Stations and goods
Stations grow on what you bring them. This page covers the station panel, the growth basket, the market, the production chain and investing in industry.
The station panel
Tap a system to open its station panel: the system's name, its star and number of lanes, its kind (capital, syndicate home, frontier or core), the station level, what the next level needs, the five top contributors and your ships docked there. Below come both syndicates' influence and who controls the system, the market, ship buying, the industry and the gates.
A system your syndicate cannot see shows only who controls it. Send a ship to see more.
Levels and the growth basket
A station has a level from 1 to 10. A syndicate capital never falls below level 3.
The growth basket raises the level. To leave level 1 a station wants 60 units of each basket good, and 1.55 times more at each level after that. A basket holds at most four goods: always Rations, then the most advanced goods the station consumes. The good its own industry makes is left out.
A station without deliveries decays. After 15 game minutes the basket starts to melt by 10 % a minute, and after 60 minutes the station loses a level.
Consumption
| Good | From level | Per minute |
|---|---|---|
| Rations | 1 | 2 |
| Fuel | 1 | 1 |
| Ore | 2 | 4 |
| Stims | 2 | 3 |
| Alloys | 3 | 3 |
| Electronics | 5 | 2 |
| Machinery | 6 | 2 |
| Habitat Modules | 7 | 1 |
Each level above 1 adds 15 % to consumption. A station consumes only goods whose era has begun. From level 2 a station exports Labour, 20 units a minute per level.
The market and prices
A market row shows the good, whether the station sells or buys it, the price and the stock. The price is the base price times a factor between 0.7 and 1.35, set by the stock against its target. A market never sells above 110 % of the base price.
Every 8 to 12 game hours a boom starts: at one market, one good doubles its consumption for 4 hours and its price rises 1.6 times. At most two run at once, always as a mirrored pair for both syndicates. The market panel marks it with a warning glyph before the good's name.
Goods and eras
| Era | Goods (base price) |
|---|---|
| I · Extraction | Ore 60, Ice 55, Biomass 55, Labour 25, Fuel 75, Rations 85 |
| II · Industry | Alloys 125, Stims 115 |
| III · Fabrication | Rare Earths 110, Electronics 190, Machinery 280 |
| IV · Ascendancy | Habitat Modules 420, Drive Cores 500 |
The production chain
Ore, Ice, Biomass and Rare Earths are mined from deposits; a rich deposit yields half as much again. Everything else is made:
| Product (3 a batch) | From (one batch) |
|---|---|
| Fuel | 6 Ice, 3 Labour |
| Rations | 6 Biomass, 3 Ice, 3 Labour |
| Alloys | 6 Ore, 3 Fuel, 3 Labour |
| Stims | 3 Biomass, 3 Fuel, 3 Labour |
| Electronics | 3 Rare Earths, 3 Alloys, 3 Labour |
| Machinery | 6 Alloys, 3 Electronics, 3 Labour |
| Habitat Modules | 3 Machinery, 3 Alloys, 3 Rations |
| Drive Cores | 3 Machinery, 3 Electronics, 6 Fuel |
An industry runs 8 batches a minute at level 1, and each level adds 50 %, up to level 8. The consortium supplies 15 % of its inputs for free, so even an unsupplied plant turns slowly. The industry panel shows its level, product, rated output, utilisation, input buffers and shareholders.
Investing in industry
The next industry level costs, in turn, 6,000, 14,000, 30,000, 60,000, 120,000, 240,000 and 480,000 cr. You invest 1,000, 5,000 or 25,000 cr at a time, never more than what is still required.
- One company pays at most 40 % of a level.
- Once companies have put in half, the consortium funds the rest and takes the matching stake.
- Money in an unfinished level can be withdrawn; a stake in a funded level cannot.
- Shareholders receive dividends: 10 % of the plant's sales, paid once a day, at most 8 % of the stake a day, scaled by how long the plant ran.
- Shareholders dock at their plant's station in half the time.
Next: The frontier and influence.