Have you ever looked at a system and thought, man, I wish this system was on one of my trade routes! And the route is right there passing by this system! 


For all those systems which just aren't on the direct route to anywhere, but not quite good enough to deserve a real Subsidiary, I present, the Trade Company Micro-Subsidiary! Alternatively the Space Truck Stop!



Maybe your space-truckers know that that this system has the best Space-Truckstop with the best Space-Coffee, or they want to pick up some Space-Trinkets from the Space-Mall for their kids, who knows! But this System Improvement can make sure that your Space-truckers make that little detour to pick them up!


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In practical terms, what this would do is add a deviation to existing trade routes, allowing you to add slightly out of the way systems to your routes. Not a full fledged Subsidiary, you cannot add it anywhere (Systems must be connected by star lanes), and I think to prevent someone from putting them literally everywhere, either there needs to be a limit on how many can be placed, (like 1 "truck stop" per trading company (or per subsidiary?) or they must be no more than X additional segments away from the primary route. Or both of those things.

Perhaps the Lumeris could have a variant where their micro-subsidiary / truck stop could be an extra segment or two away.


For example (I realize the system I am using as an example isn't colonized, but this particular spot is a good example)
Existing routes:

Now add a "truck stop" and the routes would change to:


This particular intersection would have the added benefit of not only adding the one corner system to both trade routes passing by, but also possibly adding the other two systems (at the top and bottom of the screenshot) to an additional trade route as well. (Depending on how the distances are calculated from the new micro-subsidiary)


This might make some of the slightly off route systems more valuable, as a properly placed detour could add a few systems to multiple trade routes, and so a system that might've been neglected can now be important. It would also play well with placing regular Subsidiaries, as now you might gain a bit more flexibility in their placement, knowing that you can "bend" their routes between them.


Alternatively, this might be usable as a way to "bend" a trade route away from a less-than-friendly faction who keeps blockading your trade routes if the detour stop provides a shorter route that doesn't cut through another factions home system.


I'd place this either in the same research as Galactic Security Charter (T4) or in a separate T4 tech with a facilitating link from Commercial Frameworks.