terror stars and trade

edit: i forgot to mention to add the trademodules to the terrorstars

Interesting idea, Jogorhan.

As you noted, you can't fleet them so you would have to micro-manage the TS constantly.
Not to forget the 5,000bcs for every one of the 8 TS.

It can work but there are probably less painful ways to get more from trade.

~SDC~

You would only have to micro every few turns to keep them in the same sector though. So it wouldn't be every turn.

B

Nice idea, but since all freighters are not always in the same sector, it's probably more effective to use the +speed starbases to ferry them into the boosted trade sector.
Btw, I noticed that in a 1-sector trade route with a trade module, 3 routes between the same planets (Sol-Alexians) didn't give the same revenue every turn. There was always one route giving twice as much cash as the others, but it wasn't always the same route. Any idea why?

I betting that I know. They are on different legs of their trade route. If you look at the trade section of the domestic policy screen, It will show you the # of turns it takes for a freighter to complete the route and what turn of that their on. Example: 7/14. This means it takes the freighter 14 turns to go from Sol, to the Alexians, and back and that he is half way done. Half way in this case would be the Alexian planet. Trade routes gain in value based on high the 'A' is in A/B (or the 7 in 7/14 for our case) and how long the route has been established. So if one of your freighters is on turn 6/14, it wont be bringing in the same amount as the one on 13/14. I will bring in less. Also, if one trade route has been active for 2 years and another has been going for 4, the older route will bring in more money even if they are between the same planets and on the same turn.

These are my observations anyway, hope this helps.

It works, I tried this about 2 weeks ago. Yup, I was bored!
I had upgraded to 5 terror stars with full trade and a pile of other bonuses. I then killed all my trade routes, built 10 new freighters from one star and then sent them 3 sectors away to a MINOR that I was protecting. I kept the freighters and terror stars together for 1 complete revolution before I got tired of micro managing. During this time I was raking in the cash.

One tip if you do try this: Do not put any SPEED upgrades on your terror stars because the freighters will move faster than your terror stars.




[Message Edited]

is it possible to reduce a ship's speed to 0? you could wait until a civ's freighter is on leg one, and build a mod to stop it from moving, making it stuck on route one of its journey. nice way to stop a civ with out fighting it.

IMO, building terror stars and managing their movement back and forth along a trade route just adds one more level of complexity and micromanagement to the game. Not to mention that you are burning 5000bc to convert to a terror star plus wasting all of the constructors needed to build the modules. Personally I create a 1-2 sector trade route between myself and a minor (Alexians usually) and I build a bunch of trade+ bases in the sector one away from the minor. In this case it's not been unusual for me to average over 1000bc a turn on some trade routes. Last game I ended with like 2,000,000bc in the bank and it was 90% from trade.

On another note Stardock needs to correct some imbalances/problems.

1) Cap trade or cap the number of trade+ bases in a given sector.
2) Make the "slight graft" get bigger in increments beyond 25,000bc.
3) Make the score multiplier for playing a harder difficulty higher. I should not be able to muster a higher score playing beginner than I can playing challenging or harder.

All in all, trade is important, but way to easy to abuse!

I agree that trade needs a cap or a way to create some form of diminishing returns for each additional trade SB.

Your third suggestion is going to be implemented for the Xpack. However, some more fine-tuning still needs to be done IMO.