Help me understand trade route costs

[ares416]

TL;DR:
What is the "Route Administration" hidden fee in my credit balance and why am I getting it?

I'm trying to understand the costs associated with trade routes and the world market. I am at the point in the game where I can start using the world market and I saw that I have 2 available trade routes to the world market. I thought I could sell some excess goods and make a profit.

According to the chart it seemed that canned goods would produce a profit since they were selling at a much higher cost than it was to produce them. I set up a trade route and it showed a profit of $200 or so including the cost to run the trade route.

However, after I set up the trade route, my balance sheet went down even though it still said the route was profitable in the route overview. Looking into the credit balance, I saw a defecit called "Route administration" that increased way more than my profit from the route was. This is a different category of cost from setting up the trade route and it is not acknowledged anywhere in game that I can see.

I have also searched extensively for this "Route administration" cost and where it comes from and there is no information to be found. Does anyone know what this hidden fee is and why I am getting it?

Thanks ahead of time for your input!

[FluffyNo3]

An important thing to note about the World Market is that the prices are always changing due to the overall selling and buying of goods from the entire player base. Don't set up a route to the World Market and expect it to stay the same. Some routes may become unprofitable and others might become profitable, you need to regularly check your routes to the World Market

Each trade route costs money, it all depends on where it is going and how many goods are being transportede. The cheapest being a small freighter from Temperate region to Temperate region and the most expensive being anything going to the Moon. Unfortunately you can't get around this as you need to ship goods around your sectors

[ares416]

Thanks for the reply. It's confusing that the cost calculation is not given to you upfront but you have to read into your balance sheet to see if the route is profitable. I could be wrong but I think I saw that mysterious "route administration" cost go down after I had advanced a space port in the region doing the trading. Maybe it has something to do with this. It would be nice to see some documentation on this, unless I missed it somewhere.

[Erikkustrife]

Originally posted by ares416:

Thanks for the reply. It's confusing that the cost calculation is not given to you upfront but you have to read into your balance sheet to see if the route is profitable. I could be wrong but I think I saw that mysterious "route administration" cost go down after I had advanced a space port in the region doing the trading. Maybe it has something to do with this. It would be nice to see some documentation on this, unless I missed it somewhere.

Leveling up gives you access to bigger boats for better prices, if your trading 100s of something then your suing a huge container to do it. Also never ship anything from land to moon, ship it to orbit then from orbit to moon. Youll save 1000s doing that.

[Beltane]

Originally posted by Erikkustrife:

Leveling up gives you access to bigger boats for better prices, if your trading 100s of something then your suing a huge container to do it. Also never ship anything from land to moon, ship it to orbit then from orbit to moon. Youll save 1000s doing that.

Could you elaborate on that topic? Back when i first played (before any DLC arrived) i already was aware that it is cheaper in some cases to by from the orbital market instead manufactureing on the moon and then deliver it from the moon to earth". But from your writing it seems that there is another method? Can i trade via my space station once i have access to it? Or what exactly do you mean by "ship it to orbit"? Just want to know if there is a new mechanic i am notn aware of yet, or if we are talking about the same :)

[Burbot]

I'm having the same issue with 'Route Administration' fees. I have not figured it out completely yet, but from what I can tell it is a fee paid after a certain number of routes.

I started deleting routes to figure out where it was coming from. The administration cost disappeared when I got down to five routes. At six routes the fee became 251. The next route added 500 credits for a total of 751. Seventh route added 750 for a total of 1501. etc. The fee seems to double for each route over five.

I cant find any mention of number of free routes, but I suspect it's tied to space port level. And you said it might have changed when you leveled up a space port. I'll keep an eye on mine and see if I get more free routes after I level up a space port.

It may be an additional fee for difficulty level, I'm playing expert this time.

[lnomsim]

Sorry for the necro, but after I don't know how many hundreds of hours I have in the game, it's the first time I notice this hidden fee.
I always use hubs to transport goods from biomes to biomes and then redistribute to other regions, I usually do the same with building materials since it's way less expensive to produce a lot of polymers on a region and redistribute them than producing them locally each time.

But with that hidden fee that increases exponentially, no wonder I always had such a hard time maintaining a good credit balance.

It's less expensive to have redundant production and unoptimized trade routes than producing everything everywhere and paying double the price in transport itself instead of having two routes 10 times cheaper.

I had forgotten how much salt I had for this game, it renewed it.