Preference- Many small stations or one megastation?

[Kazmeister]

As written on the tin. Do you prefer many small stations producing one key item or one mega station that makes everything?

I went into this planning on making a bunch of smalls in key areas, but it seems much simpler to make one massive station that only uses its own goods to make better goods and sells all the excesses. Right now my mega only takes in raw materials and pumps out (at the high end) advanced electronics, shield components, field coils, and claytronics. Working on adding turret components next. It’s a big structure and my only worry is that it’ll become fps-wrecking if I keep going.

What are your pros and cons to each method?

[Humble]

I prefer somewhere between,
For Mega, is Headquarter, mostly because of terraforming, many stroage, but however I do like to visit my own personal office, and I avoid lag, so in order to do this, I am playing as Terran so headquarter is limited to Terran Station shipyard with self sufficient, I'm limited to 5 each Terran high tech because 5 main dock on that headquarter station number, but I did put lot of food for crew to stuff shipyard (Terraforming need shipyard anyway) but I don't put everything commonwealth station, I only put limited commonwealth one station (2 if need to supply to one station) for Headquarter jump drive nothing more than that, so I will set up factory to feed whatever Terraforming need in somewhere other sector or commonwealth ship and weapon somewhere ect.

I did set up outpost mining, limited to solar power with no workforce in early of game to keep it simple, then trading station, after that, I might plane to set up limited product basic of Hull part and all that for commonwealth (I already set up Terran product all kind of high tech but no workforce, and no food before I forced on mega Headquarter Terran only mostly beside jumpdrive's Product.

after that, I just limited all kind of food and Medical only with workforce maybe mega here, then all kind of tech product here (no workforce), then depend on product need good, if all match with smaller number of need type of raw goods, I will try set up that kind of thing.

I don't want to do full mega here and there, just limited to headquarter, even so it's limitd, basic product ship, Terran is best for this because simple to make so meaning less need to build station while commonwealth is bad idea to do mega even worst on headquarter because so many station need other station.

So I limited to one Terran Headquarter shipyard mega (only Terran Ship and weapon product, no commonwealth ship and weapon) with limited number of station proved for jumpdrive, not more than that, If I need commonwealth ship, I had to find good sector to set up empty space sector but rich resource near by next sector, ensure manager got 1 or 2 star to start out. Just not on Headquarter, no way. Terran work best with headquarter to do mega due simple and less need to add station than commonwealth while Commonwealth need so many station to do self sufficient, that is too much to do that on Headquarter, is why No way. Commonwealth had to find good place to set up if one want whole and everything in sector, even they had powerful computer. it's would lag, during fighting action it's even might worst.

If you playing good Terran, it's better had one mega Terran headquarter shipyard but many smaller station somewhere to feed every type of product whatever if need to be. Now if you playing commonwealth, that would bad day, All I can suggest is limited commonwealth stroage/shipyard with no self sufficient or limited station for jumpdrive if you want, if you wish to visit and do manage whole of your empire from your personal office in Headquarter, you had to set up somewhere huge empity safe space that you would not visit there to feed your headquarter to do Commonwealth Mega factory, only just one, But it's would better to had smaller and more specialization, like food mega, High Tech mega, or Basic Hull/other resource mega only rather than everything.

[ArcticISAF]

Not really an expert on this but I'll list what comes to mind (and others can interject).

Small: Fast to build, easy to supply local area if that's your goal. Need to supply it depending on how much of a production chain you have (from raw materials or from other intermediates). Can be built and supplied without exhausting local resources usually, both in hull parts (etc.) and raw materials like ore

Medium to Large (my preferred): Fair bit of time to build but then you have a partial to complete supply chain that covers all necessary parts. Good for supplying local area and for building your own ships at a medium rate. Likely to strain local mining areas but they probably don't need to go too far for mining.

Mega: Takes a massive amount of resources and time to build. This is your permanent setup, could be on HQ and a few choice areas that you think are resource perfect. It can go into overkill imo but that's up to you. You'll likely need to mine several sectors to supply this beast of a factory. Good for mega shipyards I think would be the main reason.

My caution would be on too many Terran related production buildings, as they are absolute hogs of resources. You'll have to judge for yourself, but maybe 2-3 computronic substrate production buildings at most, just in my opinion. I saw one person (you may know if you read this :P) have four computronic substrates at two different locations, but they were maybe running 1 or 2 max if they had the resources available. It's a massive amount of ore/silicon/hydrogen needed and it can be done, just your miners will struggle and you'll need a ton of them. Commonwealth setups seem to be better for resource efficiency, at least that's my impression.

Overall I have my HQ as one that can supply anything and have all the shipyard parts, but it's not mega huge (like I think one person had 10 computronic substrates on one factory somewhere). I've set up smaller factories at least in the past where it's opportune to do so (imo), like solar power in Mercury, medium factory in Asteroid Belt, or Hull parts elsewhere. If you want to supply goods to the AI, smaller stations may be a good choice.

[uni790]

I prefer the mega station, simply because I don't trust the AI to properly transport the goods(or survive the transport process). Much easier to just build it all in one place.

[Jessa Doom]

What i did when i built stations i added everything mostly 2 station modules of each type, and 1 module of each type of ship dock/build etc. that way trading didn't have to go far to find needed items in a hurry.

Yes the stations got big as the layout would be set out like this top level dock/ship yards, second level would be all types of containers third level flat type factories followed by another level of containers, on the outside edges all types of tall factories and living quarters and solar panels and defence turrets. (level out the build how you want)

If you get it right they look a bit like BORG CUBES with a few bits sticking out, BTW don't for get to give plenty of ships support.

Lastly i do not know why the is no clothing/appliance factory modules and shopping malls to go with the living quarters.

