Trade route starbase placement

Stacking them VS. spreading them out doesn't really matter, other than defending them and possible effects that base may play on foreign relations.

What matters is having the freighter/route staying inside the influence for as long as possible. So if you put the base near the homeworld and the freighter is traveling to the left, but you have half your sphere on influence on the OTHER side of the planet (right) that the ship never travels through, you have effectively wasted half of that starbase. So basically I try to get my freighters to travel through the diameter of the influence projected.

Heres a sweet diagram I made. It took me like 5 hours of hardcore Photoshop work to do this. So when you look at this, when you add additional bases it doesnt matter where they are as long as the route cuts through the fattest part of the influence circle.



Enjoy!

Ooooh, ok, wicked diagram. You totally went to town diagramming that!

I can see why a freighter needs to spend the maximum amount of time in the influence circle, but I heard that freighters make the most money near the end of a trip. I assumed that putting starbases closer to the trip end rather than in the middle or near the beginning would maximize profits.

Freighters do make more money the farther away they are from the home planet in DL and DA, but in Twilight of the Arnor that feature is broken. In TA (until it's fixed) the freighter earns the same amount per turn no matter where it is. This significantly decreases the value of trade.

Man, I hope the patch comes soon.

I had not heard that it earned more money at the end of a trip, I thought it just earned more for a longer trip in general. Learn something new everyday!