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Stations manufacture wares from materials harvested by mining ships, or lower-tech wares, or combinations of the two. The exception being stations making Energy Cells, which require only their system's sunlight. Stations generally have secondary wares that whilst while not required for production, they will increase the amounts of wares that are produced . Station in a given time period. The station may have multiple modules that each contain a different production line. The ; additional modules become available though extension of the initially-build structure.
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 player-definable budget within the Manger's Detail Menuscreen. Those These trade deals may be fulfilled by NPC traders, your manually-controlled Traders / Miners or such ships that you've assign to assigned to the Station Manager (recommended to reduce the chance of a ware shortage stopping production).
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Stations are build by Construction Vessels (CVs), which are sold by XL Ship Dealers and can only build the sorts varients of stations that are found in the system that the CV is built infrom the CV's originating system. The CV needs an Architect NPC (and also optionally 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 correct place to begin with rather than risk the possibility of something bugging out with the CV and/or Architect.
Stations can only be built at pre-defined build locations. Of , of which there are usually 2-3 per regular zone, or 7 in "empty space" (which you can claim by renaming renaming rename after a station is built there). The build locations are only visible when you have a CV in your player ship's squad, and building can only be order ordered if there is an Architect already on the CV. If the CV is destroyed at any time after construction begins, you can replace it by being in the same zone as the location and the new CV (in your squad) and talking ot to the Architect.
All stations are built from a very similar collection of wares (fewer types than ships). These station components are not typically needed in huge volumes for individual station build stages. Therefore , 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. Upkeep missions are generated to help guide the acquisition of crew and drones, and to make provide reminders about module upgrades.
| Crew | Roles |
|---|---|
| Manager | Managing Manages budgets for trade, and purchase and replacement of purchases/replaces drones and missiles as required |
| Defense Officer | Control of available weapons and combat drones |
| Specialists | Increasing Increases amounts of product per cycle (like secondary wares) |
| Architect (on CV) | Construction, extension and repair of stations |
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 the relevant types. Typically, modules contain some storage for each ware they need, and stations may also be extended with additional storage modules.
In order to function successfully, a station needs a few things other things apart from than crew:
- Cargolifter URVs:
- A prerequisite for transferring wares to and from Large and Extra Large ships. Lacking any on a station or its assigned ships can lead to the ships buying needed (including NPCs) buying/mining wares they cannot unload.
- Station Managers organise stocks through the Supply Options menu.
- Defensive consumables:
- V Crusher missiles for V Launcher surface elements (optional).
- Combat drones for use against S/M ships (optional).
- Station Managers organise stocks through the Supply Options menu.
- Lots of credits, at least initially:
- Manager budgets are used for buying ingredients, selling products, and for Supply Options.
- Architect's budget is used for buying wares for constructing, repairing or upgrading the station.
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If you assign ships to the Manager , this setting is not observed by those ship ships, so they will trade between their station and other factions' stations. Your station may be in the same zone as one owned by a different faction. Intra-zone trade can take place via station cargolifters and in this respect, cargolifters operate like ships, ignoring the Manager setting.
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Depending on what kinds of wares your station needs (Bulk, Energy, Container and/or Liquid), there are a range of Mining and Trading ships available across the galaxy that are capable of trading with then them (see the Easy pitfalls Pitfalls section for info on Trade vs Mine ships). Once a Trading ship's Captain has had their commander assigned as a Station Manager, the Captain will begin to try and to complete trade offers that the Manager advertises (taking into consideration the Manager's "Trading operation operational range" setting & current budget).
Mining ships assigned to Managers
Assigned Mining ships are a little different in that instead of following their Manager's "Trading operation operational range", they will harvest what their station needs in the closest possible zones to the station. This may then mean travelling into hostile sectors or zones to gather resources for prolonged periods of time.
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The rationale behind the "Trading operation operational range" setting not applying to Mining ships is to ensure that production lines don't stall due to a lack of resources since every system has every harvestable resource in at least one zone (spoiler link).
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- As noted, civilian ships come in Trade and Mine varieties. However, the distinction is not binding since both types of ship are capable of fulfilling both rolls roles as they are essentially very similar. If you would like them to operate in their defined rollsroles, this is done through deciding on whether to equip mining drones to them or not. With no mining drones, they can only Trade. With ; with mining drones they are likely to only mine while provided the station needs such materials.
- The Teladi Vultures are classified as "Trade" but they double up as Teladi mining ships so the Vulture (Bulk) has mining lasers. Since they double up as mining ships their default drone suggestion at shipyards includes a mining drone. Therefore in relation to the point above, that drone will need deselecting if you wish them to be trade for Managers.