Freighters and their home planet

No.

"No" pretty much covers it!       Remember that the longer the route, the more value in it. Unless your off in a corner of the map. You probably want to have your traders built at planets with the longest routes. Then, once it's built. Send it off and decommission the SY. That would be the only way to do what you asked about...

Sorry can't resist... YES, trade one away from AIs' control - it will be assigned (to one of your nearby planets) as soon as their route is settled!

Also, you can "turn-off" any of your routes and simply, watch what happens.

Okay, thanks. Doesn't make any sense to me, IMHO Freighters should just use the last planet they were launched from orbit as their home.

Two more questions btw:

1) How can I estimate the sweat spot between longer distance and higher planetary income whe deciding between planets for trade routes, is ther some formula around for trade?

2) Does it matter if I place a trading post starbase at the beginning or at the end of a traderoute?

I understand this isn't the question of the post, but you seem to have a misconception here about your economic capital which is pretty common.  The planet you have your economic capital on certainly doesn't have to have a starport, but to say "of course it lacks one" makes me wonder what you think about the planet this is on.

Unlike the research and manufacturing capitals, which multiply the output from their respective planetary structurtes, the economic capital ONLY boosts the planet's tax income. It does not add anything to any other economic structures on that planet. What you do want on that planet is a high population. Natuarlly if it has a higher than normal population you would want more stock exchanges but you can still have manufacturing buildings and a starport without losing any income from your capital.

No for your actual questions:

1) When you start these routes it may be early in the game, before you know what will be built on each planet. A planet that will have a high population though is likely to have a higher income. WHere the balance point is between distance and income I don't know. I usually use my home planet since its proabably going to be both far away and make a lot of money. As for the destinatiuon planets, the AI usually tops out planets at 6 billion (some build farms but not many). So what you would look at is either Capital worlds or worlds that are farther away. I tend to look at AI planet's PQ for a decent destination. Still I don't know if it make too much of a difference to fret over specifics. We're tal;king a couple of BC.

2) I believe it does not depend on if its at the beginiing or the end, but  it does matter how many turns (weeks) the freighter spends in the Starbase's influence. The best is to have the freighter go through the base itself for maximum income boost. However if you want to use the starbase to boost the production on nearby planets, you may not be able to maximize both at the same time.

1) Distance matters IF you maintain and nurture status with your commercial partners but, consider this too;

-- As long as a Freighter does go back & forth in a steady number of turns, it racks up BCs multiple times over so,

-- A single 10 parsecs long journey which takes only four turns or less (ship engines, baby) to complete the deal, in theory, would start at 3bc... as with a 50 parsecs much longer trip grabs a whole 20+ turns to stack (on average) 6 to 10 Bcs per "completed" deal.

-- Calculate all you want... shorter routes are really the most optimal flow of cash and less likely to be 'flipped_off_war_risky_random_conditions' and cancelled altogether. The natural growth of such routes can only last for so long and should be as much efficient & protected as possible.

-- Higher PQs targets seems to garner more from the 'relative' distance rate, that's a given; but that remains true for even a lucky shot at some precious Minor right next to your HW system -- under your thumb in YOUR highly defended sector(s)!

Absolutely possible.

Sorry for that, "of course" only within my prefered game style.  I am by far no power player and I don't tweak the best out of my planets, but lacking information how things exactly work I prefer to build up my economic capital at a planet with a long distance for trade routes, a high population and lots of stock markets and the economic capital. Mixing all those possible tarde income factors up took the space for my starport away, it hurts to have one there just for freighters (that build for ages btw).

But how is that bonus different from other economic structures like stock markets? All I want is to maximize the planets tax income. Then I usually establish trade routes as far away as possible, taking the target plantet's income into decision.

Unfortunately I am no native speaker, so did I understand you right? You are claiming that I get more out of the economic capital bonus if I heavilly increase population in that world and therefore loose some stock markets and building morale structures instead?

Now this is the first time I read about a "completed deal". I always thougt you get income from your trade routes every turn depending on your frighters distance from your home world. Freighters close to their home world add less to yout total trade income than those far away. Very short trade routes wouldn't make much sense then...

On the other hand I also don't know how the natural growth works, so it is possible that at some point those short routes also get very lucrative. Usually my trade routes have a long life, but if this natural growth doesn't max out too early I would rethink my strategie.

Building bases with trade modules on them will also create more bc...

One thing that doesn't make sense, because occasionally the AI builds freighters with attack and even defense values, but once the freighter arrives at it's planet, none of the freighters in the trade route keep their attack/defense values. The freighters should keep the values you assigned them with initially (except for speed), to help reduce your freighters just being picked off by little weak AI escort ships.

More so with the parsec per turn rule, such restrictions defeat the purpose of even trying to "enhance" the Freighters capacity beyond minimal and less costly features. As of now, they are much too weak to stray further away than some optimal distances which are quite necessary to call them profitable assets or fast enough to recoupe their own cost.

If they can *all* survive a war somewhere or anywhere, though.

I surely would like to have a sort_of 'Flip' condition attached to these also; send a spy ship to meet deadon on their routes in Space, sabotage the process, steal the Cash output(s)!

Even Asteroid Mines should have a modular but costly structure added that nullifies Flipping altogether -- nothing i like more than snatch away just a single mp from long distances in someone else's zone of Influence -- better me than them -- but having to constantly decommission it to keep building on it. As of now, we're being penalized for daring to mine "remotely" where we should rewarded for maintaining the looooooong shot production pipelines! Under attack, they'd soon fall apart - anyway... might as well BE worth the efforts.

I also believe the formula for distribution of MPs from Asteroids can also use a recalibration since the upgradable II,III++ aren't really a net gain for their high costs.

Well, if the added the option for a ship with Attack capability, if you place that ship over your freighter that already has a route, give it the option to 'protect freighter'. This way it would automatically stay with the freighter at all times, through it's whole journey. Because who wants to click a ship with a freighter every turn. Or just let the player add other ships into a 'fleet with the freighter' (or can you do this now? I've never tried).

I tried to put an escort in a fleet with a trader, but alas, the game will not allow it.

I've always used trade routes as diplomatic tools, honestly.  It takes a lot of investment for traders to become really lucerative even for the Korx.