User:Rikur vaktor/Upwell Structures

Upwell structures are large player made structures. They replace the older player made outposts and player-owned starbases. These structures come in three different categories: Citadels, Refineries, and Engineering complexes. Citadels are used for bases of operation and are the easiest structures to defend. Refineries are used for refining ore into minerals, reactions, and moon mining. Engineering complexes have their strengths in research, invention, and manufacturing.

Upwell Structure Services

Upwell structures have a wide variety of services that they can offer. Some services are available even in an unfitted structure, but most services will require a specific service module to be fitted. Fitted service modules also require fuel in order to function, and the fuel must be provided by the station owner/corporation or capsuleer specifically assigned the Fuel Operator role.

Services Available in All Structures

• Contracts (direct trading and deliveries)
• Corporation offices
• Hangar
• Insurance
• Repair shop
• Ship fitting
• Tethering

Services Available as Service Modules

The services below require fuel to stay online and operational.

• Blueprint research
• Capital ship manufacturing
• Clone bay
• Invention
• Manufacturing
• Market
• Moon mining
• Reactions (Booster, Composite, or Hybrid)
• Reprocessing
• Super-capital ship manufacturing

These services will go offline if there is not enough fuel. Offline services will pause all manufacturing jobs, stop market activity and lock any clones deposited in the clone bay. The materials and clones that were in their respective modules are not destroyed, but they can not be recovered unless the service is bought back online. Industry and research jobs can be still cancelled, however, this action will not return any of the materials.

Out of these services, the moon mining, reactions and (super)capital manufacturing services are the only ones with restrictions. All other services can be installed in any Upwell structure. The Clone bay service has additional limitations if fitted in wormhole space. You cannot jump into a structure that is located in wormhole space, so the clone bay is limited to clone swapping only.

Advantages of Upwell structures

Upwell structures are comparable to NPC stations but with several distinct advantages.

Tethering allows pilots to sit in immediate vicinity of a friendly structure. This has a few benefits:

• Warping to the structure is safe as you tether immediately after landing.
• Warping away is safe as you will do the aligning while tethered.
• Large tether radius makes it very hard to bubble the entire structure at once.

An Upwell structure with a clone bay will allow capsuleers to swap clones without a cooldown period. To do this you need to be in the same structure as your target clone.

The engineering complexes and refineries have significant bonuses that give them an edge over NPC stations. Additionally, the Upwell structures can fit manufacturing, research and refining rigs to further augment the benefits of the structure.

Upwell structures can also be fitted with offensive capabilities.

Citadels

Citadels are upwell structures meant to be used as operation bases. They receive bonuses to combat rig effectiveness, market service fuel usage and cloning bay fuel usage. Citadels also have the shortest vulnurability durations and strongest combat options making them easier to defend.

The three citadels are Astrahus (medium), Fortizar (large) and Keepstar (extra large). They have exactly same structure bonuses so the difference is only how much things they can have fitted, how long vulnurabilities they have and how much of a status symbol they are.

There is also special Upwell Palatine Keepstar extra-large citadel. This citadel has ridiculously high material requirements and only one can be deployed at any given time.

Astrahus (medium)

Fortizar (large)

Keepstar (extra-large)

Structure	Role bonuses		Attributes
				Max docking		Extra
Astrahus	25%	25%	3	subcapital	3h
Fortizar	25%	25%	5	capital	6h
Keepstar	25%	25%	7	supercapital	21h	Can use doomsday weapon

Refineries

Refineries are structures of choice for refining materials, reactions and moon mining. These are the only structures that can do reactions or moon mining and also receive innate bonuses to refining yelds and both reprocessing and refining service module fuel consumtion.

The two refineries are Athanor (medium) and Tatara (large). The athanor docking is limited to only subcapitals while Tatara also allows rorquals to dock.

Athanor (medium)

Tatara (large)

Structure	Role bonuses			Attributes
					Max docking		Extra
Athanor	2%	20%		3	subcapital	20h
Tatara	4%	25%	25%	5	subcapital	20h	Rorqual can dock

Moon mining

Main article: Moon Mining

Moon mining can take place only at refineries anchored within 250 km of a mining beacon and fitted with a Standup Moon Drill I service module, which appears on the outside of the structure as a giant laser turret aimed at the moon. A single cycle takes 1 to 8 weeks depending on setup. The steps are as follows:

1. Anchor the structure within 250 km of moon mining beacon. The beacon can be warped to from the right click menu in space. Only one refinery can be placed within range of the beacon.
2. Set the length of the desired mining cycle. The amount of ore brought up with each cycle is directly proportional to the cycle time (20k m³ per hour), so choose whatever works best for your schedule
3. Fire the laser at the moon. This will break off a chunk of the moon and allow it to be pulled away from the surface.
4. The mining turret's tractor beam will gradually pull the chunk away from the surface. It will continue to move into position until the time you specified in step 2.
5. Fire the laser again, this time at the moon chunk. It will explode into a lot of little chunks, or asteroids.
6. Send forth your minions miners to mine the asteroid belt. Have them bring it back to the refinery to turn it into precious moon goo.
7. While your miners are busy killing rocks, you can get started setting up the next cycle.

Savvy players may note that this results in much more risky gameplay than previous moon mining mechanics. The predictable timing of mining cycles combined with the high value of moon ores makes moon mining belts a prime target for pirates. Refinery operators should prepare a response against any attacks, as well as dealing with ninja miners attempting to steal moon ore.

Engineering complexes

Engineering complexes are the structures of choice for research and manufacturing. Research and manufacturing services installed in engineering complexes consume less fuel. In addition the engineering complexes have innate bonuses to manufacturing material usage, manufacturing and science job durations and manufacturing and science job installation fees.

The three engineering complexes are Raitaru (medium), Azbel (large) and Sotiyo (extra-large). All three limit their docking to battleships and below so once a built capital ship comes out it can not go back in.

Raitaru (medium)

Azbel (large)

Sotiyo (extra-large)

Structure	Role bonuses				Attributes
						Max docking		Extra
Raitaru	1%	15%	3%	25%	3	subcapital	9h
Azbel	1%	20%	4%	25%	5	subcapital	18h	Can build capitals
Sotiyo	1%	30%	5%	25%	6	subcapital + capital	36h	Can build supercapitals.

Finding structures

The Structure Browser is able to show you info on structures in same system, same constellation or same region as where you are. It has information about what structures and stations are accessible and what services they offer. You can find the structure browser in the NeoCom under "Business" or by hitting the Esc-button and setting up a shortcut for it.

Structure Browser

While you are in space your overview will show all citadels that you have docking rights for. Citadels that are on grid are shown even if no docking rights are available.

Citadels to which you don't have docking rights are visible in solar map in brackets.