Trade Protection vs Piracy Suppression

[Mergoth]

Whats the point of Trade Protection? It prevents the trade value from being robbed by the pirates yes, but eventually the pirates will spawn a pirate fleet and disrupt your trade. So the only effective way to protect your trade is from piracy suppression with patrols, right?
What do you think?

Oh and by the way, having several trade routes makes my Fleets Outliner part to become crowded with Patrols and that is annoying, at least for me

 

[Red Death]

If your trade is completely protected by stations, no pirate fleets will spawn.

 

[Xeorm]

Pirates don't spawn if the trade protection is high enough relative to piracy. And trade protection is pretty nice for low level trade routes instead of suppression fleets. For larger values it does help to smooth out the piracy. If piracy gain between patrol stops is enough to go over trade protection you lose trade value and run the risk of pirate spawns. So even a small increase in trade protection can let you run longer patrol routes.

Yea for sure on the outliner. Kinda frustrating. Though the fleet manager for fleets does at least make it easy to update patrols.