I think I've figured it out. I modded the game to give a base of 100 Dust per population, and Fast Travelers to have +200 move speed so I could get trade routes instantly. Conclusions:

• The base Dust income seems to be indeed population / 5 in the base game.
• Distance bonus seems to be based on the distance (as the crow flies) to the target divided roughly by the diameter of the galaxy. There is a factor of 2, so an immediately adjacent system should have close to +0% bonus from distance, while one on the opposite side of the galaxy should have close to +200%. +100-150% should be pretty typical, which gives the ~0.5 Dust per population seen by most people.
  
  

peddroelm wrote:
An example of what a non-trade route bonused faction (United Empire) can achieve from trade routes using a lowish level corporate hero on late game (huge twin elliptical galaxy)



/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9115-corporate-heroes-don-t-suck

Which you've not only already given its own thread in FAQs and Guides, but has no bearing on a discussion about how trade routes work. Please, if you want to debate the merits and flaws of the corporate hero, make a thread about it in General.

Taliesyn wrote:
Which you've not only already given its own thread in FAQs and Guides, but has no bearing on a discussion about how trade routes work. Please, if you want to debate the merits and flaws of the corporate hero, make a thread about it in General.

How does - giving an idea on the magnitude of dust & science amounts trade routes can potentially bring on the late game not have anything to do with how trade routes work and what they are good for !?



Starting a new game - getting a few trade routes - with meager dust & science bonuses could easily give a new player (me) the impression that trade routes are not very relevant to the game and not even bother to put in the effort (diplomacy, teching and building the relevant improvements, getting the relevant hero with the relevant traits , placing him in the right system...) Until this last game that kind of was my impression about the trade routes (extra fluff) ... But they can be very very powerful especially when playing a race with trade route bonuses -and this info is missing from the OP (all info I have read so far on trade routes in ES...) ...

peddroelm wrote:
How does - giving an idea on the magnitude of dust & science amounts trade routes can potentially bring on the late game not have anything to do with how trade routes work and what they are good for !?



Starting a new game - getting a few trade routes - with meager dust & science bonuses could easily give a new player (me) the impression that trade routes are not very relevant to the game and not even bother to put in the effort (diplomacy, teching and building the relevant improvements, getting the relevant hero with the relevant traits , placing him in the right system...) Until this last game that kind of was my impression about the trade routes (extra fluff) ... But they can be very very powerful especially when playing a race with trade route bonuses -and this info is missing from the OP (all info I have read so far on trade routes in ES...) ...

I think we're all capable of figuring out that stacking +% trade bonuses makes for big income. Knowing how to assign a few points to a hero does diddly squat, however, for telling us how precisely distance and population factor into trade values. It's missing from the OP because he felt no need to go 'lol guys just make a corporate hero for the end of the game and we don't need to figure out how trade works'.



Again, the thread is about TRADE ROUTES, not heroes.

Taliesyn wrote:
I think we're all capable of figuring out that stacking +% trade bonuses makes for big income.

Nope - without the precise formula of how trade route income is calculated (which we don't have yet - we have only the factors involved) we cannot figure that out ... Adding a ton of multiplying bonuses to a sufficiently low base value will never wield significant values ... For a new player the question "are trade routes even worth bothering with ?" cannot be answered mathematically yet ... And I believe the " Are trade routes ever worth bothering with ? " question is more important than "HOW precisely do they work ?" ( because if the answer to the first question were "Not really" the second question would be kind of irrelevant ) ...

Atm they only way for a new player to get the answer for the first question is trough play-testing - a guide a about trade routes should include this answer ...

Taliesyn wrote:
... Again, the thread is about TRADE ROUTES, not heroes.

Again coming to the " Are trade routes ever worth bothering with ? " part ...A BIG part of making the trade routes bonuses worth it comes from having the trading route bonuses on a corporate hero in the right solar system ... If you play a game without corporate heroes - trade routes bonuses would be a LOT lower .. You cannot correctly asses endgame Trade Route bonus potential leaving the corporate heroes out of the equation ...Those heroes have little going for them besides their synergy with trade route bonuses ....