[Humble]

I had no issues with Terran on headquarter, I think they patched and improved those area.
Of course I had 5 computronic substrates, 5 Metallic microlattice, 5 Silicon Carbide, 5 (3 Dock E Pier) 5 Terran 4m10s Luxury Dock, 4 Terran S/M Fab, Terran S/M main, 2 L fab and Main, 2 XL fab and main to handle all incoming trade ship and mining ship. 60 Terran Container storage, 22 Terran Liquid storage and Solid Storage, 170 Terran Solar panel, 18 Terran Mre food, 25 Terran Medical suppply, 7 Terran Protein Paste Production, so many L, M and S Terran living Quarter (I think I had 39,900 workforce), 5 Terran Administrative, and too many Terran Disc Defence and brig, along other thing, only thing not Terran is this 1 superfluid collant, Advanced Electronices, Microchip, Quantum Tube, 2 plasma Conductor, 1 Silicon Wafer, graphene for whole jump thing, and I stop right there, I was thinking add more but I rather not test that, I did tested and I can fly thought all Headquarter, I must said it's very beautiful, I can do personal office, and everything product is good on headquarter smoothly for me. but I just stop, it's too many on Headquarter, Reason I do stop Terran high tech 5 because due Headquarter connect 1, 2, 3, then 4 and 5 bay connect, something like that. I try to make Headquarter look beautiful while great product shipyard on own (for Terran ship and weapon that is, not commonwealth, that is too much station to add and making ugly, not match headquarter).

[Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG]

Obviously I'm a fan of the Mega Station. Just know this, the lag caused by my station has made my game barely playable whenever im "in sector" or turning in missions to Boso etc.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2973513477
Old picture... it is probably twice as large now... :P
Extremely BAD lag in sector...

Whenever I "Teleport" to the station, even if I cannot see ANY of the modules while I am inside the station, I get 5 FPS or less.

Will I do this again?? Definitely... as the efficiency gains of having everything in one place far outweighs having to deal with logistics with multiple stations.

One word of advice though... Do not build your megastation in your Player HQ (with Boso ta etc) or build your venture dock here (if you are playing the multiverse beta). As frequent visits to the station once it's become "Mega" is not recommended for your sanity (and fps).

[Humble]

https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=195&t=455300&p=5184522#p5184522

here you can download Construction Plan, you can see there is couple simple plan, and few mega station, Terran Headquarter shipyard with Jumpdrive Product is one I was talking about, I tried screenshot, but it's didn't upload correctly.

[Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG]

Originally posted by Humble:

https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=195&t=455300&p=5184522#p5184522

here you can download Construction Plan, you can see there is couple simple plan, and few mega station, Terran Headquarter shipyard with Jumpdrive Product is one I was talking about, I tried screenshot, but it's didn't upload correctly.

Why would anyone want to use someone else's construction plans? That's like asking someone to play the game for you...

[Humble]

Not everyone want to build station, but I do had fun building station, but some people might not want to do design/build but rather pop it up and be done with it, but they might rather download plan and build then play other type of gameplay like do combat or board ship or do quest filling without worry design stations,

but not always, some people like to look other work of construction and gave them idea and improve their own design on based of someone's idea of constructions.

Design and build station are part of game but not main of game, main game is fly in space and do whatever person want to do, not had to build station but there is some quest that need station, so they had download and covered for it.

I did download someone's plan to look at it, but not used it, I just look at it and it's gave me idea, so I do better plan build.

[Bullpup]

I would normally like to place multiple station depending on where the key resource is. No FPS hits, miners quick.

Changed my mind though. Every now and again an SCA Plunderer will just delete a L trader with zero warning (no "I was asked to drop my cargo" no "we're taking hits!" and it's a pain to find out how to replace it, ie what it was doing, not to mention the massive cost of a 4* pilot with many 5* engineers.

Bunch them all up in your home sector, spread the stations very very far apart to not tank FPS, and just patrol for SCA in one place.

Also with wide spread empires I keep forgetting which factory is engines and which is turrets so spend lots of time zooming and searching once I have a full self sufficient economy of my own.

[Humble]

Yes, I guess both side had upside and downside, having Megastation would be less replace and less tracking down while had many smaller station cost you more time to tracking down and got lost along way in thinking, do this station need ship, who or what station need what type of ship, go on, making harder to track down.

That's what I prefer balanced between somewhere.

[Vladolf Putler]

Its of course much easier to have large factories rather than small, because of logistics and micromanagement. People build small ones because of performance, they maybe visit those stations I dont know. So if you have weak PC and want to visit your stations you might want to build smaller factories.

[DEATHLORD]

With the HQ it is setup for 40 claytronics and 40 hull parts self sufficient with 112000 work force..
Then for the other factories they are setup apart from each other. Which means 24 separate ones.
I use the HQ to jump into areas to supply AI factories and to build my own resource depots and factories.
The HQ has extra storage for terraforming supplies.
While the HQ is building the miners are supplying the AI factories.
Works well so far.
Used to have a 2 mega factories. But so far this is working better.

[Kazmeister]

Originally posted by Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG:

Obviously I'm a fan of the Mega Station. Just know this, the lag caused by my station has made my game barely playable whenever im "in sector" or turning in missions to Boso etc.

This is what I’m afraid of. I’m trying to keep the Player HQs just a repair/restock base with hab modules though so fortunately my mega is a separate structure.

18 Billion may get very laggy very soon while IS, not just from the big honking station I’m building there, but also all the ships attached to it. But it’s so much easier to just add the modules I need and take advantage of the surpluses I’m generating of the lower tier products.

My pc is fairly beefy but eventually this is going to become a problem if I continue to expand it. I’m at a decision point.

[Нагризолич]

All-in-one station in a dead-end sector that I never visit. It does create massive miner and trader traffic, but that's not an issue.