Trade Routes Questions

[JustMormegil]

Hello Stellarians!
First of all, I'd like to thank Stellaris dev and QA team for their work - I enjoy new patch a lot. New economic system looks rational and takes (at least for me) much less micro to control. And it should be said, game is brutally stable after such serious overhaul.

The question I want to ask: is there any way and reason to route trade through several starbases rather then directly send it to trade capital? It seems like there is no EU4-like multipliers in nodes. Also I didn't find a way to make trade routes with other empires - is it intended?

 

[Cymsdale]

It took me a while to figure out why I'd ever want to change the routes from the default of going directly to the capital. The reason you might want to redirect them elsewhere is if the direct path to the capital is not the most practical to control.

Imagine you have two stations (A and B) sending the trade to capital C. A and B are both 10-12 jumps away from the capital, but the both reach it by following different paths. If you wanted to protect the trade, you'd have to patrol or setup defenses along both of those long routes. However, A and B are only 3 jumps away from each other. You can choose to route B's trade through A first, thus you only have patrol one long route and one short one.

 

[frags]

It took me a while to figure out why I'd ever want to change the routes from the default of going directly to the capital. The reason you might want to redirect them elsewhere is if the direct path to the capital is not the most practical to control.

Imagine you have two stations (A and B) sending the trade to capital C. A and B are both 10-12 jumps away from the capital, but the both reach it by following different paths. If you wanted to protect the trade, you'd have to patrol or setup defenses along both of those long routes. However, A and B are only 3 jumps away from each other. You can choose to route B's trade through A first, thus you only have patrol one long route and one short one.

Been having a tough time figuring out the rationale of making a mega trade hub and shifts all trade value to the empire capital but what you mentioned makes sense.

BTW something Wiz mentioned in one of the dev diaries about efficiency loss for a time for changing routes. Have you seen this?

The player has full control over which Starbase sends its value where, and can redraw routes, though there may be an efficiency loss on a newly drawn route for a time

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ary-127-trade-value-and-trade-routes.1121266/

 

[Talanic]

Haven't watched for efficiency loss. However, I have seen a good reason to route trade through some places. When a forked path converges on your way to the capital, you may wind up having difficulty getting patrols to path along both legs of the fork, which may both be separate trade routes. Routing one of those starbases to the other will result in them consolidating for easier patrols.

Just remember that you did that when you're opening up gateways and l-gates; that way, you can remember to redirect them straight through the gates to the capital.