Valid as of game version 2.2.2f.

The meta of the Base Building DLC is:

• You passively mine resources from large asteroids;
  
• You can mine these specific resources even after the asteroid been depleted;
  
• You can sell these resources passively for credits;
  
• You can buy very high quality Specialist crew from each base;
  
• You can set up industrial production chains to create finished products at high efficiency;
  
• You can refine ores passively.

You can use these resources for crafting, including building a fleet of ships (using the Technomancer blueprints). If you choose your asteroid resources carefully, you can use sell those resources for a huge profit. These resources are infinite, so your income is infinite. The credits are more than enough to pay for the upkeep costs of your stations. Therefore, the number of your bases is theoretically limited only by Galaxy size.

This is an alternate means of generating income and resources (including crafting materials) that is different from other activities, like Asteroid Rush mining, refining, supply missions, bounties or buying items from stations. If your bases are built effectively, they can generate these resources/credits faster and more efficiently. The bases work in the background, meaning you can do other activities while generating these resources, including focusing your time on activities that you find more "fun" and less time spent on the grindier parts of the game.

It's worth it to unlock the new "Contractor" Perk (obtain 25 in Construction knowledge before any other), which gives +1 station trait, and doubles duration of boosters. Both bonuses are great, it's one of the best economic perks, these bonuses translate into a lot of credits long-term. If you have an old save where you're locked out of this, then, it's worth it to consider starting a new game just for this.

You gain Construction knowledge by constructing more number of base structures, and having the structures gain levels by gaining XP (some modules in a structure gain a small amount of XP per minute passively; more XP can be gained by having enemy ships blow up in its proximity, and I think also by doing activities like mining). Achieving 25 Construction first is difficult, because you need to prevent from getting 25 Space Pilot (or 25 Fleet Commander) knowledge, yet you regularly fight raiders in base defense once every few minutes, based on your station's threat level. You can bribe raiders not to attack your base, for credits; this will save you from having to fight battles. You can also reduce station threat level to a point where it no longer accumulates, but this requires more base upkeep from having more turrets.

Once you unlock "Contractor," you start any new game with it.

5 Construction knowledge is needed to build a basic Mining Station. I do not recommend the more obvious methods, like starting with a builder ship (the Beaver is not a good starting ship, this can make your early game more tedious overall; a Wizard start feels a lot better), nor the new crew member Tess (John Luck Pickerd is my favourite starting crew), nor the new Experience perk "Builder" (there are better Experience perks, like "Acceleration," "Velocity," "Command").

Instead, for an optimal start, accumulate enough resources and credits that you can affort to build a couple of basic structures that do not require Construction knowledge, like a Small Station, Light Turret, Solar Array. Have enough credits that you can pay for their upkeep, while you wait for them to level up, which will net you 5 Construction knowledge.

Then, you can start building a Mining Station. This can start to make you basic income.

Building a base in the early game is not optimal for my preferred playstyle. Players like Desian and -Ripper- have made it work great, so it's feasible, but it depends on preferences.

Bases create XP early on, which increases your level and it increases the level of the sector, which increases the strength of enemies; but, the increase in your combat strength is disproportionately lower (because the base does not give you weapons/equipment), which makes it harder for you to complete Level-locked goals (like "Battle Rush" Perk at level 9, and the Hephaesetus quest at level 25). The fact that the base does not improve your strength much also makes it hard for you to defend the base against attacks, both regular attacks (by random enemies on the map) and scripted raider attacks. Turrets are helpful, but they need you to actually supply them with a weapon, and they are weak without credit investment in module upgrades. A Mining Station in an early base can potentially produce the ingredients necessary to craft building materials, but you need a basic knowledge of mining/refining in order to plan for how to set this up properly, and this is not intuitive for most players. If you are not focusing your time to visit higher level stations (to buy better gear) and improve your Tech level (to be able to use better gear), the early game will feel slow.

