Space Port

The Space Port is one of the most important buildings in the game. The Space Port is used for managing your trade routes. Each level increases the number of trade routes originating from that port by one and increases the credits acquired from those routes. You may only have one port per colony. Routes are used to import/export resources from a node to a colony (import) or colony to colony (export). See Trade Route System for more information on trade routes.

Building the Space Port requires 1 power, 1 person (population), and a commander of appropriate level. Each additional level requires one more power and one more person (population) plus a higher level commander, up to level 50 for a level 10 Space Port. A level 1 Space Port requires open ground to build upon and 5 food for construction.

Once built, it offers a one stop shop for all your trading needs. The main table lists all possible trading locations for your port. Only captured nodes will appear and only those on the same planet as the port. All colonies under your control (your colonies and enemies you conquered) can be traded with by any port on any planet. These are all listed under the 'Destination' heading in the photo (colony is by name, 'Chastity' in this example). The next two columns list what is being imported and exported, respectively. In the example, the colony is collecting ore from 3 different nodes and is sending food and goods to colony 'Chastity'. The next column, 'Fuel Upkeep' tells you how much fuel that route is using per hour. Note this does not take into account the commander's Efficiency stat, which reduces the fuel consumption. If you run out of fuel, routes will disconnect. The next column, 'Time' is how far away that node/colony is. Note that this is base system time, and does not reflect the time your commanders actually take, based on Interplanetary Engines research. The last column, 'Handle' allows you to connect with unconnected nodes/colonies, disconnect current routes, or alter set up routes. Routes to nodes have no settings, you always bring in as much as your ships can handle, but not exceeding the amount available from the node. In the extended example here, you can see the settings for the colony to colony transfer. The current colony (space port you are viewing) is located on the left and the target/destination is the right. Each faction will have their faction resource as the last entry, this one is a Seeker. Blue numbers indicate an increase into the colony and red are decreases from the colony. Here we see that 'Virtue' (left one) is sending resources to 'Chastity' (right one). The resources are food and goods. The top part, labelled 'Storage 400/400' is the amount able to be transferred to/from the colony. In this case, it is 400 units (provided by 20 transports, using 39 fuel an hour). Adjust the sliders to move resources from one colony to another.

At the bottom of the main screen, you see how many credits all the trade routes for that Space Port acquire every hour. This value is port dependent (sum all your ports to see how many credits you bring in total per hour). This value is determined by how many routes are managed by that port (all routes bring in the same number of credits regardless of node level or colony) as well as the port level, the colony commander's Financier level, and the Financial Systems research level. In this example, the commander has a 57% increase, the research is at level 5 (50%), and the space port level is 9 with 8 active routes in place. This nets the 21,578 credits per hour for that port.

Trade routes are broken if a node is successfully raided or captured by another player. Routes to your colonies cannot be broken unless you flee a colony. Routes to enemy colonies are broken if the enemy successfully expels your forces.

To make lots of credits, increase your port levels, have many colonies with high level ports, have lots of trade routes on each port, research Financial System well, and have high Financier stats on the colony commanders. Ideal nodes are ones not owned by alliances and their members and nodes that are not on homeworlds. Remember that you can collect only fuel and trade it on the trade platform for food and ore if needed. You don't need, and often can't get, nodes of varying types. So plan carefully.