Until now, it was assumed that the income you earn in the game would also depend on how many members of your faction (ONI, MUD, or Ustur) you had to share it with.
This should result in there always being an incentive to join a smaller faction in order to earn higher revenue yourself.
However, this will not play a role in the first stage of SCORE, as Star Atlas CEO Michael Wagner just revealed: “Not in the current iteration of SCORE, but that will be a factor in the future.”