Manufacturing
Factory Groups
Only colonies may have functioning factory units; ships never do. Factory Groups are created by an assembly order and manufacture all units that make up a ship or colony, with the exception of natural resources, food, and population. The length of time necessary to manufacture any unit is one year. Each turn, a factory group will use a certain amount of labor and resources. These are described as follows.
Labor
A factory group uses labor according to the size of the factory group; the larger the group, the greater its efficiency. The chart below shows the number of unskilled and professional units per factory unit necessary to operate a factory group.
Factory Group Labor Chart
| No. of Factory Units | Professional Units | Unskilled Units1 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 - 4 | 6 per FU2 | 18 per FU |
| 5 - 49 | 5 | 15 |
| 50 - 499 | 4 | 12 |
| 500 - 4,999 | 3 | 9 |
| 5,000 - 49,999 | 2 | 6 |
| 50,000 - up | 1 | 3 |
Shortages
Each factory unit can convert 20 mass units of natural resources into manufactured items each game year, and the resources used are automatically deducted from storage each turn. The computer keeps track of how long each factory unit has been working on a unit and takes into account any resource, labor, or fuel shortages in order to insure that the correct number of units is allocated to the player.
For instance; a player assembles a factory group consisting of 50,000 factory units to build TL 2 missiles. Each missile will "cost" 4 metallic and 4 non-metallic units. This is done on turn 3, and the missiles will be completed on turn 7. A shortage, which allows his groups to function at half their capacity, occurs on turn 5 and is relieved on turn 6. Therefore, the player will receive 62,500 missiles on turn 7 and 62,500 on turn 8, instead of 125,000 on turn 7. (Since the shortage only took place for one quarter, the delay is for one quarter.) A shortage in a colony will affect all factory units, regardless of the unit they are manufacturing. Fuel is allocated to the mines and farms before the factories; fuel shortages usually affect only the factories.
"Cost" Chart
Materials required to build basic units, (per unit).
| BASIC UNIT | METALLIC UNITS REQUIRED | NON-METALLIC UNITS REQUIRED |
|---|---|---|
| Assault Weapon | 1 X TL3 | 1 X TL |
| Assault Craft | 3 X TL | 2 X TL |
| Anti-missile | 2 X TL | 2 X TL |
| Automation | 2 X TL | 2 X TL |
| Consumer Good | 0.2 | 0.4 |
| Energy Shield | 25 X TL | 25 X TL |
| Energy Weapon | 5 X TL | 5 X TL |
| Factory | 8 + TL | 4 + TL |
| Farm | 4 + TL | 2 + TL |
| Hyper Engines | 25 X TL | 20 X TL |
| Life Support | 3 X TL | 5 X TL |
| Light Structural4 | 0.01 | 0.04 |
| Military Robots | 10 + TL | 10 + TL |
| Military Supplies | 0.02 | 0.02 |
| Mine | 5 + TL | 5 + TL |
| Missile | 2 X TL | 2 X TL |
| Missile Launcher | 15 X TL | 10 X TL |
| Sensor | 999 + TL | 1999 + TL |
| Space Drive | 15 X TL | 10 X TL |
| Structural | 0.1 | 0.4 |
| Transport | 3 X TL | 1 X TL |
No. of Factory Units Required
Since each factory unit can only work with 20 (times its TL) mass units of natural resources each year, some items will require more than one factory unit per unit built. For example, one TL2 hyper engine costs a total of 90 resource units, (25 metallic and 20 non-metallic times 2). Therefore, it would take 5 TL-2 factory units to build one TL-2 (or two TL-1) hyper engines.
Retooling
lf a player wishes to change the type of unit being manufactured by a factory group, he issues a build change order, ordering the group to retool.
Retooling will take one turn or more, depending on the amount of work in process, which must be finished before retooling takes place. The player will be informed on his turn print-out when the group is ready to receive the build change order starting the production of the new unit.
Assembling
Assembly orders form construction and spy units; and are also used to make units operational. Opertional units are those which, after being dis-assembled and put into storage, have to be assembled when taken out of storage to function. The operational units are: Space drives, sensors, automation units, life support units, energy weapons, energy shields, mining units, factory units, farms, hyper engines, structural units, light structural units, and missile launchers. Every 500 mass units of an operational unit requires one construction unit to assemble them. Assembly orders are also used to add factory units to existing factory groups, and mine units to existing mine groups.
Dis-assembling
Dis-assembly orders are used to reverse assembly orders. However, there is a 10% loss of the units being dis-assembled, excepting spy and construction units. The number of construction units required for dis-assembling is the same as for assembly.