Good question. I think it is the physical length of the route, which means phase stabalizers will really help. Though I could be wrong.

thee longer the trade chain the more profit you get from trading

lets say, you control all planets of 1 solar system

instead of building tradeports on every planet, you should carefully search for the longest possible route (without breaking it)

the hard part is making routes without breaking chains    you break a chain if you place a tradeport next to an existing trade-lane and that extra trade-port would shorten the lane

as an adition  wormholes do apply in the chain,  so if you place astarbase at both ends of a wormhole with a trade-port upgrade trade-ships wil use the wormhole adding an extra +3 jumps to your chain

(jump to wormhole 1 - enter wormhole 1  - jump away from wormhole 2) 1 and 2 being connected

Phase stabilizer have no effect on trade chains,  your income wil remain the same, even though ships use the stabilizer-network (i am still confused about that though)

so your questions answered

it is related to the total lenght of the trade-chain,  the value of trade-port in the chain however also increases porift

meaning, a terran planet wih 290 population and 2 trade-ports adds more value to the trade-chain then a volcano with 70 population and 1 trade port

so if theres 2 ways of making a trade chain always include high value planet,  (high population and/or logistical slot slot avaibility)

i am pretty sure that using stabilizers do not increase/decrease credit income  even though trade-ship are using the stabilizer system i think the amount of resources dropped is directly linked with the resources/sec gained from the trade-network (seen in the credit-income overvieuw)

The planet type does NOTHING to affect the value.

The length of the chain gives a value that EVERY trade port gets (regardless of if it is in the chain or not). The reason some planets are different is either 1) they have more then one port (they stack) or 2) there is a planet modifier that increases/decreases trade income

In vanilla no (Dead roids do break it  (unless you are TEC ), but non-colonisable doesn't).

In Entrenchment yes as you need to put a SB there with the trade upgrade.

Wormholes so work in vanilla, not sure if you need to have the SB at both ends in Ent or not. It will still go through. If it isn't, then you need the SB at the wormholes...

Yeah - I was fairly sure you did, but wasn't 100% sure off the top of my head...

it does improve the income rate of the starbase more than the first (1.25 times the trade port route value),the second is3 time the tradeport rout value

harpo

I'm still a little confused about this "chain" business. How can you possibly "break" a chain by adding a tradeport? That would merely add onto the chain. I don't understand how you could break a chain by adding another link in it.

Let's take this example as a way you guys could maybe explain this to me. Imagine you have a circular shaped system. You control all planets in this circle. How would you construct the longest chain? Would it be by building tradeports in all planets except one? If you did that, but then added a final tradeport to complete the circle, would it "break" your chain?

great explanation! thanks.

There's no ratio calculated. You can branch from the chain as much as you want without penalty, so long as it doesn't shorten the distance between the planets in your longest chain. Each of these ports will also get the same income as those on the chain. The only time you need to consider whether or not to build a trade port (in terms of longest route) is if it connects a loop.

nice,

guess i learned a few things myself (was wrong about the planet-value not being calculated in...

there used 2 be a wonderfull site which explained the trade-port system in detail with pictures and all

the concept of trade-port-chaining is very simple,  you only need to see a picture with explenation once  i will search for a link and try adding it here, and on the FAQ

Found it!!!

http://www.soasewiki.com/index.php/Trade_Port

text-based explanation,   you should read it once

http://www.soasewiki.com/index.php/TradeRoute2_LargeMap

picture-based explanation of chaining,  note that this = pre-entrenchment  same rules apply,  you just need 2 build starbases with trade-ports in gravity wells that cannot house trade-ports