Sins of a Solar Empire How To Guide for Trade Ships
Trade is the Foundation of an Empire
One of the cornerstones of a strong military in Sins of a Solar Empire is a solid economy. Being able to afford units and technology, and being able to outspend opponents, can tilt the balance of a match.
Establishing trade is a good way to jumpstart an economy that is not getting a sufficient amount of revenue from the taxes collected from the inhabitants of controlled planets. To begin trading, a player needs to have control over at least two planets, with at least one trade port built at each one. The ports will then create trade ships that will begin trading between those planets. Ports do stack and creating multiple trade routes will increase the rate that credits are generated.
Sins of a Solar Empire’s trade ships cannot be controlled by players. Instead, they carry out their task of traveling between planets automatically. They’re built from a Trade Port, one of the available logistics structures. Trade Ports enable trade between planets and generate credits for the player.
The ideal path for Sins of a Solar Empire trade ships is along lengthy and unbroken trade routes. The longer routes will provide yet another bonus to the revenue generated from trading.
The Advent faction have the perk of being able to add refinery capacity to their trade ports through research and activating Resource Focus, which will toggle between trade post and refinery. It should be noted that the refinery only affects nearby resource asteroids and trade at the port ceases while in the refinery mode.
The increased credit revenue from trade ships is also useful because those credits can be used in the diplomacy menu, allowing players to exchange credits for other resources, metal and crystal, among one another.
Sins of a Solar Empire: War Economy
Keeping trade routes in tact is important to winning in Sins of a Solar Empire. Upgrades can be researched for the trade ships to improve their hull and armor points, increasing their survivability while being attacked. An investment worth making, as losing too many ships can take a toll on resource gathering and give the enemy an edge. Destroying enemy trade ships awards the player with bonus credits and temporarily slows the rate of income generated by the opposing player until that ship is replaced.
Trade ships can still be scuttled, like other ships, but doing so does not generate any credits. However, if the order is given quickly enough, a trade ship under attack can be scuttled and the enemy denied the resource bonus from destroying it.
In Sins of a Solar Empire, having rapid reaction forces on standby scattered around controlled space is a way to combat or slow down any raids or attempts made by the enemy to disrupt trade routes. But too many forces shouldn’t be left guarding trade ships, as the enemies have trade ships of their own that need to be destroyed.
This post is part of the series: Sins of a Solar Empire Ship Guides
A guide to the various ships in Sins of a Solar Empire.
