Industry

Industries are buildable colony structures on player and AI owned colonies. The economy for the whole starsector is based on industry production, market shares & simulated trade. Upgraded player colonies or AI colonies will provide a market to buy and sell goods.

The player can build industries on their colonies for credits. A size 3 colony will allow 1 industry to be built. Larger colonies get more build slots, up to 4 slots at colony size 6.

Structures does not produce resources aside from Crews, but it doesn't require an industry slot so you can build all of them on a single Colony.

For more information on colonies, see Colony.

Build Order

This flowchart details the requirements and production of industries (Version 0.95)

A newly establish colony can only house a single industry, and different planet types suit different industries. To produce a self-sufficient economy within your faction requires multiple colonies, so choosing which industries go on which planets and in what order you develop can make a big difference.

There is no too wrong planet to colonize or industry to construct as you get started with colony management, but prioritizing a balance of base resources & lower hazard rating will often yield higher profits and lay a foundation for future advanced & more expensive industries.

All colonies also benefit from supporting Structures:

• Spaceports/Megaports & Waystations for Accessibility
• Military structures such as Ground Defences/Heavy Batteries & Patrol HQs for Stability, Ground Defences, and space-based Patrols.

These structures depend on Fuel Production & Heavy Industry outputs, however, it is recommended to build these 2 industries later on because:

• These industries have a high upfront cost to build.
• While a profit can be made, it's also balanced against a very high upkeep cost.
  • While the upkeep cost can be lowered by having more in player faction trade, this would require setting up other industries first.
• These industries aren't well-suited on habitable worlds.
• Lastly, they can also attract some Unwanted Attention.

As such, it is recommended to avoid building these industries at the beginning until the player's colonies has matured a bit more to support them.

First Industry

The 2 best industries to first build are Farming (or Aquaculture) & Mining, as both have low upkeep cost and have lucrative global market to be tapped into, though the former is generally better. Refining can also be built due to having a low upkeep cost, but it has a far more expensive upfront cost and a more competitive global market.

Farming

A Farming (or Aquaculture) industry can be established on most habitable worlds as your first industry since it is very lucrative (food has the second biggest global market), has the lowest base upkeep cost, requires very little imports (only heavy machinery) and can cover all food demand from Population & Infrastructure for all the player's colonies.

Also keep in mind whether or not the habitable world possess Rare Ore Deposits or Volatiles Reserves as it will prevent the use of Soil Nanites, but can also potentially offer Mining as a the next industry for the colony.

However, caution should be taken when colonizing habitable words, as the typically lower hazard ratings & growth bonuses can attract Unwanted Attention as the colony grows bigger.

Mining

A Mining industry on the other hand can be established on almost every planet type, the decision of which can have significant impact. Generally speaking, one should always avoid colonizing planets (with the intent of building a Mining industry) that possess only 1 mineable resource with some exception.

Here's a list of potential candidates for a Mining industry and the reasoning behind it:

• A Barren/Barren-Bombarded/Rocky Metallic/Rocky Unstable/Rocky Ice World with both Ore Deposits & Rare Ore Deposits (though the first 3 is generally better due to being more likely to have lower hazard ratings), the No Atmosphere market condition can be later exploited.
  • By Refining and a Catalytic Core.
  • By Fuel Production and a Synchrotron Core.
• A Volcanic World usually has massive Ore & Rare Ore Deposits, though it also usually have the Extreme Heat market condition, this can then be exploited by a Military Base/High Command with a Cryoarithmetic Engine to serve as a garrison world, assuming there's other colonies in the same system to protect.
• A Cryovolcanic World usually has decent Ore & Rare Ore Deposits and also Volatiles Reserves, a Mining industry will tap into 3 markets.
• Habitable worlds can occasionally have Ore & Rare Ore Deposits and also Organics Reserves, a Mining industry will tap into 3 markets.
  • A Tundra World can also rarely have volatiles too.
• On very rare occasions, Frozen/Toxic/Barren-Desert World can also have Ore, Rare Ore & Organics, allowing an Autonomous Mantle Bore to achieve maximum potential.
  • The first 2 worlds can also have volatiles, with the former being far more likely.
• Gas Giant or Ice Giant with Plentiful Volatiles (+2) and lower hazard rating can also be lucrative, assuming the player possesses a Plasma Dynamo.