So again, all of the above is feasible (it largely entails using the credits obtained from mining to buy things from other stations, and using refining to produce the raw materials to craft things), but I personally just prefer to use the early game to prepare for an early/mid-game base.

In the early game, I mainly focus on regular non-DLC activities that give items that you I use (and Tech knowledge to use better gear), like salvaging debris fields (with "Expert Scavenging" and "Master Scavenging" skills), completing missions to obtain rewards, explore high level sectors further away, obtaining a better warp drive and batteries to explore even further, and buying equipment from higher level stations to further improve warp travel and impulse speed. The improvement in travel speed synergistically makes all progression faster. When you are ready to start constructing your first base, it will feel smoother.

In my preferred playstyle, I plan to build my base in the early/mid-game. By then, you have more credits and more resources, which will allow you to more easily fabricate building materials and build more structures and more modules as you wish. Your ship will be stronger, allowing you to destroy threats to your base single-handedly, so less worry about having to upgrade your turrets. You would have explored more sectors with your Asteroid Analyzer, giving you a better idea of good potential locations for a base.

• You will have a purple-tier Building module, making your buildings start at a higher level, which gives them more trait points and better stats.
  
  
  
• Try to obtain the new Holocron to increase your Construction knowledge gain by a significant percent.
  
  
  
• Try to obtain and train Supervisor Specialist crew that give bonus to Construction knowledge.
  
  
  
• Extra Construction knowledge gives bonuses to bases, including more Trait points, more HP, and more XP gained.
  

As player -Ripper- explained, precious metals are the best exports, meaning they are simple to extract (you can make a profit with just a single Mining Station; they don't require any ingredients), require no extra refinement (no extra structures means less threat generated and less upkeep), and have a high sale value in credits. The limiting factor is: a Tier 1 Market module, in a low-level Small Station, can only sell items of a certain low Trade level. Meaning, you cannot sell Gold or Platinum until your Market and Station are both higher level, and XP is gained slowly.


Your first mining base should be in a sector that contains Silver or Titanium (Silver is worth slightly more). Once you have made a substantial profit, you can then create a new base in a sector that has Platinum (Gold is almost as good).

It is difficult to sell cheaper items, meaning traders may only buy your cheaper products rarely. Apparently, this also is influenced by whether the product is saturated in the nearby market (although this is hard to test). In one of my sectors, traders rarely ever bought my Silver. I have never had any problems selling Platinum or Gold. If you cannot sell certain cheaper products, then you can load them onto your ship and manually sell them at a nearby station. That is how I made millions of credits selling my Silver.

Player AnotherBoris prefers the export of Coffee, rather than minerals. The advantage is that Coffee can be produced at an Agristation using two simple ingredients: Ice and Organic Matter. These two ingredients are plentiful even in low level sectors, and Coffee can be easily sold (in my limited testing, Coffee seems to sell faster than Silver).

I still prefer to sell minerals. Minerals can be mined with only 1 Mining Station each, not 2 like Coffee, and do not require an Agristation to manufacture a product. Mineral mining produces a lot less threat, requiring less Turrets to manage threat. I agree that Coffee is a fair alternative to Silver, and both are almost equally good in the early game.

Sector with higher Mineral Quality, on average, have a higher chance of containing more valuable and more numbers of resource types. I've consistently found higher rates of Platinum on these areas. The quantity of each resource does not matter, though. You can keep extracting these resources from a large asteroid even after it's been depleted, so the presence of any amount of a resource means that it is infinite.

Solar Output only matters in the very early game, when your Construction level is too low to build Power Plants. Once you pass this, then you will always build Power Plants. I've tested this, and a Power Plant will always generate more power than a Solar Array, even in sectors with "Extremely High" solar output.

High sector Population can matter, but I guarantee that you can achieve a huge income regardless of Population size. My Platinum and Gold mining bases are located in sectors that have low Population, yet I can still sell all of my minerals (thousands of units of it) without any problem.

