ASpec finally figured out how trade routes work. Instructions not clear, purged xenos while trying to make trade routes.

I really wish there were trade ships flying around your space. Things would feel a lot more alive if you had ships flying to your trade hub, gathering up, then flying as little caravans from each trade hub to the Trade Capital. I don't know how well that'd actually work, considering they'd have to span huge distances in a month, meaning there'd have to be a ton of caravans along trade routes for it to make sense, but that'd still be fun to see...even if it might be a bit of a burden on your PC, especially on larger galaxies.

We need economical wars, making a nation dependent on our consumer goods etc

We need inter-empire trade routes

Have a Trade Hub, Have A gate in that system. Have a Station with fighter hangars. Have a gate in that system aswell. Collect and protect everywhere your gatenetwork connects to. The collection range of a trade hub reaches THROUGH a gate/wormhole/l-gateThe protection range does the same. And at the point where every space station in your empire is within 6 jumps of a gate, there is no need for patrols anymore, because the hangar-station will cover everything. Also: Build gates in L-Gate/Wormhole systems. The traderoutes will thank you just as much as your ships will.

Paradox added trade value and trade routes in 2.2 because of the economy overhaul and because people asked for it for such a long time. Its a decent start to a trade system, however, as ASpec says the system is incredibly hidden. It also doesnt cover things that players would want. Say you are playing Barabaric despoilers, you should be able to raid trade routes to collect the trade value during a war. In fact everyone should be able to raid trade during a war or even create "privateer fleets" that act as partially detached neutral factions that can raid trade routes without going to war. The current system only has internal trade routes, and only pirates can effect trade. Inter-empire trade routes, player based trade raiding, and other features would go to really flesh out the system. Which is what ASpec said that Paradox should do in a recent video; flesh out existing systems. Current trade is a nice enough base, but it is still just the bare bones of a trade system that Stellaris could one day have

Me when I see that giant roach at 2:33 is called "Half-Human": :|

the ability to manually make trade routes would be really nice, considering the automatic routes often make fully suppressing piracy really goddamned hard and requiring multiple fleets of 10-15 corvettes or multiple dedicated hanger starbases, logically creating one single "highway" of sorts for trade routes where they all converge into a protected route would be handy.

Instructions unclear. Started war in heaven while trying to make a trade route.

They really need to fix the routing AI of how these trade routes plot themselves. Or give us the ability to plot each waypoint of the trade route manually

After researching Gateway Construction you can reduce the amount of star bases required to cover your entire Empire to 1 as you can simply build up a grid of Gateways connecting your systems in a way you would never need to make more than 6 jumps to get anywhere in your Empire (also great for rapid response and the death of piracy within your space)

Two tips you missed. 1. Any upgraded starbase (above the "this system is mine" starbase) collects TV in the system it is in. No trade hub required if you just have TV in that specific system. 2. Upgraded starbases are absolute blockers of piracy. It doesn't matter how much TV passes through, upgraded starbase = zero piracy in that system. This means you can use your anchorage bases are piracy blockers as well.

If it wasn't for your video on this subject, Trade Value would speed by me like a passing car: whoosh.

Clarkson:"I don't understand any of that"

"My god, that hair is out of control" lmao made my day! On a serious note, thank you for this. Was having difficulties setting up my trade system.

This answered questions I didn't even know I needed to ask. Thanks for taking the time to do this - it really helped.

The way of Trade routes should not be created automatically. Also a galactic Highway would be nice, were the trade routs come together and your ships can move faster.

Thanks for this! I didn't know you need a starbase above a planet to collect the trade. No wonder my economy is considered low!

When you‘re in The Lategame and you‘re Very resource Rich you can just build a Gateway in the Main-System of Your Empire and Gateways in Important Tradevalue-Collection-Systems. If you do that you don‘t have to care about Pirates that much PS: Sorry if my English is Crap

This might be late developement addition but you can select the star base from galactic map without zooming into the sector as opposed to what we can see at 5:20. Just click on the star base icon next to system name and it brings up the star base overview. Also at 10:40 aside from your fleet doing patrols to combat piracy you can upgrade your outpost to star base (preferably in choke point) or do much cheaper alternative and build defense station at the outpost (pre-star base). Outposts have limit of 3 defense stations max and they do combat piracy. Your fleets sure have places to be elsewhere. Another quicknote: If your defense stations are unable to combat high piracy (because of limited piracy suppression) you can make a little fleet of corvettes without any weapons to patrol these sectors. They are cheap. Weapons make them expensive and doesn't affect their corvette piracy suppression. Once the trade value rises just add another cheap corvette to already patroling fleet to negate piracy effects.

