after getting very confused by using the Engineering Lab (EngLab thereafter), I decided to go indepth and make a guide.
Some game aspects of EL are incredibly complex, others like station building incredibly simple and easy. So other guides for this game are very welcome
EngLab explained
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If you don't get results in your EngLab, then maybe it's because you are confused by its design. There are 2 main points to keep
in mind:
1)
The upper window of the EngLab is a design window only, it's NOT a container, you don't transfer things from your cargo/hangar in these slots!
2)
To construct things, you need the EXACT quantity of components in your cargo/hangar slots, not more, not less.
The second point is not a no-brainer at all and most tutorial guides and videos skip this one.
With these 2 points in mind, you should succeed in building stuff once you have the blueprints for a template. Without blueprints? FORGET ABOUT IT! It's impossible to guess the right design because you won't know about where to place the right commodities and how much of them, you have INFINITE possibilities and cannot pick the right one by trial and error.
The major problem to get these exact commodity quantities comes into play when you look at your cargo slots:
You can get 2 cargo slots fitted with the same commodity when you buy them, but you CANNOT split a commodity in 2 slots if you only have 1 type of it. So, say if you have 25 batteries in one cargo slot, you cannot split it to 12 batteries + 13 batteries. There is NO trick to do that (AFAIK).
But What you can do is: When buying a rare commodity, you can put them in 2 slots. You do that as follows (v. 1.2078):
- Right-click on a item to sell and you will buy 1 item at a time.
- Then, left click on the remaining quantity and it will be placed in another slot.
Now you will ask: why it's so complicated, why should I do that? It's because most blueprints will require MORE INSTANCES of the same commodity.
So the most important rule when you search and collect commodities for your template, is:
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BUY ALL RARE COMMODITIES IN A WAY TO HAVE THEM IN AT LEAST 2 DIFFERENT SLOTS
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Use the method above. In order to get them to the exact quantity needed by the template, within your Inventory go with the mouse in your cargo slots, press ALT and right-click in one slot. This will transfer 1 slot item to another slot if it's the same commodity. Do
this until you get the right quantity and then put them in your Hangar to free up your cargo slots. Repeat for other items if needed.
Final tip:
Rare items like focal mirrors, energy emitters etc. can be HARD to find. If you miss one for your template, one way to find it is to go in
Inventory > News > System information > Regional News
If you see a recent entry with something like "Prices of batteries have decreased to 70% in Sapphire", this essentially means that
there is an existing stock of batteries to be sold, but no one buys them, hence the price dropping. So you should be able to find
batteries in Sapphire! [yes, tested]. But the news entry has to be RECENT enough, otherwise you just lose time going there.
There is another way to save time for finding items or to generally simplify tasks in EL, IMO it's just a cheat, read and do the spoiler (end of guide) only if you are absolutely stucked...
A much more simpler way to always have what you need is:
Instead of waiting until you need them, buy or collect rare items every time you get to see them. But be sure to put them in 2 CARGO SLOTS when buying (see above) and store them in the local station Hangar. This will cost you storage fees again and again, but your benefits from the templates you build will more than compensate for this, and you don't have to run the galaxy in search of rare items.
...[SPOILER]...
Often in the game, you can simply jump out and in of a sector to get new missions, new commodities, enemies/not enemies etc., but use this method sparingly...
...[END OF SPOILER]...
Have fun with Legacy,
XenonS
[Edited on 4-20-2016 by XenonSurf]