In theory, high population will contain more traders, which means faster sales. It theoretically translates into more profits. Player Mantric proved that a station in a high Population sector can make a lot of profit from just NPC ship repairs alone.

Player quixotic_tinkerer explained that sectors near many other sectors will attract more traders. Apparently NPC traders will usually travel 12-20 parsecs to buy your items. You are discouraged from building trading stations at the edge of the Galaxy.

Basic and most important factor. The quantity of each resource does not actually matter. You can also keep extracting these resources from a large asteroid even after it's been depleted, so the presence of any amount of a resource means that it is infinite. It is better to have more different types of resources, but not necessary.

Early on, your base will start off at a low level, so everything will have low HP and a low number of trait points, which means even less HP and less armor. If you can't handle Level 52 enemies, then don't build a base in a level 52 area.

Later, you can defend a new base in a Level 52 area by spending a lot of credits upgrading several Heavy Turrets (28-48K each) and arming them with the best Custom 6-space, 100-heat weapons you can craft.

Smaller sectors can be traversed faster. Placing the base close to the middle of the map means you won't have to build a Warp Beacon. A Very Small sector in a Nebula is a great place to farm Ancient Relics. My first base is in a Very Small Nebula, and I get Ancient Relics just hanging out there. Player Jean explains that a Nebula will spawn an Ancient Relic once every 0.5-3 minutes, which is twice as often than in a non-Nebula sector. Nebulae are also brighter than dark space, which makes the bases easier to see and more aesthetically pleasing.

A Large sector has the advantage of potentially having more diverse resources to exploit, but the disadvantage of taking a very long time to traverse (having to travel from one Large Asteroid to another can take a long time). Having your main base in a Large sector rich with resources is a fair alternative to a Very Small Nebula.

Jean has a Guide about ancient relic hunting, which discusses Very Small Nebulae: https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2321121974

Advice from player Brummbaer.

There is a rare bug in version 2.2 where a Jumpgate spawned directly inside of a large asteroid, and this large asteroid is generally bugged because ships gets stuck inside of it all the time.

You cannot build main Stations (Medium Stations) or industry buildings (Factories, Agristation, Laboratory) close to asteroids. Because you cannot cluster these structures in the same spot, and you must place them apart anyways, it is actually best to place them close to the middle of the map, where your ship warps in using its warp drive. This allows you to access the main Station and industry buildings faster. Place a few Turrets here for defense.

Turrets and power plants do not have this restriction. You can place them almost anywhere, but keeping them a few spaces apart helps to reduce damage from enemy area-of-effect weapons.

Large asteroids have open and solid parts. Solid parts block your Turret weapons, preventing them from catching enemy ships in crossfires, leaving your Mining stations more vulnerable to attack.

Using Repair drones with the "Automatic targeting" bonus is the best way to create structures. They build structures faster than repair beams, and the range of these drones is basically across the screen.

They will also repair any base structure that gets attacked, although this makes the drones no longer repair your vessel, making your ship more vulnerable to attack (as player Paradox had already explained in another thread).

Structures generate threat per minute, which spawns raiding fleets to attack your base at a rate determined by threat. I initially ignored this, only to realize that the fleets get stronger over time, to the point where at the 61st wave they are as strong as the end-game warp-in fleets. Eventually, they will become so strong that they will start destroying some of your base buildings. You can ignore this for a while, but eventually you're going to want to mitigate threat altogether.

Sectors with bases have a minimum +1 to threat each minute. To cancel this, you must build at least a Tier 1 Diplomacy module on your main Station. This module can also reduce threat by up to -2.5 per minute at Tier 4.

You just need to create more Turrets than other structures, keeping track of the math. Turrets reduce threat by -0.8. Mining Stations and industry buildings are the worst, generating +2 threat; for each, you need to add 2.5 Turrets. Main Stations, Power Plant (and Solar Arrays) generate +1 threat, so you need to add 1.25 Turrets for each of those. Warp Beacons and only Lights generate +0.3 threat. If you maintain balance, your threat will remain stable, and fleets will no longer spawn.

