Hmm. I'm going to need to test this, as I haven't noticed phase stabilisers making any difference to my trade income.

I am absolutely sure that phase gates affect your trade route. Logically, providing direct connections are most likely to reduce the number of jumps between any given planets. Therefore, they will always reduce your trade income.

I should clarify: You may not notice a big difference at first because the new longest trade route will not be a lot shorter at first but reasonably they should always be shorter the more gates you build. Please do some tests by yourself, as I cannot possibly run so many tests in the mean time.

As to how dark armada benefits your economy, I am not sure that this end game tech is relevant. Anyway, i think it is really weird for a phase gate to DECREASE trade income (and have no effect on refineries too).

I just tested it and the phase gates do not affect your trade income at all, the white line is still the same path and you still make the same amount of money.

Since my results showed no difference, I'm wondering if the OP lost a trade station without realizing it, or just had a bunch of trade ships die in the time before he looked at the income again.

I would imagine for the same reasons that it tends to work like that in the real world - the further you have to go to get something, the more you're willing to pay for someone to bring it to you.

A farmer who grows corn isn't likely to make much money by selling corn to his neighbour, who also grows corn. If he ships his corn halfway around the world to a place where you can't grow corn, though, he'll get a much higher price.

It's a great mechanic! How could you not like it?

Yeah, but thats because of supply & demand, not distance. If the place on the other side of the world begins growing corn, the farmer loses monopoly and looks like a fool with his overpriced corn.

In a star system or a galaxy, therefore, two planets of a similar kind shouldn't really get the advantage in trade income for longer routes - two Terran corners at the opposite edges of a giant system can both produce 'corn', so selling it won't work like that. Instead, they should be selling to asteroids, where you can't get 'corn' so easily. But still, the asteroid could buy from a nearby Terran corn-producing planet and get it at cheaper rates than from buying from a Terran corn-producer at the other edge of the star system with pirates patrolling the region.

The only way I see this working is if the system is not like in GalCiv 2 where private companies took over freighter duties. Instead, here, your government takes over freighter operations and private companies rent out cargo bays hoping that your freighters will have military protection from pirates assured. There's always going to be something in demand at place 'X', so their would be something to fill the cargo bays, if not the metaphorical 'corn'.

In GC2, longer trade routes = more money because the freighters were selling to just about any friendly economic starbase they could find, and not at pre-set trade ports like in Sins, and were selling to an alien race that obviously isn't producing and probably can't produce the same stuff(thus monopoly).

What he said.

The longer the route the more dangerous it and the more chance you have to lose the ship. That seems like a good reason to reward you with more money.

Thanks for the tests. As no one had the same result of mine. I'm going to post some screenshots. At the same time, I hope some dev can comment on this.
My experiment was very very simple. I had a linear empire with an equally linear trade route of 8 planets without any stabilizers. As it was an 2v2 AI I was winning a lot, nothing could have interfered and harmed my trade. In fact, nothing flew in or out of my systems with trade except my ally's ships and ,of course, trade ships during my test. I have also only taken the following screenshots only after my rebuit trade station have relaunched all the trade ships and reached maximum income. (The effect of changing length in the longest trade route, however, seems to be instantaneous to other trade stations)

I apologize for the inconenience of having to copy and paste the url into your browser bar. I never posted images on forums before....

So this is what i have , 8 planets with a single trade station on each (7-jumps route)
Note : The ice planet, Calliope, has 30% trade bonus to its own station (nothing to do with the trade route)

[URL=http://img68.imageshack.us/my.php?image=withstabilizersgv8.png][/URL]


Step 1 : scuttled the trade station at the lower left end of the trade route. (terran planet, Lyubov)The result was obvious. One less trade station and a one jump shorter trade route (-0.1cr/s on all remaining trade stations)

[URL=http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=scuttledtradecentreqh9.png][/URL]


Step 2: built a pair of Phase stabilizers at both ends of the original trade route.
on Lyubov (Terran)

[URL=http://img239.imageshack.us/my.php?image=phasegatelyubovgz7.png][/URL]

on Saskie (Volcanic)

[URL=http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=phasegatesaskiewj3.png][/URL]


Step 3: This is where it gets interesting. Rebuilt the trade station on Lyubov.

[URL=http://img245.imageshack.us/my.php?image=withstabilizersmj8.png][/URL]


Now I have a 'longest' trade route of only 4 jumps. 3 jumps less than without the gates, hence, 0.3cr/s less for all trade stations. Why is it so? placing a pair of stabilizers on both end of the linear route is simply like sticking both end of a strip of paper to form a circle. The longest disctance between 2 furthest points on the paper is halved.

This is a very logical result in terms of game mechanics. What the game has done is to pick the longest direct route and treat normal and artificail trade lanes equally.
In a branched empire, the effect may be compensated by taking the trade to another branch. Theoratically, when more phase stabilizers are built, the other branches are also shortened. My experiment was to illustrate that making use of phase gates will result in a trade route that is shorter than the longtest possible route that the natural phase lanes would give.

You see , phase gates are used for connecting the furthest points of your empire to improve mobility. As these furthest points are also where trade routes are based on, shortening them now reduce trade income, which to me, is kind of ridiculous.




The point is, those stabilizers do alter the longest trade route. This means they can reduce the number of jumps of the longest route. Resulting in the exact same number of jumps(hence, income) may simply be coincidental. The logic is that if the phase stabilzers alter trade routes, they will shorten the longest route. If your previously second longest trade route or the new routes created is not as long as the old one, you will recieve less income.




My results appear to show that the trade income per port is
1.1cr/s + (0.1 * no. of jumps in longest trade route) cr/s

If you have viewed the images i posted, the trade worked exactly as i said. In my case, the stablizers had greatly shorten the distance between my previously furthest plants so my chain of trade station are in fact in a loop rather than a single line.
The game recalculated the trade routes and find that the furthest planets can only be 4 jumps away. In fact, they do not have to be the 5 planets highlighted in the screenshots. Any other 5 connected planets (taking into account of the gate-created phase line) will be 4 jumps away.

Did you h ave multiple trade ports in a system? That may effect the results when things were recalculated.

Either or, was trying to figure out why you guys were getting different results. Only idea I had.