S/M Maintenance Bay?

[Truthowl]

I finally got enough credits to guy one and built it. How do we tell how profitable it is? Under Logical Overview I can see we can set other faction prices. But I see no where it says anything about making any credits/profit...

Are Equipment Docks useless(unprofitable)?

[mmmcheesywaffles]

The unmodded game does not tell you clearly about your profits. Sales depend upon location and how active your customers are in losing their ships.

In my case I built my Wharf onto my PHQ. I added the Bays as final parts to a complex that could fully supply them without me buying in any wares. That is all weapons and parts for each race.

As my Wharf is quite far from any real action I only had a trickle of customers for the first few days. In my case they were mainly Paranid and Teladi and mostly just repairs to fighters. After a few days I had enough Blueprints to cover all fighters; optional fittings and deployables. At that point I started seeing several fighters bought each day.

Once the Teladi got busy with the invasion my sales have picked up and I have since added bays up to XL. The Teladi have bought several Phoenix from me at about 24M each.

I found that sales improved once I could build several ships at once. So I added a second S/M production bay and more storage. The largest order I have had was around 6 M fighters and maybe 10 S. More recently they have been adding freighters too.

To help my sales and test production speed I have built 10 L and 10 M at the same time. I kept a few but most I sold off and was paid around 9M for the L's now that they are paying 24M though I will let them come to me :)

I have no idea if an EQ is any good as I only have the one complex for now. That is certainly making lots of profitssss ;)

[Truthowl]

Thank you for the information. I've heard Player run Warfs and shipyards are really profitable, and they should be. I hope someone will reply with solid info on the Equipment docks however. I've searched and found nothing. Feels kind of like I may have wasted 35 million credits. However, I DO seem to be making credits faster than I was previously. That's why I need to know how to discover how much my EQ's are making.

I've built 2 of them. And DANG they require a LOT of supplies/resources to run. Both were built in contested space. One in Company Regard near the Xeno gate and the other in Hatikvah's choice, near it's Xeno gate. Since it's supposed to be a Repair Dock I'm hoping I chose the right locations.

Anyway, I do seem to be generating credits much more rapidly, just not seeing why.

[BLKCandy]

Honestly, fabrication also double as maintenance dock so there is no real need to build maintenance one. And AI seems to buy standard loadout from the start and doesn't upgrade their ships. (Or rarely does so as I never saw them.)

I saw some repair bills so they do use them docks to repair. Though I'm honestly not sure if the bill I saw popping up every so often came from my HQ dock or my aux ships in the frontline. HQ docks *can* repair, but there are rarely any damaged ship there. Especially with player's trade security in place.

[OZZO]

Comparing the stats of the income from ships built and ships repaired I'd say that maintenance dock is almost not worth it.
I didn't know before that fabrication module can also do maintenance so I built both and then discovered I didn't need both. My suggestion would be not to even waste money on the maintenance bay and earn for fabrication.

[CaptainRAVE]

Originally posted by mmmcheesywaffles:

The unmodded game does not tell you clearly about your profits. Sales depend upon location and how active your customers are in losing their ships.

In my case I built my Wharf onto my PHQ. I added the Bays as final parts to a complex that could fully supply them without me buying in any wares. That is all weapons and parts for each race.

As my Wharf is quite far from any real action I only had a trickle of customers for the first few days. In my case they were mainly Paranid and Teladi and mostly just repairs to fighters. After a few days I had enough Blueprints to cover all fighters; optional fittings and deployables. At that point I started seeing several fighters bought each day.

Once the Teladi got busy with the invasion my sales have picked up and I have since added bays up to XL. The Teladi have bought several Phoenix from me at about 24M each.

I found that sales improved once I could build several ships at once. So I added a second S/M production bay and more storage. The largest order I have had was around 6 M fighters and maybe 10 S. More recently they have been adding freighters too.

To help my sales and test production speed I have built 10 L and 10 M at the same time. I kept a few but most I sold off and was paid around 9M for the L's now that they are paying 24M though I will let them come to me :)

I have no idea if an EQ is any good as I only have the one complex for now. That is certainly making lots of profitssss ;)

For ship building it doesn’t matter where your shipyard is placed. Some sectors are of course slightly better than others, but mainly you need a high level trader and lots of blueprints.

For ship repairs it is better to be in a busy sector, ideally a frontline sector.

Don’t bother with ship repairs. Ship building is the money printer.

[Truthowl]

Okay that seems to be the running consensus then. The Maintenance bay is useless and we shouldn't waste our money on it. Shame I already bought it then. I'd be that much closer to buying the fab bay. Ahhh well. Hopefully this topic will inform others so they wont waste their time and money.

Thanks guys for the replies and info.

[Walker Evans]

Originally posted by Truthowl:

How do we tell how profitable it is?

I get entries in my logbook whenever an NPC-owned ship gets repairs or buys supplies at my EQ dock. Under Upkeep, I think, but not sure.

[CaptainRAVE]

Originally posted by Walker Evans:

Originally posted by Truthowl:

How do we tell how profitable it is?

I get entries in my logbook whenever an NPC-owned ship gets repairs or buys supplies at my EQ dock. Under Upkeep, I think, but not sure.

Yes, this.

[Truthowl]

Originally posted by Walker Evans:

Originally posted by Truthowl:

How do we tell how profitable it is?

I get entries in my logbook whenever an NPC-owned ship gets repairs or buys supplies at my EQ dock. Under Upkeep, I think, but not sure.

If this is true then they need to adjust when the ai decides to get repairs/buy supplies. I have 2 EQ docks in 2 different contested sectors. Fairly frequent xeno incursions with lots of ai ships getting damaged. Yet noone has gotten any repairs from me.

I have other faction cost at 120%. Is that to high? My standing with all factions except xeno, khk and sca is pretty high.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

My costs are set at 150% and I get the log info in the Upkeep section. Every hour or two I see several sales and a few restock or repair entries.

NPCs will not want to wait. So make sure you have all the parts in store that they may want. Most purchase orders I see are upto 5 ships but I have seen one order with around 8, though that might have been two factions orders.

I made sure my bays can handle upto at least 20 S or M builds without having to wait for parts. For L I store upto 10 ships worth.

[Truthowl]

@waffkes Mate the topic is Equipment Dock. What is actually the S/M Matenance Bays. Not the wharf or shipyard. Thanks for trying to help though.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Originally posted by Truthowl:

@waffkes Mate the topic is Equipment Dock. What is actually the S/M Matenance Bays. Not the wharf or shipyard. Thanks for trying to help though.

I assumed you would extrapolate. The EQ is, as far as I can see, a Wharf without construction Bays. So I presume giving it plenty of storage and keeping stock of wares high would probably help you generate business.

[Truthowl]

The issue, it turns out, was blindness, or maybe stupidity on my part? Or maybe poor instructions or un-intuitiveness?

Anyway, for anyone reading this thread. Have you assigned a Ship Trader to the Equipment Dock/Maintenance Bay? You do so exactly as you assign a Manager. Once i did that my EQ docks started making money.

Figures it would be me not doing something right. lol Oh well, it's working now.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Ah, I hadn't thought of that as I assumed you would have seen the Upkeep Mission alert. Anyway, maybe you should check now that you are offering enough Bays to dock all your customers ;) May you make lots of profitsss