And this thread is named "Trade routes" - NOT "How trade routes work" and especially NOT "How are trade route base value calculated ? (based on population & distance & trade route distance bonuses)" ... You must not forget that some of the corporate heroes traits are factored DIRECTLY into trade route dust and science output formulas ...

Edit: Never mind. Obviously trying to talk to someone who thinks a thread about trade routes is the appropriate place to show off his hero is pointless.

Taliesyn wrote:
Edit: Never mind. Obviously trying to talk to someone who thinks a thread about trade routes is the appropriate place to show off his hero is pointless.

I'm not showing off my hero - its a low level corporate hero...I've seen a few screen shots of corporate heroes with much better bonuses in other threads ...

So I go away several weeks and what do I find? Some internet argument! Way to pollute a guide thread.



Anyways...

PyroVortex wrote:
Unless +% on system and +% on empire effects are silently rolled into the "+xxx from Trade Route Gains" item in the system production, these modifiers have no effect whatsoever on trade routes...



Set your tax rate to 0% and observe that there are no longer "+xx from empire" or "+xx from system" effects listed...

You are right. I tested it, and Trade Route Gains remain unaffected by anything aside from trade-specified bonuses. They are also not considered when applying % system and empire modifiers. The OP has been adjusted. Thanks!

Are trade routes worth the improvement costs without the traits? As in, some system items cost a bit for a small improvement. I am trying to determine when like, say the +25% bonus building, is worth it to a standard race.

The income vs upkeep of a +1 trade route improvement is easy to figure. As long as a trade route is available, it only takes 4-6 pop to get the 2 or 3 dust income, and this is unaffected by tax rates.



Trade route improvements giving +% are quite different, and they pay off way more if you have a lot of routes in this system. Anything that gives more trade routes help these improvements, as does higher system population. Other system improvements often pay more or have less risk, so they're worth building before trade improvements.



The space elevator system improvement gives +25% trade route bonus and costs 6 dust in upkeep. You'd need trade route gains totalling 24 dust (before construction) to break even in the dust count, and it also increases science gains by 25% for added benefits.



When I have friends or allies, I tend to give all trade improvements (and possibly a corporate hero) to my most populous or promising system (or the top 2). Other systems get +route improvements to fill all the available routes, but no +% trade improvements since they're probably not worth it. Always remember that if your friends declare war (or if you're a warmongering backstabber), you're stuck with useless improvements that cost upkeep, so plan ahead!





One day, in a future patch, a feature will be added to view in-game a detailed summary of all trade gains... Then maybe people will figure it all out precisely.

The relevant XML is



[code]

2.0

1.0

[/code]



I'm not sure how to interpret this though. What units is the distance measured in, proportion of the entire galaxy radius?

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
The relevant XML is



[code]

2.0

1.0

[/code]



I'm not sure how to interpret this though. What units is the distance measured in, proportion of the entire galaxy radius?

Is there a "TradeRouteBonusMultiplier" somewhere? The improvements have 2 distinct trade bonuses : distance bonus in % and bonus in %. I'm still not sure how they work together, if they are multiplicative or additive, applied to all of the trade route gains or just part of it... Knowing that both exist and are distinct would help. Is that possible through the game XML? Are there any other mention of trade in there?

thanks Marthnn, I pretty much expected that % increases need to have special attention focused on them before buying... just good to see how it works

Marthnn wrote:
Is there a "TradeRouteBonusMultiplier" somewhere?

Looks like StarSystemDescriptor has



[code]





[/code]



So base trade value might be population / 5?

