ALLIANCES
The war chest
The war chest is the alliance's shared bank: Scrap, Crude, Raw Food, $ato and Hollow Cores. It fills from tax and the marketplace fee, and it has three uses.
The chest holds resources in their RAW form, because the tax that fills it is taken from raw extraction cargo. Everything it pays a member lands in that member's raw stock, and their base refines it like any other haul (see resources).
Where it fills from
Faction tax. Every haul banked inside a faction's borders is taxed by the alliance that governs that faction's city, and the tax lands in that alliance's war chest. The governor changes every Monday at midnight UTC: the alliance of that faction that gained the most faction reputation over the week just ended takes the city. A tie goes to the alliance that reached its score first, and if nobody of that faction scored, the governor stays. Reputation comes from extraction (see alliance level), so the city is open to any alliance of that faction willing to work the sites. The city window's ALLIANCE tab shows the governor, the time to the next rollover and this week's board.
The Citadel skim. The alliance holding the Citadel Throne skims a cut of the tax in every city it does not govern, its own faction's city included. Taking the Throne does not make you a city's governor.
The marketplace fee. The alliance holding the Market Square district takes 25% of the fee on eligible marketplace trades, or 50% if the same alliance also holds the Throne. That share is paid out of the fee the trader already paid. Nothing is printed. See the marketplace.
Setting the tax
The Leader and Vice Leaders of the governing alliance set the city's rates, and a new governor inherits the rates in force.
| Lever | Range |
|---|---|
| Resource tax on hauls banked in your faction's quadrant | up to 30% |
| Tech core tax | off, or 20% |
| Throne holder's skim of the resource tax in cities it does not govern | up to 30% |
| Throne holder's skim of the tech core tax in cities it does not govern | off, or 50% |
The Throne holder never skims a city it governs itself, because it already collects that tax. An area with no owning alliance is not taxed at all.
Players can see exactly what they paid: the tax comes off the haul at banking time and the haul screen shows it.
The three ways it is spent
The objective ladder. Every chest tier that unlocks moves a slice of the current balance into that chest's pool, and members take their contribution share. Unclaimed pools go back. See objectives and chests.
The war subsidy. An Officer or above arms a percentage (0 / 25 / 50 / 100 percent). From then on, every siege deploy a member pays, an attack march or a garrison, is reimbursed at that percentage out of the chest, in the same moment the deploy is charged. It is bounded per resource by what the chest actually holds, so a chest short on Crude still covers the Scrap, and it is never a loan: every unit reimbursed is a unit that left the bank.
A distribution. A Vice Leader or the Leader can send Scrap, Crude, Raw Food or $ato straight out of the chest, either to one named member or to everyone, with an optional filter that restricts a group send to members who have been online recently. The amount is per recipient and the whole send is checked against the balance before anything moves, so a bulk send can never half-drain the chest. Officers can receive a group send but cannot start one: chest control stays with the Leader and the Vice Leaders.