Stations

Introduction

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 not required for production, they will increase the amounts of wares that are produced. 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 within the Manger's Detail Menu. Those trade deals may be fulfilled by NPC traders, your 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).

Player-owned Warehouses from the HoL DLC are a little different. Things on this page apply to them too but they also have a few additional notes described here.

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.

Stations can only be built at pre-defined build locations. Of which there are usually 2-3 per regular zone, or 7 in "empty space" (which you can claim by renaming renaming 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 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 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 you may find multiple Large ships are more helpful than a smaller number of XL ships.

Station management

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.

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. 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 other things apart from crew:

1. Cargolifter URVs:
   • A prerequisite for transferring wares to and from Large and Extra Large ships.
   • Lacking any on a station or assigned ships can lead to the ships buying needed wares they cannot unload.
   • Station Managers organise stocks through the Supply Options menu.
2.  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.
3. Lots of credits:
   • Manager budgets are used for buying ingredients, selling products, and for Supply Options.
   • Architect's budget is used for buying wares for constructing or upgrading the station.

Manager and Architect settings

Managers have 5 settings in their Detail Page, with Architects possessing 4 of them.

* Default range for Managers is Sector (System available after Command Relay is constructed); default range for Architects is System.

"Restrict trade to other factions" setting

WIP

The Manager setting "Restrict trade to other factions" purely relates to the station itself and it prevents the Manager from trading wares with other factions. You can use the global setting, or define settings for each individual ware the station may buy or sell. So you could have Globat set to NO and a couple set to YES, or the other way around (handy for stations with many potential wares).

If you assign ships to the Manager, this setting is not observed by those ship so they will trade between their station and other factions' stations. Two station in the same zone may trade with each other via their cargolifters and in this respect, cargolifters operate like ships, ignoring the Manager setting.

 Trading ships assigned to Managers

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 (see the Easy 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 complete trade offers that the Manager advertises (taking into consideration the Manager's "Trading operation range" setting). 

Mining ships assigned to Managers

Assigned Mining ships are a little different in that instead of following their Manager's "Trading operation 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.

Where this behaviour is not desired, options include:

1. Placing the station such that safer mining locations will be closer than hostile ones (not always possible/desirable).
2. Not assigning the related Mine ship to the Manager, leaving supply to NPCs or manual trading and mining.
3. Placing the station in a system where required materials are sold in various rare stations (spoiler link).
4. An alternative to 1 through the HoL DLC is to place a Warehouse somewhere with assigned miners, then use traders to buy from it.

The rationale behind the "Trading operation 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).

Trading ships assigned to Architects

If you assign a trading ship to an Architect, the ship will attempt to purchase station construction materials needed by the Construction Vessel. Rebirth 4.0 changed things such that Architects now have an adjustable "Trading operation range" with a default setting of system.

Ships assigned to Defence Officer

Any ship assigned to a station's DO will be used to patrol the local zone. This includes Trade/Mine ships as well as Fight ships. 

Easy pitfalls

1. 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 as they are essentially very similar. If you would like them to operate in their defined rolls, this is done through deciding on whether to equip mining drones to them or not. With no mining drones, they can only Trade. With mining drones they are likely to only mine while the station needs such materials.
2. 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.