- Activate a system (by taking a command token from your tactic pool and placing it on the map)
- Move ships into it
- Space Combat
- Invade Planets
The final step is Production.
If the system you have activated contains one of your Space Docks, you use this final step of the Tactical Action to produce units.
To be clear, you're not usually going to be engaging in combat AND producing units during the same tactical action. To produce units, you perform a tactical action to activate a system that contains a space dock that you own. You already own the system, thus you skip the combat portions of the tactical action (though you may still move units into the newly activated system, if you wish to).
PRODUCTION
For this example, let's say that the Sardakk N'orr have activated their home system, which contains a space dock on the planet of Quinarra.
Note the two numerical values on Quinarra. The yellow 3 is Quinarra's RESOURCE value (often referred to simply as it's "production"). The blue 1 is its INFLUENCE value.
For every planet that you control, you have its corresponding planet card face up in front of you:
Now let's take a look at the Space Dock unit:
So, Quinarra has a resource value of 3, and this space dock has a production value of 5 (two plus the planet's resource value). This means that this space dock can produce up to 5 units in a turn.
To produce units, you spend resources by exhausting (turning over) planet cards. So, for example, Quinarra generates 3 resources, but I can combine it with other planets by exhausting those as well. (Don't worry, they'll turn back over and become ready again during the Status phase).
For this example, let's say I have 8 available resources among my ready planets (i.e. my planets which have not been exhausted yet this turn).
I have 8 resources to spend, and I can produce up to 5 total units from this space dock.
Next, I check the COST of the units I wish to produce (which are illustrated on your race sheet.
For readability's sake, I'm not posting the whole race sheet here, just a small section:
I can choose to produce any combination of units, so long as I have production value and available resources.
Example: For 8 resources, I could produce 2 Exotriremes (this is the Sardakk N'Orr version of the Dreadnought). Or, I could produce 4 Destroyers and a Carrier.
Note that for Fighters and Infantry, you get 2 units per 1 resource.
Additionally: Remember your Fleet pool on your command sheet. If the number of ships in your system exceeds the number of tokens in your Fleet pool, you will need to sacrifice ships to satisfy this limitation (note: Fighters do not count towards your limit).
Finally, because there weren't enough things to remember, don't forget to consider your CAPACITY. You cannot have more fighters in a system than you have capacity for. Certain ships (such as the Carrier) generate capacity.
Your space dock also allows for up to 3 fighters without counting against capacity.
BLOCKADE
You cannot produce ships in a system that contains enemy ships, though you can still produce infantry.
TIP: MOVEMENT
To produce units, you have to activate a system containing a space dock. This means that you've just placed a command token into that system.
Remember that you cannot move units out of a system that contains one of your command tokens.
This generally means that you cannot move units the turn that you produce them. Keep that in mind.
INFLUENCE
In addition to resources, planets have an influence value.
Influence is primarily used for casting votes during the Agenda Phase. We'll discuss the agenda phase in more detail in future posts, but you should be aware that producing units is a trade off with your ability to cast votes. Similar to exhausting planets for their resources, so too do you exhaust them to use their influence to cast votes on agendas. Each spent Influence point counts as 1 vote towards and outcome of an agenda.
TRADE GOODS
Talking about Resources and Influence is a good time to mention Trade Goods. Trade goods are currency that players can spend or trade. You can spend trade goods as either influence or resources. For example, rather than spending 3 resources to produce a carrier unit, you could spend 1 resource and 2 trade goods.
COMMODITIES
Fourth Edition also introduces Commodities. A commodity functions exactly like a trade good... except that YOU can't use them. Once you trade a commodity to another player, it becomes a trade good.
You primarily acquire trade goods and commodities via the Trade strategy card.
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