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Once a station is built or upgraded, it's production lines can work straight away if you manually supply materials. However, for it to really work for you, it needs a Manager and ships assigned to the Manager (see below). The Manger will begin to advertise Buy and Sell orders for wares using a budget that you can define the size of within the Manger's Detail Menu. Those trade deals may be fulfilled by NPC traders, your manual traders or civilian ships that you assign to manually-controlled Traders / Miners or such ships that you've assign to the Station Manager (recommended to reduce the chance of a ware shortage stopping production). Production Modules will often need multiple types of cargo (Bulk, Container, Energy and/or Liquid) in order to function smoothly, assigned ships offering relevent types.
Station construction
Stations are build by Construction Vessels (CVs), which are sold by XL Ship Dealers and can only build the sorts of stations that are found in the system that the CV is built in. The CV needs an Architect NPC (and also an Engineer for repairs and a Defence Officer for weapons control). Once construction of a station is begun, you can technically cancel construction but it's better to make sure you want to build it in the place to begin with rather than risk the possibility of something bugging out with the CV and/or Architect.
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All stations are built from a very similar collection of wares (fewer types than ships):
- Reinforced Metal Plating
- Fusion Reactors
- Energy Cells
- Food Rations
- Bio-Optic Wiring or Plasma Pumps (Albion/DeVries/Home of Light vs Argon economies)
- Optional surface elements (weapons and Force Field Projectors)
All of the above, apart from Energy Cells, are Container wares and they are not typically needed in huge volumes for individual station build stages. Therefore you may find multiple Large ships are more helpful than a smaller number of XL ships.
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Once constructed, several NPCs are needed for crew in order for the station to run smoothly and safely. Those being the Manager (trading), Architect on CV (station extensions, repairs and equipping), Defence Officer (controls surface elements to attack hostiles; will actively protect the CV when set to Attack) and optional Specialists (production yield increases). Drones are also needed
Production Modules will often need multiple types of cargo (Bulk, Container, Energy and/or Liquid) in order to function smoothly, so stations work best with ships assigned that cover relevant types. Carglifter URVs are needed by at least one partner in a ware transfer involving a capital ship so it makes sense to equip a station with some to ensure that's covered. Upkeep missions are generated to help guide their acquisitionthe acquisition of crew and drones, and to make provide reminders about module upgrades.
In order to function successfully, a station needs a few other things apart from crew:
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