Diplomacy modules can also be flipped to increase threat, rather than decrease it. This function can be useful to farm enemies (for XP, Crew XP, Knowledge, and loot).

For both Mining Stations and industry stations, you must invest 3 points in a Tier 1 trait, then upgrade the module (mining or fabrication module) to Tier 2, then spend 2 more points to unlock the Tier 2 trait that gives +1 Production Yield. This gives you 1 more product for the same ingredient. Meaning, instead of making 2 Coffee, you make 3, and instead of getting 1 Ice for each unit of Ice in the asteroid you get 2 intead. This increases the yield of the asteroid by about 100%.

You will need at least 5 Trait points to start this, and 7 Trait points to maximize the resource extraction rate.





As player Ragnaman pointed out, you can also spent an item to boost the module (mining, fabrication, and even energy generators) for an additional temporary +1 Production Yield bonus, meaning +2 in total. The booster is different for each module, and each provides a different duration of bonus. The duration bonus is doubled for the "Contractor" perk, which is why it is a must-have:


Thermal Regulators can be made at a Factory, Organic Matter can be mined infinitely, Robotics can be made by the Factory itself (it can increase the production yield of its own booster, and Factory can also produce some of the ingredients for the Robotics), Chemical can be made by the Laboratory itself (using Volatile, which can be mined infinitely).

Refineries and Energy Generators provide slightly different bonuses (Geology bonus, and more energy):




There is a subtle (not significant) diminishing returns on selling items the more of them you have in the Station Storage over 24 units. The penalty is small, you can still make a large profit regardless of surplus, but what this means is that there is no pressure to massively overproduce any single product in a single sector.



Upgrading the Refinery module's Trait, and upgrading the module's Tier, can both increase its Refining Rate. This increases the yield of all ores refined, which increases efficiency of resource extraction, including to obtain Scrap Metal and Refined Metal. Station refining is much more efficient than refining using a ship.

The Tier 2 Production Yield bonus (of Mining stations and industry buildings) needs 500 power each, which is very hard to obtain without a Power Plant. So you'll need to build a power plant within range of all of the stations that you want to provide increased yields to.

Upgrading the High-Output Generator module (upgrading its tier, and investing trait points into energy) in the Power Plant is the most optimal way to increase energy. The reason is that: you will always choose the Tier 2 trait for that module, and spend 5 points to max out the Tier 1 trait, and all of these basically add a multiplicative bonus to the power generated. The upkeep cost of this is more efficient than the upkeep costs of multiple Basic Generators (in the other structures) that produce less energy. A single fully-upgraded Power Plant can power many nearby stations on its own, allowing you to remove the "Basic Generator" module on all of the other stations, which significantly reduces your upkeep costs. You can use a booster too, which removes its upkeep cost. One Battery booster can eliminate the upkeep cost of a Tier 4 High-Output Generator for over 1 hour (with the "Contractor" perk).

The Power Plant's High-Output Generator module always produces more energy than a Solar Array's Solar Generator module, even in "Extremely High" solar output sectors. Solar Arrays are only useful in the early game, when your Construction knowledge is too low to construct Power Plants.

Heavy Turrets are better in almost every way than Light Turrets, and you can fit your best Custom 6-space 100-heat/s weapon in it, and the Heavy Turret triples its DPS (weapon DPS x 3). On the weapon crafting screen, click "Show Raw Values" to make sure the weapon's heat is under 100/s, and click the "Preset" button to Export the weapon prototype, as you will create dozens of the same one. To reduce heat, add Heatsink boosters, and add Armor Piercing mods to the weapon.

A level 50 Heavy Turret has 14850 HP, 66.8% damage reduction, 3% HP regen per 5 seconds (0.6% per second), and turret turning speed of 5. Spend credits to upgrade the Turret module itself, to increase the turret Tech level (to equip better weapons) and increase the heat dissipation (up to 100).