The indecator for the collection is when you select a stations the box with the arrow pointing into it...

I have played multiple games only focusing on trade since mega corps released. Some of my finds. It is entirely possible to get 100% of your consumer goods from trade (I have played multiple playthroughs scrapping my first civilian fabricator and using utopian living standards from minute 1). Consumer benefits is really overpowered. Also worthy of consideration is that starbases over the outpost level stop 100% of the piracy in the system so a chain of starbases is the only way to funnel hundreds of thousands of trade units through the galaxy. Every starbase past an outpost has a trade collection range of 0 but will collect from the system it is in. Your border defense bases with habitated planets in the system can spawn pirates if they are not connected to your trade collection network. Like shown in the video trade routes go through gateways and wormholes making late game trade collection an easy task. Most non planet trade can be handeld by basic trade protection. Hanger modules have better trade protection than guns and missiles. The trade value generated by population is 40% of the consumer goods they consume + 0,25 for spirtualists if they are affected by gospel of the masses (making gospel better if you spent less consumer goods on the people.). Consumer goods spent on job upkeep does not generate trade. Trade is not effected by resource output only by stability. Martial law actually increases the trade output on planets. (Random sidenot: The egalitarian and xenophile factions do not mind all your planets being under martial law) All the leaders from the trade enclaves come with a trait that increases trade by 10%. Some of the caravanser leaders have an improved version of that giving 10% trade AND 10% reduced consumer good upkeep. Trade routes can go through open border territory and can spawn pirates in other peoples territory. AI is terrible at routing and clearing pirates so a big pirate fleet you spawn in their territory will block them for extended periodes and even if there is a complete line of bases through your territory they often manage to spawn pirates in some sideway system. Destroying pirate fleets generate minerals so it could be possible to generate minerals from trade with a massive micro. Pirates also have t2 mass drives and t1 afterburner tech you can salvage. Megacorp branch offices generate their value by the planetary trade not by the trade the player actually gets to their home system. Building a few megacorp buildings on a backwater world frequently manages to spawn pirates in your allies system they will never clear. To my knowledge the energy generated from trade is excluded from the subject tax.

This explains why my robot empire is having trouble with pirates.

They get really hard to protect when going for the wide approach. I had over 1000 trade value going around and needed to dedicate about a third of my naval capacity just to suppress piracy along my main trade routes back to my capital

This video is exactly what I needed. As an old player returning to the game, the whole trade system was a bit overwhelming at first.

The, "my God, that hair is just of control," made my day. Great video. I did not grasp these concepts till now. Thank you for sharing.

You forgot to mention adding weapons and/or defense platforms to help combat piracy on the outposts that lie on the trade routes.

Thanks aspec for doing a breakdown on the single most important and overlooked aspect of my empire.

gestalts not having a similar mechanic to trade (like synapse flow or processing power etc) really REALLLY hurts them economically, considering how OP trade is

aspec, why didnt you even mention much less talk about station side trade protection over paroling fleets? if you do it right cant you protect all your trade routs without using a single ship?

Brother. I salute you. This is the best video about trade value I have ever seen. You have my thanks!

I love your videos so much. They helped me understand so many mechanics in the game and you're genuinely very nice to listen to.

I've been playing this game since release, and have put in almost a thousand hours and there's still so much I haven't even learned. Many icons I haven't even moused over!

I also spend max platforms allowed to non upgraded space station where is a red pirate sign. Sometimes the patrol is not efficient enough to surpress piracy when trade value increase at later midgame. But than a protected station can help itself by destroing pirate fleet.

I had no idea what those did, I've just been demolishing my trade hubs and replacing them with anchorages.

Helpful tips. If you ever find yourself saying “incredibly non straight forward” I find “obfuscated” rolls off the tongue nicely

Ringworlds and habitats can generate a crazy amount of trade value with the right districts

you can also defend you trade routes with stations, each defensive module (i.e. guns, missiles, hangar bay) add a certain range of trade protection from that station, in smaller empires simply having your borders defended will fully protect your trade routes

If I had a say in other trade boosts, I'd tie it to diplomacy by making trades with other empires more valuable with a higher internal trade value.

I googled the trade route stuff because it's not explained in the game or on the wiki. I have also made a singular fleet of Corvettes that's just set to patrolling my space to suppress Piracy, while I have 1-2 other fleets (for now) building up to try and take out threats to my Empire. Thankfully I haven't gone to war yet, which is good. Because somehow I feel like my tech tree is kinda lagging. My fleet power definitely is.