Stability

Main article: Colony#Stability

Industries & Structures offers a multitude of methods to improve your colony's stability or to address recent events.

The following Industry/Structure provides stability (assuming the demands are met):

• Population & Infrastructure (+1 if Domestic Goods demands are met, +1 if Luxury Goods demands are met)
• Patrol HQ (+1)
• Military Base/High Command (+2)
• Ground Defenses/Heavy Batteries (+1)
• Orbital Station (+1) / Battlestation (+2) / Star Fortress (+3)

If one of your colony has faced Recent Unrest, the colony can be stabilized with the stabilize button or by spending 1 SP into Population and Infrastructure.

Main article: Colony#Colony_Defenses

Ground & Space defenses are like a bullet-proof vest, it doesn't necessarily prevent a person from being shot, but it can make it less painful in face of Colony Threats.

Planetary defenses like Ground Defense or Orbital Stations can mitigate unrest penalties and make raids against player colonies more difficult.

Space defenses are generally more expensive and have higher demands, but serves a power projection beyond a planet. While these fleets rarely are able to defeat significant threats on their own, they can help maintain hold over system objectives or slow down threats to buy time for the player to prepare.

Profit

Colony commodities demands are basically free, assuming that the colony has sufficient accessibility to import all the needed units. However, it is much more ideal to have the demands be supplied internally by the player's faction, as each commodity supplied internally will contribute a small upkeep reduction, going all the way up to 50%.

Colony income/profitability will vary greatly as it's influenced by these factors:

• The commodity being produced.
  • For example, Food is far more profitable than Domestic Goods & Luxury Goods combined, this is due to food having a far bigger global market value than domestic goods & luxury goods combined.
• The amount of units being produced, which can be increased in a multitude of ways.
• The accessibility of the colony in question.
  • If the accessibility is too low, then the colony may not even be able to export all of the units that it's producing.
  • They higher the accessibility rating, the bigger the impact the colony has on its global market share, which in turn increases the income from exports.
• The upkeep cost of the industry producing the commodity.
  • For example, while Heavy Industry & Fuel Production can both be profitable, the upkeep cost of these industries does require having better accessibility and increased unit production from their special items to reach this point.
• Whether or not a Commerce exists.
  • The Commerce industry is incredibly important as it's basically an income multiplier that gives an initial multiplier of 1.25x, and with all the possible improvements, can give a 2.25x multiplier on total income.
  • As an example of how incredible this is, Population & Infrastructure unconditionally gives 10,000¢ * (size -2) in income, so a size 6 colony with a fully improved Commerce will post this income from 40,000¢ to 90,000¢.

A community member has made a beautiful profit calculator. It's a static web page that allows you to open a Starsector save file and browse to profitable colonies. See Persean Commercial Realty Group.

