I dont understand trade routes and piracy - What is happening here?

[Crowarior]

Can someone explain to me how piracy and trade routes work?

On first picture it says:
- "Trade Route Value = 290". What this means?
- "Max Piracy = -72"
- "Piracy Effects = 0"
- "Current Piracy = -72". So piracy exists even tho it has no effect? Wtf?
My anti pirate fleet is also in the same system but it isnt affecting neither max piracy or current piracy.

On top right picture it says that 0 trade value is collected by Sol trade hub (which is my capital). How is it 0 if it says that trade value is 290?? Also, it trade route screen it says that Sol station is recieving 100% trade value from this station.

On third picture it just says that there is some trade protection that guarantees 84 trade value but Sol station is not collecting anything. What the f***?

 

[Scribbit]

Starbase protection protects against active piracy, thereby keeping even active pirates from directly threatening you so long as they are active.

Ships suppress piracy up to a point, but it takes time to affect it. So in the first picture, when mousing over the piracy icon, you're fleet has likely not been in system long enough to affect the piracy. It is also showing that 290 trade is flowing through the system, thereby making it very vulnerable to piracy without protection

In the second picture, mousing over the goods/trade icon, we see that there is no trade value collected from the Alpha Centauri system. The value reported is only what is collected from the system, and not what is flowing through the system.

In the third picture, mousing over the shield icon, it just shows the static (non-ship) trade protection granted to you from stations and base modifiers (+2 now and another +5 with the proper diplomacy tradition).

You can find more info about how to maximize trade here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...r-trade-and-protection-valid-for-2-2.1139451/

 

[Dalwin]

Sol is collecting 0 trade value from that system because that system itself does not produce any trade value. The 290 is the amount of trade value passing through the system from further away.

 

[Senstrae]

Trade Route Value = Total value of all trade routes passing through the system.
Max Piracy = Seems to always be 25% of trade route value. The wiki states that piracy will tick up to its maximum value over a period of 10 years.
Piracy Effects = This is your Current Piracy minus Trade Protection. Your base trade protection is a value of 2, Starbase Paraggir projects 28, and Starbase Sol projects 54. 2+28+54=84, which exceeds 72.41, and brings the Piracy Effects to 0, which is good. If this number is above 0, you are losing trade value along the trade route, and run the risk of pirates spawning in the system. Stronger pirates will spawn based on how much trade you are losing.
Current Piracy = Some value between 0 and Max Piracy depending on how long the system has gone without a suppressing fleet.

Wiki link: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Trade_value#Piracy

I assume Sol is a bastion type star fortress with 6 defensive modules, and Paraggir is a lesser starbase with only 2 defensive modules. Each defensive module you add to a starbase extends its protection range by 1, so Sol will protect trade up to 6 systems away.

Sol collects 0 trade because there is no trade value in the system whether it's from the celestial objects in the system, or a colony.

While you have the trade routes mode active, you can select individual starbases to find out more about their operation. In some cases, if you have recently conquered starbases, you may need to select the starbase and right click the capital to ensure that trade flows to your trade capital. You will see a red arrows icon in the outliner if that action is needed.

 

[Zenopath]

(copied from an answer i gave in another thread)
The TLDR answer is you need to get Trade Protection (TP) to be higher than Current Piracy (CP).
If you have a bunch of stations with hangers, and not much trade, and you TP is higher than Max Piracy (MP) which is the highest value CP can go, then you are done.

If not, then you can use Pirate Suppression to drop CP below MP. Each corvette permantly stationed in a system drops CP under its MP by 10 points.

Or you can send patrols, and just watch that CP never gets higher than TP in the time between each sweep of the patrol.

If you want more detail, here goes:
Suppose you have a system like this:
Trade Route Value: 100+
Max Piracy: 100
Piracy Effect (PE): 10
Current Piracy (CP): 100
Trade Protection (TP): 90

The PE is what actually cuases losses to trade value. PE = CP - TP, so if you do nothing, you lose 10 trade.

Any value of CP generates a chance of pirates spawning, but with 1 corvette permenantly stationed in the system CP would be 10 points lower than MP, so 90. And since that is your TP, you would get PE of 0 and your trade would be safe.

If you parked 10 corvettes in system, the CP would drop to 0 and no trade would be harmed and no pirates would be spawned. This would make your TP worthless.

