How do you organize your stations/economy

[ubuntufreakdragon]

When looking in the Construction Community forum, almost all blueprints seam to be megaplexes including any intermediate step from ore to shipyard.
But I doubt this is real way most people set up their economy due to the long transport routes or limited sector choice with all local resources.
I use ~10 different blueprints for cooperating open complexes, I recently uploaded to the community.
How do you organize your stations/economy?

[GCU Grey Area]

Voted for the first option, but tends a little bit more complex than that.

Prefer to focus production at my HQ because I like to terraform & it's just convenient to be able to move all the production modules along with it. However mining tends to be decentralised. I build mining stations all over the map as a network to deliver minerals & gases to wherever my HQ is currently located. Same stations also produce all the energy cells my HQ requires, simply because a solar array of the size needed to supply several hundred production modules tends to be unsightly. I use price differentials to control the direction of flow of resources through that network of mining/solar stations.

Similarly I often build remote trade stations to sell excess wares produced by my HQ, rather than selling the stuff directly from HQ. Find this is particularly necessary in circumstances where production might otherwise greatly exceed local demand (e.g. very limited local trade opportunities if HQ's down in Scale Plate Green).

[Raptor34]

Option 3 mostly, though I check the local supply situation, if an intermediate like Quantum tubes are difficult to source, then I just tag on it's own production.
Otherwise it's just product and EC.
Main reason is because I cba to slowly go plan out a megaplex.

[mr.WHO]

I find single big station too inflexible, while small station too bothersome with micromanagement.

To solve this issue I build big stations grouped by production tiers and usage:
Central gas mining & processing
Central mineral mining & processing
Station construction materials factory
General Electronics factory
Super-farm and pharmacy (+ ice mining for it) + illegal products (booze and pot)
Weapon and military components production (drone and turret components)
Remaining ship production components
Terran super fab
Central Solar Power Station
Central Shipyard & wharf

All of these build in local area max 3-4 sectors large from two furthest stations

The benefit is that I can easily monitor shortages and need at each production tier and since it's several stations, isntead of one, I can build several modules at once.
I always start with geting smallest possible self sufficient Station construction materials factory, so then I can snowball all the rest, without bother from local shortages.

[Caedes91]

Sadly, the longer you play and therefore more ships you have going, fps reduces significantly. This is why megastations are better for performance in map view.

[LameFox]

I mostly group them by purpose or tier. Things like 'refined solids', 'refined liquids', 'food and medicine', 'station components', 'ship/station equipment' ...

Solar tends to be its own thing, except in salvage stations, because they use so much I don't feel like shipping it to them.

[csaba]

Option 4

I pick 2 high demand end products with the same base material requirement and produce at high quantity. Usually plan 10 production modules each, then I make them self sufficient.

Example:



Upside: It's more efficient than smaller builds, makes enough to fill all demand for the picked 2 items. Not as complex and less taxing on the computer than all in one stations. Makes a heck ton of money. You never have to look for said items ever again. These stations practically replace local economy, (while a lot of small ones spread out in the universe support them.) So if you planning to go to war with a faction you'll lose less, but will have issues getting resources at distant places, so if you are a peaceful player with all factions you might want to go option3 and build a lot of small stations instead.

Downside: It's really expensive ( the example one above is 70 mil, a 10 claytronics+10 smart chips fab pushes 200 mil) and you need to haul all your stuff to your shipyard. Resources are concentrated to a 5 sector distance from the station, so if you have to do something on the other side of the universe you have to haul a lot of stuff over or depend on the usually lackluster local economy.

If you are generally all about war/universe conquest just use the Terran production line with smaller stations.

[j.harshaw]

I tend to do option 3. I like the flexibility this gives me to adjust production of single wares without worrying about, and having to adjust for, knock-on effects on the rest of the production network. Exceptions are refineries. I tend to make those local complexes, gathering whatever's available locally and refining them right away for further distribution.

[UnholyForager]

Option 1 (Megaplex) for two very self-contradictory reasons.

As mentioned previously, megaplexes reduce the number of ships by eliminating the intermediate transporters compared to smaller stations with equal total module count. As long as I don't enter the sector where the megaplex is located the performance should be overall better.

Also when I am designing aesthetic focused stations, my preferred aesthetic simply does not work on a small scale.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

Interesting point about performance:
Would you switch over if there where a performance cheap way to connect two complexes?
(should be easy to implement 99% of trade AI checks the universe for matching trade offers)
So far I'm happy with the results, the community seems as colourful as I expected it.

[Rei Ayanami]

I'm not a big fan of huge megacomplexes, except maybe the player HQ
Aside from some few exception where I use only one type of production (mostly SPP and recycling) I almost always merge 2~3 (not more) productions together, but no intermediate wares.