Industry List

Industry List
Image	Name	Cost / Time	Base Upkeep	Production	Demands	Notes
	Population & Infrastructure	N/A	(Size - 2) * 1,500¢	(Size - 2) * 10,000¢ Crew: [Size - 3] Recreational Drugs: [Size - 4] Harvested Organs: [Size - 5]	Food: [Size] Domestic Goods: [Size - 1] Luxury Goods: [Size - 3] Recreational Drugs: [Size - 2] Harvested Organs: [Size - 3] Organics: [Size - 1] (if not habitable)	Present on all colonies Doesn't counts toward industry limit
	Farming	75,000¢ 60 days	(Size - 2) * 500¢	Food: [Size]	Heavy Machinery: [Size - 3]
	Aquaculture	250,000¢ 60 days	(Size - 2) * 1,500¢	Food: [Size]	Heavy Machinery: [Size]	Exclusive to Water planets.
	Mining	100,000¢ 60 days	(Size - 2) * 1,000¢	Organics: [Size] Ore: [Size] Transplutonic Ore: [Size - 2] Volatiles: [Size - 2]	Heavy Machinery: [Size - 3] Recreational Drugs: [Size]	Resources only produced if present on planet
	Tech-Mining	150,000¢ 45 days	(Ruin size) * 500¢	Fuel, Supplies, Weapons, and Blueprints	None	Production Diminishes after some times Resources are sent to the gathering point (see Tech-Mining for details)
	Refining	225,000¢ 90 days	(Size - 2) * 1,500¢	Metals: [Size] Transplutonics: [Size - 2]	Heavy Machinery: [Size - 2] Ore: [Size + 2] Transplutonic Ore: [Size]
	Light Industry	225,000¢ 90 days	(Size - 2) * 4,000¢	Domestic Goods: [Size] Luxury Goods: [Size - 2] Recreational Drugs: [Size - 2]	Organics: [Size]	Recreational Drugs only produced if colony is a Free Port
	Heavy Industry	500,000¢ 120 days	(Size - 2) * 6,000¢	Heavy Machinery: [Size - 2] Supplies: [Size - 2] Heavy Armaments: [Size - 2] Ship Hulls & Weapons: [Size - 2]	Metals: [Size] Transplutonics: [Size - 2]	Allow usage of Doctrine Fleet Removes Cross-faction imports debuff (-25% ship quality)
	Orbital Works	300,000¢ 150 days	(Size - 2) * 6,000¢	Heavy Machinery: [Size - 2] Supplies: [Size - 2] Heavy Armaments: [Size - 2] Ship Hulls & Weapons: [Size - 2]	Metals: [Size] Transplutonics: [Size - 2]	Provides faction ships with +20% quality Upgraded from Heavy Industry
	Fuel Production	450,000¢ 120 days	(Size - 2) * 5,000¢	Fuel: [Size - 2]	Volatiles: [Size]
	Commerce	450,000¢ 90 days	(Size - 2) * 1,500¢	+25% Colony Income	None	-3 stability Allow buying/selling In-colony
	Military Base	450,000¢ 120 days	(Size - 2) * 5,000¢	Crew: [Size] Marines: [Size]	Fuel: [Size + 1] Supplies: [Size + 1] Ship Hulls & Weapons: [Size + 1]	+2 stability x1.2 Ground Defences Patrols: See Military Base Upgraded from Patrol HQ
	High Command	150,000¢ 120 days	(Size - 2) * 7,000¢	Crew: [Size] Marines: [Size]	Fuel: [Size + 2] Supplies: [Size + 2] Ship Hulls & Weapons: [Size + 2]	+2 stability x1.3 Ground Defences Patrols: see High Command Upgraded from Military Base

