Trade Route Values decreasing

Why won't any new posts get displayed on the forum's listing without having to reply to it myself to get it to show up?

A trade routes value increases or decreases based on how far away from the route's point of origin the freighter is. So, if a freighter is very near your planet route value goes down, but when its very far away, almost at its destination... the route will be worth a lot. This doesn't affect the trade routes average value, but it does mean that a route will fluctuate as the ship moves back and forth.

If you check your trade route stats each turn, you will see that when the route is first established, ie farthest from its home world, the route will be worth the most. As the mini freighter moves close to home each turn, the income decreases each turn until home. Watch for another 20 turns, and you will see the route income increase.

If you have Economic Starbases around the origin world, then that would cause the problem. As soon as the freighter moved out of the Starbases range, you would no longer get the trade bonuses that it supplies.

your routes start at 80 BC per turn ?! mine are more like 5-10 BC ...
btw whats better, having trade routed between close planets that only need 1-2 trade starbases so that the freighter is always worth more
or having a long trade route, which you cannot cover with trade starbases so it doesnt get the bonus most of the time

There has been quite some debate about that one. Personally I seem to find myself researching to the point that I have WAY more available routes than I can be bothered to use - I have a HUGE economy already - so I tend to go from my capital/most populous planet to all the other civs' capitals whatever the distance and then covering as much as I easily can with Eco bases. Gets a decent balance I find.

I figured out what's happening and still have to say it's a bug. The freighters I used to create the current routes have enough engine to give them 10pc per week (turn). My previous freighters had enough engines to have a speed of 52pc per week. These freighters are build on a world with the hyperion shipyard. And pass by 2 military bases with all speed boosting modules added.

With 120 pc between the two worlds for this route it takes approx 12 weeks for the one freighter to arrive and establish it's route and approx 2.3 weeks for my fastest freighter. So these freighters should be making 1 round trip in 24 or 4.6 weeks.

However, when the route is established and these become the miniature freighters they only have movement of 1 pc per week and no bonus from the military bases. Which is the same as the core freighters you can build when you research trade. This makes them take 240 weeks for 1 round trip.

Therefore the bug is that custom freighters are losing their engines once the trade route is established. The freighters shouldn't be changed from what's used to establish the route and should still be effected by any speed boosts from military bases and hyperion shipyards, if they are effected by them before the route is established. If the freighters are losing their bonus for speed, then it's likely they are also losing their bonuses from Eco base trade modules as well, once the route is established.

*note* This was noticed in the final mission of the campaign with everything researched except a few missile, armor and knowledge techs. The game is down to me having just Oloth and the Dread Lords have everything else. The trade routes are between Oloth and (DL occupied) Earth. The only reason I can establish them is because everytime Lord Dread tells me they are going to attack, I choose to speak to him, offer a peace treaty and he accepts. This peace only lasts long enough for the trade routes to run for 30 weeks.

It doesnt help that the 'max' value displayed for a traderoute isnt actually its max value, but its current value.

Therefore the bug is that custom freighters are losing their engines once the trade route is established. The freighters shouldn't be changed from what's used to establish the route and should still be effected by any speed boosts from military bases and hyperion shipyards, if they are effected by them before the route is established. If the freighters are losing their bonus for speed, then it's likely they are also losing their bonuses from Eco base trade modules as well, once the route is established.

That is not a bug. It's intentional made by Stardock. The minifreighters lose weapons, engines and defenses when they're created.

Ecostation only work on minifreighter inside their radius. They don't have any influence on freighter ships, until a trade route is created.

That is not a bug. It's intentional made by Stardock. The minifreighters lose weapons, engines and defenses when they're created.

In that case they shouldn't have bothered to let us build custom freighters as it's pointless. I can understand having the weapons and defense stripped, but to also strip the engines is like saying, "You should only use trade routes in the early stages of the game".

Or to interject a real world equivilant: It'd be like telling Fed-Ex, UPS and any other company that ships goods, they can use Jets to establish their routes, but must make the deliveries on established routes using a horse drawn wagon.

In that case they shouldn't have bothered to let us build custom freighters as it's pointless. I can understand having the weapons and defense stripped, but to also strip the engines is like saying, "You should only use trade routes in the early stages of the game". Or to interject a real world equivilant: It'd be like telling Fed-Ex, UPS and any other company that ships goods, they can use Jets to establish their routes, but must make the deliveries on established routes using a horse drawn wagon.

Huh?

I'm not sure, but it seems that you don't understand how trade routes work.

Every turn you recieve a certain amount of credits from your traderoute. The amount depends on: how far is the minifreighter away from your planet (with farther away being better), how far are the two trading planets away from each other and your combined bonus' to trade.

So, if the minifreighters were faster, it wouldn't change the medial amount of credits you get.

The benefit of putting engines on a trade ship are that you can get the route started a lot faster. How much income would you lose if it took 24 turns to get the route started as opposed to it taking 5 turns to get started. The increase in earned credits (19 turns worth in this example) more than pay for the engines used to get there imo.

As far as I know, you only "lose" extra movement. Under 1.0x I designed an "Arms dealer" trade ship on a medium hull and gave it a weapon and a defense item. It still reduced to one movement but the other still showed on the ship stats. Granted, by running solo it is not a strong ship. I did not have an AI attack the design so not sure how well it would have held up in combat. I wanted to try and make a trade fleet and see if that worked, but the game ended before I could further test out the design and strategy.

you will see that when the route is first established, ie farthest from its home world, ...

Thats not correct. When you first establish a trade route, the first movement of the mini-ship is next to the homeworld. The player created ship is removed from the game and a mini-trader is created to replace it .

Or to interject a real world equivilant: It'd be like telling Fed-Ex, UPS and any other company that ships goods, they can use Jets to establish their routes, but must make the deliveries on established routes using a horse drawn wagon.

I would offer a different perspective. The minister of trade (government employee), using a government ship (one you can control), opens the diplomatic channels and establishes the availability of a trade route. Fed-x/Tyco toys et al takes over that trade route (starting at the homeworld where they are), using their own ships (that you can't control). Hence the message when it goes sour "Corporate sponsors of trade route ABC have determined it is no longer profitable ect..."

The initial (government) ship contains well over 25000 samples from potential trading companies that are given to the target Civ to spark interest in what you have available (abstracted).

It's how I view the current set-up. Works for me, your milage may vary.

Again, not a bug, but a misunderstanding of the game mechanics. The small frieghter is run by corporate sponsors, and you recieve an income from the trade route each and every week, not just when the frieghter arrives at the planet. so speed means nothing. You get more income each week when the mini frighter is farther away from the home world, and less on the return trip. The only advantage to loading a frighter with engines, is to get the long trade routes established weeks earlier, instead of waiting for the slow frieghter that moves 2 parsecs per week to arrive. Lost income, while waiting for the frieghter to establish the trade route.

A bug is when a game mechanics does not work as intended. The mini frieghters work as documented, and intended.