AI War:Build Time and Constructors (including Repair)

This page is updated for game version 5.035 and should still be correct

Constructors

Your mobile units are constructed at fabricators such as the Space Dock or the Starship Constructor.
When you select a fabricator, the ships it can build will be shown in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Left-Click on a ship icon to add to the queue, Right-Click to remove. Holding down ALT will add or remove 5 ships to the queue, CTRL will add or remove 10 ships.
There is a maximum of 50 ships of the same type and Mark level in the queue.
Powering down the fabricator will stop construction without removing ships from the queue. (The Play/Pause button).
You can build the queue a single time or loop the queue with the queue control button. (The Left arrow for a single time or Looping arrow to cycle through the queue).
If a ship in the queue is already at cap and can not be built, the queue will skip over it.
If there are insufficient Metal or Crystal to build a ship construction will slowly proceed as resources flow in.
If there is insufficient Energy to add the ship to your fleet, the ship will pause at 100% construction until there is sufficient Energy, effectively pausing the queue.

Structures Built as Stand Alone

Immobile structures and some ships are built as stand alone structures in space.
When these are selected the mouse cursor will have a ghosted image of the structure to be built underneath it, Left click to place the structure and begin construction.
If the ghost image is outlined in red, the structure can not be built there, most likely due to proximity to another structure or a wormhole.
ALT and CTRL clicking to build multiple structures also works when placing stand alone structures, the multiple units are placed as close together as possible to your mouse cursor.
When zoomed out all the way, the smaller, green, dashed circle is the build limit for the system, no structures can be built outside this circle.
Structures under construction have a self-build Construction Rate of 1.

Construction Rate (Ship Ability)

All fabricators have a Construction Rate 1 ability even though their ship detail pop-up does not show it.
Engineers and similar ships have their Construction Rate listed as an ability.
Construction Rates are linear. Construction Rate 2 is twice as fast as Construction Rate 1, Construction Rate 3 is three times as fast, etc.

Build Time

The unassisted build time for a structure is show in the pop-up details box on the first line in light gray.
Metal and Crytal are linearly consumed during the build process so that at 25% construction progress, 25% of the Metal and Crystal the unit requires have been consumed.
This unassisted build time is shown in the details pop-up window and assumes only the fabricator is constructing the unit (or not being assisted for stand-alone units).
When you select a fabricator the build times listed on the ships it can build reflect the number of currently assisting engineers.

Assisting Construction Queues

Engineers can assist both fabricators and stand-alone structures to speed up their construction.
The Construction Rate ability that allows them to do so also indicates how much they assist.
A Mark II Engineer with Construction Rate 2 provides the same assistance as two Mark I Engineers that both have the Construction Rate 1 ability.
To determine how fast units will be built with Engineer assistance add up all the Construction Rate abilities (remember that the fabricator is worth 1) and then divide the unassisted build time by that.

For example: A Fighter Mark I has a built time of 2 seconds. An unassisted Space Dock with an effective Construction Rate of 1 will build 1 Fighter every 2 seconds. (2 Seconds / 1 Construction Rate = 2 Seconds per Fighter)
If the Space Dock is assisted by a single Mark I Engineer, the effective Construction Rate is now 2. The Space Dock will now produce 1 Fighter per second. (2 Seconds / 2 Construction Rate = 1 Seconds per Fighter)
If the Space Dock is assisted by 7 Mark I Engineers, the effective Construction Rate is now 8. (7 Engineers + 1 Space Dock). The Space Dock is now producing 4 Fighters per second. (2 Seconds / 8 Construction Rate = 0.25 Seconds per Fighter)
There is no limit to how many Engineers can assist a fabricator, however the fabricator is limited to producing no more then 4 ships per second.
So for our Fighter Mark I, adding any more assisting Engineers would be a waste as with the 7 already present the fabricator is working at maximum speed.
However, as build time increases more Engineers would still help. For a Fighter Mark IV with a 10 second build time, an effective Construction Rate of 40 would be required to produce Fighters at the 4 ships per second maximum, as opposed to the effective Construction Rate of 8 that the Fighter Mark I requires.
Note that regardless of how fast a ship is built, it still consumes the same amount of resources. As Construction Speed Increases so does the rate of consumption of Metal and Crystal.

Repairing Ships

This page is updated for game version 5.035 and should still be correct

Need more details, repairing is half the cost and four times as fast? --Diazo 18:42, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

By doing some investigations on Broken Golems, I've arrived at a figure for repair mechanics below. --Zharmad 08:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Repairing a ship is both cheaper and faster than constructing a replacement. The base costs of repair of a ship from "0"-health to max health is 25% of the build costs, and takes approximately 25% of the total build time (exact number not established). Of course, the more health this ship has before repairs, the shorter the total time required becomes.

However, both the repair costs and rates are scaled by the repair rate of the vessel doing the repairs. This means that a single Engineer-III with "Repair Rate 12" will finish repairing a ship twice as fast and at half cost compared to a single Engineer-I (which has "Repair Rate 6"). It therefore stands to reason that Engineers are always better choices if the players desire efficiency, over that of Mobile Repair Stations (1x) and Fortresses (2.5x). The advantages of the others lie in their survivability without micro.

This is unlike construction costs (which do not scale with the engineer rate), and is best shown when repairing broken golems.