0:26 UI Consistency is one of my pet peeves in Stellaris. It took me three hours and couple of trips the the Stellaris subreddit to find the terraforming button. 4:20 It would be nice if the collection range was highlighted on the hyperlanes when you select the trade hub. Due to asymmetries in the hyperlane network you will most likely have overlap.

A year late, but thank you for making this video. I had doubts about how trade routes work, but this video cleared them up. :)

Only thing I have learned about trade routes is that once they are established to the point you get gateways they are a chore to manage.fleets upon fleets trying to keep piracy down.

11:05 "oops I accidentally put on the anti-piracy suppresion part instead of the piracy suppression part"

Thoroughly enjoy your vids. Keep up the good work!

Who needs defense stations when you can simply keep a collection range 7 station on your home world, and slam some gateways everywhere? :P

when you get warpgate tech you no longer need to worry about pirates as trade routes will use them so you can have a gate in each collection system and your home system and negate the chance at piracy

i thought i was a master playing Grand Admiral but had no idea about how trade routes were suppose to go to your home world, Turns out i was playing deeply sub optimally because i had like 100,000 theoretical trade but since that was outside the range of my Capital i was actually getting 484. I was confused because i had like 12 commercial ring worlds well stocked with pops but still in the red then i rolled over my produce and saw my trade and that led me here.

very insightful, learned quite a few new things (just started playing like a week ago. lots of stuff to learn in this game

Yes how to route it, can I make it a highway to the trading zone.

i've been trying to figure out the name of a game for over a year and because of the steam notification I figured it out lol

I imagine Trade as a mechanic might be improved with the diplomacy update, when they get around to making it.

Well taught. Thanks for making everything clear and easy to understand.

tbh i think trade routs in stellaris should be more like civ v's method. where you build a few trade ships. or maybe a trade fleet and they go back and fourth between a route with value and they carry the trade value to different empires or whatever. if your route has more trade value it would require more trade ships and if they were futher they would need more to carry it all. and obviously people should be able to take the ships during wars and take that wealth for themselves.

Me,who moved my capital to a city world and basically shot my trade values: PANIC

I was just wondering about this! Perfect timing!

Consumer benefits is great for keeping on top of your consumer goods costs if you're running utopian abundance.

"The spice, the spice melange."

took me awhile that trade value can boost your economy

My hair looks like that too lol

I my latest game I centralized most of my trade value in my capital system, which had 3 habitable planets (I changed the location of my capital). I had more than 1200 trade value by 2350 and it was veeeery easily defendable, making my empire THE economic power of the galaxy.

If you have different ethics you can get a policy that changes your trade value to get alloys as well

I want a mod that make food local and you need to move it from producers to consumers with the trade routes. Also decoupling energy from money using trade value as currency while energy is a local resource of the planet (or system), giving a reason to build energy sectors instead of powering factories with "energy" from trade centers.

"My god, that hair is out of control" Lmao, thanks for making me laugh and making this understandable video!

you are wrong there is an indication of how far away it it colected, when you have a station selected that middle somberor like icon will go blue instead of grey if it is being collected by the selected starbass. It;s not a good indicator... but it's an indicator.

THE SPICE MUST FLOW!!!

Oh yeah yeah we need the spice!

2:16 "My god, that hair is out of control." 🤣

Spends first 30 seconds explaining where the button is not found

Smallest ships are not the corvettes, but the hangarbay fighters. What about a patrolling battleship with nothing but hangar slots?

this was a mechanic I started off utterly clueless about. I had a fairly large empire and simply could NOT figure out how I was supposed to get enough energy credits. then I accidently click my trade routes map one day and realize everything was red. go about connecting everything to my capital and suddenly I go from like -30 energy credits a month to like 3k energy a month. I'm like WOOOO! then like 6 months later I'm panicking because my empire is filled with pirates. learning about trade routes was a very bumpy road for me. eventually I solved the crisis via gateway spam and large scale spam of citadelles full of fighter bays. now tons of systems have totally redundant gateways and bastions all across my empire! is travel faster? oh hell yea. luckily this was after the end game crisis so no worries about the unbidden dropping by to say hello.

oh wow..I have been doing it wrong...this was an eyeopener..thanks! :)

the Hyperlane beacon gives 1 to trade too. for stations

Also just feel the need to include that I would've never gotten this far in the game without your videos I've probably put like five to ten views on each cuz I'll watch and play mine with my impatient ass 😂

Nice video! I don't even play Stellaris anymore, but I still watch them just for fun.

just getting into this game. I kinda get the trade stuff now. +769 energy credits? Amazing. Also surprised there's no synergy in fleet construction. I figured a balanced fleet composition makes them all better.

