Ways of income for Pirates:

[u/Turevaryar]

The three major ways I know of are:

1. Protection agreement with empires
2. Building Freighters who on automation will run around buying and selling.
3. Bases on independent colonies

For #1 I'd gladly buy information from pirates. Most of them won't trade such information with you, but those who do, will sell you contact info, and if it costs:

• a few hundred: It's a lone pirate
• a few thousand: It's a Pirate faction
• many thousands: It's likely an empire

I would pay close to 10k credits for a yearly income of ... 250 x 12, is it?

Other alternative is to buys exploration ships and control them manually. Note that such a ship must have proximity scanners (or improved versions)

Here I must confess: I have not played Pirates much (yet): Had not had the time.

But it seems to me that:

Protection agreements are reliable. The empire may refuse at first, but then give in after some time.

For some reason they have to like you first. And you do not need to have military close to intimidate them.

Freighters: The income is small and irregular, but I SUSPECT you hit small jackpots now and then. At least I've registered rare occasions when I've suddenly got a lot of money, and I suspect some freighter to sell some expensive material.

Pro tip: Your freighters likely starts with Kaldos warp drives. This is the Warp Drive that initiates a jump quickly, but it is slow and thus the worst (but safest) warp drive for a freighter. I would rather recommend Equinox for profit (it moves fastest) or perhaps Calista-Dal, which is slow but uses the least fuel. (I would go for Equinox!).

In fact, you're likely to find that your designer always prefer Kaldos. This is due to a Policy Setting (P) , weapon and component focus, set Hyperdrive focus to Speed!

Hidden Pirate Base: At the start you'll earn something close to 226 credits, double that if you get 100% Pirate influence.

This is a pitiful amount. I suspect it scales with the indie's income (thus population and time), but I'm dubious to whether this is worth the cost of the building (and possible upgrades).

I am fairly certain it is worth setting a small ship to Guard "your" colony, to get that Pirate influence to 100%. Maybe raid too. I don't like to raid, for I am a terrible bad Pirate! =D (and not 'terrible bad' as in evil, but bad at being a pirate)

Trading is also a potential source for income. But it seems your partners are poor.

I have Tech trading disabled, but if you don't you can sell that for a pretty penny if you ever find a rich empire :)

It's also dubious strategy to sell advanced technology to empires.

Are there any other ^major ways to earn credits as a Pirate faction?

[u/Farnhams_Legend]

It appears that active money makers are far more effective than passive methods until there are multiple major colonies on the map that create consistent trade demand

Early on its best to

1) hunt space monsters and then sell their gravilex crystal and ardilus tentacle loot 2) manually sell bulk resources to shadowports. It works with or without contracts. They always offer high prices but they don't buy everything. Check beforehand using the trade points UI and then manually fill up a freighter at a cheap mining location 3) do item capture contracts using spies