Taxi

From Starport: Galactic Empires

Taxiing

In the lounge of each starport, you will usually find someone who wants to go to another system, and offering a fee for this service. These are NPCs without ships. They will fill up one bay of your hardware slots if you accept.

The pay for a taxi run is $3000 per hop, but you can get extra credits as a tip (usually about 50% more) if you are fast enough. This makes the Merchant Cruiser which all new players come with excellent for taxi runs, due to the Afterburner special. You will also gain some experience and reputation for successfully completing a taxi mission. If you take too long, the taxi rider will give you a reduced fee, and you get no experience or reputation.

Taxi missions are a great way to build up credits and find starports when you are new to a galaxy.

Long taxi runs can sometimes be done in only a few hops by using the Black holes, and the tip for these runs can be enormous. It can be advantageous to carry long-haul taxi passengers on the off chance you will end up across the galaxy.

There is no penalty for jettisoning taxi rides or holding on to them for a long time, except you won't get a tip.