Station complex creation tutorial

[Kalmanihti]

Docking is a feature can be used to build automated production chains in one sector as huge station complexes and in this short guide I will describe the steps how to create a station complex yourself. You can also attach stations not necessarily needed in the production chain like repair docks etc. if you want to.

It is recommended to use a ship that has lots of thrusters and gyros and a large dock block at the front for moving the different stations.

All stations should be in transport mode at the start of this guide.


1. Move the station that is last (in case of a chain with two steps) or in the middle (in case of a chain with three steps. It is not possible to build a longer chain than three stations in a single complex, however you can dock more than three stations to the complex.) in the production chain to a location where it is far away (at least more than 5 km) from other stations in case you want to found other stations somewhere near it. This station will be the one that you should use for all the docking in this guide, because objects that are docked can't dock more objects due to technical limitations, but one single object can dock as many objects to it as it can fit.

2. Place docks that face outward to the points on stations where you want them to connect to each other and make sure all the station dimensions please you because to change them you would need to restart the complex creation. A long rod shape to fit several stations on the sides like tree branches is one of the best shapes. Remember to leave a dock or two and enough room for an area where cargo ships can come pick up products from the station. Also note that the docks that will be reserved for NPC ships will be the four first docks you place on the stations.

3. Move a station whose product is needed for the docker station's production near the first station and carefully align its dock with the other station's dock and push it so close that there is less than 0.3 km distance between the stations.

4. Undock the station from your ship and enter the docker station of the production chain.

5. Select the station that was brought closer and dock it (select it hold the docking key until the station "clamps" or snaps into place). You can dock as many stations as you want this way to the final production link (in case of a production chain with two steps) or to the middle station (in case of a production chain with three steps).

6. If there are more stations needed in the production chain, you can add them like in the steps described above. Docking can only be done by the parent station of the complex though and due to technical limitations in the game, it is impossible to dock stations that have other stations attached to them or dock stations using an already docked station. However with the 2.0 update you can use the ambient cargo shuttles to move goods between stations if you want to make the production chain longer, even if some of them aren't docked to the stations they should be delivering to.

7. Interact with all stations in the station complex and enable station mode.

8. Interact with the stations "lowest" in the production chain and open the station settings view. From the delivery options choose the station that you want to deliver the goods to. This target station has to be docked directly to the station you are interacting with for instant delivery via docks, but in case of the stations not being directly docked together the ambient shuttles will do the deliveries for you after choosing the delivery settings.

9. Enjoy your station complex!

Note that violent collisions might undock the stations from each other and you may have to start over again if that happens.

[zantjez]

Originally posted by TenguKnight:

Originally posted by zantjez:

i were in the oil rig to dock the station to it but the rig didn't give the option to dock the station, and the station wasn't docked to anything.
i also tried being in the station and dock the oil rig , i did get the option to dock it but it didn't work.

i know the key's the point is the station does not move.
even in transport mode, so i have to push it with a ship, and with pushing it with a ship i mean slamming my ship into it very soft because docking the station in transport mode to the ship makes it so that the ship can't move either.

That's why you need a large ship with massive thrusters for station moving - I used a specialized "tug boat" to move stations around and get them lined up, and then undocked the station from the tug boat in order to make it dockable by the station complex parent station.

so you tell me that a naonite ship, worth 100k naonite, can't pull a station that is just 10 blocks long and 1 block wide?
but it can pull a 700k cargo....

[umop-apisdn]

I know I'm late to the party... but this is a pinned topic, so I'll go ahead and ask anyway.

What is the benefit of docking the mines/stations together?
Is it just the "instant materials transfer"?

From a logistics standpoint, this is just a faster transport layer; it's only shortening the length of the conveyor belt between the producer and consumer, and has no impact on the speed of continuous production. To put it another way, it appears to me that this is just a way to spend several hours setting up, with the end result being that production would start up a few seconds sooner after you push the button... if there weren't a 10 minute delay between when you tell the station to exit transport mode and when it actually starts production.

To put it another way: Either the resource production on the input side is able to keep up with the output factory's needs, or it isn't; how quickly the materials arrive is only a factor if the travel time is enough longer than the production cycle that the destination factory runs out of materials before the next batch arrives. It's latency vs bandwidth, and the bandwidth in this scenario is however much can be transported by both stations' shuttles, if need be... which should be more than sufficient even at a distance of multiple kilometers.

So here's my question: Am I missing something?

[fractalgem]

IIRC if you successfully dock stations that way you don't need to use up one of the three transfer slots, which is kinda important when setting up large economies. Also has less lag from shuttles running around.

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

IIRC if you successfully dock stations that way you don't need to use up one of the three transfer slots, which is kinda important when setting up large economies. Also has less lag from shuttles running around.

Ah, so it's not about production speed at all! Now it makes much more sense; thank you.

[Kalmanihti]

Originally posted by umop-apisdn:

What is the benefit of docking the mines/stations together?
Is it just the "instant materials transfer"?