Converting trade value into 0.5 energy credits and 0.25 consumer goods is only valid if consumer goods price is above 2 *(as kindly pointed out by Sphaera Invictus) energy credits. If it sinks any lower it's more beneficial to convert it 1 to 1 into energy credits and buy what consumer goods you need on the market.

around 12 mins you set up the patrol but the ship isn't actually patrolling you miss clicked somewhere and systems without a trade route can have a million piracy but nothing will happen. Like Julau at 12:49 also a good way to protect your trade routes is with space stations. any upgraded space station will completely remove pirates. in the end i will set up my routes either directly with gateways to have only direct jumps to my capital or if needed i will build a anchorage station in the systems that need protections. also you didn't mention hangar bays for space stations at all and how to protect long trade routes with minimal amount of bastions and lastly what i noticed you didn't mention that an upgraded space station will collect all trade value within the same system and will generate a trade route. with that in mind you can actively avoid building space ports in systems with a planet so the trade value can be gathered by a big Trade Hub to minimize the pirate problem. because a trade hub will ignore systems that are already coverd by a different space station.

Ah yes, economic domination. A very important part of that is clearly purging xenos that have foolishly decided to exist along my eventual trade routes.

I didn't think you could shift-click patrols. My experience has them patrol then move/stop. Also you can route your trade to individual stations before your capital so you can set up highways. Makes patrols easier.

You can just press on the starbase button of the system (right of it's name) in galaxy map view. Don't need to go inside the system :)

The two videos I watched before this were not very good, I can tell you've actually played it and aren't just a twitch streamer that kept getting requested for a basics video

This game can be so convoluted at times. Click on a planet, it has trade goods, says build a trade hub and get access. So the first thing anyone is going to do is go to the construction ships. NOPE. So i click on the planet and then the star and then my homewold and then start going through various menus.. nope nope nope. When you have to google mechanics its an UI problem.

Finally I understand how to use trade routes. Oh and btw when you remember an old save where you have a extremly good democratic empire with over 3500 pops and steamrolled over the end game crisis (the contingency) and only have 2-4 AI empires left and no fallen empires because I’ve steamrolled over them too... in other words I’m winning that game

Ok the trade system seems relatively nice, but I have a problem with it. It feels not worth the effort, I mean around 17:40 you had 12 clerks and 24 trade value if you get 100 percent out of it and if you have wealth creation you get 24 energy credits for 12 pops (that minus the district upkeep cost). You also need the food (and maybe also consumer goods) for the pops so you get 24 energy in exchange for: a district slot, 12 pops, the food for 12 pops and the consumer goods they need as upkeep. You could simply make a tech District, and you would get WAY more. Lets say one tech worker produces 8 energy. So if you would have 8 technicans instead of clerks you would get 64 energy instead of 24 with the same upeep cost. That's why clerks don't seem worth it for me. I only think, that trade stations with trade hubs are worth it. Have I forgot something? I'm pretty new in stellaris maybe I forgot something. It just seems, to make no sense for me.

I did get the impression that the current trade system is an alpha. Foundation is in. They can build off that. Id like a living systems style trade route.

That title. That title! You sir, deserve a cookie.

I know I've asked for a video or two about other shit but I figured that stuff out through forums well most of it. I'd really like to see a list of unique technologies and which are the best in your opinion and statistically if the two don't fall in together. I just took over my first fallen empire. The ancient care takers. And got dark matter stuff

Wow finally a video that helps me save my over capacitated 48 star base limit lol. Well I ended up making vassal empires to solve that energy problem.

"He who controls the spice controls the universe!"

If that game hadn't been so complicated to pick and learn, it would have more players. UI alone would scare people off. Like: WTF DO I NEED 25 DIFFERENT PAGES FOR.

A lot of my late game is based on optimizing and expanding trade

Thank you!

I wish the commercial pacts would allow us to conduct trade routes between two foreign powers

I like the system a lot, it adds some advanced logistics management to the game. But I hate how the ability to collect it is tied to starbases, which you have a very limited supply of early on, meaning while playing wide, you need to sacrifice quite a lot of trade value collection, especially if you want to use starbases for actual defense.

Great Job, now I know what I am doing with trade. Love you bro...

Playing eu4 i have no idea, played around in stellaris for a minute and i had it figured out

I know you can use the gates to transport trade with 0 loss but from a military standpoint any enemy could just pop up at any given time right by your capital

Ecumenopolis here is literary Citadel from Mass effect :-D

Cockroaches are now "half-human"... o_O