Trade port chain flawed?

from Sins Forums

The idea of having a long chain of planets with trade ports is that for each planet in the chain, the money earned from trade ports increases. However, I've noticed the algorithm for finding the "longest" route functions in an odd way: it finds all the shortest routes between your planets and chooses the longest of those shortest routes. In effect, conquering planets and building new trade ports could potentially lower your overall trade port income. For instance, if you owned five planets (connected in a line) on the rim of a solar system and they all had trade ports, your longest chain would be five. If, however, you conquered a sixth planet which connected the first, third, and fifth planets, and built a trade port there, your longest chain would be three: from planet 1 to planet 6 to planet 4. The chain of 1-2-3-4-5 is no longer applicable because the route between planet 1 and planet 5, after conquering the sixth planet, is shorter by taking the 1-6-5 route.

I don't recall the actual income boosts for trade ports. However, assuming it starts at 1.1 per planet and increases by .1 per additional chain, the first five planets in the above example would give (1.6 x 5) = 8 income. After obtaining the sixth planet and building a trade port, the income becomes (1.4 x 6) = 8.4 income. One thought I have is that this is to balance the game, since in this example you are still gaining more income by building the trade port at the sixth planet, but not as much as you'd expect (so as not to exploit large trade port chains). However, in situations where you have a very long chain, and conquering a new planet greatly shortens that chain (especially if it is one which has gas planets and other uncolonizables adjacent to it), building a new trade port actually decreases your trade port income.

Was this intentional, or does the "longest-chain" algorithm not function as originally intended? In any case, it's something to think about when you next think about where to place your trade ports.

12,435 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
My original example is actually incorrect. In conquering the sixth planet, the longest connected trade route would be 1-6-3-4, not 1-6-4 as I had said in the original post. The maths come out to be a little different too, but the idea remains the same.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I believe it's working as intended. Traders wouldn't pick a longer route to get to their destination if a shorter one exists. The long route income bonus itself is very simplified, but works nicely and results in a mini game of its own. One could consider it a measure of how scarce some trade goods are at a fringe planet because it's so cumbersome to get there safely. Like you said, adding the trade port in middle still clearly increases total income.

It might be more efficient to focus research labs on that middle planet and put more trade ports on the other planets. Then the trade off is that all your eggs (labs) are in one basket.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I've noticed some wierdness with it conveniently excluding more trade ports that are along a given chain, ending the chain halfway and effectively stealing income from me. >:o( Oh look I have trade ports on every planet in the galaxy, and my longest chain, according to the game, is 5 planets long...wtf.... How exactly does it figure where a chain starts and ends anyway?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Like I originally stated, I believe it looks for the shortest routes between each of the planets, and then picks the longest one of those. In your instance, there are two planets in which the SHORTEST route between those two planets consists of a chain of five planets. If you were to pick any other two random planets in your empire, you would find that the route between those random two is less than or equal to five planets.

Which was my original point, concerning the idea that the more planets you own, the smaller your trade routes eventually become. Your post is sensible, PekkaR, but in cases where you have perhaps eleven planets, and conquering the twelfth reduces your maximum chain by two, you would actually lose income, even if you built a trade port at that twelfth planet. The more planets you own, the greater the multiplicative nature of trade port chains becomes a factor in the case of reducing your maximum chain.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Its been described by the dev as the "longest shortest path" with the reasoning described by PekkaR so this is correct. Working as intended.