Benefits of docking stations together:
-Instantaneous transfer of materials. This is important on stations that consume goods faster than shuttles can transfer from a single station. I can't name one, but I know there are a few related to water.
-Performance improvements due to less shuttles.
-Using docks does not occupy one of the three shuttle slots each station has.
-A gigantic station looks very cool.
-Even if you have to use shuttles to transfer goods between the child stations of the complex, the shuttles have a shorter range to fly between the docked stations.
-Easier and faster picking up of goods from the stations for players due to the stations being closer together, thus reducing flight time from station to station.

Station complexes aren't worth it for most small production chains, but it is just something cool that the docking mechanics allow.

[umop-apisdn]

Oh, definitely. As soon as I understood that it wasn't at all about the production speed, but instead was about subverting the mechanics to improve logistics without cratering framerate, I was good to go.

Thanks for the more in-depth explanation, though; good info.

... although I may have to disagree about it being "not worth it" for small production chains; I can easily see how (for example) stacking your water collector, solar collector, and carbon extractor onto your potato farm to effectively make a single entity could be advantageous. It might even be more advantageous for smaller production chains than for larger complexes, if I'm understanding the mechanics correctly.

[Weaver]

Well, now I'm back to square one on this issue. I had it working two galaxies ago, and for every station except ONE in an entire Accelerator Factory chain. Now? Nothing. I can't even link up the stations to supply a Corn Farm.

Before anyone runs me through the Tech Support Ringer, yes, the following has been checked, rechecked, checked Ad Nauseum, and checked again:

-All three stations are in Transport Mode before attempting to move them

-All three stations are dock-to-dock

-All three stations have correct Crew

-All three stations have had their Crew paid

-All three stations have a Captain

-All three stations have enough onboard facilities to support Crew (Yeah, basically just don't bring up Crew...it's handled, they're fine, there's nothing of substance in this line of questioning)

-All three stations are part of the same chain (Corn Farm requires Water and Energy Cells)

-All three stations have enough Cargo Space to support the transfer of Goods

-All three stations are perfectly aligned (this was checked countless times during the troubleshooting process)

-All three stations have Docks which are exactly the same dimensions, alignment, rotation, placement, etc, etc

-All three stations had every type of Cargo enabled for pickup, just on the chance that disabling pickup of normal Goods had any kind of impact on this type of transfer

-Different sizes and positions of Dock blocks were used to see if the Dock's hitboxes were interfering with anything (like how Hangars won't pick up fighters if any part of the ship is longer than their hitbox)

-Any and all Mods have been disabled, and a new galaxy created for testing, JUST to put to bed any assertion that Mods were responsible for this not working

This simply does not work. It did...once...I can't think of anything that would have changed since then that would have had the impact of shutting this off. I even tried it in a brand new galaxy with 0 mods. Still nothing.

The only way this works is if I use up send/receive shuttle slots. Then it starts transferring instantly. But...the entire point of Docking Stations together is so that I don't have to use those shuttle slots.

Can anyone verify that this is working? Recent video proof would be amazing. At least that would tell me there's still an issue I need to fix on my end.

[Doc Holiday]

Originally posted by dragsliv:

I have to vent some frustration with this new feature. I can see some potential in it, but they need to fix it for it to be of any use.

Some history first.

In 2011 X3 Albion Prelude was released on steam. It allowed, via automatic system, to connect multiple stations, factories into one. Thus combining their individual production ques into single screen, from witch you could see a full summary of what is being produced as well as resources present and required. Resources would be shared among all the stations and docking would always occur in the station of player's choice. It wasn't perfect, but it allowed to create huge factory complexes that required no further user input to operate.

Now, in 2020, almost 9 years later, Avorion attempts to include a similar system into their game. I am very sorry to say that, but it's complete garbage.

1) Factories do not share resources, unless they are directly connected to each other. If two factories are connected via a third station, they need to use cargo shuttles, which are inefficient and taxing on game performance.
2) Docking is broken, many AI ships just stand in the docking corridor and do nothing.
3) Moving large stations and docking them takes forever, as you have to resize them and then rebuild to their original form.
4) You have to move stations so close, that they basically touch, since docking is so weak that it takes forever to connect anything further than a hair's length away, even with huge docking ports.
5) No single screen to manage production and trade.
6) No way to designate a dedicated docking port for ALL factories.
7) You have to wait 10 minutes for a switch from transport to station mode. WHAT? Why? This is infuriating! Any change in my factory complex has this 10 minute tax on it. Get rid of it ASAP!

As it is now, this feature is incomplete and I wasted three hours of my life trying to use it. Who green lit this garbage?

100% agree with this. The system is absolute hot garbage. It's so obtuse to try to get anything to work together that it's unusable and the dev's do not care.

[Weaver]

I've figured out what I did wrong. I just tested it successfully.

I forgot that the first four docks are reserved for NPC ships. That's why the transfer wasn't working.