Advantage = more income. If you have 1 starbase with an income of say...1.3/sec and you build the 2nd Starbase, you will get 2.6 income/sec

I heard something about getting more $ when you built trade centers farther away from each others?

Wow. And here I was only building 1 per planet. Noob.   

Played a MP game not long ago where a teammate (who was squished between me and another teammate, so he was safely protected) got up to 140+ credits per second with trade centers

I'd also be interested in more info on how the 'trade network' bonuses work.

I just finished a game where at some point my 'trade network' (white line) stopped moving across my empire as I expanded and built Trade Centres. I saw no reason for the line to stop and not auto-adjust itself, but alas it pooped out on me at 5 or 6 planets. Maybe an option to let us manually create a trade ntwork/white line among our trade centres would be nice?

Actually even better, I'd love to see it changed so that there is no longer one line for a 'trade network' but instead have a trade centre network to ALL the adjacent planets' trade centres. Visually that would look more like a spider web than a line. I think that's also a lot more realistic and more resembles an actual network where products/supplies can move along through the empire freely as long as trade ports are connected at some point. I guess the bonus may need to be toned down a little bit to make up for this method being a little 'easier' to establish, but then again maybe not.

No, it's probably the same game

This is from memory as I don't have the figures on hand right now, but I did some testing the other day and came up with the following:

* The longest trade route is not actually the longest possible trade route you could imagine - it's complicated .

* The numbers you get for credit income from trade are rounded.

* Each trade centre gives ~1.15 credits/second base.

* Each 'hop' in the trade route gives *all* trade centres a bonus of ~0.085 credits/sec, even to those which are not directly on the trade route. e.g. if you have 2 adjacent planets, all of your trade centres get an additional 0.085 creds/sec. This scales linearly, so if you have 3 planets in a row you'll get 1.15 + 0.085 + 0.085 to each trade centre.

* Empty systems which are part of the trade route count as hops for the purpose of the bonus (special systems, asteroid belts, etc).

* The route between planets in different star systems appears to count as either 3 or 4 hops for the purposes of the bonus (can't remember off the top of my head - would have to check my figures).

* Distance within a system (i.e. structure placement) has no bearing on the bonus.

* Distance between systems (physical distance) has no bearing, only the number of hops in the trade route.

* TEC can put 11 trade centres on a desert world if they're feeling extra silly. 10 is good because it gives easy numbers for testing purposes (and eliminates some of the errors due to rounding).

* Allegiance bonus doesn't appear to affect income from trade. Neither does planet type (need verification).

* Base trade centres seem to do the same for the two factions I tested (TEC + one other). Probably the same for all of them, with just the techs doing different things?

There are some other factors I haven't checked as I was only going for a rough indication of the trade bonuses, but it's easy enough to set up tests using the galaxy editor (just create a bunch of worlds linked together in a useful way and give yourself a bajillion starting resources). Again, these numbers are from memory so please verify them yourself if you're going to rely on them . It should give you an indication of how things work though.

Try talk to A.I Factions all of it, even you are at war, A.I ask me for trading even it's 0% at least normal, I dont know if it's help.

TEC get a tech that lets them build structures on dead asteroids (+8 logistical slots).

It's more like base is 1 credit per second, each 1 arm of the traderoute multiplies by 1.15 I think. Or 1.2 rounded down :/ Well Craig I think said it was 1.2, but Im not sure of the actual number since that was slightly before release. Either way 2 system traderoute would be 1.2, 3 system 1.3 and so forth.

Maximum route I got on huge map gave me income of 3.7 per second per spaceport, which was ridiculous.

Refineries work completely differently from trade ports. Each refinery will service *all* extractors within 1 jump of the refinery. If you mouseover the extractors in the system with the refinery and the systems surrounding it, you'll see a 'Refinery Quota' value. Each extractor can support 3 or 4 refineries, depending on the type of system.

Adding more refineries above the quota value is pointless afaics.

I don't actually have figures for the bonus refineries give as it's harder to calculate accurately (annoying rounding problems). I don't believe that refineries benefit from the trade bonus, nor do they form part of the trade route, though I haven't confirmed this.

Given the above, a good strategy is to stick 3 refineries on a planet in a central location which has 3 or 4 links out of it (and none in the surrounding systems).

the danger with trade stations is that you wont have enough slots left for tech centers
(on medium 2 small maps in short al the time)


1 trade station per planet gives hell lotsa income
i had 8 planets 1 trade station per planet
income was around 90/sec

refinery ships are nice, but need some serious thinknig b4 placing them

1. what planets are adjecent to the 1 your building it at? (refinery ships wil move 1 phase lane to get materials
2. a refinery provides 1 quoata slots for al extracots on adjecent planets so never make more then necisary

(2)
| \
(1)-(3)----(4)

in this formation 1, 2, 3 and 4 are planets, the /, \, and --- are phase lanes

in order to get a good refinery quota u wil have to build refineries at planets 1, 2 and 3

1 wil provide 1 quota for planets 1, 2 and 3 (self included)
2 wil provide 1 quota for planets 1, 2 and 3 (self included)
3 wil provide 1 quota for planets 1, 2 and 4 (self included)

the outcome means planets 1 2 and 3 have 3 out of 3 refinery quota
planet #4 wil only have 1 quota
building a refinery at planet 4 is a waste since 3 is already maxed out
however if you have the $$$ and logistic slots for it, it wont hurt
also, dont forget you need slots for research centers

yea but good luck getting enough slots to build more! i barely have enough slots to initiate research! literally i got like 3 trade ports in each star system. cause that's all i could fit.