Industry — Your Supply Chain in Space

You can play SPAR Sector as a pure trader: buy low, ship far, sell high. You can also play it as an industrialist: deploy autonomous robots, mine the raw material, refine it, manufacture finished goods, and bring those to market. This page is the field manual for the second path — the M-SPAR / R-SPAR / X-SPAR / MULE supply chain.

The chain at a glance

RAW MATERIAL          REFINED MATERIAL       FINISHED GOOD
( ELM / GAS / ICE )   ( ingots / gases /     ( FGN turrets / FGW power /
                        deuterium )           FGE electronics / etc. )

   M-SPAR    →    →    R-SPAR    →    →    X-SPAR
   extracts          refines              assembles
   at a body         (module-typed)        (blueprint-gated)

           ↑                                  ↑
           └────────── MULE routes ───────────┘
              (haul material between assets,
               or to a Trade Floor to sell)

Each step is a separate autonomous asset you own, deploy, and route to. The chain is mobile — you can buy more assets, position them in different systems, and rearrange your supply lines as the markets shift.

Step 1 — Buy your assets

At any Ship Yard (PLT-SM) or Starport (PLT-SP) hub, open /ssmenu → Storefront → Assets. The assets you’ll see for sale:

• M-SPAR — Self-contained Processing Autonomous Robotic module for mining. Deploys to a body and extracts raw materials over turns.
• R-SPAR — Refines raw material into intermediates. Comes with a fitted module that determines its recipe family (Smelter for ores, Chemical Reactor for water / volatiles, Gas Purifier for helium-3, Isotope Separator for deuterium).
• X-SPAR — Manufactures finished goods. Blueprint-gated: you must own the matching BPT material in your inventory for the X-SPAR to run a given recipe.
• MULE — Mobile haUL Expediter. The hauler. Routes material between assets and to Trade Floors. FTL-capable.
• WHISKER — Sensor probe for exploring new systems. Separate role; not part of the production chain.

All four come in Std (smaller) and Exp (expanded) sizes, plus +S shielded variants for hauling shielded-class cargo.

Step 2 — Deploy and position

M-SPAR is the only asset that deploys to a body:

/ssdeploy asset_name:"M-SPAR Alpha" body_name:"Mercury"

It parks at the body and starts extracting raw materials each turn into its cargo_output hold. Mining yield depends on the body type (16 ratio tables — asteroids, gas giants, ice worlds, etc. all give different mixes).

R-SPAR and X-SPAR don’t deploy to a body. They sit in a system (and optionally at a hub) and process whatever you put in their cargo_input hold. They have no special deploy verb — just buy them and they live wherever you bought them.

MULE doesn’t deploy either — it travels along the route you configure.

Step 3 — Engage your R-SPAR and X-SPAR

The production phase of every turn compile only runs SPARs whose status is operating. R-SPARs and X-SPARs ship from the Ship Yard idle by default. Two ways to engage them:

Automatic. The moment a MULE delivers feedstock to a SPAR’s cargo_input, the SPAR auto-flips to operating. No action needed for the common case — set up your routes and let the chain wake itself up.

Manual. If you want to engage a SPAR before feed arrives (or to override):

/ssengage asset_name:"R-SPAR Alpha"

Or click the ⚡ Engage button on the asset’s card in Console → Comms → Asset Comms (or Console → Assets → Remote Comms — same view, two doors).

M-SPARs do not need engagement — /ssdeploy already starts them. MULEs engage when you set their route. WHISKERs engage when you launch them as a probe.

Step 4 — Route MULEs to feed the chain

The MULE is the hauler. Its route has four parameters:

• Origin — where to pick up (a system name, a hub, or another asset).
• Destination — where to drop off.
• Material — what to haul.
• Pickup / deliver type — trade_floor (a hub’s market) or spar (the runtime pulls from the origin SPAR’s output hold on pickup, and delivers to the destination SPAR’s input hold on drop-off, picking the correct side from context). Both default to trade_floor if you omit them.

The three patterns you’ll use most:

The pickup_type and deliver_type arguments each take one of two values: trade_floor (a system’s market) or spar (any SPAR — the runtime figures out output-hold for pickup, input-hold for delivery from context). Both default to trade_floor if you omit them.

Trade Floor → SPAR (feed your refinery)

/ssmuleroute mule_name:"MULE Alpha" origin:"Sol" destination:"R-SPAR Alpha"
             material_id:"ELM003" deliver_type:"spar"

The MULE buys iron ore at Sol’s Trade Floor, ferries it to R-SPAR Alpha, drops it in the input hold. R-SPAR Alpha auto-engages and smelts ingots next turn. pickup_type is omitted because the default trade_floor is what we want.

SPAR → SPAR (chain the supply line)

/ssmuleroute mule_name:"MULE Bravo" origin:"R-SPAR Alpha" destination:"X-SPAR Alpha"
             material_id:"ELM006" pickup_type:"spar" deliver_type:"spar"

The MULE picks ingots out of R-SPAR Alpha’s output hold and drops them in X-SPAR Alpha’s input hold. The blueprint-loaded X-SPAR Alpha consumes them and produces a finished good next turn.

SPAR → Trade Floor (cash out)

/ssmuleroute mule_name:"MULE Charlie" origin:"X-SPAR Alpha" destination:"Sirius"
             material_id:"FGN003" pickup_type:"spar"

The MULE picks the finished module out of X-SPAR Alpha and sells it at Sirius’s Trade Floor. deliver_type is omitted because the default trade_floor is what we want.

