Why do I need engine parts to add crew members?

[Fenris321]

I forced a pilot to bail and then flew the ship to a wharf to add crew members. I get to the wharf, go into the upgrade screen to add a crew, only to be told that the station is lacking resources ... engine parts.

Is this intentional, a bug, or an oversight?

[LameFox]

I ignore that if the resource sounds irrelevant. It still does my upgrades.

[Général Grievous]

It is true it has no sense. Crew members could cost some foods, or just money, but ne engine parts...
But as it is irrelevant, just don't pay attention to this.

[Alan Phipps]

I think that is another example of this problem which the devs are aware of.

[Fenris321]

Thanks everyone. I just ran around the station and manually hired crew since the ship could only hold 5. If there is a next time I'll just ignore it and see if that works.

[Ezarkal]

The way I see it, (and I may be totally wrong), the shipyard have a queue of ordered ship, and must build the oldest orders before the more recent ones. So if an order before your ship needs engine part, then you'll need to supply the station with engine part, so it can build the other ship, so it can then move on to your order and add your crew members.

I had some freighters building stuck by lack of missiles. At least, for crew, you can hire manually.
If you have time and a free freighter, it usually makes for a few good trades.
If you have more time and ressources, it makes prime locations for some stations if you look carefully at what's always missing at the shipyard.

My early-mid game moneymakers is usually 1-2 stations per system with shipyards/wharfs, supplying with what they need the most. If planned carefully, each stations will generate around 1M/h. Once this is set up, then I can move on to my true station network/war plans.

[florianlt]

The way I see it, (and I may be totally wrong), the shipyard have a queue of ordered ship, and must build the oldest orders before the more recent ones. So if an order before your ship needs engine part, then you'll need to supply the station with engine part, so it can build the other ship, so it can then move on to your order and add your crew members.

This is mostly correct, but more complicated due to the fact that most shipyards can build multiple ships at the same time. So if there is at least one build slot free, adding crew will never have to wait for another build. If all slots are full and waiting for resources, adding crew may take a long time.

[Ezarkal]

The way I see it, (and I may be totally wrong), the shipyard have a queue of ordered ship, and must build the oldest orders before the more recent ones. So if an order before your ship needs engine part, then you'll need to supply the station with engine part, so it can build the other ship, so it can then move on to your order and add your crew members.

This is mostly correct, but more complicated due to the fact that most shipyards can build multiple ships at the same time. So if there is at least one build slot free, adding crew will never have to wait for another build. If all slots are full and waiting for resources, adding crew may take a long time.

Thanks for the precision.
I had noticed that wharfs could build multiple ships at once, but still had to batch large orders despite having enough ressources and free docks.
This explains that.