Description Summary
Welcome to the Station Manager Information Guide.
Instead of manually managing your own stations and factories, you can instead hire a Station Manager to take over that role for you.
The station manager will take control of the ships that are homebased at the station, these ships need to have the Navigation Command Software MK1 installed to by able to be commanded by the Station Manager.
To Hire the station manager, you will need to go into the stations advanced command options, select one of the command slots, and select the Station Manager to run from there. To remove the station manager, select the slot currently running it, and switch it to None.
In the Advanced command menu there are also options to control what the station manager will do, the options available depends if its a factory, dock, complex or your Headquarters.
When the station manager takes control of the stations ships, these ships become managed, they will only accept orders from the station manager, and you will no longer have much control over them.
Settings:
Upgrading Ship: When enabled, the station manager will send it ships to gather various upgrades that will be useful for their tasks, as long as the station has enough money to cover it. This can include things like engine/rudder tuning, cargo extensions, various ship equipment and shields.
Replacing Ships: When managed ships are destroyed, the manager will attempt to replace these, by either buying from a local shipyard, or ordering one from your Headquarters if you have the blueprints. The shipyard or HQ need to be within the stations jump radius and there needs to be enough money in the account. If the manager has been unable to replace the ship within a reasonable time, the replacement will be canceled, and you will be notified.
Repairing Ships: When managed ships are demanded, the manager will send them to local shipyards or to your Headquarters to get repaired, these must be within the jump radius of the station.
Also available in the stations command console is the Station Manager Restrictions option, this allows you additional control over what the station manager is allowed to do.
You can set it to ignore certain wares if you dont want them to be bought/sold, ignoring certain homebase ships so they will not be used by the station manager and to blacklist individual sectors. The blacklisted sectors are in addition to the global blacklisted sectors.
Trade Ships: Any ships that have either Trade Command Software MK1 or Trade Command Software MK2 can be used for trade duties.
The trade ships will be used to buy and sell the stations wares, the station manager will decided what action needs to be taken depending on the current status of the station. For example, if a factory doesn't have enough resources to start production, buying these resources will become top priority. Ships will make use of jumpdrive if they are installed, they dont need any auto jump settings for this to work, as they are controlled directly by the station manager.
You can also define a list of your own "Supply" stations, when the station manager needs to get some wares, they will first check any of these supply station first and get the wares from them if they have enough.