Wildly fluctuating space ports income

[Pocus]

Hi,

So ... I made the jump. So far so good, even if a few patches can't do bad [;)]

I have several questions, but there is one in particular, that almost crippled my debut of an empire: My space ports income wildly fluctuate. For years I have been at 20k income a year, but then during 2 years it fells to 3. Now it is back at 9.

I never had wars or big events, basically, the fluctuation happened while nothing major changed in my empire. This is a real problem as if you tailor your combat fleet to some expected income, if this income falls... bah!

[Starfry]

Were you in a war and lose a bunch of fieght ships?

[Pocus]

no, this is what is strange. Nothing major basically happened, no external event, no major construction plan on my side... The private fleet grew steadily as the mining stations (slowly but steadily), but yet, the space ports income fell from 20 to 3 during 2 years.

[Erik Rutins]

The most common cause for fluctuations in space port income is that the private sector periodically needs ships built and then does not. The orders tend to come in waves rather than at a constant trickle and this can cause space port income to rise and fall depending on what the private sector needs at any given time.

[BigWolfChris]

At the sametime, prices in resources will go up and down based on demand meaning the price per ship will rise and fall

[Pocus]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

The most common cause for fluctuations in space port income is that the private sector periodically needs ships built and then does not. The orders tend to come in waves rather than at a constant trickle and this can cause space port income to rise and fall depending on what the private sector needs at any given time.

good point Erik, now it makes sense to me.
What about the resources transported by the private sector? Are they really sold somewhere? Within your Empire, they are always stockpiled, right (unless used to build something), and never sold?
So you can earn bucks from resources only if they are transported and then sold to another Empire?

- 2 -
What about resource shortage? I never experimented once a problem with that, i.e a ship need to be built and I don't have the resources, or not in the right place. Is it because there is a plentiful of all resources at every place, or there are some 'ease the mechanic' features within the game, like allowing to build a component even if you lack some of the resources but you pay more in credits instead. I'm curious about this one. Can you really stall in one strategic resource, or an alternate mechanism will activate?

[Joram]

Yes, you can really stall on one strategic resource.  When I was playing those cat people (the scientist ones, I forget their name), their beginning shield tech required dilithium which while not exactly rare can only be found on ocean planets.  Well it turns out that ocean planets themselves aren't always that common either so I had completely stalled my empires building because everything had shields on it.  You can then either send your existing ships far and wide till you find the planet with resource on it and build a mining station or colonize it.  Worst case, your private mining ships will eventually start going to that planet too but possibly not as fast as you'd like. 
In any case, I thought that issue was addressed but to answer your question, yes, you can stall your entire production line.  If you can't locate that resource, then your best bet is to redesign your ships so it doesn't need that component if that's possible.