It used to be you made 10% of what the colony's base producton was. So if they made 87 m a tick you'd get 8, if they made 63 you got 6. It has been reduced to 3m and 1oil per conquer per tick thanks to farmers. And also has an added bonus of increasing the amount of paying players. (Since you have to use reds (at least at the start) to even keep up with the 2 or 3 "Super boosters" a round.
I'm not saying the latter reason was why the change was made, but it is a secondary effect nonetheless.
Much like the advent of 4 - 6 tick worlds were made to appease those who felt the game was too slow, and don't particularly like sleep.
