One more question:

3) Do the 'trade goods' that you can build make trade routes from those planets more profitable, or do they simply provide the stated bonuses to your civilization?

I've been spreading my trade routes around with different cultures for just that reason; if war breaks out, I won't lose all of them, at least not immediately. I'm only on my first game, I haven't even been to war at all yet, but I'm trying to plan for it.

Anyone else have any insight on the other questions?

RANDOM side question: how do you get the neat icons at the bottom of your posts?

they just give you the additional bonuses. They don't make trade more proffitable.



The distance betwwen the planets (the greater the distance the more income) the size
of both planets (bigger planets give more trade) how long the trade rout has been up and running (after some time they generate more income)

concerning trade with one or more planets you also have to consider the impact of trade on diplomatic status. Races that you have trade routs with will tend to like you more and not attack you.

At lower difficulty levels, wars are easier to avoind and so trade routs seem to last longer, or you might at least have the chance to start a lot of them.

i THINK the value of the trade route increase with time too. but I'm not sure about this. i almost always try to have them from the same planet or same area, for rhe reason stated before about economic star bases with trade modules. Generally trade route dont add a lot to your economy but the CAN if you put time into them and do all the researching for trade techs.

as for the medal and info atthe bottom of posts, you need to join and submit a game to the Metaverse. it doesnt matter what your score is, you'll still get them under your posts.

one more thing, i belive that population of the trading planets is a factor on the value.

I get my trade routes up pretty early... right after the main part of the colony rush and building a few constructors for the most valuable local resource mining. At that stage of the game, the other races usually don't have a colony built up with bigger population than their home planet, and that's true for me also. So the first routes almost always go from my home planet to the home planets of the other races, even if they have colonies that would be further away. I think population size trumps distance in that case (someone correct me if that's wrong).

If I need trade income quickly to dig out of the colony rush deficit, I'll target one of the closer races, just so I can start the cash flowing. If I can afford to wait a few more turns, I'll target the more distant races first, for the greater income.

As Jvstin mentioned, one reason to use just one of your planets as the trade destination "hub" is that it's easier to string out economic starbases along the route, to boost trade income. I don't go completely nuts with that, like I've heard of some people doing.... stringing bases along almost the entire route. But it's usually possible to put a few economic starbases near your home planet and adjacent systems in a way that can benefit both the trade routes and local planet production. And those starbases will significantly increase your trade income, during the time that ships are within the zone of influence.