What the game wants you to do is use patrols to temporarily drop CP below TP with each swing. CP goes down gradually while corvettes are in system, then grows again. How fast it goes down depends on number of corvettes and how long they stay in system. How fast it goes up depends on MP. If you manage it right, you can keep a large number of systems under your TP value using few fleets. The game rewards you with exp for your admiral by doing it this way.

Or you can place corvettes in every system that needs it, at MP/10 per system, and not worry about TP or pirate spawns at all.

Hope that helps.

 

[Crowarior]

Thank you all for help. So to put it simply, if Piracy effect is 0 and if there are no red skulls in trade routes view I'm not loosing any trade value?

 

[Zenopath]

Thank you all for help. So to put it simply, if Piracy effect is 0 and if there are no red skulls in trade routes view I'm not loosing any trade value?

(edit)
After checking my game,
Red Skull = Means is that the Max Piracy is greater than the combined value of your Pirate Suppression and Trade Protection, and the Current Piracy will eventually grow to the point where you lose trade, but you might not be losing trade at all... yet.

Red Skull appears at 0 Piracy Effect, but eventually when the Current Piracy reaches max, you will get Piracy Effect. So, the system needs a patrol to keep it under control (or more stationed fleets or Trade Protection).

 

[Talanic]

Addendum:

If your trade routes get too large to feasibly suppress in the late game, fill the trade route's path with anchorage stations. Piracy never grows in systems with upgraded starbases.

Trade routes will reroute through wormholes and gateways when they're unlocked - so long as they're aimed at your capitol system and not set up to route through other starbases - doing that can help avoid trouble systems or disperse your network to avoid raising max piracy to annoying levels early on. Double check that when you unlock those pathways.

 

[KingAlamar]

WOW ... I can't believe how much I messed up piracy prevention. I was doing patrols so I was knocking down some of it but there were gaps in my coverage [2.2.2 didn't allow mutiple patrol routes from what I can tell [bug?] ... at least I can't get multiple routes to stick] that was costing me plenty!! I improved [EDIT] NET trade 70% because I just wasn't seeing how bad the impact was.

Kinda wish we could automate fleets for piracy suppression at this point seeing as how combating piracy seems like another whack-a-mole sort of thing. You'd still have to decide how many ships in how many fleets, where the home base is, etc. but some automation would be appreciated!!

Note: I totally missed the "piracy" map mode. With my color settings (?) it's not easy to see some of the map mode buttons to start with and I totally missed piracy. I was just patrolling hot-spots ad-hock.

 

[Zenopath]

Addendum:

If your trade routes get too large to feasibly suppress in the late game, fill the trade route's path with anchorage stations. Piracy never grows in systems with upgraded starbases.

Trade routes will reroute through wormholes and gateways when they're unlocked - so long as they're aimed at your capitol system and not set up to route through other starbases - doing that can help avoid trouble systems or disperse your network to avoid raising max piracy to annoying levels early on. Double check that when you unlock those pathways.

What I think works best is having a upgraded starbase every 3 systems along main trade corriders. This leaves 2 systems between each base that can be patrolled. A fleet patrolling between just 2 systems is highly effective as it spends equal amount of time between both systems (instead of spending more time in middle systems and less on the edges), and gives exp for your admirals to grind. You can also put 2 hangers in each of the waystations, so the 2 empty systems get overlapping TP coverage between, leaving extra room on your waystations for naval anchorages or trade if needed.

Route your trade routes into main roads instead of sending everything to the capital, you can do this by linking the routes into a chain, each trade outpost linking to nearest waystation on the road. A well defended trade road is better than a big old spider web of trade going through your entire empire with every station sending strait to capital, which is the default setting.

 

[Scribbit]

WOW ... I can't believe how much I messed up piracy prevention. I was doing patrols so I was knocking down some of it but there were gaps in my coverage [2.2.2 didn't allow mutiple patrol routes from what I can tell [bug?] ... at least I can't get multiple routes to stick] that was costing me plenty!! I improved trade 70% because I just wasn't seeing how bad the impact was.

Kinda wish we could automate fleets for piracy suppression at this point seeing as how combating piracy seems like another whack-a-mole sort of thing. You'd still have to decide how many ships in how many fleets, where the home base is, etc. but some automation would be appreciated!!

Honestly, it wouldn't. I've seen how to AI treats patrols.

