Shipyard Objectives and Exact Build Solutions

The classic Outworld Station shipyard stall looks like this: the objective says the ships are almost done, the shipyard has parts in it, three depots are blinking, and one transfer route is working with the speed and fire of a sleepy committee. This is not a belt problem. In Outworld Station, a link is the route you create between modules. A connector is a station part used to move items between linked parts of your factory, while pipes handle fluids and gases. If the link chain is wrong, the shipyard can look supplied while the real missing step is fuel, ammo, probes, or one filtered storage box upstream.

Use this section as a build-check pass. The goal is not a pretty station. The goal is a shipyard block that takes the listed parts, builds the exact ship the objective wants, fuels or arms it if needed, and leaves the completed hull where the objective can count it. That is the good part of Outworld Station: messy asteroid work turns into a clean ship line, then the station starts feeling like actual interplanetary industry instead of a drawer full of space screws.

Read the Objective Correctly First

Before rebuilding anything, click the objective and read the required item name exactly. A ship objective may ask for a plain ship, a fuelled ship, a fuelled and armed ship, or a science ship carrying extra parts such as probes. Those are different final products. A ship sitting in space is not always the item the counter wants.

Objective wording	What to build	Final place to check
Ship name only	Build the hull in the correct shipyard for that recipe.	Shipyard
Fuelled ship	Build the hull, then route it through a Fuel Depot.	Fuel Depot
Armed ship	Build and fuel the ship, then route it through an Ammo Depot.	Ammo Depot
Explorer, science, or probe ship	Build the ship and supply the listed probes or science parts.	Ship, objective panel, and any required depot
Arkship or large class ship	Use the Arkship Terminal, Component Factory, Large Shipyard, Large Tug-Bay, and the correct Fuel Depot if the recipe calls for them.	Arkship Terminal, Component Factory, Large Shipyard, Tug Bay, or Fuel Depot

Patch counts can change, so trust the number shown in your current objective panel. The build method stays the same: make the exact final item, not the item that sounds close enough after midnight.

Exact Shipyard Block Layout

Build ship objectives in this order from left to right. This gives you a clean line to compare against your own station:

Filtered input storage: one storage box for each major part group, such as plating, frames, computers, engines, fuel parts, ammo parts, and special science parts.
Part production: Matter Printer, Fabricator, Manufactory, Ammo Factory, or Component Factory as shown by the recipe panel.
Short buffer storage: one filtered buffer before the shipyard. This stops one hungry shipyard from eating parts needed by the next step.
Correct shipyard: use the shipyard type named by the recipe. Small and Medium Shipyards handle earlier ship classes, while Large Shipyards are for the largest classes.
Depot chain: Fuel Depot after the shipyard for fuelled ships; Ammo Depot after the Fuel Depot for armed ships.
Completed ship area: set a clear tug drop zone so finished ships and large hulls do not park in the industrial version of a doorway.

Do not feed one shipyard from a long daisy chain of mixed storage. Put the shipyard on its own short branch. If you are coming from Factorio, think dedicated mall output, not everything rides the same belt. There is no belt here to save you. The link either has the right item moving, or it does not.

Build Solutions by Objective Type

Objective type	Build this block	Prepare these lanes	Common stall	Fix
Early small ships	Small Shipyard, or Small Shipyard into Fuel Depot	Hull parts, Computers, Small Engines, and Hydrogen if fuelled	Ship exists but counter does not move	Check whether the objective asks for the fuelled version, then route the hull through the Fuel Depot.
Cargo or tanker ships	Small Shipyard plus Fuel Depot when fuel is required	Small Cargo Pods or Small Fuel Tanks, Small Engines, Computers, and Hydrogen	Shipyard waits on one sub-part	Open the ship recipe, find the missing part, and set one Fabricator line to only that part until the buffer fills.
Medium haulers	Medium Shipyard plus Fuel Depot	Micro-Fusion Reactors, Advanced Plating, Heavy Frames, Supercomputers, Medium Engines, Small Engines, cargo parts, and Hydrogen	Everything is ready except reactors or supercomputers	Split high-tech parts into their own filtered storage. Do not let building upgrades eat the same stockpile during the objective.
Combat ships	Shipyard into Fuel Depot into Ammo Depot	Missile Launchers, Shield Generators, Light Missile Ammo, fuel, and the normal hull parts	Armed count stays low while hull count rises	Pause new hull production, fill the Ammo Depot, then resume once the ammo buffer is ahead.
Explorer or probe objectives	Shipyard plus probe and science-part production	Sensor Arrays, Small Probes, Quantum Crystals, and Exotic Matter if listed by the recipe	Probe demand creates a sudden rare-resource wall	Automate Exotic Matter collection with Servitor Stations in the Junkyard Zone before forcing the ship batch.
Arkship or large ship objectives	Arkship Terminal, Component Factory, Large Shipyard, Large Tug-Bay, and the Fuel Depot tier named by the recipe	Large Engines, Medium Fuel Tanks, Sensor Arrays, Science Modules, Armour Plating, Micro-Antimatter Reactors, and antimatter fuel if required	Large parts are built but not installed	Check tug access, part storage filters, and the drop area. Large parts often fail at movement, not crafting.

When the Objective Refuses to Finish

If the counter is stuck, do not rebuild the whole factory first. Run this checklist in order:

Open the objective and confirm the exact final item name.
Click the ship itself and check whether it is unfuelled, unarmed, missing cargo, or missing science parts.
Open the final depot in the chain, not the first shipyard. The missing step is often there.
Check filters on storage, Fuel Depot, Ammo Depot, Freighter Dock, and Quantum Storage.
Hover pipes and connectors to confirm the thing moving is the thing you think is moving.
Use Production Overview with precise values if unlocked. Look for the part with demand above production.
Temporarily stop unrelated factories or set their Max Amount To Build so upgrades do not steal ship parts.
If freighters feed the line, check that the dock is powered, switched on, and able to unload into a matching filter.

The fastest recovery move is to isolate the shipyard. Turn off non-objective consumers, put the missing part on a dedicated factory line, and feed one filtered buffer directly into the final module. Once the objective clears, you can reconnect the elegant version. Emergency layouts are allowed. Space industry has no style points column.

Before You Expand the Shipyard

Do not add a second shipyard until the first one can finish one full ship without manual dragging. More shipyards multiply demand spikes. They do not fix a weak Hydrogen line, a starved Manufactory, or one connector trying to feed every advanced part in the Tau system.

A stable shipyard block has these signs: raw part buffers refill between ships, fuel never drops to zero, ammo production stays ahead of combat ships, tugs have room to move, and the objective counter rises only after the final version of the ship is complete. When that is true, duplicate the block, copy the filters, and expand. That is when Outworld Station starts paying off: ships leave the station because the whole chain works, not because you babysat one heroic storage box for an hour.

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