Stellaris Dev Diary #127 - Trade Value and Trade Routes

[Calvax]

Space trade like the way trade works on Earth now, just isn't ever going to be a thing.

Neither are space dragons, hyperlanes, rubber forehead aliens etc. Stellaris isn’t a realistic space game, it’s revels in incredibly fun SF tropes like interstellar space travel so capable it’s akin to global shipping in terms of cost and speed. A consequence of cheap FTL travel is that transporting manufactured goods across light years rather than producing them locally starts to be economically justifiable.

So despite the ridiculousness of the assumptions it’s pretty consistent given the setting’s mechanics.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Space trade like the way trade works on Earth now, just isn't ever going to be a thing.

You're absolutely right because FTL is probably impossible.

There's no "realistic" way to portray FTL trade. What the developers can do is create clear and consistent rules regarding how it works, and in this case, one of those rules is that FTL is cheap enough that interstellar trade is a profitable endeavor.

From a "realistic" perspective, even your space tourism suggestion falls apart when somebody can have better-than-life virtual reality simulations or memory implants of vacations they never went on. Even the people who would opt for the real deal probably wouldn't want to wait literally months to reach their destinations. I certainly wouldn't go on vacation if it took months to get there and then months to return.

 

[Riftwalker]

Yes.

can a job require trade value and remove this value from the amount collected in your capital even if you're fairly far away?

 

[Lil Davey P]

I usually play Feudal Empire, and slowly but surely vassalise every system without anything important in it, while first upgrading it to the max and hyperlane registrar'ing it. If every system involved in and around trade in my empire (and my surrounding vassals) are bastions, is there a way for pirates to exist in my intergalactic authoritarian superstate?

 

[AllenO'Neil]

Academic privilege living standard vs Utopian abundance; would there be differences in their trade value production?

 

[Zavaleta]

Interesting system. Looking forward to trying it.

Looks designed to benefit compact and not over extended empires with an easier ability to capture the benefit of the trade value throughout its empire. Will be a negative for overextended and snaking empires with a harder time to bring home all that trade value. And assuming trade value can be turned into other goods like "consumer goods", better cartographically designed empires will get "tall" benefits to science.

I was hoping the trade routes would connect into an intergalactic system that the player would then attempt to get the better of, but I guess we will see what they have in a later DD.

Edit: I also hope relative crime rates of planets will affect the piracy rate. It will feel annoying to have an empire with practically zero crime and simultaneously lots of piracy do to long trade routes.

 

[AllenO'Neil]

Plundering trade routes is something we want to do but haven't yet figured out exactly how it will work. At the very least you can cut their routes by targeting starbases.

Plunder makes sense if it's more of a "bulk" that they are taking, rather than constant stream of income in the long run. Even casus belli for plundering is taking bulk resources. If planets in a system are occupied and wouldn't be producing little or none at all, and station is captured as well, then even raiding wouldn't be able to take any trade values. Logically merchants would steer away from the cut off trade route because it's enemy territory, so there would be nothing to plunder but the raw resources. And plundering isn't about exploiting, while trade value is.

Seems to me trade value isn't a sort of a raw resource nor a currency, but a representation of economic opportunity to exploit something / activity. It makes better sense for barbaric despoilers to not be able to steal trade value in any form or ways, except maybe a bulk sent to capital if that's how trade values are represented.

Cutting off trade routes by taking down an opponent's station is penalizing as it is anyway, and trying to extort "trade value" makes no sense at all, especially during war and when Pops are under bombardment. However, occupying enemy planet can net some trade value, but as long as captured stations can redirect trade towards the plunderer's capital. Even so... managing some sort of trade from occupied planets during war is not really feasible. Other than that nothing else makes much sense.

 

[Zarpaulus]

I usually play Feudal Empire, and slowly but surely vassalise every system without anything important in it, while first upgrading it to the max and hyperlane registrar'ing it. If every system involved in and around trade in my empire (and my surrounding vassals) are bastions, is there a way for pirates to exist in my intergalactic authoritarian superstate?

Hmm, I wonder if Tributaries might require a trade route to be set up from their capital to your own to bring in income?

