9.14 Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the process of taking raw commodities and transforming them into intermediate and finished commodities using refineries and autofactories (see HELP REFINERIES, HELP AUTOFACTORIES, and HELP STRUCTURES).
Benefits of Manufacturing
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You can sell the commodities on the market for profit (HELP MARKET), contribute to various factional activities that involve commodity use (HELP CAC, HELP GUARDS, HELP STATIONS), build epic space structures (HELP STRUCTURES), use them on your own ship, or receive shipments to advance your modding research (AB SHIPMENT), with plenty more uses for commodities being added to the game over time.
Where to Start
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The process of manufacturing begins with mining asteroids and gas clouds in space (see HELP MINING). Miners can produce crushed and compressed goods (raw commodities) that need to be refined in a refinery before they can be used in manufacturing, or haul asteroids and scooped gases directly to a refinery For more information on the refining process, see HELP REFINERIES.
Once you have the refined materials, the next step is to take your commodities to an Autofactory and manufacture your refined materials into intermediate or finished goods. Consult AUTOFACTORY LIST for a list of various autofactory categories and browse AUTOFACTORY SHOW <id> to see any bonuses that particular autofactory may bring - every autofactory can produce every type of goods, but some are better at certain products.. You can also use AUTOFACTORY WHATMAKES <commodity> to view a recipe, or AUTOFACTORY WHATFROM <commodity> to see what you can make from a material. For more information, see HELP AUTOFACTORIES.
Running Manufacturing Jobs
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Manufacturing jobs are performed at Refineries and Autofactories and have a cost associated with them set by the structure owner (see HELP STRUCTURES). Jobs require a number of Cycles to complete, representing the complexity of the task. Structure owners set a Marks per Cycle fee on their structures to charge their clients. For instance, QPCs require 1000 Cycles to manufacture. If the structure owner has set their fee to 1.55 Marks per Cycle, you would be charged 1550 marks per run of QPCs. Recipes also have a Batch Size which indicates how many commodities a job will output per Run. Disheet, for instance, requires 10 diamene per Run, but each run will output 20 Disheet. Thus running 10 runs of Disheet would cost 100 Diamene and output 200 Disheet. All refining jobs have a base Cycle cost of 50 and a Batch Size of 1. The location of a structure, as well as any modules installed by the owner, can drastically improve it’s efficiency.
Manufacturing jobs at structures within a factional space are also charged a Production Tax which varies depending on the Subsector. If a structure is located in neutral space, it will be charged Extortion instead depending on the Piracy Rating of the zone the structure is in if the Piracy Rating in the zone is 20% or more (see HELP PIRACY), with extortion equal to the Piracy Rating with 1% Piracy = 1% Tax. At 50% Piracy Rating, Extortion will be 50%. At 100% Piracy Rating, Extortion will be 100%.
Note that Factions are able to set their subsector's Production Tax to a figure anywhere between 0% and 100%. Anyone in the faction with the "economy" power can modify the Production Tax using FACTION ECONOMY TAX SET <value>. Production Tax can only be modified once a week.
If you own the Refinery or Autofactory, you do not have to pay the Cycle Fee, but you do have to pay Production Tax or Extortion.
Note that you don't have to transport commodities yourself: You can use cargo contracts (HELP CARGO CONTRACTS) to have other players or NPCs ship your goods for you. You can even use Offices (HELP OFFICES) to automate the shipping, manufacturing, and marketing of goods, so that all you need to do is sit back and reap the rewards of the glorious interstellar operation you have masterminded.