Multi-leg milk runs

A single MULE can run a multi-leg circuit (up to 10 legs). Pass the legs as a semicolon-separated string; each leg is origin,destination,material:

/ssmilkrun mule_name:"MULE Delta"
           legs:"Sol,Kepler,ELM001;Kepler,Sirius,RFA021;Sirius,Sol,ELM006"

The MULE cycles through the legs in order, hauling each material along its leg. Useful for circular trades that exploit price spreads across three or more systems.

Step 5 — Manage assets remotely

You don’t need to fly to each asset to check on it. Open the Remote Comms view:

• Console → 📡 Comms → Asset Comms, OR
• Console → 🤖 Assets → Remote Comms

Both open the same panel: every remote asset grouped by system, filtered by type. Per-asset orders (six buttons):

• 📊 Status — full asset detail
• 🗺️ Locate — star-map with the asset’s system highlighted
• 🚀 Rendezvous — transit the asset to your ship’s current system
• 🎯 Dispatch — transit the asset to any explored system
• 🛣️ Set Route (MULE only) — opens the route editor
• 🏠 Recall — bring the asset to your docked hub (requires you to be docked)
• ⚡ Engage (R/X-SPAR only, when idle) — flip to operating

Transit takes one jump per turn; 1-hop trips land same turn.

X-SPAR Blueprints

X-SPAR recipes are gated by blueprints (BPT materials in your inventory). Today’s catalog:

Blueprint	Material	Recipe
BPT001	Basic Drive Blueprint	Basic Thruster Assembly
BPT003	Advanced Drive Blueprint	Advanced Jump Drive Assembly
BPT004	Weapon Module Blueprint	Heavy Railgun Assembly
BPT005	Electronics Blueprint	Sensor Array Assembly
BPT007	Shield Module Blueprint	Shield Generator Assembly
BPT008	Exotic Containment Blueprint	Exotic Matter Containment Module

Own a BPT in ss_inventory (quantity ≥ 1) and that recipe unlocks across all of your X-SPARs. The X-SPAR’s production loop matches recipes by cargo_input — load the matching feedstock and the right finished good comes out.

R-SPARs have no blueprint requirement — their fitted module determines the recipe.

Strategy — the trader vs the industrialist

Trading is simple and capital-light: spot a price spread between systems, buy low, ferry, sell high. Profit per turn depends on your warp range and license coverage; you can scale by buying bigger holds.

Industry is heavier but compounding:

1. Capital cost is upfront. A four-asset chain (M-SPAR + R-SPAR + X-SPAR + MULE) runs you 8k–60k SOL at the storefront depending on tier and shielding.
2. The chain produces ~every turn. Once it’s running, your output per turn is roughly (mining yield × refinery throughput × X-SPAR throughput), minus any bottleneck.
3. Markup is built in. Finished goods sell for many times the raw value of their inputs. The Trade Floor takes a 2% Guild tax; your net margin is the rest.
4. Bottlenecks are real. If your X-SPAR has a 100 IHu / turn assembly rate but your R-SPAR only refines 50 IHu / turn, you waste half your X-SPAR. Match your throughput tiers.

A short list of decisions you’ll make over and over:

• Where to park the M-SPAR. Mineral-rich bodies vary by system. Use a WHISKER to scan unexplored systems before committing.
• Vertical vs horizontal. Run the full chain (own everything) for maximum margin, or skip steps and buy the missing tier at the Trade Floor. Vertical scales harder; horizontal lets you change product mix faster.
• Where to sell. A finished module sells for more in a high-pop system with unmet demand than in the system that produced it. MULE legs are cheap — bring output to where the buyers are.
• Cargo class. Some materials are shielded-only (heavy isotopes, certain exotics). Your MULE, R-SPAR, X-SPAR, and ship hold all need to be the right class to handle them. Mismatch = cargo refused at intake.
• Shielded vs Std assets. +S variants cost ~50% more but unlock shielded-cargo routes. Plan your supply chain’s cargo class before you buy.
• Warp mass. Every kilogram on your ship costs you AP to push through a wormhole jump. Cargo holds full of ore, fitted modules, and SPARs/MULEs clamped in your hangar all add to the mass your StarDrive has to thread through the fold. A bigger drive (T3 over T1) carries 4x as much per push-AP, that’s the cost you pay for capability. Tier-match your hull to your drive (a T3 designed for a Large hull pays no hull mass tax), and lighten the ship for long warps (drop clamped assets off at a hub if you’re not piggy-backing them on purpose).

Common gotchas

• R-SPAR Alpha won’t refine anything. Check its cargo_input — empty input = no output. Set up a MULE route delivering raw material to it.
• My X-SPAR has cargo in but isn’t producing. Confirm you own the matching BPT in your inventory. Without the blueprint, the X-SPAR can’t match a recipe.
• My X-SPAR has a blueprint but isn’t producing. Confirm the cargo class of the input is compatible with the X-SPAR’s hold (regular vs shielded vs exotic).
• My MULE isn’t hauling. Confirm its route_material is one of: a specific material ID, ALL (dump-all), or a milk-run config. Also confirm the MULE has a trade license that covers the material’s tier and sector.
• The asset is stuck in another system. Use Rendezvous (bring it to me) or Recall (bring it home to my docked hub) from the Remote Comms panel.

Reference — the slash commands

Command	What it does
/ssdeploy	Deploy an M-SPAR to a body for mining
/ssrecall	Pull an asset back to idle (does not move it; see Recall in Remote Comms for transit-to-dock)
/ssengage	Flip an R-SPAR or X-SPAR from idle to operating
/ssmuleroute	Set up a MULE trade or supply route
/ssmilkrun	Set up a multi-leg MULE circuit
/sswhisker	Launch a WHISKER probe to scan an unexplored system
/ssassets	List all your assets and their current status

Most of these are also wired as buttons in /console. If you find yourself typing slash commands more than clicking buttons, you’re doing it wrong — the UI is the intended surface.