 

[Te. Kenzo]

there are eyecandy for these routes? I mean, like EUIV? some convoy of transports and so on?

 

[Zeelilus]

I’m not 100% but ships travelling down a fixed route should be a lot less resource intensive than ships that who regularly recalculate their routes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but given that you draw the trade routes yourself they would have to recalculate, no?

Also just inclined to rather have programmers work on game features atm rather than figuring out and implementing how the game would have civ ships go along routes. (If a modder manages it, more power to them). I'd actually be interested if the devs have any kind of statistics on how much time is spent on the galaxy map vs inside systems.

 

[MaliciousPotato]

Will tributaries now send all of their monthly resources by trade routes and if so can those routes be plundered for their full value by other empires?
Would the route be automatically generated or manual placement, or both?

 

[Shirasik]

I need some clarification about trade route value weight and patrolling system.

In common sense, I wonder: how patrolling would reduce piracy?
Via navy presence in a system or via events like travelling through hyperlane or entering a system?
How the weight of a given trade route is determined in terms of piracy? Via value that goes through system, or via value that goes through junction (hyperlane/wormhole/gateway/...), or both?

High-value routes will generally need navy patrols.

So, the capital system will need heavy navy and bastion starbase almost since the day one, right?

There's a limit to how long a route can be, longer routes will probably also get more piracy.

Trade Routes can be drawn through bypasses, yes.

What if a player have built gateways in Capital system and every trade-value-producing system? How will it affect piracy? Reduce it to zero or visa versa?

 

[sterrius]

I dreamed something like that since 1.0.

Nice finally getting this

 

[LogicMage]

Something for Wiz/Devs: Will all Bastion type starbases provide trade route defense, or is this trade route defense specific to the Hangar Bay module. Because I would much prefer if a missile and gun battery bastion also worked.

 

[Marconius]

I'm assuming trade routes will work through Gateways and Wormholes; and from what I understand, Trade value in range is collected automatically without a 'route' from the actual planets to the starbase. So basically what I see happening in late game is people just placing a couple starbases to cover their planets, then building Gateways on their starbase systems. Trade routes instantly become 0 length from everywhere in the empire!

 

[VoodooDog]

@Wiz
Will every non hivemind race suffer under piracy? isnt it thinkable that some races have no actual concept of stealing (or what ever you wanna call it)?
making a gameplay mechanic out of a human concept and apply it to every possible alien race does not feel good imo.

 

[Rain Envy]

Any plans for making the trade of strategic goods require a trade network with another empire? It would go a long way with creating some alive "space traffic" Trade seems a good way to open the doors to more interactions between space entities. I'm hoping this trade system will be used to it's fullest effect in order to rope in the galactic environment a bit more.

 

[Gavros]

@Wiz
Will every non hivemind race suffer under piracy? isnt it thinkable that some races have no actual concept of stealing (or what ever you wanna call it)?
making a gameplay mechanic out of a human concept and apply it to every possible alien race does not feel good imo.

We do it all the time, even without thinking about it, turns out, you can't avoid injecting human concepts when the only reference you have is humans.

 

[sterrius]

I'm assuming trade routes will work through Gateways and Wormholes; and from what I understand, Trade value in range is collected automatically without a 'route' from the actual planets to the starbase. So basically what I see happening in late game is people just placing a couple starbases to cover their planets, then building Gateways on their starbase systems. Trade routes instantly become 0 length from everywhere in the empire!

Well, gate is so lategame by the time you can spam them there is not really a huge problem spamming them if you really want too.

Also bylategame you will have soo much space for space stations that is more easy to just build a couple for trade and skip the whole gate spam.

With them going for up to 6 jumps, i think its very clear by lategame they have no worries with a 100% coverage of the empire.

 

[Scottsman]

This sounds great!

One thing though: can the total trade value a colony sends to the capital have a malus at game start that gets negated, down to eventual zero, as hyperdrive tech increases? Or, if you're afraid of being too punishing to players, bonuses that scale up with hyperdrive tech. I personally would prefer the malus, to make establishing a thriving trade network feel like an accomplishment.

It just seems a bit counterintuitive that a species just discovering FTL can transport the full trade value of a location right from the start.