Production Chains
Multi-stage industry, planned end to end.
Facility output comes from production chains: resources processed through several stages into advanced materials and equipment. Understanding the chain is what lets a facility actually produce something useful.
What this page teaches
- What a production chain is
- Why each stage depends on the last
- Planning output around need
- Keeping a chain flowing
What a production chain is
A production chain is a sequence of processing steps. Raw and refined resources pass through multiple facility buildings, each adding a stage, until the final advanced product emerges.
Nothing high-end appears in one step; it is the end of a chain.
Why stages depend on each other
Each stage consumes the output of the previous one. If any stage stalls — from missing inputs, no power, or no labour — everything downstream stops with it.
A chain is only as fast as its slowest or most-starved stage.
Planning output around need
Decide what the war actually needs before committing a facility's chain to producing it. Producing advanced equipment nobody is using wastes enormous upstream effort.
Coordinate facility output with frontline demand.
Keeping a chain flowing
- Keep every stage supplied with its inputs
- Watch for the bottleneck stage and reinforce it
- Maintain power and pipelines feeding the chain
- Move finished output forward instead of letting it pile up
When chains matter
Production chains matter most for advanced equipment that frontline factories cannot make. For everyday gear, the standard refinery-factory loop is simpler and sufficient.
Use facilities for what only facilities can produce.
Related systems
This builds on the Facilities Overview and Power and Pipelines, and connects back to the Refinery and Factory Loop.
Running a full production chain to make advanced equipment that no one at the front is asking for. The whole chain's effort is wasted.
Identify the bottleneck stage and feed it first. A chain only moves as fast as its most-starved step.