Contents

1 Building Station

The first thing you need to do when running a station is to build it.  To do this, you first need to acquire a station kit and have access to a large transporter (TL).

At the beginning of the game you wont be able to afford or buy a TL, so instead you can hire one from one of the races.  Its best to hire one close to where you plan to build the station so it doesn't have to travel too far.

1.1 Hiring TL

To hire a TL, you need to find any of the Supply TLs flying around the universe then comm the captain.  If the ship is available, the option to hire will be available, if not, then the TL is currently busy so you need to either wait or find another one.

The TL will charge a small fee for every gate they travel through, so hiring one a long way away will not only take a lot of time but also cost more money.

Most idle TL's will be found in faction core sectors where there are shipyards, most shipyard sectors will have 2 TLs available.

Once hired, you will need to comm the TL's Captain to give it orders.

The hired ship will be displayed in your Property Owned menu, and you will be able to see where it is on the sector map.  You can comm the ship directly from here.

1.2 Buying Station Kit

Once you have a TL (either hired or owned) you need to send it to the place to buy or pickup the station kit.  Station kits can be bought at most faction shipyards, or produced at your own Headquarters once you have unlocked the blueprint.

Therefore, if you are fairly early in the game, you will most likely have to buy it from a faction shipyard.

1.2.1 Buying from Faction Shipyard

To buy the station kit, first dock your TL, either via the ships command console if you own it, or via comm's if you have hired it.

Once its docked, access the trade menu of the shipyard, and the station kits should now be available to buy (assuming you have the required notoriety).  

Notice some of the stations are in Red, where as some just have the "ST" in Red. 

The Red station name indicates you do not have enough notoriety with the station owner to buy it.

This will be displayed at the bottom of the Trade menu for the currently selected item

The Left side is your Current Notoriety and the Right side is what you need, so to buy the Computer Plant, you will need to increase your rank 1 more level.

If just the "ST" value is red, which is your Transport Class, this indicates that it will not fit in your current ship because its too small.  For station, it means you dont currently have an available TL docked (either yours or hired).

NOTE: if you are in space, you will require your ship to be equipped with the Trading Systems Extension, otherwise you will need to be docked at the shipyard as well as the TL.

1.2.2 Building at your Headquarters

Instead of buying a station kit from a shipyard, you can also build them from resources at your Headquarters.

First of all, you need to use Diplomacy to obtain the blueprint so its available to build.

To start building the station, you need to open the Station Parameters menu

In the "Adjust Production Queue" section, you will find the option to select a blueprint. 

This displays the Blueprints menu, where you can select the blueprint you wish to add to the queue.

The tabs at the top allow you to filter the list by type and race to make it easier to find what you are looking for if you have alot of blueprints.

NOTE: you can also use the search bar (SHIFT+F) to search for a specific item.

On the right of your screen you will also see the list of resources required to built the item

This includes how long it'll take to build (Cycle time).  Any wares in red indicate you do not currently have enough resources in your Headquarters.

Once added to the queue, you can change the quantity to build, setting this to 0 will remove it from the queue.  Once there are enough resources available, and the production queue is empty, it'll start to produce it.  Once it starts production, you can not cancel it.

With the item in the queue select, it will also display the resource menu to the right, so you can see what else you might be missing if it doesn't start

NOTE: there is a delay before it starts producing, so if you have all the resources and its not started production, you may just need to wait a short time.

Once its producing, you can see it displayed along with the program and remaining time.

You can also view the production in the station info menu.

the "Reserved" section is for when a station is being built, the Headquarters will reserve enough space to put the station kit once its built.  This prevents you from filling the Headquarters and then not having enough room once the station is produced.

Once its produced, it will appear in the Stations section in your headquarters.  Here you can transfer it to a docked TL.

To transfer it, first select the TL you want to transfer it to (IE via your Property Owned Menu) then select "Adjust Station Parameters" like above.  When you do this via your TL, then the TL becomes the target ship for transferring wares too.  This can also be done on a Hired TL as well.

1.3 Building the Station

Once you have the station kit on a TL you can then build it.  You need to move the TL to the sector you wish to build in, and you must also be present in the same sector.

You both you and your TL are in the Target sector, you can then build the station

1.3.1 Building via Hired TL

To Build the station, you simply need to comm the captain and order him to drop your freight here.

This option will only display if you are personally in the same sector as the TL

Next, select the station you wish to build.  All stations you have bought will display in this list.  You can build multiple stations with the same hired TL.

Now finally, select the location in the sector you wish to build it.  If the border of the icon turns red, it means it will potentially collide with something, and therefore can not be built at that location.  So move it until the border is Green.

1.3.2 Building via Owned TL

There are 2 ways to build the station via your own TL.  Both ways require you to be in the same sector as the TL

First, you can use the ships command console.

Special Command submenu

then Drop Station...

