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--- en:games:star_trek_armada_1:economy [2024-01-07-19-42] – [Bottom Line of Borg Crew Management] 7saturn
+++ en:games:star_trek_armada_1:economy [2024-01-07-20-03] (current) – [Deconstruction of Units] 7saturn
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 There are four kinds of resources in this game, Crew and Dilithium, Special Weapons Energy and Supply. Crew is gained by [[Starbase|starbases]], Dilithium by [[map objects#Dilithium Moon|Dilithium Moons]]. Energy for [[special weapons]] is created out of nothing but only per unit/building. Supply on the other hand is capped by the number of starbases and their extensions. Increasing it is done by using Dilithium for building new starbases or supply extensions.
-The tree resources are by default indicated by a bar of three numbers in the upper right corner of the screen:
+The three resources are by default indicated by a bar of three numbers in the upper right corner of the screen:
 {{ :en:games:star_trek_armada_1:resource_bar.png?nolink |}}
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 ==== Special Weapon Energy ====
 Most [[units]] and some [[stations]] can have [[special weapons]]. Most of those weapons require Special Weapon Energy. It follows the classic [[en:gaming_theory:mana]] concept. Each unit or station, that requires special weapon energy, has a reservoir for it. Usually the limit of it is 1000. But [[Hero Ships]] may have a greater capacity. When using special weapons, the amount of special weapons energy is reduced by a value or rate specific to that special weapon. The recovering rate depends on the unit. Once the special weapon energy reaches 100% capacity of the unit or station, it is not increased any further. If the special weapon energy falls below the activation threshold or drops to 0, the special weapon(s) can not be used any more, until it is recharged enough.
+==== Deconstruction of Units ====
+One source of resources was not mentioned here, yet: Deconstruction of ships or stations. This means the unit is removed from the match and the resources invested are returned. Every unit that is produced and every station, that is built, can be deconstructed. For ships this is only possible in a yard. For stations this happens in-place. When a unit is deconstructed, all the Dilithium is returned to the players pool (except for the first Starbase, that may come by the tech tree for free, this one only returns 1'000 Dilithium). Same goes for the remaining crew. The value currently on board the station or ship is returned to the player's pool. Similarly the supply is returned, meaning the supply in use is reduced by the unit's cost.
+This is especially interesting, if you intend on using the beam-in mechanics to steal units, or as a Borg player, the assimilation mechanics (which is effectively the same). For a Borg player in particular, this solves a short-term lack of Dilithium very easily. The long-term problem of a lack of crew amounting from frequent assimilation will not really be solved in this fashion. It will only be mildly reduced, as beamed in crew is permanently lost. Only the few remaining crewmembers on a freshly assimilated unit will be returned to the crew pool. The rest invested cannot be returned. (This is basically why Borg have such a high demand in crew income, because one of their main offensive abilities does exactly that: destroy crew, theirs and the opponents.) The gained Dilithium on the other hand can still be used for defense stations, even when there is a strong crew shortage.
+However, depending on the situation, this may still be a very sensible course of action, even for the other factions. If the chosen tech tree of the match does not give you the special weapons of units for free/automatically, then a captured unit is basically a bare unit (with no special abilities) while ones own units usually do have them available. So deconstructing a unit and building new units of ones own faction can be preferable for having special weapons available.
+One immediate problem of stealing ships and stations can be the automatically increased supply usage. Any stations or units that use supply will have this effect the moment they are taken over. This is also one of two ways how a player may end up using more supply than he actually possesses. The other one would be a destruction of supply (losing or deconstructing a Starbase). So especially the Borg assimilation mechanics can cause this problem very quickly, if the remaining supply is already rather low while the player has fast successes in assimilating units. This may even make it necessary to deconstruct units, in order to progress other constructions that are supply-blocked.
 ===== Borg Cube Example =====
 Let's take a straight forward example, the [[cube|Borg Cube]]. It costs 1'200 dil., takes 120 seconds to be build and requires 1'000 crew + 7 supply. When comparing that with your dilithium income, you can build actually one cube per minute, which means, you can fire up two [[adv_assembly_matrix|Advanced Assembly Matrizes]] at the same time. (Or half a cube per minute and moon.) You will end up with 50-60 dilithium spare per minute as well. But be aware that the other cost is also to be taken into account. 2 Cubes per minute also means, 14 supply per minute and 2'000 crew per minute. Considering, that the max of one starbase is 5.25 crew/sec. or 315 crew/minute that means the 2000 crew are a time equivalent of 6 minutes.