Although, if you want to get your ships to max XP, send them on patrols. It's also a good way to level up your admirals during peace time.

 

[Scribbit]

What I think works best is having a upgraded starbase every 3 systems along main trade corriders. This leaves 2 systems between each base that can be patrolled. A fleet patrolling between just 2 systems is highly effective as it spends equal amount of time between both systems (instead of spending more time in middle systems and less on the edges), and gives exp for your admirals to grind. You can also put 2 hangers in each of the waystations, so the 2 empty systems get overlapping TP coverage between, leaving extra room on your waystations for naval anchorages or trade if needed.

Route your trade routes into main roads instead of sending everything to the capital, you can do this by linking the routes into a chain, each trade outpost linking to nearest waystation on the road. A well defended trade road is better than a big old spider web of trade going through your entire empire with every station sending strait to capital, which is the default setting.

If you have max upgraded stations anyway (or at least level three with 6 modules and 3 buildings), you might as well go with the more efficient node and spoke system I linked to in the first reply to OP. That way you're collecting from up to THIRTEEN chained systems with just two starbases, and three will cover TWENTY chained systems (the actual maxes depend on how connected the systems you have trade hubs in are). If your home system is not very connected, you'll want to max out its protection and have trade hub starbases at the best possible locations to maximize coverage for the smallest amount of starbases used.

If you still have issues on your main route, you can set three two-system or six single-system patrols (which may or may not be a bug) that you can then use to cover between the stations.

This way you can focus other starbases on anchorages and shipyards. Since 2.2+ is more severely limited in the number of starbases it allows you without penalty than 2.1 because of no pop bonus, being efficient is very important if you want to have defensive starbases covering your borders and incoming wormholes (and be sure to map out your extended network to take advantage of those).

Remember, trade is all about efficiency!

 

[Zenopath]

Another good solution might just be to use your capital as a massive TP source, 6 hangers, let everything sort of spiderweb its way to your capital, so long as the routes don't get too much trade in any given path, you might not need much more than just that. Since everything heads towards your capital, having a capital with trade stations placed in best spots 7 jumps away would give you pretty effecient coverage of even a massive empire. Just sort of visualize a ring of trade stations around your capital, 7 jumps away, and the routes from those trade stations should try not to overlap too much, and with your 6 hanger capital station, you would get 60 TP. If you do go over that, a few strategic patrols could make up the shortfall. This way you only need to sacrifice one station to TP and your trade ring can be 6 trade spots with trading companies for max value. Then the rest of your stations can be anchorages. This would let you cover every trade source within a range of 13 jumps from your capital, which, is pretty much half a galaxy worth of coverage. If your empire is streching more than 13 jumps from your capital, you might have already won game and dont really need more trade.

(Edit)
Up until you have star fortress, you might need to settle for a ring 3 or 5 jumps away, but you can re purpose those early stations into anchorages, extra TP sources, or scrap them.

Heck, you could even place your trade stations in a ring 6 jumps away, then have every adjacent jump point to your capital be TP stations. This would give complete overlaping TP coverage for your entire trade system, so long as no trade station is more than 6 from jumps away from capital, evey TP station within 1 jump would reach and fully protected.

The key might be even simpler than that though, just re-purpose your first ring of trade stations 3 jumps away from capital as TP sources taking care that they each route towards capital along different paths. Then you build an outer ring, each linking to one of the inner ring stations, Since the routes in the inner ring can be protected by every station in the inner ring, they could create an inner zone of super high TP, and an outer zone of moderate TP, but every point 6 jumps away from the capital would be protected by at least 2 or more TP sources.

 

[Crowarior]

One more question about stations. How many shipyards do you guys build and do you build specialized starbases with only ship building modules?

 

[Zenopath]

One more question about stations. How many shipyards do you guys build and do you build specialized starbases with only ship building modules?

I tend to always have only 1 specialized station with 2-6 shipyards, with dedicated fleet academy and crew quarters. Main thing is, build it in a sector with 1 planet, build it on that planet, and find a governor with the naval officer perk to go to that planet. That gives you a discount, so i always just build there.

Really though, you should only have 4 types of stations,
1) Trade hubs with 6 trade stations and an off world trading company.
2) Trade protection hub with 6 hangers, placed on your capital or near it.
3) Naval anchors stations with 6 naval slots and logistics office, which you might as well put over a planet to add a black site, since their location doesnt matter.
And 4) one dedicated shipyard with full shipyards, naval acadamy and crew quarters.

