Licenses
In order to produce any given unit, a world must have that unit's design license. This is a general term which covers all sorts of production facilities . . . factories for tanks and recon units, shipyards for spacecraft, breeding farms for biotechnic monstrosities, training centers for Zenrin monks . . .
Every world starts with a few licenses. More licenses can be bought for each world . . . the more complex and powerful the unit, the higher the license cost. This cost must be paid from the Ultranium available in that world's Base Fleet.
Licenses are only usable on the world where they are purchased. They cannot be transferred or transported to other worlds. Neither can they be destroyed. When a world changes hands, all its licenses come with it.
To See Where Your Licenses Are
At the top of the Show All Production page is a link to Show All Licenses. It will display all the units you can build, with a list of the worlds that can build each one.
To Purchase New Licenses
- Click New Order on one of your World Information pages to access the Production page.
- Click Buy License to display the Buy Design License page. It is organized by unit type - scanners, fighters, and so on. Use Show All to see all the available licenses, or click an arrow by a unit type to see only that kind of unit. If you don't see a unit at all, it means you are not allowed to buy it - perhaps it's limited to another race, perhaps it's not in this game at all, perhaps it will become available on a later turn.
- Click the checkbox next to the license you want to buy. Units you already own will have OWN in that column. If a unit has neither OWN nor a checkbox, it means you do not have enough Ultranium on that world to buy the license.
- As always, for a detailed description of any unit, click its name.
- Click Cancel Purchase at the bottom of the page if you decide against buying a license at this time.
- Otherwise, click Purchase License at the bottom of the page to buy the chosen license.
- The license will now appear in that world's Production Queue. It requires no population to build a license, but it DOES require Ultranium, and that cost must be paid before the license is finished. If there's not enough Ultranium on the world to finish the license when it comes up in the queue, the world will spend all the Ult it has left and the license will appear at the top of the queue next turn, partially finished, just as if it were a unit.
- The newly authorized unit will appear in the Unit list for the world as soon as the license is ordered. You may order the unit immediately, but those orders have to be queued below the order for the license itself. Work can't start on the units until the license is finished!
- To review the ordering process, see Unit Production.
