Do trade routes affect Orbital Refinery Range?

from Sins Forums

I was just playing a game against the AI, and I thought that Orbital refineries only affect the system that it's in and the adjacent systems.

 

I had 3 orbital refineries set up in a system, but that system was on a trade route.  I went way down the route line and I noticed that some crystal/metal mines were reading 2/3, even though I didn't have any refineries anywhere near them.

21,605 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Did your allies have refineries near by?

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Refineries (TEC and Vasari for sure) only affect extractors in the same gravity well and the next. So it's better to build a mesh of them through your empire than clustering all of them on one planet.

How far the extraction boost of Advent trade ports that use the resource focus ability reaches is unknown to me though.

 

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Resource focus only affects the gravity well in which the trade port is built I believe.  So I switch them to focus in systems with 3-4 asteroids and leave the 1-2 asteroids systems on credit earning mode.  The resource effect is cumulative as well so no reasons to use just one if you're hurting for metal or crystal.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

I usually use autocast on resource focus. But I never saw it switch, it's always in "refinery mode". Would it switch to "trade mode" when e.g. I have less credits than resources??? Or a lower income rate???

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting posativ, reply 4
I usually use autocast on resource focus. But I never saw it switch, it's always in "refinery mode". Would it switch to "trade mode" when e.g. I have less credits than resources??? Or a lower income rate???
End of posativ's quote

i assume the autocast ai isn't able to know when Focus is a good idea or not

But I agree with LHDAlluxul, I'd only activate focus on 4 asteroid worlds, or if your strained for metal or crystal, and even then only for small periods of time.

Heres another question: does focus break a chain of trade ports? I had a chain of 13 ports (long 1v1 on Ancient Gifts) and some were on focus, but still a part of the chain

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Well, you just said the chain still goes through Ports using Focus, so it doesn't. What you do lose is that Trade Port's participation in the trade network, so if it earned say 1.4 creds/sec before, you no longer gain those credits.

Theoretically, you could bypass this problem by building a second Trade Port and leave it on normal Trade activities.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

or you could be smart about it and build 5 tradeports :) Anyway as I said if your ally has a refienry inrange, he will use your extractors also.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

You're sure about the allied bit? Because the extractor ships are described to only obtain resources from OWNED extractors, which doesn't mean allied extractors.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

thats the way it was, unless its been changed