An example of what a non-trade route bonused faction (United Empire) can achieve from trade routes using a lowish level corporate hero on late game (huge twin elliptical galaxy)



/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9115-corporate-heroes-don-t-suck

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
I think I've figured it out. I modded the game to give a base of 100 Dust per population, and Fast Travelers to have +200 move speed so I could get trade routes instantly. Conclusions:

• The base Dust income seems to be indeed population / 5 in the base game.
• Distance bonus seems to be based on the distance (as the crow flies) to the target divided roughly by the diameter of the galaxy. There is a factor of 2, so an immediately adjacent system should have close to +0% bonus from distance, while one on the opposite side of the galaxy should have close to +200%. +100-150% should be pretty typical, which gives the ~0.5 Dust per population seen by most people.
  
  

Nice! So I might still be wrong, but...



TradeRoutesBonuses is in fact the system population divided by 5, multiplied by any Trade bonus from various sources (corporate heroes, system improvements, faction traits...). So a system with a population of X and all system improvements, no hero or faction trait (total Trade bonus of 60%) will have a TradeRoutesBonuses value of (1+0.6)*X/5 = 0.32*X, in dust per turn. Science is assumed to be double the dust value.



TradeRouteDistanceBonusMultiplier is in fact the ratio of the distance between the 2 trading systems over the total galaxy diameter, times 2, plus any Trade distance bonus from system improvements. With all system improvements built, you get a total Trade route bonus of 60% from that source (I'm not aware of any other source). So a system that's trading with another one very close by will have a TradeRouteDistanceBonusMultiplier of 0%, plus the 60% from improvements, while trading with a very far away system gives a value of 200%, 260% if improvements. This is a % and needs to multiply the TradeRoutesBonuses to get the effective bonus in Dust/Science.



Trade route gains for a single Route are calculated by adding the TradeRoutesBonuses to the effective Trade route distance bonus. This can be expressed as such :

[CODE]SingleRouteGains = Pop/5 * (1 + TotalTradeBonus) * (1 + 2*TradeDistance/GalaxyDiameter + TotalTradeDistanceBonus)[/CODE]

TradeDistance/GalaxyDiameter ranges from 0 to 1, while TotalTradeDistanceBonus ranges currently from 0 to 0.6. TotalTradeBonus ranges from 0 to "a lot".

In this formula, the improvements add their bonus value to TotalTradeBonus and TotalTradeDistanceBonus, depending of the improvement type. So this can be used to evaluate whether a given improvement is worth its upkeep.







IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW! I CAN DIE HAPPY!

Does this mean that the *destination* system of the trade route has no effect on the profit? There is a save game in the science speed win thread where a single system has 5800 dust/turn income. The player is amoeba, and the other seven AI's are also amoeba. I thought if the destination system is wealthy, the income would be higher. Can you check the save game in this exact post, to see if the value fits your equation?



/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9465-n-turn-challenge-fastest-science-win



Join as red amoeba, and find systems Cephus and Idrus. Both have population 60+ and a fully loaded corp hero.

davea wrote:
Does this mean that the *destination* system of the trade route has no effect on the profit? There is a save game in the science speed win thread where a single system has 5800 dust/turn income. The player is amoeba, and the other seven AI's are also amoeba. I thought if the destination system is wealthy, the income would be higher. Can you check the save game in this exact post, to see if the value fits your equation?



/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/9465-n-turn-challenge-fastest-science-win



Join as red amoeba, and find systems Cephus and Idrus. Both have population 60+ and a fully loaded corp hero.

First of all, I'm obviously missing something, since the science gains from trade aren't double the dust gains. (the missing part is the "Diversity systems" improvement, see below)



Faction trait "Diplomats 2" gives +50% trade routes bonuses on system. This can be seen in the Empire Wide Factors.

Faction trait "Symbiosis 2" gives +30% trade routes bonuses per cooperation treaty on system. There are 7 cooperation treaties open, all ongoing for more than 90 turns. This +210% can be seen in the Empire Wide Factors.

The basic cooperation agreement bonuses are NOT in the Empire Wide Factors. Tooltips on such an agreement tells us that after 30 turns, this gives +25% on "trade routes effects", whatever that means. So these give +175% trade routes effects. (Wrong, as found out later. An agreement with empire A won't work on routes to systems of empire B)

Both techs giving trade routes bonuses per ally were not researched and are not factored in. So the value of trade routes could have been even higher...