Structures List

Structures List
Image	Name	Cost / Time	Base Upkeep	Production / Effect	Demands	Notes
	Spaceport	50,000¢ 15 days	(Size - 2) * 1,500¢	Accessibility +50% Population growth +2 Crew: [Size - 1]	Fuel: [Size - 2] Supplies: [Size - 2] Ship Hulls & Weapons: [Size - 2]	Built Automatically
	Megaport	300,000¢ 150 days	(Size - 2) * 2,000¢	Accessibility +80% Population growth +(colony size) Crew: [Size + 2]	Fuel: [Size] Supplies: [Size] Ship Hulls & Weapons: [Size]	Upgraded from Spaceport
	Waystation	100,000¢ 60 days	(Size - 2) * 1,000¢	Accessibility +10% Supplied demand goes into colony stockpile	Fuel: [Size] Supplies: [Size] Crew: [Size] Volatiles: [1] Transplutonics: [1]
	Ground Defenses	150,000¢ 60 days	(Size - 2) * 1,000¢	+1 stability x2 ground defenses	Supplies: [Size] Marines: [Size] Heavy Armaments: [Size - 2]
	Heavy Batteries	300,000¢ 90 days	(Size - 2) * 1,500¢	+1 stability x3 ground defenses	Supplies: [Size] Marines: [Size] Heavy Armaments: [Size - 2]	Upgraded from Ground Defences
	Patrol HQ	300,000¢ 60 days	4,000¢	+1 stability 2x light patrol fleet Crew: [Size]	Fuel: [Size] Supplies: [Size] Ship Hulls & Weapons: [Size]
	Orbital Station	150,000¢ 90 days	1,500¢	+1 stability x1.5 Ground Defense 50% Station CR	Supplies: 3 Crew: 3	Choices between: Low Tech, Midline, and High Tech
	Battle Station	500,000¢ 120 days	6,000¢	+2 stability x2 Ground Defense 75% Station CR	Supplies: 5 Crew: 5	Upgraded from Orbital Station
	Star Fortress	1,000,000¢ 180 days	12,500¢	+3 stability x3 Ground Defense 100% Station CR	Supplies: 7 Crew: 7	Upgraded from Battlestation
	Cryorevival Facility	300,000¢ 60 days	(Size - 2) * 2,500¢	Increase population growth by (colony size * 10)	Organics: 10	Needs to be within 10ly of a Domain-era Cryosleeper
	Planetary Shield	750,000¢ 90 days	4,500¢	x3 Ground Defense		Blueprint gained from Story Mission

Colony Upgrades

There are several ways to improve your colony further:

• Employ a skilled Administrator.
• Spend Story Points on buildings.
• Install AI Cores in buildings.
• Installable Modules can be found and fitted to buildings.

Administrators

The player can administer colonies, and will do so unless another is selected. If only one colonies are administered directly they recieve a +2 Stability bonus. Every colony past the second applies -2 Stability to all colonies instead. If the Industrial Planning skill is taken all structures will have +1 Production.

A Hired Adminstrator can manage your colony for you. Up to three can be hired and they can also have the Industrial Planning skill. The salary is 2,500¢ for a regular administrators or 20,000¢ for a skilled one. There is a hiring fee of twice their salary, and their salary when not assigned to a colony is only 10% the normal rate.

An Alpha-level AI Core can also run a colony. An AI core has no Salary, has the Industrial Planning skill, and also has the unique Hypercognition skill that provides +10% Accessibility, +20% Fleet Size, +50% Ground Defences, and +1 Stability. They are illegal to use, however, and will attract Unwanted Attention.

Improvements

It costs 2 SP 0% XP to improve a structure the first time, and double that for each subsequent improvement. What the improvement is depends on the structure, as seen in the table below.

Due to the fact that each improvement increases the cost of subsequent improvement, story point improvements should be used sparingly, as such, it is not recommended to use them to increase unit production, but instead for more unique effects like the Commerce.

AI Cores

AI Cores can be installed on industry buildings.

• Gamma: -1 units of demands, increases Pather interest & Hegemony interest by 1.
• Beta: -1 units of demands and -25% upkeep, increases Pather interest & Hegemony interest by 2.
• Alpha: -1 units of demands, -25% upkeep, and a unique bonus, increases Pather interest & Hegemony interest by 4.

Installable Modules

Installable addons are Special Items that can be found and applied to colony structures. Each Module is unique and has it's own requirements, found in a table below. Modules can be obtained when searching Equipment Caches and the like, or from Tech-Mining Ruins. Some modules can also be stolen from other faction's colony during raids although the economic balance of the sector is highly dependent on thse domain-era artifacts.

• Eventide (Samarra) has a Fullerene Spool on its Spaceport.
• Nachiketa (Naraka) and Sindria (Askonia) have Synchotron Core Fuel Refineries.
• Chicomoztoc (Aztlan) and Kazeron (Thule) have Pristine Nanoforges on their Orbital Works.
• Sindria (Askonia), Asher (Canaan), Culann Starforge (Hybrasil), and Nova Maxios (Magec) have Corrupted Nanoforges on their Orbital Works.
• Eventide also has an Orbital Solar Array, which is similar to an Orbital Fusion Lamp but cannot be installed or removed. It is rarely found on other planets in the sector.

