First Problem: which gameplay characteristic make so difficult to implement trading mechanics?
1) Different FTL methods :creating "physical" trade route would be a pain for wormholes)
2) "Instant" trading :why would I create a route when my Hutt friend can magically teleport minerals from the outer Rim?
3) Strategic Resource mechanics : Before you always had to own 1 unit-resource to build 1 special building (you had no interest in giving your neighbours a bonus, so you ended with lots of unused resourced), now you only need 1 unit-resource for the whole bonus (no more special buildings, yay!) so you simply exchange them for the unit resource you need (3 Engos Vapor for 1 Garantium Ore? Who cares,I take it).
How can we possibly solve them?
1) The trade route doesn't have to be "physical": imagine a system like EU4 (you can interact with merchant, patrolling and other ways, but ithose mechanics don't exist in Stellaris). The EU4 System is good, but it is a one-destination system (Rest of the world>Europe) so we need a trading structure for each Empire.
In the top image the trade center is the capital planet of the empire.
The trade center value is given by:
1)Sector Trade Value- Amount of Minerals, Energy and Str.Res. coming from your sectors.
To avoid confusion all the trades go from the sector capital to the empire capital. To avoid overtaxation (to get more trade value) we could add happiness bonus/malus (?), ethic limits (?).
2)Foreign Trade Value- Amount of Minerals, Energy and Str. Res exchanged with other empires.
To avoid fake exchanges (e.g. I give Empire A 12 En.Cred.x 5Minerals and I give Empire B 5Mineralsx12 En.Cred.) we consider just the actual exchange (e.g. In:200 En.Cred,100 Min, 2 Engos Vapor ; Out100 En.Credit, 200 Min, 1 Engos Vapor = Trade Value |200-100| E.C., |100-200| M., |2-1| Engos Vapor).
2) Eliminate "Instant" trading. Sorry Jabba, your 20000 minerals can't magically teleport in my Death Star. We need to put a limit to the amount of goods that can travel between systems. Like "sailors" in EU4 that prevents me from building 30 galleon and becoming a naval superpower as Kazan. Something like a "commercial fleet" valor (es. 10 commercial ships where every ship can transport 10 min. e 10 E.C.) that you'll be able to increase with ideas, ethics e tecnologies.
The "instant" trading ban applies even to sector. Too easy to overtax them (to improve sector trade value) and the giving it back. As for the foreign trade, the value only consider the actual exchange of resource.
So the system will become a resource/month system, where the max amount of resource exchangeable is given by your "commercial fleet" value (keeping in mind your trade partner has a resource exchangeable limit too).
The distance should be limited too. You should be able to trade just with the empires you're actually able to reach.
3) It would be nice to relate the amount of resource needed to the "quantities" they influence.
(e.g. 1 Engos Vapor gives + 5% just for 200 pop, 200+1 pop will need 2 Engos Vapor to receive the effect, same rules for naval bonus resources, where, instead of pop, you consider fleet dimension).
This would make big empires hungry for resources and resource-rich trading empire extremely powerfull.
It would also be nice to introduce bonus for Empires whit big Trade Nodes, and diplomatic bonus related to trading. Would be nice to see how traders enclaves can behave.
How would you improve trading?
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