All Our Base Belong to Us.

Making a station is easy. Just build a ship and don’t put any thrusters on it.
There you go, this article is done.  :)

However, there are some more reasons to mess with stations.

First off – if you have a station design in your inventory, the game will prefer to use that design when you explore the world and come across a station point to activate. Thus, you can get a decked-out BOSS weapons platform of your own design essentially for free. …. Actually, the game gives you credits for activating a station, so you get that too. Even if you have just started a game, you can place an 8000P station design in your inventory, and the game will use it for deactivated stations. So, even if you can’t build it with your own factory, you can still get it to spawn.

Secondly, for some factions you can get unique blocks that are not on your regular block palette by duplicating a station design.

To duplicate a design,

hit Tab to switch to Command Mode.

Hover your mouse over the station and hit 3. The ship inventory screen will pop-up.

You’ll see the station design in the Top Left box.

Hold down Alt and drag the station design to your inventory.
If the station design is locked, (because you don’t have enough P or the right blocks unlocked), you can still duplicate the design. But you won’t be able to edit it.

Once you have a copy of the design, you can open it up and rearrange the blocks as you please.
You can make use of the unique blocks by copying them, but if you delete all of them they are not on your block pallet, so you’ll have to copy a design again.

Here are a few cool things:

With the Starting Faction

You get the larger Command Module. It’s bigger, fatter, has more power output, and if you don’t completely enclose it, it will act as it’s own factory.
There’s a weird bug with this block though. Sometimes when the station gets destroyed, the Command Module will become indestructible, but never regrows.

You also get the Asteroid blocks that plants grow on, including unobtainium, which can be used as a strong armor.

Unobtanium has 1000 health and is tiny. So a 4 x 4 block of it would = 16,000 health for 32P.

There is also a Transformer block, but as far as I can tell – it doesn’t do anything.

One thing to note is that you can’t use these blocks in an official tournament because they’re not really part of the starting faction block set.

With the Bee Faction (#12)

You can duplicate the building designs, and every building has a Command Module that’s bigger and generates it’s own R.

It doesn’t generate R as quickly as solar panels, but if you make a fleet of ships using that Command Module, you have endless R.
To maximize the effect don’t use ships in your fleet that have factories. That way they’ll give the R to you when you bump into them.

Factions that Don’t have Stations

hmm… looks a little small. – That’s what she… ah, forget it.

The Bees don’t actually have a station design. (Actually they do have a piece called a station, but it looks like a building, and frankly it sucks.) They have building designs, meaning they use the Root blocks and have no thrusters. So, for them when you activate a station, you’re just getting a building that’s not attached to anything. If you design an actual station for the bees, then that design will pretty much always be used when you activate a disabled station.

For the Reds (faction 3), – they don’t have a station at all. They spawn the Research Center, which is a not-so-hot ship.
If you make a station design for them, it’ll melt when attacked because it’s still faction 3, but you can deck it out with maximum firepower and rest easy with the knowledge that you didn’t have to pay anything for it.

Other Notables

The blue Crystalline faction (11). Oddly their big station design doesn’t have a factory. There are a few big ships that spawn units, but the station itself is actually neutered. You might want to fix that.

The Farmers have a super large station design, but I’ve honestly never seen it spawn. Maybe it’s too big.

You can force a station to spawn larger ships, even ones that are above your P limit.
Hit Tab to enter Command Mode. Hover your mouse over the station and hit 3.
Now drag your design to the production que for the station. Fill up all four slots.
The station should just retain R until it has enough to build the ship.

You can even create a design that’s say 8000P, but if you’ve only unlocked 5000P you can’t actually build it. However, you can find a station to build it. The station has to be big enough. Some of them rate at over 12000P. Find a big one, give it the design, eventually it’ll build it. You can’t add the ship to your fleet, but it got built and it’s on your side.

 

That’s about all I can think of for now. If you can think of anything else to add, let me know and I’ll revise this post.