The trade on planets from outside systems doesn't need to be protected though. Starbases collect trade from their system, and systems 1 link away per trade hub you build in that starbase. So you're routing it from the hub along the best-protected route to your capital, one hub at a time.Ĭlick to expand.The first bit is correct. This is because your trade value still needs to be protected, but now it is larger - so it needs more protection. This is what you're doing with the trade routes button: deciding how the trade gets from your trade hubs to your capital. Then, once you have the trade value in the starbase with the trade hubs, it needs to go to the capital. I don't understand this part very well, I just park ships at my trade hubs until the piracy goes away. Building defensive platforms on your starbases and setting fleets around the area will help protect the trade value you're collecting. The rest is subject to piracy, which is basically that you don't get to collect it. And in the process of getting there, your defence systems will protect a certain amount of it. Now, once you have collected the trade from your outlying systems, it has to get from wherever it is to the station that is collecting it. I had to go verify this, since I wasn't sure whether an outpost would collect trade from the system it was in (it won't) or whether a starbase needed a trade hub to collect from its own system (it doesn't). But you can only build so many starbases, so it is usually more cost-effective to put another trade hub in the existing starbase.ĮDIT: A starbase (not an outpost, but an upgraded outpost) will always collect trade value from the system it is in, or a distance of zero links.
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Alternately, you can build a starbase with a trade hub in the Sirius system, which will collect the trade value from Sirius. If you build another trade hub in it, you can collect from Sirius. So if your starbase at Sol has one trade hub, as it does by default, it can collect trade from Barnard's Star (which is one link away) but not from Sirius (which is two links away). For each trade hub you build in the starbase, you can collect trade value from one more link away. There are three elements of a trade route: collection, protection, and routing.Ī starbase will collect trade value within a certain distance, measured in links. I am not so clear on this either, but here is my understanding, which I am sure someone else can correct if I have got it wrong.