 

[Brucesim2003]

I tend to always have only 1 specialized station with 2-6 shipyards, with dedicated fleet academy and crew quarters. Main thing is, build it in a sector with 1 planet, build it on that planet, and find a governor with the naval officer perk to go to that planet. That gives you a discount, so i always just build there.

Really though, you should only have 4 types of stations,
1) Trade hubs with 6 trade stations and an off world trading company.
2) Trade protection hub with 6 hangers, placed on your capital or near it.
3) Naval anchors stations with 6 naval slots and logistics office, which you might as well put over a planet to add a black site, since their location doesnt matter.
And 4) one dedicated shipyard with full shipyards, naval acadamy and crew quarters.

Having a shipyard near an active theatre of war help immensely. Speeds up repairs and replacements, and acts as a mustering point if you are the instigator. I normally have one just behind the frontier bastions near a rival. It need not be a big one....a starhold would generally be too big for the purposes, unless you want both a crew quarters and an academy.

 

[Zenopath]

Having a shipyard near an active theatre of war help immensely. Speeds up repairs and replacements, and acts as a mustering point if you are the instigator. I normally have one just behind the frontier bastions near a rival. It need not be a big one....a starhold would generally be too big for the purposes, unless you want both a crew quarters and an academy.

Given free alloy to do so, theres no reason not to place a single shipyard in nearest anchorage or trade hub, by replacing one slot, then, when the repair station isnt needed, you change it back. Think a permanent secondary shipyard isnt all that useful.

What I find though is that you can just repair at captured enemy starbases just fine. After capturing a starbase, just split fleet, seperate out the damaged ones, put them in orbit to "guard" the station until it goes online again, then it will gradually get repaired. Sending a fleet all the way back to your space after it takes damage wastes enough time that any speed boost you might get is offset by travel times. Also, having a small fleet guarding recently captured starbases is actually useful, even if it is only a small damaged fleet that is repairing.

 

[KingAlamar]

Late game [when you can spam gateways] doing the following seems pretty powerful:

• Build a gateway in your capitol system
• Build a gateway in each of your inhabited systems
• Build a gateway at each of your starbases.

With the mesh of trade collection & suppression I would think that would help a lot given that most systems consider a gateway as "1 hyperlane hop away". I may misunderstand the system BUT it seems like it's workable IF you can afford all of the spam.

The other approaches that involve planning a well conceived trade network with collection & suppression in mind sound workable as already pointed out in prior posts.

 

[KingAlamar]

Honestly, it wouldn't. I've seen how to AI treats patrols.

Although, if you want to get your ships to max XP, send them on patrols. It's also a good way to level up your admirals during peace time.

I would hope that the automation wouldn't be too bad. I'm sure we could limit the patrol to a limited number of hops [static or user configurable?] from the fleet's home system. Theoretically the patrol algorithm is fairly simple -- go to the system with highest actual losses from piracy. Stay until the piracy is knocked down. Once done move to the current worst system [x hops from home base] and repeat. In the case of ties [in piracy loss] then use tie breakers like base piracy levels or whatever seems appropriate. We should also allow the player to manually configure routes and to allow one fleet to have multiple patrol routes should the player wish it. Hopefully the automation would be "close enough"

 

[Namfuak]

I would hope that the automation wouldn't be too bad. I'm sure we could limit the patrol to a limited number of hops [static or user configurable?] from the fleet's home system. Theoretically the patrol algorithm is fairly simple -- go to the system with highest actual losses from piracy. Stay until the piracy is knocked down. Once done move to the current worst system [x hops from home base] and repeat. In the case of ties [in piracy loss] then use tie breakers like base piracy levels or whatever seems appropriate. We should also allow the player to manually configure routes and to allow one fleet to have multiple patrol routes should the player wish it. Hopefully the automation would be "close enough"

I made a slightly different suggestion to help alleviate this problem, to be able to set up patrol routes and then assign fleets to them separately - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/patrol-route-assignment.1139183/ /shamelessplug. The main problem with this algorithm is that it would result in a lot of wasted travel time when the areas on extreme ends of the routes have the most piracy, which will probably often be the case. You could create custom patrol "sectors" instead to limit each fleet to and alleviate that issue.