As the Commerce Bay works now there is little advantage to keeping one equipped, but I was thinking that the abilities of the bay could be expanded to affect the mineral sales tariff.

A legion base would act as a nexus of trade as well as a place for the legions ships to dock to repair and research. It would make sense that such a station could negotiate taxes and tariffs for transactions performed in the region, and would also take a cut for hosting that trade.

The mechanical effects of this suggestion would be that commerce bays would redirect 5% of the 20% tariff to base funds as well as having the option in the rules to add an additional 5% onto the tariff which would also be added to the base funds. (which would raise the tariff on minerals sold by legion members to 25% though would direct 10% to the base)

An advanced commerce center could be an upgraded version of the commerce bay and could redirect 10% of the 20% tariff to base funds and could allow for an additional 10% (in 5% increments) to be added on to tariffs in the rules.

+1

This is good idea.

So you are saying, A Leader(me) could tax my members INSTEAD of asking for donations? and if worded right I can have everyone agree on this?

Edit:
While this WOULD help my legion, even if we sold 10billion credits worth of minerals a day, I am only looking at a 1bil credit return. That would only be like a fifth of my base's upkeep.

So this would help a lot(especially collecting from players who don't donate).

Edit Edit:

I just got a Idea! Maybe if a player donates this X amount of credits to the base, they can be exempt from the extra taxes........

awesome! this is a great idea! +1

Yes this is a base tax, and i think it is a wonderful addition to the Commerce Bay.