Unit Fabrication

= SR2020 Warfare Guide - Unit Fabrication = Submitted by Balthagor on Mon, 01/14/2013 - 09:09 New Units must be constructed from a unit design that you have obtained by default, research, espionage or trade. These units are constructed at "fabs" or may be obtained from un-solicited diplomatic offers. Units can be auto-built by the Defense Minister or can be built "to order" by the player.

Unit Designs
Before a new Unit can be fabricated your Region must possess a design for it and that design must first be researched. Unit designs are closely associated with your "Tech Level" and prerequisite technologies. Unit designs and other research subjects currently being researched are known as "Projects".

Fabrication Facilities
A military unit fabrication facility or "fab", such as a naval fabrication facility, can be constructed from the Defense Facilities Panel. When the construction of a new fab is initiated on an empty hex, the construction of a companion military complex (hub) and a reserve base node are automatically begun in the hex as well.

Completed fabs are listed on the main DD Defense panel under Production/All Production. The operation of too many active fabs can result in CB against your Region, since your neighboring units see a large nearby unit fabrication capacity (MilCap) as a threat. You can deactivate unused fabs to reduce CB and to free up reserve units, however this will also increase your Region's unemployment.

When you order the fabrication of new units you either select "All Production" from the Defense panel, or you select a specific fab/hex from its list of active fabs. If you have selected "All Production" on the Defense panel then the DM will select the first available fab from the list to queue you unit construction order to. Otherwise you must select the specific fab that you want to produce the units(s) - this is the best way.

[from GIJoe597:] "...military buildings always work at 100% capacity when you have the work force. Supply, loyalty, do not affect them at all. So you do not need to build the rails/roads and waste the upkeep cost of them."

Rally Points
Completed units are normally placed into reserve at a military base located on the same complex as its fab. However it is often more expedient to have newly emerging units auto-deploy and then automatically proceed to a remote "rally-point" of your choosing. The default rally-point is the hex where the unit was fabricated.

Rally-points are set using the Main Defense panel's "All Reserves" list. When a Reserve base is selected from this list the "Set Rally Point" button appears which allows you to set a RP on the map.

Units auto-built by the Defense Minister have no auto-deploy option so they always go into reserve, however when the player manually deploys them then the units will move to their rally-point.

Defense Fabrication
All unit construction requires military goods, money and build time. Player controlled construction is controlled from Unit Fabrication Panel. Units can be built on a "one off" basis or can be built "Continually", serially, one at a time.

Use the unit technical readout to select units best suited to your intended use.

Missile platforms such as ships must be capable of loading the size of missiles that you are fabricating. Missiles for hitting targets must be direct-fire. Indirect fire units will do damage hex-wide but cannot target individual units or structures.

Indirect-fire ships cannot defend themselves against nearby enemy direct-fire ships. Choose ships with long-range, direct-fire characteristics for use in shore bombardment.

Airborne operations will require a well-balanced force of air-drop capable units.

Amphibious operations sometimes do not have a sea-port to use as their target beach-head therefore amphibious ships loaded with amphibious land units are required. Be sure to bring along some Engineers to build a proper sea-pier and other military base to further your invasion.

Auto-Build
If you allow the Defense Minister to auto-build units it will likely build a balanced mix of units selected from the highest tech level of each class. The DM will use all of your active fabs. You can change this mix to be offensive or defensive in nature. Units auto-built by the DM also have the option of being built stronger than normal in smaller quantities or weaker in greater quantities.

The problem with auto-build is that the DM's construction selections may not match your own judgment or at worst may result in totally inappropriate selections. For example, bridging units are in the same class as supply trucks and the DM is fond of building supply-class units. However if the supply class unit design with the highest tech-level happens to be a bridging unit then the DM may begin mass-producing bridging units. As in most cases, here it is best to allow the DM to supplement your own management efforts.

The DM auto-build function is affected by these two new features that have been added to make unit facbrication easier for you to manage: Excluded units won't be built by the minister and Favorites will get priority when the minister is picking units to automatically fabricate.
 * 1) Excluded Unit Designs - selected unit designs can now be excluded from all fabrication lists of unit designs.
 * 2) Favorite Unit Designs - selected designs can now be marked as favorites and then will not be filtered (hidden) from fabrication lists of unit designs.

These two new features can be toggled "On" and "Off" from the Player Options menus.

You can set the new Unit design states to one of three choices (Figure 1) using their pop-up unit design Technical Readout:
 * Excluded - the design is filtered (hidden) from all lists of fabrication unit designs. This is the default.
 * Normal - the design will only be filtered from the list if "replaced" or "obsolete". This is unchanged.
 * Favorite - the unit will not be filtered.

Manufacturing Details
All unit require money, resources and time in order to fabricate them. If you are on a low budget, time schedule or are short on resources then it would be prudent for your to choose the units to fabricate using these details from the unit's technical readout. This section will tell you which units can be build the fastest, the cheapest, what resources you must have in stock in order to build the unit.

All deployed units have a persistent Annual Maintenance cost associated with them and this is also listed on the TR.

Units such as nuclear-powered submarines have an associated Uranium Cost associated with their launch and this cost is also listed in the TR.