Note that all of these items when used will raise Pather interest by 4 (except for Hypershunt Tap which will raise it by 8).

Installable Module Requirements & Effects
Image	Name	Value	Installed on	Requirements	Effects
	Autonomous Mantle Bore	80,000¢	Mining	Not Gas Giant Not Habitable	+3 Production on all except for Volatiles
	Biofactory Embryo	120,000¢	Light Industry	Habitable	+2 Production
	Catalytic Core	100,000¢	Refining	No Atmosphere	+3 Production
	Combat Drone Replicator	60,000¢	Ground Defences Heavy Batteries	-	x1.5 Ground Defense
	Corrupted Nanoforge	50,000¢	Heavy Industry Orbital Works	-	+1 Production +20% Fleet Quality Pollution (+25% Hazard Rating) on Habitable Planets (Permanent)
	Cryoarithmetic Engine	200,000¢	Patrol HQ Military Base High Command	Hot or Extreme Heat Planet	+25% Fleet Size on Hot +100% Fleet Size on Extreme Heat
	Dealmaker Holosuite	120,000¢	Commerce	-	+50% Colony Income
	Fullerene Spool	150,000¢	Spaceport/Megaport	Not Gas / Ice Giant No Extreme Weather No Extreme Tectonic Activity	+30% Accessibility
	Hypershunt Tap	300,000¢	Population & Infrastructure	10 Light-year (max) from a Coronal Hypershunt	+1 Industry Limit +10 Transplutonics Demand
	Orbital Fusion Lamp	150,000¢	Population & Infrastructure	-	Mitigate Hazard Penalty the following features: Cold, Extreme Cold, Poor Light, and Darkness +10 Volatiles Demand
	Plasma Dynamo	100,000¢	Mining	Gas / Ice Giant	+3 Production on Volatiles
	Pristine Nanoforge	250,000¢	Heavy Industry Orbital Works	-	+3 Production +50% Fleet Quality Pollution (+25% Hazard Rating) on Habitable Planets (Permanent)
	Soil Nanites	60,000¢	Farming	No Volatiles deposit No Transplutonic deposit	+2 Production
	Synchrotron Core	250,000¢	Fuel Production	No Atmosphere	+3 Production

Table of Improvements Effects

Table of Improvements Effects
Image	Colony Building	Addon Effect	SP Improvement Effect	Alpha Core Effect
	Commerce	+50% Colony Income	+25% Colony Income	+25% Colony Income
	Spaceport Megaport	+30% Accessibility	+20% Accessibility	+20% Accessibility
	Waystation	-	+20% Accessibility	Greatly increases Waystation stockpiles
	Orbital Station Battlestation Star Fortress	-	+1 Stability	Increases station combat effectiveness (Station gets a level 20 AI officer)
	Ground Defenses Heavy Batteries	x1.5 Ground Defence	x1.25 Ground Defence	x1.5 Ground Defence
	Planetary Shield	-
	Patrol HQ	+25% Fleet Size (Hot) +100% Fleet Size (Extreme Heat)	+1 Medium Patrol	Increases fleet size by 1.25x
	Military Base High Command		+1 Heavy Patrol
	Cryorevival Facility	-	Doubles population growth bonus	Doubles population growth bonus
	Aquaculture	-	+1 Production	+1 Production
	Farming	+2 Production
	Light Industry
	Refining	+3 Production
	Fuel Production
	Heavy Industry Orbital Works
	Mining	+3 Production (non-volatile)
	Population & Infrastructure	Varies (See above)	+1 Stability
	Tech-Mining	-	Improved findings from Ruins	Improved findings from Ruins

Up to date for latest version, 0.97a.