The system of Cepheus...

-has a level 18 hero with a total of +291% trade routes bonuses on system. Obviously the wit attribute is not limited by anything... Also, +3 trade routes on system.

-has improvements totalling +60% trade routes distance bonuses on system. This is the maximum value I was expecting.

-has improvements totalling +60% trade routes bonuses on system. This is the maximum value I was expecting.

-has the "Diversity systems" improvement, giving +10% trade route dust per cooperation treaty on star system. This gives +70% dust from trade routes.

-has improvements giving a total of +4 trade routes on system.

-has an enormous 63 population points in system.



Let me set up an excel spreadsheet...



[CODE]SingleRouteGains = Pop/5 * (1 + TotalTradeBonus) * (1 + 2*TradeDistance/GalaxyDiameter + TotalTradeDistanceBonus)[/CODE]



Now comes the tricky part of approximating TradeDistance/GalaxyDiameter. Cepheus-Fatia is about 1. Let's see if this computes to something nice. We'll add the multiplicative (1+TotalTradeDustBonus), of course.

683 dust. Nope. The real value is 884 dust. I used the "+175% on trade routes effects" as a simple "trade routes bonus". It still doesn't work as a "trade routes distance bonus" since it gives 815 dust, nor as both at the same time since that gives 1015 dust.

Still, we're close!



I need to be certain how to consider the cooperation agreement bonuses. The Cepheus-Fatia route gives 884 dust and 1040 science. Let's break a cooperation agreement! New values : 637 dust and 797 science. A second one, new values : 637 dust and 797 science. So you don't add all the coop agreement bonuses together! It only applies to routes with systems controlled by that empire! Makes sense.



Ok, so... 1 cooperation agreement gives +25% trade routes effect, and yet dust gains were increased by 38.8% while science gains by 30.5%. Ah. This agreement also gives ---



I HATE DIPLOMACY INTERFACE! Breaking a deal won't necessarily break the deal you want. There's still bugs in there. I thought it was fixed, but no. Just try opening that save and cancelling the coop agreement with light green amoeba. There's a deal broken, but not the right one, and sometimes the deals reorder themselves. ALWAYS open the deals of a single empire, not all the deals you have with everyone, it works better.



So, well... of course breaking a coop agreement reduces trade gains, since they give +30% trade routes bonuses from faction trait symbiosis, and +10% trade routes dust from an improvement, on top of their base effects. I've messed up with the effects of breaking a coop agreement. Conclusion, and of that I'm sure : the +25% trade routes effect it gives is independent, a new multiplicator, as such :



[CODE]SingleRouteGains = Pop/5 * (1 + TotalTradeBonus) * (1 + 2*TradeDistance/GalaxyDiameter + TotalTradeDistanceBonus) * (1 + CoopAgreemEffect)[/CODE]



I'll keep working on it.

Great thread. Looks like you are very close to a finished formula.



I am interested in comparing trade income to normal FIDS as the game progresses. What I'd like to do would be to establish an approximate range ie: at this point in the tech tree (seeing as tech seems to be the "timeline" of the game) if you have a population of X you get approximately Z science and Q dust from FIDS and you get approximately O science and P dust from trade. I get that it is not possible to account for all possible factors in this, but I think it is worth giving this some effort as even a vague range should have some very enlightening results.



I have a few games with multiple saves to use as data points. Does anyone have a large library of saves I could use for this?

Little update on my part as I'm stuck. Even with the Route distance ratio maxed to 1, giving +200% to the distance part of the equation, I fall short of the expected values. There's something more to it, and I can't figure it out right now. At least I know some parts of the equation are right. Next step for me will be deleting factors (improvements, hero, stuff) and checking if the values change as expected.



Edit : Can't do that, since the values won't update after deletion. . .