Want lots more income from trade routes

Whaah...?
You mean if the trader goes around the galaxy and then to the target planet you get more income?
I don't believe this..

The longer the route, the more money it makes: Correct.

The distance is determined in the time it takes for your original ship to reach the planet: False.


The length of the route will be the minimum distance a route can take. Still, send those puppies to the furthest planet you can reach to make the most money. Send multiple ones in fact!!!

I realized that I had 4 trade routes from my home world to the same distant planet. Yet the max income was different for each one. So I sent one direct to the same planet and I sent one to the oposite corner first then to the same planet. The direct ship max was 97 while the one that went around the galaxy had 227? Can someone else get the same result? Maby it is a new bug for TOA.

I noticed this too. 2 freighters go to the same planet, yet the one that explored a bit first makes more money once the routes are established.

Is trade more lucrative in larger sized galaxies? Because in the medium ones I play often, Trade is essentially useless except perhaps very early to balance out early losses before income streams manifest (which I rarely do because the production required to make these ships could go to other improvements or research) or for relations purposes (which at the obscene level I play at, everyone hates me all the time anyway, and even if they do like me, they can still make war with me at the drop of a feathered pimp hat).

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: sort of. I currently make 650bc on trade and 2200 bc on tax immense map 11 trade routes, all the longest I could make. (I play on high levels as well and the + to dip doesnt help me much either.)

Settings Masochistic Max CPU AI Rare EVERYTHING

So about 1/4 of my income is from trade which seems fair to me BUT I only have 6 planets.   Only 4 of them are economy planets   so if I were to have the 50-300 planets that I get with higher planet settings, then the 600 BC of a 20K+ a turn economy would be nothing.

In short, relative to the total planets settings, trade routes make a difference only when there a generally few planets but much more so when on VERY large maps. Simply the distance involved makes ALL the difference. But that difference is a sneeze in a hurricane on abundant settings.

Not "no way," it's just that "the way" might not be at all clear in the UI or manual.

If the routes really do work based on the path a freighter took, it seems pretty neat to me. After all, a lot can happen between major port A and major port B. But it makes no sense to have the straight routes on the map for the minifreighters to follow if the route value works this way. Seems like one or the other should change.

In my last immense game, I had 2005bc trade income. That makes it worth it.

Also how many starbases do you have along the route and are you Krox (I think thats how the spelling goes)? I mean if you have 2-3 starbases along the route along with trade bonuses it is quite possible to get routes in large galaxies that bring in hundreds of credits per turn. I still have learned that trade is usually not the way to go for money, getting stacking econ bonuses is the key for that. With the Yor and some tech trading its quite possible to get 20k+ a turn on a large map with a dozen planets. From Yor tech + 10% base +30% bonus racial +20% federalist its quite easy to get into the 120% economics range, add in some government techs (trade for them) and thats 150%, add in Xeno economics and a few other econ techs from normal races and thats almost a 200% modifier. Toss in even one or two econ starbases with the Yor mining mods+normal mining mods and 300% multipliers are very achievable (hence the 20k+ per turn tax economy). It doesn't hurt that Yor farms help happiness as well as capacity either.

For long routes with Krox though you can easily get thouseands per turn from tax, though usually even with them econ treaties, war profits, tourism and taxes will all dwarf trade eventually.

This needs to be looked at as to whether or not it's a bug or wad.

Very interesting, LightVader. I'm going to send my next freighter on the 'grand tour' of the galaxy. If your idea proves out, then the Korx may finally live up to my expectations.

Planets with higher populations result in more lucrative Trade Routes. I think, but am not sure, that the value (or, really, range of values) is determined on first landing. Thus, if the population increased between the two trade ships' landings, the second would have a higher value.

I'm a little unsure of the trade route values are set at launch and landing, or are updated turn-by-turn. I would prefer the latter: as worlds become more prosperous, the values would increase.

Additionally, I'd like the values tied less to population, and more to planetary income. Who cares if you're trading from Planet A with 20 billion impoverished citizens to Planet B with 20 billion impoverished aliens? I would rather have 5 billion rich citizens trading with 5 billion rich aliens.