Pirates & Nomads - No Empires?

[Suicide Junkie]

Almost all P or N money comes from leeching off of others. You need to play in a densely packed galaxy, but storms and nebulae are always useful for hiding resupply/scrapping bases in.

Money-making opportunities for Pirates & Nomads:
- The $1000/turn galactic welfare check.
- Capturing ships and scrapping them.
- Pirates can build slave labour camps.
- Capturing alien resource colonies.
- Alien Sponsorships (trade alliance)
- Selling services (to human players)

Nomads can rely on the $1000/turn to support a decent fleet, since they have the 1% maintenance components (Recycling Node).
Pirates concentrate on the other items in that list.

The captured alien planets one is by far the most lucrative, but is normally very temporary, since the owners will soon come to see what the problem is. Best to scrap all the facilities for a quick jolt of cash as soon as you see a significant enemy presence, and run with your loot .
Pirates should maintain a large collection of Pirate Hoards, so that they can keep all that loot for later. Capture some alien colony ships in order to get more land to bury treasure on!