Manufacturing
All factory buildings has can produce commodities using manufacturing processes.
The manufacturing processes of a building can be configured using the "Building" window (default F10) while at the building's site. The manufacturing processes can also be configured remotely via the capitol building.
Contents
Workshops
A factory building has a number of workshops available depending on the building design, these workshops are then allocated to manufacturing processes.
Manufacturing Processes
Each manufacturing process can only produce one commodity at a time. The number of workshops a manufacturing process has will multiply the input and output of the manufacturing process, but the process duration will be the same.
New
If there is at least one unallocated workshop, a new manufacturing process can be added.
A small dialog with a dropdown menu allows the selection of what commodity the new manufacturing process should produce.
Add All
Next to the new process button, you'll see one with an asterisk (*), which can add every possible process. One worker is assigned to each new process until the number of shops is depleted. The first process added is the default process for the industry.
Remove
Removing a manufacturing process will free up all the allocated workshops. The manufacturing process can then be added again if desired.
Ordering
A manufacturing process can be moved up and down the list. This is the process priority. The order of the manufacturing processes affects which will get worked and which won't if there aren't enough workers available.
Workers
The workers indicate how many citizens are actively working at the building. Workers will automatically be assigned to manufacturing processes that have vacant workshops from top to bottom. For example; the second manufacturing process don't get any workers before the first manufacturing process has its workers equal to its workshops.
A manufacturing process that has workers assigned to it will periodically be run. Depending on the empire's income tax the frequency of runs will be lower.
Manufacturing processes with no allocated workshops will not get any workers assigned and will therefore not be run automatically, but can still be run manually by an avatar.
If there are enough citizens in the connected homes, the number of workers in the building will become equal to the number of workshops the building has.
Options
Each manufacturing process has a number of options to control what and how it should work.
Minimum Quality
Establishes the minimum quality of commodities used in the manufacturing process. Commodities of lower quality than the selected minimum will be ignored when fetching needed commodities for the manufacturing process.
The quality of tools and environmental factors does not matter, since they have no bearing on the quality of the end product.
This option does not affect manufacturing processes that don't consume commodities. For example mining processes at mines, farming at a farm, or refining gasses from the atmosphere at a refinery.
Stock Limit
Setting a stock limit will stop citizens from running the manufacturing process if the building's inventory has equal or greater amount of its output commodity type.
Operation
To view the progress of a manufacturing line or operate it manually.
Components and Tools
The first box lists all the commodities that will be consumed when the manufacturing line is run. The second box list all the tools or other factors that are required, speedup or increase yield of the run. Tools may take durability damage when used.
Fetch and Run
Fetch will import needed commodities directly from the storage at connected buildings. The commodities are added to the manufacturing process. When a number of commodities is fetched, a test of their quality is made. If any fail, the number of fetched commodities is reduced. Another fetch is then required to get more.
Tools are used from the building's tool box. If a tool is needed, one is fetched from connected buildings. Tools are used when the manufacturing process is run.
Run will first attempt to fetch any missing commodities, meaning that using the "Fetch" button is not actually necessary. If all needed commodities are in the manufacturing process, a check is then made for required tools and environmental factors, on success the process is started.
Output
The manufacturing process displays a message to indicate how the last run of the manufacturing process went. It shows the quality and quantity of the commodities produced.
Can also display warnings about being unable to spawn a spacecraft or vehicle, or obsolete discarding of product.
Manual Labor
An avatar can run any manufacturing process the building has listed. If the number of workers is less than the number of workshops, the avatar will be added to the number of workers for that run of the process.
