So what exactly is the point of the trade line?

[DarthHammer]

First off when I say trade line I'm referring to the white line that shows up linking some of your planets if you hover over your credit total (which displays your credit income total and breakdown.)

Does this line actually matter? As far as I can tell at least from the credit breakdown, there's no additional gain from trade ports on this line vs off it. And plus if your playing Vasari (or SoGE mod) and have phase stabilizers, trade ships will start ignoring the line anyway.

So is there any point to it?

[Ryat]

That line is the richest vein of your trade. The longer you make it the more money you make. You should be seeing that. Flip side it is hard to make really long.

[GoaFan77]

You wont notice trade ports in the trade chain producing more income than other planet. What you will notice is more important. Each player gets a 7.5% global trade income bonus for each planet in their trade chain. A player with 10 trade ports in a single chain will get 75% more income than a player with 10 trade ports all on one planet.

[WHIPperSNAPper]

Thanks for clarifying that, Goa. I though the rule was that each trade port received an extra 0.1 credit/second for each link in the chain.

[DarthHammer]

Ohhhhh. I think I get it. Basically its incentivizing having your trade ports on different worlds. Since I already played that way to begin with, I didn't really notice. (I.E. I had an optimal trade set up without even knowing that it was optimal.)

But one last question: is there any way to control where the trade line goes? In the last game (where I finally bothered to wonder what it was lol) I played the line went into a terran planet with only one connecting lane, and stopped there. When I expanded my trade network the line stayed stuck in that dead-end.

The junction that the line went into that system from was a dead asteroid with a trade port (I had goten the fabricator artifact) so perhaps that was why? This was also with the Sins of the Prophets mod on, but it would be odd if that was bugging out the trade line.

Or does the visual of the line not really matter? Does the bonus apply to any trade port on a new world, or does it HAVE to be on that line?

[GoaFan77]

Originally posted by DarthHamer:

Ohhhhh. I think I get it. Basically its incentivizing having your trade ports on different worlds. Since I already played that way to begin with, I didn't really notice. (I.E. I had an optimal trade set up without even knowing that it was optimal.)

But one last question: is there any way to control where the trade line goes? In the last game (where I finally bothered to wonder what it was lol) I played the line went into a terran planet with only one connecting lane, and stopped there. When I expanded my trade network the line stayed stuck in that dead-end.

The junction that the line went into that system from was a dead asteroid with a trade port (I had goten the fabricator artifact) so perhaps that was why? This was also with the Sins of the Prophets mod on, but it would be odd if that was bugging out the trade line.

Or does the visual of the line not really matter? Does the bonus apply to any trade port on a new world, or does it HAVE to be on that line?

The line calculation is a bit weird. Basically, it draws the shortest path among a cluster of trade ports adjacent to each other. You can find some nice drawn out examples on the strategy forum of the Sins of a Solar Empire boards, but for the vast majority of the time simply building trade port in the longest line of planets you can make in your Empire works well.

It does not matter where the trade line goes. If you had that trade line there,it must be because you did not have more trade ports next to the dead asteroid for the line to connect to.

I do not think you really got my last post. The trade line bonus is a GLOBAL bonus to your trade income. All of your trade ports, whether they are on the trade line or not, get the bonus. You just want to make the line as big as possible, so all your trade ports will get an even bigger bonus.

Originally posted by Lumpy Space Princess:

Thanks for clarifying that, Goa. I though the rule was that each trade port received an extra 0.1 credit/second for each link in the chain.

In practice that is about what it comes out to on fastest income settings. However in the game code it clearly states the bonus is 7.5%. So basically each planet in your trade chain gives you the benefits of a free trade income bonus research.

[DarthHammer]

Originally posted by CPPFZGoaFan77:

I do not think you really got my last post. The trade line bonus is a GLOBAL bonus to your trade income. All of your trade ports, whether they are on the trade line or not, get the bonus. You just want to make the line as big as possible, so all your trade ports will get an even bigger bonus.

No no I got you, I guess I wasn't 100% clear. I was asking just that, if the trade ports off the trade line affected the global bonus.

Oh you were right though, I missed part of your post, but not the global part. I missed the part where it was each PLANET, not each trade port per planet, that increased that number.

I now realize that my usual economic plan of "trade ports absolutley ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everywhere" means that I don't really have to worry about the line much because it will probably just go to the longest route anyway.

[John Sheridan [GER] Diamond]

The Route, is is wired. sometimes not building a Tradeport on a planet can give you a higher income as building. The chain is on the Planets most far away started, and go the shortest way to each other. If you see shortcuts, dont build there so you can may add additional 5 jumps arround it, to get a higher income.

[Ryat]

Originally posted by DarthHamer:

Originally posted by CPPFZGoaFan77:

I do not think you really got my last post. The trade line bonus is a GLOBAL bonus to your trade income. All of your trade ports, whether they are on the trade line or not, get the bonus. You just want to make the line as big as possible, so all your trade ports will get an even bigger bonus.

