Criminal syndicate branch offices are bad

[HallBregg]

Criminal syndicate branch offices have generate an amount of credits equal to normal megacorp offices multiplied (1+crime-0.5) which means that unless crime is above 50% you actually earn less. If crime is low you also run the risk of the office being closed. It also has de side effect that you almost always want to build smuglers outpost first because of the +50 crime. On the other hand high crime is really bad for a colony so more enforcers in that situation are a must. At the moment the balance for crime syndicates seems very loopsided, it would be more interesting to be able to run criminal syndicate offices profitably at a lower crime rate.

 

[Ridixo]

Criminal Syndicate is tricky, as someone, i forget who, my deepest apology to him, said the Criminal Syndicates are kinda a scam, you go to the planet, open a branch office, suck the energy credits from them while you rise the crime, then the AI gets that crime is a problem and spam enforces, then close the branch office and you send your minions to other planet and repeat the cicle, again and again. Normal Megacorps can have enduring branch offices, Criminal Syndicates are then more like a traveling scam, which would make more sense if there was nomadic empires in the game.

 

[Piotrzeci]

Criminal Syndicate is tricky, as someone, i forget who, my deepest apology to him, said the Criminal Syndicates are kinda a scam, you go to the planet, open a branch office, suck the energy credits from them while you rise the crime, then the AI gets that crime is a problem and spam enforces, then close the branch office and you send your minions to other planet and repeat the cicle, again and again. Normal Megacorps can have enduring branch offices, Criminal Syndicates are then more like a traveling scam, which would make more sense if there was nomadic empires in the game.

But then they should earn significantly more, so the branch office actually manages to pay for itself.

 

[Less2]

I don't think the intended benefit is that you can always get more per planet as a syndicate, it's that you can get planets that otherwise wouldn't let you in as a law-abiding corporation. It's also worth noting that crime isn't really that bad, in fact if the planet owner takes the decision to negotiate with crime lords for +10 stability it basically becomes a profitable symbiotic relationship.

They could do with getting a building at 1 pops though. As it is they can't put criminal branches anywhere but capitals for the early game since they'll produce nothing and get detected. There is already the penalty of not getting much energy from low-pop planets, restricting buildings and making it impossible to do ahead of time is not good.

Could also do with a some kind of influence decrease since syndicates need to make and sometimes remake more branches. Maybe -33%?

 

[Ridixo]

But then they should earn significantly more, so the branch office actually manages to pay for itself.

In the long run the best way to earn money with a Crime Syndicate is to open a lot of branch offices. Like @JanitorSecondClass said:

There is actually a cooldown - in Version 2.23 - for closing of the criminal branch offices. This means if you are a criminal syndicate and have the energy credits to open many branch offices - lets say all colonies of a neighboring empire - then only one of these branch offices is probably going to be closed down every 3600 days. The only way to then get rid of them all is by declaring war on the criminal syndicate.

Yes there is a cooldown of ten years so a empire with lets say five colonies with five branch office, one per planet, can close one each ten years, also ten years is the cooldown to reopen a closed branch office. So you get a close branch office, BO for short hereafter, wait ten years to get another BO closed and then you reopen the first one, you will be always a BO less than colonies have the empire but at least you will be a little more sure about your other BO. Also consider the pops of target colonies, the more pops the more BO buildings and the more anti-crime buildings the empire can build. In the patch notes it says that after a while the other empire will close and change the anti-crime buildings but be careful. Crime Syndicate make a lot more sense, and profits, later in the game with more heavy pops planets. Still crime is tricky.

 

[fuinril]

Imho criminal branch office should not forbid you to wage war against an empire, and more, should help you invade planets on which they are built. That would justify the increased difficulty between regular megacorps and criminal syndicates.

 

[HallBregg]

Also, criminals reduce trade value