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Starting construction
Once the player is happy with their design it should be saved, and a Builder type ship needs to be hired or assigned to the construction site. Click the Assign or hire a builder button to open the Object List of the Map, use this or the property Menu to find a player owned of NPC Builder ship which is not busy and right click it in the list to click the Select option. NPC Builders will charge 50k credits for their service.
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Supplying The Build Storage With Construction Wares
The rate of construction is dependent on the available construction materials and the number of Building Drones the Builder ship has.
There are 3 ways to supply Wares to the Build Storage Module:
- Let your Station Manager take care of it automatically
- Order your Captains to deliver them via a Ware Transfer (any ship size)
- Manually deliver them personally in a Small or Medium Ship
Automatic Ware Supply
Under the Plan Build menu there is the "Manage buy offers for needed resources" tab, which has an option to transfer credits to the station Build Storage using the "Available money for construction" slider while the . The offered buying price for the construction materials can be set in the "Configure buy offers" sliders to determine how much of the money is spent on each resource. If the Build Storage has funds it will trade with NPC traders for the necessary resources until construction is completed or it runs out of credits.
Ware Transfer Supplying
Additionally it is possible to move resources directly into the build storage with the WARE EXCHANGE "Ware Exchange" menu. The player can manually use "Execute Trade orders" from the Map to buy construction materials for a cheaper price and then use the "Trade with and Transfer wares with..." commands to deliver the wares to the Build Storage for the station.
Select a transporter with a useful build resource (e.g. Energy Cells) and then right-click the station. Select the ware exchange action for the Build Storage. This allows wares to be moved directly from the ship to the storage. This method also allows more resources to be loaded at a build storage than are currently needed where they will remain available for future construction plans. The rate of construction is dependent on the available construction materials and the number of Building Drones the Builder ship has.This process can be conducted with ships of any size class.
Manual Ware Delivery
Although the Build Storage Module doesn't have a Map icon, they can be found in space close to the build site. Each Build Storage Modules has 2 Docking Cradles that support Small and Medium Ships.
As usually, the docking process involves approaching the Build Storage Module and requesting docking permission. However,Build Storage Modules do not have HUD icons and docking requests can only be initiated when close to the Cradles. This process is illustrated in the following images.
- Top-down view of a Build Storage Module with Small/Medium Ship Cradles highlighted:
- Approach the centre area of a Cradle in your Small or Medium Ship:
- Approach the orange highlighting and request docking permission when the right-side monitor shows Build Storage Module details:
- Follow the docking guidance as usual:
Assigning Staff And Subordinates
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