No no I got you, I guess I wasn't 100% clear. I was asking just that, if the trade ports off the trade line affected the global bonus.

Oh you were right though, I missed part of your post, but not the global part. I missed the part where it was each PLANET, not each trade port per planet, that increased that number.

I now realize that my usual economic plan of "trade ports absolutley ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everywhere" means that I don't really have to worry about the line much because it will probably just go to the longest route anyway.

Actually you can get better by carefully planning out the route. Even with a huge empire.

[AzureAlliance]

Originally posted by DarthHamer:

I now realize that my usual economic plan of "trade ports absolutley ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everywhere" means that I don't really have to worry about the line much because it will probably just go to the longest route anyway.

Do not this. Plan your route to be as long as possible. If you have a circle of planets, one of them should be without a trade port.

[SandPounder]

For making the trade longer i usually place starbases with trade upgrade on stars and other unclonizable systems. As tec i also add the self destruct protocal to slow an enemy advance

[DarthHammer]

Originally posted by John Sheridan GER:

The Route, is is wired. sometimes not building a Tradeport on a planet can give you a higher income as building. The chain is on the Planets most far away started, and go the shortest way to each other. If you see shortcuts, dont build there so you can may add additional 5 jumps arround it, to get a higher income.

But the question is, is that bonus of the extended route exceed the additional income you could gather from sticking an extra trade port in that system.

Originally posted by AzureAlliance:

Originally posted by DarthHamer:

I now realize that my usual economic plan of "trade ports absolutley ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everywhere" means that I don't really have to worry about the line much because it will probably just go to the longest route anyway.

Do not this. Plan your route to be as long as possible. If you have a circle of planets, one of them should be without a trade port.

The terrifyingly strong economies I can set up (in MP games against human opponents) would disagree. See, if the coefficent of the planet chain is .075, then you have to have to have THIRTEEN extra planets on that line for each new trade port you set up for extending the line to be more valuable than building a new trade port that would stop the line. And since you can always have at least one if not more trade ports in every system (esp. with development mandate) the economic viability of the trade line is questionable.

Math city.

[Sevrun]

@Darth in theory you would be correct, but if you reinforce a specific route through your empire to have additional ports vs other planets having merely one you can still acquire the route bump on the greater amount per planet while still acquiring the spread you're referring to. If you elect not to use refineries (trade ports instead) the overall income can be absolutely staggering.

Math is nice, planning and engineering are better. The route line was meant to be helpful without being overpowering so that the game could appeal to careful planners and spammers both.

P.S. I would never classify any ingame economy as 'terrifying' unless the dev actually wants you to PAY for the ships you're building ;)

[DarthHammer]

Originally posted by Sevrun:

@Darth in theory you would be correct, but if you reinforce a specific route through your empire to have additional ports vs other planets having merely one you can still acquire the route bump on the greater amount per planet while still acquiring the spread you're referring to. If you elect not to use refineries (trade ports instead) the overall income can be absolutely staggering.

Math is nice, planning and engineering are better. The route line was meant to be helpful without being overpowering so that the game could appeal to careful planners and spammers both.

P.S. I would never classify any ingame economy as 'terrifying' unless the dev actually wants you to PAY for the ships you're building ;)

No of course, my response was directly towards the idea of having a planet intentionally NOT have a trade port for the sake of the trade line. Basically unless doing that gets me 13 planets worth of trade line, I would rather just build the trade port.

So in that case, math beats planning. And I didn't mean that the economy system was terrifying, I meant the ammount of money I was making was terrifying. (To my opponents LOL.)

[GoaFan77]

Originally posted by DarthHamer:

The terrifyingly strong economies I can set up (in MP games against human opponents) would disagree. See, if the coefficent of the planet chain is .075, then you have to have to have THIRTEEN extra planets on that line for each new trade port you set up for extending the line to be more valuable than building a new trade port that would stop the line. And since you can always have at least one if not more trade ports in every system (esp. with development mandate) the economic viability of the trade line is questionable.

Math city.

Not quite.

The real computation you should be doing is this.

Take your total trade income * (1 + (0.075 * (theoretical trade chain - current trade chain)))

and

Number of Trade ports you plan to build on that planet * defualt income per trade port (unless you know that planet has a trade income bonus or you plan to get industry specialization, then include those bonuses).


If the first number is bigger, you are actually better off not building a trade port at the planet, since that bonus to all of your existing trade ports would outwieght the income you would get building trade ports at that planet. If you already have a very large number of trade ports, even increasing the length of your trade chain by one can be enough to make more income than what you would make with trade ports at that planet. And that's ignoring the fact that by not building trade ports you save money and can build something else.

The vast majority of the time though you don't have enough trade ports for this to quite happen, and by the time you do you probably have such a huge income you stopped caring about maximizing trade efficiency anyways. :p