[BUG] Star Bases around stars

have not really paid attention to the income rather the extending of the trade route chain.

Well, i rmember when i first played Entrenchment, i got like 4.5 per starbase at a star, now, the ships dock, but it stays at 0.0.

Indeed, most people only buy this starbase upgrade to extend their chain, so it's something that might have escaped notice.  Sounds like a bug.

I would say it is more realistic and the trade ships are just refueling. Most of the trade would be with the population of the planet or asteroid and not the star base.

The cost of actually building the starbase and the trade port is positively massive; if you sink that cash, you deserve the income.  Exactly what trade represents is never really made clear in the game anyways, since it doesn't at all fit the model of comparative advantage that drives real-world trading activities.

The cost is specially high if its a TEC Starbase, and you spend 2 upgrade points ( i think) Maxing your trade docks out and your only reward for the 3k gold, however much metal, and however much crystal is the trade chain is extended. The Income doesnt have to be from the star base buying stuff. Who knows what kinda weird stuff you could MAKE in teh gravity well that close to a star for sale. Sun dried tomatoes that are seriously sun dried

Has anyone ever done a cost-benefit analysis on building a starbase for the purpose of extending a trade line?  I've built starbases and then upgraded them with merchant bays before solely for the purpose of extending a trade line, but I find it hard to believe that it would ever pay off.  You'd probably need to have 40 trade ports and then maybe it would pay itself off after an hour.

Well let's see, that's a little over 0.1 credit per second per trade port for increasing your trade route one jump (the worst-case scenario).  The cost of the starbase is 3000 credits and 825 resources.  With the trade upgrade, this rises to 4000 credits / 1000 resources.  In effective credits, that's 8500 credits.

Now, the starbase trade itself grants 1.6 credits per second (or rather should) before accounting for any bonuses, plus approximately 1 credit per second for each existing trade port (including itself, of course) due to lengthening your trade route.  Assuming it's the only trade port, it takes an one and a half hours to pay off, so that's worst case scenario.  Here's a breakdown of payback time by number of trade ports it enhances:

Payback time measured in minutes.  Notice that some of the values above may not be valid (it's obviously not possible to have a 6-jump trade route with only 5 trade ports)

With adding only one extra link, this will take 25 minutes to pay off for forty trade ports.  Not quite as bad as an hour, but still not very worthwhile.  HOWEVER, if this link allows you to extend your trade port chain four or five jumps, suddenly this becomes a very worthwhile investment indeed.

Thanks for calculating all of that, Darvin.

Wouldn't it give each port an extra 0.1 credits per second for every added link in the chain?  (You said 1 credit/second, but I figure that that was just a typo, but I want to make sure that wasn't part of your calculation.)  Also, isn't the purchase of the merchant bays ability more expensive than 1000 credits and 175 resources?  Doesn't it cost something like 1800 credits, 275 metal, and 150 crystal to purchase the merchant bay upgrade?  Also, wouldn't we need to factor in the costs of researching the Merchant Bay upgrade?  Is this all the same cost for all three races?

Yes, it's 0.1 credits per second, that was a typo. 

Nope, it's cheaper than other starbase upgrades.

Only for the second level as TEC, which I didn't crunch numbers for.

The cost of the research is 500 credits and 200 resources for all factions.  Presuming the labs are a sunk cost (a fair presumption if you already have a mature trade port chain) the research is basically negligible.

Thanks for clearing all of that up, Darvin.

So, Darvin, if you don't mind calculating for that second level, what would the numbers be, then?

I'm asking this purely out of curiosity - it's perfectly fine if you'd rather not spend that much time to re-compute.

Yes,  thanks.  It's been spelled out before, but this demonstrably clarifies the trade expense/pay-off time frame.

In fact, if you look very closely upon certain trade ships, they actually bypass the main trade docks at Star Bases and maintain a shell orbit near side intake portals adjacent to the Diplomatic Customs stations.  Of note is the somewhat curious behavior and appearance of these smuggler types.  "Synth-Matter" as it's known, has bizarre and unpredictable effects on those in prolonged proximity.  After repeated phase journeys, the side effects take their inevitable toll on the cargo dock crews and also the passengers of these smuggler class trade ships.  In fact if you look very, very closely, you will see hopped-up dock workers along with scantily clad slave-trade cargo meandering about the cargo bays.  Apparently Synth-Matter fallout exposure affects the ocular organs of all races in a pronounced sensitivity to visible spectrum emissions, so most resort to darkened visi-shields.  One account has it that because of this need for "sunglasses" a popular ruse often used by Vasari smugglers is that they pass for insect-looking jazz musicians carting their instruments through a back stage door type of Diplomatic "wave-through", while Advent sex-traders play the part of groupies.

Of course, all of this is common knowledge among the trade class, and political repercussions are inversely proportional to the diplomatic demand for censure.  

It's a bug, edit the title so that there's a [Bug] alert.  Either the display is wrong or the income isn't being added, and they are both bugs.  It might even be one of the few bugs, as opposed to many balance issues, left in the game.  It seems to affect factions other than TEC as well.

Where do these players come from who want to rationalise every bug in the game, I got the same response when I pointed out the normal start extractor bug?  It must be a holdover from the hard core Illuminator fans who wouldn't believe in bugs even when they were confirmed by the developers.  It isn't even any use recommending therapy, they'd just use it to justify the current broken state of Animosity, rationalising that if they can get therapy then elite starship crews could.... 

ROFLMAO!! This is the most hilarious (but also slightly disturbing) explanation of a game mechanic I've ever seen.

True. Some will rationalise anything and everything. If it isn't showing the income and/or not giving it, then it's a bug, since the game isn't supposed to work that way.

There are colony pods that can be put on star bases for making a population to trade with.

No, not all.  Rationalisers are often more immune to irony than they are to therapy, though.  Unfortunately, its more often ironists that need therapy, and though I don't mean to imply that you need therapy yourself, if you do I wouldn't want to put you off.  However I feel I must warn you that therapy tends to be more effective for rationalisers than it is for ironists, as irony is a far more difficult problem for therapists.  Ironic, but there it is. 

I tire of staid subject matter - in a games forum no less!  Content of this sort is depressing.  I am going to withdraw now to my place of silence where I can brood and contemplate the inequalities of this experiential corporeal realm.

wow looks like i opened a bad can of worms (this is why more people dont play online)

Indeed, badinage is one aspect of the online game that it is diffcult to prepare for against the AI, with its "your planet will be mine" sallies.  Some find it difficult to step up from a mere exchange of pleasantries to outright raillery, and may react badly to a well-chosen epigram.  I myself, early in my online career, was accosted by a particularly caustic rhyming couplet, when I had only taken a single roid.

However, a lack of repartee needn't be insuperable.  The Quip Modest, as exemplified here by Protoplazm, is a strong foundation, though I'd add the Retort Courteous to avoid being accused of the possession of less than a couple of dimensions... one might claim, "No sir, I beg to differ, my effort was satire, it seemed to me to possess little in the way of irony."  That should be sufficient, though if desired you could continue from the Quip Modest to the Reply Churlish, and so on and so forth. 

Hmm, my thread so i thought i could post as i wish.  I apologize for such faulty assumptions. I shall volunteer for 30 lashes.

 x30