The Economic Super Highway

from Stardock Forums
Ok, here's the basic idea since these forums don't seem to like long posts.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Key: O= Empty space, ^= Accelerator
X^OO^OO^OO^OO*Y X= Your planet, Y= Destination
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO *= Accelorator+ tourist trap

The idea is on turn one the minifridge leaves your planet and enters the first sector loaded to the gills with +speed starbases. (Continued...)
4,217 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Turn two, freighter starts it's turn in the speed zone, and has enough movement to propel it into the next speed zone, but not beyond it. Turn three...etc, continues speeding along. Turn X, freighter enters the last speed zone with
everything upgraded for +speed AND +trade, maximizing profit at it's most profitable point. Turn X+1, X+2; leaves superhighway, lands on destination, and starts over in reverse. I'm very new to this game, and haven't had much luck implementing this, but I wanted to know if that's just my not knowing how things work well enough to pull it off, or if it just won't work, or isn't worth it economically.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Are you sure you have the right forum? It doesn't sound like GalCiv.
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Yes it is the right forum: In Glaciv, you create you trad route by sending a freighter form one of your planets to an AI controlled planet. When you have done this, a mini-freighter appears on the map and make trip between the 2 end of the trade route. And you can make starbases on the trade route that improve speed of the mini freighter and/or the trade income associated with te htrade route when the mini freighter is in the same sector than the starbase.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Turn two, freighter starts it's turn in the speed zone, and has enough movement to propel it into the next speed zone, but not beyond it. Turn three...etc, continues speeding along. Turn X, freighter enters the last speed zone witheverything upgraded for +speed AND +trade, maximizing profit at it's most profitable point. Turn X+1, X+2; leaves superhighway, lands on destination, and starts over in reverse. I'm very new to this game, and haven't had much luck implementing this, but I wanted to know if that's just my not knowing how things work well enough to pull it off, or if it just won't work, or isn't worth it economically.
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Well, that might works, but there is are basic flaws with this model
- you will rarely have the same way for both ways, unless planet are horizontally or vertically aligned
- you get the maximum income when the mini-freighter is on the other planet, the lowest on your side of the trade route
- using speed accelerator star base means that the minifreighter star base will be less time in the sector of the associated starbase.
- the cost for building starbases can be awful if you have too many starbases
- don't forget that starbase will only give money when the mini freighter is in you sector
- the size of the galaxy is very important

In short, to get lots of money with starbase, you need to put trade starbase without any speed accelerator toward the other end of the trade route. Speed accelerator are better put on your end of the trade route.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
The reason that the freighters path is difficult to determine is that the mini map that shows the trade routes path is "line of sight" (or direct path). The problem is that the mini-freighter will only move in 8 compass points of direction. You can only make this easily work by selecting a target that is in the same column or row as the planet of origin.

I tried doing a similar thing when I first got the game, but as PP has pointed out, the later versions and the Logistics issue has really made this tactic unprofitable (at least in the short to medium term).

BTW, the trick I used was to create a trade corridor between origin and destination planets in the same column or row, and then place 9 trade maxed SB's in each sector including origin and destination sectors. I'd then send ALL my trade ships to that destination.

IIRC, the routes would pay ~600 to 800BC/route/turn. The problem was that it required 36 constructors/sector to max out each sector, and on a gigantic map, it would take forever to do.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Speed acceleraters should not affect mini frighters >:( I hope that this is different in GC2.

This way you should not use trade and acceleration modules in the same sector i.e. you can never use speed accelerators in sectors where mini frighters pass by.

Speed acceleraters do not affect terror stars. Thus it gets even worse when you want to use the Trade Terror Star: http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GS&id=123185
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