Now select the station you wish to place

The other method is to build via the freight bay

Then select the station to build

Placing the station from either method:

Now finally, select the location in the sector you wish to build it.  If the border of the icon turns red, it means it will potentially collide with something, and therefore can not be built at that location.  So move it until the border is Green.

2 Factory Production

Now you have your factory built, you are ready to start using it to produce your wares.

All factories have a single primary ware, and require Resources to build.

They also come in different sizes, and can be upgraded in size later.

2.1 Production Information

You can view the production rate of your factory via its info menu

At he top of have some basic information about your station, like its Sector Location, Owner (You), ID, Shield, Hull.

The Production rate is based on the size/upgrade level of your factory

The Upgrade shows the current upgrade progress (see below)

Then the Docking bays available with the number of slots, and which ship classes can dock at them.

Some stations will have multiple docking bays, Internal bays at stations can hold Infinite Ships

The Incoming amount shows how many ships have reserved a docking slot but are not currently docked.

The Production Cycle Info shows your current production.

1. Current Product: The main product of the factory that is being produced
2. Cycle time: The time for each cycle
3. Number of products: This is the number of products produced per cycle (this increases with production rate)
4. Production finished: The current progress of production, showing the percentage complete, and time remaining
5. Needed resources available: This shows the percentage of resources available for the next production cycle
6. Cycles before next upgrade: This is the number of cycles before the upgrade will be available
   
   

The Products section shows the list of products being produced, for single factories, this will be a single entry.  This displays the current stock level

Primary Resources section shows all the resources needed for production and their current stock level.  The number underneath in \[Brackets\] is the required amount per cycle.  If its red, it means there are not enough resources available to start production

The Secondary Resources section is mainly for NPC factories only, Player factories do not use secondary resources

Fund Transfer section shows the current amount of money available in the Factory.  The credits are require if the factory needs to buy resources, selling produces will be credited this credits total

2.2 Factory Tiers

There are 3 tiers of Factories.

Tier 1 Factories will produce the raw wares, these include minerals and raw food.  All Tier 1 factories will have a single Resource of Energy Cells.

Examples: Cattle Ranch, Mines

Tier 2 Factories will produce the middle wares, these include the Processed Food.  All Tier 2 factories will have 2 resources, Energy Cells and a raw ware (Tier 1)

Tier 3 Factories are the end produce wares, these include most of the tech wares like weapons/shields.  All Tier 3 factories will have 3 resources, Energy Cells, a produced ware (Tier 2) and a Mineral (Mine).

Each Tier has a higher profit margin per product, but requires additional factories to produce the resources.

The exception is the Solar Power Plants for Energy Cell Production, which require a single Tier 3 resource.

2.2 Factory Sizes

The factories come in different sizes which determines the production rate of the factory.  The sizes are S, M, L, XL and XXL

The higher the production rate, the more products are produced per cycle, and the more resources are used per cycle.  But the cycle time will remain the same.

So an M factory with a 2x production, will be the same as if you have 2 S factories working together.  So instead of adding another factory to produce the same ware, you could just upgrade its production compacity instead.

2.3 Upgrading Factories Production

You can upgrade factories production instead of building new factories to produce more wares.

To upgrade a factory, it first needs to produce enough wares to unlock the upgrade.

When the bar is fully, it will display its Ready for an Upgrade.  The letter in front of the bar "M" is the size of upgrade kit required for the upgrade.

The progress bar will increase each time a production cycle finishes.  You can view how many cycles are left before the bar is full in the Production Cycle Info.

The higher the factory level, the long it takes before the next level is ready.

Once its ready to upgrade then you can apply the correct upgrade kit.

The upgrade kits can be acquire in the same way as other station kits (bought at shipyards, or built at Headquarters). 

You must use the correct size of upgrade, and upgrades are applied 1 level at a time.

So if the factory is currently at the "M" level, you need to use the "M" upgrade kit which will upgrade to the next level "L".  If the factory or upgrade kit does not display a size, then it is size "S".

NOTE: The TL requires the Build Command Software MK2 installed before you can use it to upgrade a factory, NPC hired TL's should have it installed already.

Station Kits are build from the ships Freight bay of your own TL (not via the Drop Station... command).

Above shows if you dont have the Build Command Software installed, as you can see, the Upgrade option is disabled, and the menu displays the equipment that is required.

The Upgrade Station menu will display a list of factories in the current sector that can be upgraded with the current upgrade kit.  Only valid factories will be displayed here.  So if the factory you want to upgrade is not displayed, either the TL is not in the same sector, or your have the wrong upgrade kit, or the factory is currently not ready to be upgraded.

You can upgrade factories in complexes directly, you do not have to remove them from the complex first.

The Upgrade will take time to apply.  First the upgrade will be Queued up.  This will wait for the current production cycle to finish, once its finished, the factory will be disabled and the upgrading process will start.

The upgrade progress will then be displayed with the remaining time left.  The factory will not produce anything while the upgrade is in progress.  Once the upgrade is complete, the factory production will start again