Selling ships - compatibility question?

[redstamp]

I am just starting out producing ships and had a couple of questions on best way to produce & sell.
I realise Boron ships aren't really compatible with other races' parts, but ignoring that for a minute, and as my wharf (PHQ) is in Teladi space:

a) Is the local race (TEL in this case) more likely to buy my ships or will other races travel to buy?
b) Do races have a preference for the ships they natively produce (like Buzzard for TEL), or will they buy whatever miner, trader or fighter I am producing?
c) I understand NPCs buying my ships will want an array of consumables and upgrade options (rather than my default pref), although does this mean I will need:
i) all compatible options for their race (like TEL engines/shields for TEL buyers) or
ii) all native parts for the ship they are buying (like ARG engines/shields for ARG ships, irrespective of buyer) or
iii) simply everything, as they want all options for all races and all ships?

Just trying to limit the number of blueprints I need to start getting wharf income...

Thanks,
Jon

[BitByte]

a) Any race can buy from your wharf or shipyard no matter is it located in other faction space. NPCs does not need travel to your station that they are able to buy ships (same way as you can buy remotely when right click NPC wharf / shipyard). For example Teladi can buy ships from player wharf located in Argon Prime if they have need.
b & c) Factions only buy their own type of ships. Factions also choose their own equipment (weapons & shields & turrets) to ships what they buy from player (SCA is exception as they use ARG, TEL & PAR tech mixed in their ships). For example Terran does not buy commonworld ships nor equipment but they stick on their own ships and equipment (which is understandable as their ships are designed to fit their own purposes).
You can little bit check what are their common configs and mostly used ships and start with those. When you get more credits then you can buy more blueprints for ships and equipment.
For example if you start with wharf (S/M ships) at that point you only want concentrate to S & M sized blueprints for engines, thrusters, shields, weapons and turrets.
Plenty of common world weapons are non-faction restricted (for example bolt repeater, beam, tracking & torpedo launchers and so on) so you can cover quite wide range if concentrate to those. Turrets and engines are faction related so from those you need decide which buy first.

If you want limit your ship selling for specific race you have option only to concentrate that faction ships & equipment at the begining.

[donzi]

As BitByte mentioned, each race buys what they also produce. The racial versions of S/M weapons can be ignored as long as you want.

The racial Mk1 ship equipment (engines, shields) is important, but cheap. Not totally sure, but given ALI loadouts, races may go ahead and buy some ships and use another race engine or shield..

There is a (beta 7, may be fine in 6.20) bug with MIN selling queues so I suggest you just limit trade to TEL (or all but MIN) or you'll need to fiddle with the order queue if MIN is able to buy. If you can produce buzzards and/or falcons without much regard to Mk value, etc orders will be probably constant from TEL. Both will buy vanguard series so not urgent to collect both MIN and TEL BP to make sales.

Note that HOP can be very good customers of ships, but with the HQ ship fab in TEL/MIN space it'll cause a lot of extra conflicts FWIW.

Gist of it is, you can make sales with the minimal loadout for cheap ships. As you add BP for more the NPC will also buy more expensive ships.

[Zloth2]

They do have to make legal ships, though. If, for instance, you don't have blueprints for thrusters then there's no way anyone can buy a ship of that size class from you.

[redstamp]

Got it - thanks all - will concentrate on small ships to start and grab BPs for them and align ships to parts