Construction Woes

[Osito]

Possibly this is a bug, or possibly I'm missing the bleeding obvious.

My empire has just been attacked by the Shakturi. I have just one space port, but that's fine, because it's got the Bakuras high speed shipyards, which will easily pump out enough ships to blow the Shakturi back to whatever hell mouth the crawled out of. Anyway, I digress ...

Just as the war started, my private sector, with its characteristice perfect timing, decided that the population is going to want to go out and watch the war first hand (or maybe the population just wants to get away - very sensible), and builds about 100 passenger ships.

Obviously, I wouldn't mind being able to fit in the construction of the odd cruiser, but my ship building seems to have locked up. The space port will not complete construction of most of the ships. They have now been set on the same construction percentage for ages.

For reference, I have 30 construction yards (which is a lot). I only had one of each type of manufacturing plant, and I wondered whether that was the problem, but I increased the plants to five of each, to no effect. I'm thinking I'm going to have to try retroffiting the port with fewer construction yards (although I'm not sure if that will work while they're full).

I'm definitely not out of resources. There's no message, and I checked the numbers.

Anyone got any ideas?

Edit: I think I may have been wrong. I think there is a resource shortage, as those ships which are not being completed are showing up orange. Anyone know whether there's a way to tell which resource is missing?

[Spidey]

I think "under construction" ships (and "under deconstruction") are always orange. But try double clicking on the ship name to get the ship details and then look under components. What component is the last one built? That ought to tell you something about what the issue is.

Alternatively, look under cargo for your space port and check what the stockpiles are for strategic resources. There's 19 of them so it might be a bit chaotic to find the one that isn't there, but it's doable. Divide the resources into groups if necessary. Gasses, crystals, common metals, rare materials.

[pycco]

ah that works or you can use the expansion planner and sort the resources by various ways.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: Spidey

I think "under construction" ships (and "under deconstruction") are always orange.

Ok, I was clutching at straws there: I now see the orange is for 'new build' while black/grey is for retrofitting.

ORIGINAL: Spidey

But try double clicking on the ship name to get the ship details and then look under components. What component is the last one built? That ought to tell you something about what the issue is.

Alternatively, look under cargo for your space port and check what the stockpiles are for strategic resources. There's 19 of them so it might be a bit chaotic to find the one that isn't there, but it's doable. Divide the resources into groups if necessary. Gasses, crystals, common metals, rare materials.

A useful suggestion, which served to confirm that I do have tons of all the strategic resources, which in turn confirms that there is no resource deficit. It also confirms that the unbuilt items were nuclear exterminators, and that I had an excess of all the resources specifically needed for those items.

However, I had no nuclear exterminators in stock, and the space port refused to make any. Fast forward 2 months, and suddenly it decides to make them. The only explanation I can think of is that it can get a little glitchy when a lot of ships are being built in one space port.

[Fenrisfil]

I don't think having so few manufacturing plants (compared to ship yards) is a good idea. Each component has to be constructed in a plant first and if your building 30 of the same ship type they will all be trying to tap the same plant at the same time. Even with 5 of each your going to have 15-25 ship yards sitting around waiting for components (25 if they all want the same plant type at once). Still, having said that you should see some progress. Perhaps you just confused the game too much.

[Spidey]

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, Fenris. I believe the plants can produce components for a lot more than one construction yard at a time and I've experienced no issues with a 1 to 15 ratio between yards and plants. I'm pretty sure someone actually tested it a while back and came to the conclusion that you'd need beyond 30 construction yards in a port to actually use up the capacity of a single plant.

Personally, I'm convinced that three plants of each type is actually overkill on the side of caution.

[Icemania]

The testing was by feelotraveller here.

Looking at my homeworld in the colonies cargo tab there are a range of components stored. However it's only those components that I have used in builds e.g. no Nuclear Exterminators as I never use them. In addition, perhaps the plants themselves have their own hidden build queue and/or the game only checks/changes the component build queue every so often (maybe as part of decision made by the developer to optimise computation with large galaxies).

[Osito]

I can broadly confirm Feelotraveller's results too. I've never had a need to put more than one of each manufacturing plant on a base before, and I'm not convinced I needed them this time.

My own view is that some senior personnel on the Space Port were taking kick backs from the private sector to build freighters and passenger ships in preference to military ships. The Shakturi were probably behind it too. My leader was kicked out shortly afterwards, which tends to support my (conspiracy) theory.

[CyclopsSlayer]

I generally cover my butt and put 2 of each plant at the homeworld construction site. That safely provides for 24 Yards with the Bakuras Yards built there. Never seen any messages about, or noticed any construction slowdowns.