I used this chart to make groups for modules:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 1B9B10D47/

- Solar Power Plants

- Ore/Silicon mining stations near/in mining sectors
- Gas mining stations near/in mining sectors
- Ice mining/water production near/in mining sectors
- Ore/Silicon/Gas/water trading stations to bring ressources closer to production stations

- Gas refinery : Graphene/Superfluid/Antimatter Cells as one station
- Ore refinery : Silicone Wafers/Refined Metals as one station

- Intermediate factory type 1 : Plasma Conductors/Quantum Tubes production
- Intermediate factory type 2 : Hull parts/Advanced Composites/Engine Parts production
- Intermediate factory type 3 : Scanning Arrays/SmartChips/Microships production

- Advanced factory type 1 : Shield Components/Field Coils production
- Advanced factory type 2 : WeaponComponents/Advanced Electronics/Missile Components production
- Advanced factory type 3 : Antimatter Converters/DroneComponents/Turret Components

- Base food production to produce all ingridients for advanced food of a race (e.g. MajaSnails+SojaBeans+Spices )
- Advanced food production for a race (e.g. Soja Husk)
- Medical supplies production
- Black market food production (Space Fuel / Maja Dust / Space weed)

- Shipyard and wharf usually as one station

As for recyling :
- All over the place near combat zones : Per station 1 Scrap processor + a few solar power modules to produce Raw Scrap
- 1 central scrap/claytronics/hull parts trading station in Windfall that collects raw scrap from scrap processor stations all over the galaxy
- Several stations in avarice, consisting of 1 scrap recycler and some solar power modules

[jlehtone]

Option 4. I don't have stations. Yet. Except that Boron thingy. Even that is quite recent and has no production. No "economy" either; the NPC do provide.

I do build stations though -- for the NPC.

[UnholyForager]

Interesting point about performance:
Would you switch over if there where a performance cheap way to connect two complexes?
(should be easy to implement 99% of trade AI checks the universe for matching trade offers)
So far I'm happy with the results, the community seems as colourful as I expected it.

Aesthetics aside, a change like this would likely shift things in favor of smaller complexes and overall improved performance.

[euclid]

Had no choice but to vote "something else" as each of my stations produces specific wares in a semi-selfsufficient way (i.e. up to collectibles, minerals, gas and liquids).

Cheers Euclid

[grapedog]

I typically build stations with a distinct purpose.

For example, a Station Component Complex, where it just produces the side products needed by stations, like all the parts needed to build the shields, weapons, missiles, and drones that a station requires. Sometimes I'll do a smaller one that just produces the consumable items needed to make drones and missiles. Other times I'll have a larger complex that does all the consumable and build-ables needed.

Then I'll usually build 1 or 2 ware tier complexes in each hub. So a tier one complex is all the wafers, graphene, and stuff like that. A tier two complex would be like scanning arrays, quantum tubes, plasma conductors. Then I'll have a tier 3 complex that sells usually two tier 3 products, like antimatter converters and missile components. I'll try to pair two tier 3 products that use similar raw resources and tier 1/2 products if I can. Each hub will usually also get a basic Engine Part/Hull Part complex as well to feed shipyards.

All these different factories will get put into 1 of the 3 hubs I set up in the map. I'll have a hub in my chosen faction home area, then I'll pick two other factions I like and want to remain friends with, and I'll find a good location in each of their sectors to build in. I'll end up with 3 locations around the map that I add factories to, and pretty much only those 3 locations. If I'm playing as ZYA for example, I'll put a hub in like Family Zhin, and I want Teladi and HoP as my friends... so maybe bright promise and holy vision will be the other two hubs. That way my friends are taken care of as I make my credits.

[LughC]

Depends, if I'm doing a terran run then it's generally one mega factory + a solar array up in mercury.

I will then build additional shipyards/repair docks and storage depots around the map.


If it's not terran then most stations are only producing 1-2 things.

[Mevelios]

Option 2; while I do have two exceptions (one superstation in Avarice considering the sector's wealth in resources, and a large autonomous PHQ for all wares) I prefer resorting to smaller stations with a full line of production, with a target product in mind. Such as field coils; if I want a station to produce it, I'd include production modules for intermediary components, and assign the necessary miners to that end trying to stick to resources found one sector away at most (sometimes two, gases aren't as widely available as minerals). Everything else is provided by internal transfers, I never rely on AIs for outsourcing - the player has a heavy influence on how AIs can develop so I'd rather provide to see them flourish, at least those I'm friendly with.

I wanted to create smaller stations with a single product in mind (option 3) but had a poor experience with the management of its logistics. That's the sort of thing I'd do had we a trade route system (reminds of a german competitor, eh?) so I could accurately monitor my shortages anytime I overexpand, but the automation isn't as satisfying. The repeat orders option doesn't compensate neither.