I prefer Heavy Turrets over Sniper Turrets. Sniper Turrets similarly have a 100/s heat limit, but can equip a size-8 weapon, more long-range damage, more projectile speed, and more range. The disadvantages are very slow turret turning speed of 1, a 75% damage penalty at short range, and no HP bonus. Another subtle problem is that it is harder to craft a size-8 weapon with heat generation around 100/s.

Heavy Turrets are just so much more versatile than Sniper Turrets, in my opinion.

Light Turrets have far less damage and defense than Heavy Turrets, but they have the advantage of much faster turret turning speed, and can equip two separate (less powerful) weapons into two separate turrets. Light Turrets can sometimes be useful in a support role. The usual options are custom point defense (PD) weapons and custom repair beams. Repair beams are a mixed bag, as they repair nearby NPC ships, which reduces your main station income from repair of NPC ships.

Advanced Factories produce building materials at a higher efficiency (additional +2 products created for the same ingredients) than you can craft alone. Use Robotics to "boost" the Production Yield, use the Tier 2 trait, and the Factory can also produce its own booster. Factories also produce Microchips at a high efficiency. Microchips are used in large quantities to craft a lot of useful things, including many Custom Weapons and ship blueprints. Finally, they can produce Thermal Regulators, which are boosters for Mining Stations.

Always set a limit on production for each product, so that you do not overproduce any item. You only need hundreds of microchips and dozens of buildings materials, not thousands.



Plan to construct all three Industry buildings (Advanced Factory, Agristation, Laboratory) in the same sector, and focus your ore refining in this sector. This will be your main base of operations. With all your resources in one place, you can set up an industrial production chain to create the majority of finished products at a high efficiency (more product made per ingredient used).

Some products cannot be produced by these buildings (including all "Components" and "Kits"). You can use your Medium Station's normal Workshop to craft these other items, like normal, but without increased efficiency.

Tier 4 Academy module is truly amazing. You will regularly see Blue and Purple crew, and all of them specialized to whatever you choose, and they will sometimes be of a low level, sometimes even Level 1. They refresh more often than at a regular station.

With multiple bases, you can have multiple Academies, for more chance at a good specialist crew. I've been able to recruit a lot of Level 1 Blue specialists this way.

Once you've mastered both upkeep costs and threat, then there is no downside to building bases in multiple sectors. This allows you to mine every different type resource you want, and to have multiple excellent Academies to recruit good quality crew.

As of version 2.2.1e, there is no way to automatically ferry products from one sector to another. You can just load the cargo into your ship and fly to the sector manually though.

A fully upgraded Sensor Relay generates 1% threat, increases your ship's Scanner range by +360, and can fully reveal a sector map. If your main base is situated in a Very Small Nebula, which player Jean explains generates Ancient Relics at the highest rate, you can easily acquire an Ancient Relic once every 0.5-3 minutes (Nebulas naturally lower your Scanner range; the Sensor Relay can overcome this penalty, allowing you to see Ancient Relics as soon as they spawn on the map).

Fully revealing a sector map can quickly increase your Explorer knowledge and can quickly earn you the Perk "Fun With Maps."

"Galactic Tychoon" and "Lasting Legacy" are great perks to unlock. You need to keep the same base until they unlock though. Just don't dismantle your base prematurely.

For "Lasting Legacy," you will want to create a base without any turrets, to both encourage raiding fleets to spawn and to ensure that they are always at minimal strength, and use your ship to destroy these fleets, until enemy wave 20-21. After the Perk unlocks, then build the turrets.

Values are for mining Ice, with 3 Trait bonus


Very High Solar Output

Extremely High Solar Output


Values for refining Green Ore

quixotic_tinkerer has pinned a link to a spreadsheet that is essentially a comprehensive wikipedia of the game. It now includes all of the DLC fabrication recipes. Refering to this is necessary if you want to set up a complicated production chain.
https://steamproxy.com/app/833360/discussions/0/3081006782747200403/

It is a must-read for any player wanting to optimize their gameplay.