is end game, so all the galactic econ and morale resources.

This is really the anti-thesis of mumbles solution, no planets are specialized. Every planet is capable of some ship manufacturing, with a few capable of significant manufacturing. The remaining planet squares are dedicated to economic production, no star bases at all other than on galactic resources and no research buildings at all. This first time I put a stock exchange over a research building on a precursor library...After finishing everything I cared about on the tech tree, of course.

I go this route because I believe I can conquer the galaxy more quickly this way and make up for the lost efficiencies with a quicker moving military machine.

By contrast it's ~Sept 2226 in my current game and with 27 planets I have a gross of ~4k, so a lot of this is optimization I do as the unstoppable war machine starts conquering in a few months. I get enough IC's laid down to support the war machine on new planets and push everything else to economics.

Both solutions are still quite possible from the start you describe.

Thankfully, there are still multiple ways to play!

You really need to look at gross income, not net income because net income can fluctuate wildly depending on what you're doing. With a couple hundred planets populated liberaly with stock exhcanges and some fully developed morale and economic resources, gross income can approach 6 digits. How much of that you see as cash depends on spending. There are lots of places for it to go. If you're spending it and not seeing huge profit, you're probably doing things right. You don't necessarily want to make more money that you can spend. Otherwise, you may be wasting resources. Also, keep in mind the jump in tax income that happens when your treasury drops below 20k.

In my current game (ver 1.4x), the date 15 Jan 2229, I have 262 planets, gross income is 63,139, treasury is over 20k, and net income is 3,207. I'm spending 100% on research right now. If I put spending at 33% over all three areas, net income goes up to 33,905. If the treasury were below 20k, gross income would be around 100k. Theres a big economic bonus when the treasury gets low. I think it's there to give you a boost if you're running low on cash.

Yes, I think my play style so far has been same as Purge describes. The one downside is so much micromanagement of your constructor fleets as they pop up on the 20nth turn on some remote planet. Of course having fewer production specialized planets that pump them out faster would mean less micromanagement.

So I suppose you can only specialize later in the game since you will need to start each planet up with at least two factories to get any buildings up in the first place, then decomission them once you've built what you wanted.

I'm playing 1.4 so I'm guessing they took the morale bonus out of the stock exchanges eh..

Also, I thought you could only build 4 starbases in a sector. I haven't tried more than that so I dunno. Unless you mean building at the intersection of 4 sectors? I remember the good old days when you could fill a sector with ship movement enhancement starbases and fling your ships across a gigantic galaxy in one turn haha.

Lastly... what do you do with 500k BC/turn?? (o.O)

The highest I've ever grossed without the economic event is around 300k bc per turn after I dropped the treasury down below 20k just to see how high the gross would go. That was at the end of a gigantic/abundant game with most of the planets fully developed. The majority of them were full of stock exchanges. Taxes at 80%. I owned all the galaxy's economic resources and they were fully developed as well. Without the economic event, there's no way to see something like 500k bc per turn until you've developed most all of the planets and all the economic resources in a gigantic/abundant game. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of it. There's nothing you can do with 500k bc per turn because when you have enough planets to generate that much, you've already won.

Typically one VR center and two farms. Max taxes and just let the population stop growing as they become less happy.

Interesting, using low approval as a limit to pop growth, but what about elections? Do you avoid the higher forms of government?

There's no way to see something like 500k bc per turn until you've developed most all of the planets and all the economic resources in a gigantic/abundant game. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of it.

I'm sure the exact amount depends on the version, but I had 500K bc per turn with about 200 planets and only 3 econ resources. At that point there were still about 250 planets and 3 econ resources that I did not own. Plus my military at that point was far less than either of my two main opponents, and there was still plenty of life to the game. I used the 500K bc per turn to buy 30 battleships a turn for quite some time. Even then it wasn't until I took two military resources from the Thalans that my military might started to outweigh their's. With all due respect, if you haven't done it then you don't really know.

I change the tax rate the turn of the election and then turn it back up the next week. You can check the date of the next election under the government screen. This works great

I tend not to specialize the vast majority of my planets and you can still get impressive incomes. With ~260 planets and no special events I can get just shy of 250K a turn (should be ~500K on a gigantic map).

Very possible. Doing it right now as a matter of fact. You can specialize a few research planets but the rest can remain as you built them and still pull down 500K/week. If you want more build SMs over the ISs. I usually try to keep a starport on all +13 pq planets for rush buying transports.

I'm sure the exact amount depends on the version, but I had 500K bc per turn with about 200 planets and only 3 econ resources. At that point there were still about 250 planets and 3 econ resources that I did not own.

Still possible in 1.4.

This game I have been focusing on getting a good economy so have not built too much influence stuff. Most of my plannets have 2-4 stock markets, but my income per turn is still only 3-4000 bc per turn. Most of my planets are about 8-10M, with about 75% morale. I suppose 3-4000 bc is not too shabby, but do you vets generate more income than that?

A good planet build on a class 12 (after overbuilding ISs) 2 x Farm. 3 x VRC. 2 x Research. 4 x SM. But that is how I play.

Actually, the with all due respect crap was perhaps a little harsh. I do respect the games you post, and yes, there's little useful that you can do with the income that you make at the end of a game. The point is that you just don't suddenly conquer everyone and get all the resources at the end of the game and your income instantly ballons to ridiculus levels. You eventually can reach these kinds of income levels only because you've made income a priority throughout the entire game and spent significant effort and creativity to develop the required base. It's not so much that at the end of a game I out earn you 1300K to 300K, it's that at the point in the game that you're earning 20K, I'm earning 80K and so on at every point during the game. It's difficult to me to believe how this is not a real, legitimate and significant advantage.

I change the tax rate the turn of the election and then turn it back up the next week. You can check the date of the next election under the government screen. This works great

Cute.

Think of it as Roman style bread and circuses electioneering!

IN DArk AVatar, it will probably get even higher because trade now makes a LOT of money for players and with network effect buildings (fusion power plants, research management centers, food distribution centers) you will be able to fit even more stock markets and such.

IN DArk AVatar, it will probably get even higher because trade now makes a LOT of money

It will be nice to see trade become more useful, I hope we can use the extra cash to buy some agents.   

Fascinating food for thought there folks , hmmmmm..

Has there anyone try to build:
- faster freighter ( so that the frighter makes its turn faster)?
- used more then 1 freighter module on a ship?

How much more money would you get that way?

Yours, Mama.

You can add engine to the freighter to get it to a planet quicker but once the route is estabilished and it becomes a mini-freighter it will only move 1 space per turn.

Using more than one module per ship does not increase the amount of income per trade. You can't design one b/c once you have put the trade module on a ship it disappears from the modules tab.

It will be nice to see trade become more useful, I hope we can use the extra cash to buy some agents.

I think Kryo said recently that the devs are in cleanup mode now and we shouldn't expect any major functionality changes. But one-time spending to finish a spy seems like a really swell idea, even if you read about Mumble's economies and think he's playing some entirely different game...