Resources

Resources

Wars are typically fought over resources and the races in Sins of a Solar Empire are no different. There are three primary resources in the game that will fuel your economy:

Credits

Main article: Credits

This is the currency of the galaxy and just about everything you‘ll want to do will require some. Credits are generated from the taxes of your population, via trade, by collecting the bounties on other empires, and other means unique to each race.

Most of the credits that you‘ll spend during a game will come from the populations of the planets you control through taxes. While you cannot adjust tax rates, you can manage your income at a macro level by investing in Population Infrastructure. After all, high populations mean more people to collect from!

When tax income proves to be insufficient to make your designs come to fruition, you should start constructing trade networks. With Trade Ports you can establish both domestic and foreign trade routes across the solar system. If you can create long, unbroken trade routes, you‘ll gain extra trade income.

Calculating Income

• Each unit of population pays 0.025 credits/sec. It takes 40 population to give you 1 credit/sec. This is affected by Allegiance.
• Each trade port gives you 1 credit/sec, plus bonuses for your longest trade route. See the Trade Port article for details.
• Planets lose you credits until you upgrade them. The amount varies for each planet type.

Metal

Main article: Metal

Metal is required for the advanced alloys in all ships and infrastructure. Metal is gathered from small Asteroids with metal deposits, it can also be obtained via volcanic worlds, which can be colonized after the proper research has been done. Volcanic worlds will often have many more metal deposits than asteroids, but require more work to colonize. The more of their deposits you're mining, the more metal you'll receive per second. You can also increase metal gathering by building Orbital Refineries. Some research projects also increase the rate at which you gain metal.

Calculating Income

• Each extractor at your planets earns you 0.4 metal/sec. This is affected by allegiance.
• Each extractor you own at an uncolonizable planet earns you 0.53 metal/sec. This is NOT affected by allegiance.
• Each refinery earns you additional income, see the Orbital Refinery page for details.

Crystal

Main article: Crystal

Crystal is required to perform research, and build more powerful units & infrastructure. Crystal is gathered from small asteroids with crystal deposits. The more of these deposits you're mining, the more crystal you will receive per second. Much like metal, orbital refineries increase the rate at which you gain crystal, and there are technologies to increase crystal yields.

Calculating Income

• Each extractor at your planets earns you 0.4 crystal/sec. This is affected by allegiance.
• Each extractor you own at an uncolonizable planet earns you 0.53 crystal/sec. This is NOT affected by allegiance.
• Each refinery earns you additional income, see the Orbital Refinery page for details.

Income Modifiers

Rates of income are governed by several things:

Allegiance

The planet's allegiance level directly affects tax and extractor income. Thus, because Culture increases allegiance 10%, it also increases income 10% (a fixed 10%, relative to an absolute 100%; not +10% relative to the planet's current income). In huge maps with a lot of systems at 25% allegiance, this culture bonus amounts to a 40% increase for the 25% planets for all three types of income. Likewise, the Advent's Allure of the Unity can greatly increase income for a large empire.

However, all non-colonizable gravity wells (gas giants, plasma storms, etc.) with extractors appear to have a fixed allegiance of 1.33, which causes them to extract resources even better than a homeworld with both culture and Allure of the Unity - even though their allegiance might've otherwise been 25%.

Research

All races can research Civilian tech in order to increase extractor output; it can be increased up to 40%. There is no research to increase tax income, but you can research planetary population increases. You may also increase the amount of

The three races' extractor research tracks differ somewhat:

• Advent and TEC separate metal and crystal; each resource has 3 topics to research of 2 levels each. Each of these 6 levels increase production by 6.67% (6 * 1/15 = 2/5 = 40%). To get both resources to 40%, they must research a total of 12 levels (2 resources x 3 topics x 2 levels).
• The Vasari research metal and crystal together. They have 4 research topics, also with 2 levels each, for a total of 8 levels at 5% each to reach 40% for both resources.

Total research costs to reach 40% for both metal and crystal for the races are:

Grand Totals for 40%       Or, Average Cost for 5% Increase (Grand Totals / 8)
              --------------------       ---------------------------------------------------
  Race       Credits  Metal  Crystal         Credits  Metal  Crystal
  ----       -------  -----  -------         -------  -----  -------
  Advent      11800    1750    2850            1475    219     356
  TEC          9800    1250    2100            1225    156     263
  Vasari       8800    1400    2250            1100    175     281

As you can see, the Advent definitely costs more to get both 40% bonuses, plus they need 12 research levels. If you average together TEC and Vasari, Advent costs about 30% more than them. It's not a big problem, but at least now you know it's been looked at.

TEC and Vasari are roughly equal - TEC needs more credits, but less metal and crystal. But don't forget - the Vasari only need 8 research levels, not 12. Still, Vasari's last research topic needs 7 labs, the highest of all races. (Advent needs 6 labs and TEC needs 5.)

Planetary Bonuses

Along with allegiance and research you can at random receive bonuses from colonizing a planet. Asteroids and Volcanic planets can have Expert Metal Miners, and Asteroids and Ice planets can have Expert Crystal Miners. These increase the extraction rate by 50% for their resource. There is also a bonus called Raiders Outpost on Asteroids which increases metal extraction by 20%.

Putting it all together

Credits

Planetary credit income is only affected by allegiance. (Trade Ports work differently; see their article.) The base rate is 0.025 credits/second per population. Let's take a look at some examples:

• For a simple example, a planet at 100% allegiance with 100 population gets 2.5 credits/second.
• A cultured, Allured (120% allegiance) Advent Terran homeworld with 322 people (280 x 1.15, max Advent research for Terran planets) gets 9.7 credits/second income. (Plus 4 for being homeworld, for a total of 13.7 c/s.)
• A cultured TEC Terran homeworld with 364 people (280 x 1.30, TEC Terran research) gets 10.0 income (plus 4 for homeworld is 14.0 income). Notice how TEC actually gets a little more than Advent with Allure in this example, because their additional 15% population for Terran planets gives a little more edge than the +10% from Allure.
• A TEC Terran planet with 364 people at 35% allegiance only gets 3.2 credits/second. Its fourth population level ("190 -> 280") has cost 750c 225m 225c, but only adds 117 people (247 -> 364), for 1.0 c/s additional income. It will take 12.5 minutes (750 seconds) to pay off the 750 credits alone, without even considering the metal and crystal costs.
In a tight game, you might want to think twice before buying those upper population levels for planets at 25% or 35% allegiance. You spend the same fixed cost for the planet upgrade, but get far less in return, at low allegiance.