Ore in, kits and squadrons out: the machine shop
Published
In short: the carrier has a machine shop. Feed it ore and it builds module kits, point defence turrets, bunker kits and whole units: squadrons, tank companies and marine platoons. Kits go into the hold; units come out docked in the hangar. Numbers are placeholders.
At a glance
| Builds | module kits, PD turrets, bunker kits, units |
| Each build | 30 s |
| Queue | one job at a time, up to 5 waiting |
| Mark | a shop builds up to its own Mark |
| Recycle | a kit gives back half its ore, in 15 s |
| Recipes | F10 |
| At the start | a Mk1 shop and 270 t of ore |
What it costs
| Unit, at Mk1 | Ore |
|---|---|
| Squadron of 12 Strikers | 270 t |
| Tank company of 12 | 540 t |
| Marine platoon of 48 | 72 t |
- Kits cost by size. A kit’s ore is set by how much room it takes in a hold, a quarter of the module’s fitted size, then scaled by Mark: each Mark up costs about 1.5 times the one below. A Mk1 mining module costs 150 t.
- What it builds includes jump drives, small hangars, cargo holds, fuel tanks, mining modules, machine shops, point defence turrets and bunker kits.
- The start: the carrier has 270 t of ore aboard, exactly one Mk1 squadron’s worth.
How it works
- Open the recipes (F10). Every recipe is listed with its ore, its time and the shop it needs. Rows you can’t build yet are greyed out with the reason. The shop’s queue is at the top.
- Enter or double-click builds; Delete cancels the last job in the queue.
- Ore is taken when a build starts. Cancel and you get all of it back.
- Kits land in the shop’s own hold, so a finished kit always has room. Fit it with a normal 3-second refit.
- Units come out docked. Their room in the hangar is taken as soon as the build starts, and F2 lists them there as “(being built)”. With the small hangar, a squadron can only be built while the hangar is empty.
- Recycling a kit gives back half its ore.
Where the ore comes from: harvesting ore.
More: machine shop module, ground units, refits.