How to set up a custom patrol route?

[curry124242]

That's what i have tried.
1. Select a fleet in System A.
2. Click the patrol icon
3. Left click a system B.

Then the fleet seems to be only partoling between the shorest path from A to B.

However, that is not where my trade route located. My trade route should be from system A to system C to system B, how can i set the potral to protect such route?

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Try this:
1. Select fleet in system A.
2. Click patrol icon.
3. Left click system C.
4. Wait for fleet to enter system C.
5. Select fleet in system C.
6. Press and hold shift.
7. Still holding shift, click patrol icon.
8. Still holding shift, left click system B.
9. Release shift.

Edit: Nope, that doesn't work. You can give a fleet multiple patrol orders by holding shift, but it only repeats the last order. You may need to have two patrol fleets, one for A-C and one for A-B.

[Radiosity]

This is why I've given up on trade routes for now. Patrolling is tedious beyond belief and they really need to add a proper way to shift-select systems to patrol. Can't believe they missed something so obvious, but eh, Paradox gonna Paradox.

[flow]

You really don't need fleet patrols to keep pirates at bay, though.
If you need to set up complex patrol routes to not get robbed, you should re-evaluate where your trade hubs and protection stations are.

[MasterJB]

Necroing this thread hoping that somebody has a solution plese? It's utter bullzhit to have like 20 mini fleets just to protect trade because you can't setup useful patrol routes.

[corisai]

Originally posted by MasterJB:

Necroing this thread hoping that somebody has a solution plese? It's utter bullzhit to have like 20 mini fleets just to protect trade because you can't setup useful patrol routes.

Build hangar bases in middle of your routes. In most cases (except MAY BE corporates, as I never ever played them and never will be) it will be enough to hold until gateways activation.

With activated gates you will need a few fleets near your capital, later (when you will able to build gateways) - you will completely eliminate pirate threat.

[DS Pilikus]

1. Select fleet you want to patrol with
2. Go to a sistem next to the one where you want to start a patrol
3. Select fleet right click on a sistem you want to start with
4. Click patrol and while holding shift left click all syistems you want your fleet to patrol

[franks9]

Thanks much for this solution!!

[TheDarkMaw]

Huh it works, I wonder why you have to do a regular move order first then shift click...

[Bloodartist]

Patrolling is not complicated. You just need the ship to be at one of the end points when you set it. Holding shift while leftclicking will allow you to queue stuff, so you can make a chain of patrol routes.

Shift+click works on other things as well, such as making a construction ship build first mining station and then a research station by holding leftclick when selecting them.

[PhailRaptor]

I feel like the solution is to simply set up more Starbases. Fill them with Hanger Bays, and a single Trade Port. Then give them the Hyperlane Registrar and the Offworld Trading Company, and use the last slot for whatever. Orbital Resource Dump is an easy last slot, or if there is an inhabited planet in the system use the Deep Space Black Site instead.

That configuration will not only pull your trade route through that system, giving you more control of where it goes while increasing it's value, but will also protect 5 jumps away. This provides stupidly high overlapping coverage to really stack up the Trade Protection. Besides, by the time this is something you need to think about, it's doubtful you're going to be using all of the Starbase Capacity you have access to. Just from planets and pops alone you can get some really crazy numbers there, and there are quite a few ways to get more (nevermind the repeatable Green research for it).

[coolman552]

for some reason starbases never seem to do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about pirates except for the system they are in, is it suppose to be like that?

[Virthuss (法國人在台灣)]

Originally posted by coolman552:

for some reason starbases never seem to do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about pirates except for the system they are in, is it suppose to be like that?

Piratery is always null on starbase systems. If it's grows outside it means your protection is not high enough. Build more hangar bays

[coolman552]

Originally posted by Virthuss ( French in Tw ):

Originally posted by coolman552:

for some reason starbases never seem to do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about pirates except for the system they are in, is it suppose to be like that?

Piratery is always null on starbase systems. If it's grows outside it means your protection is not high enough. Build more hangar bays

yea na it doesnt do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ i have to send a few corvettes

[Terijian]

maybe try to minimize the routes. For example if on your capital you put 6 trade hubs and a hyperlane registar, you now have all trade value 7 jumps away from your capital collected, with zero routes or issues for piracy. thats actually a fair chunk of space. so when you start to expand beyond that its not a huge deal to build some hanger bay def platforms on outposts or hanger bay starbases. TBH I cant even recall the last time I had pirates and I only rarely use patrols. they are just kindof a stop-gap until you get better (strikecraft) trade protection set up

TLDR
Small number of far reaching trade super hubs > long string of multipurpose starbases
= simple routes easy to manage.

[corisai]

Originally posted by coolman552:

Originally posted by Virthuss ( French in Tw ):

Piratery is always null on starbase systems. If it's grows outside it means your protection is not high enough. Build more hangar bays

yea na it doesnt do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ i have to send a few corvettes

Either you're using broken mods or forget to upgrade starbase. Basic outpost do nothing against pirates.