Crystal Warehouse
The Crystal Warehouse allows you to keep larger amounts of crystal on a planet. When the amount of crystal on a planet exceeds your storage capacity, your mines will no longer produce Crystal. By upgrading the Crystal Warehouse facility, you can keep your mines producing even longer.
Note: There is no limit to how much of a specific resource you can have on a planet, but once the storage capacity of the appropriate Warehouse is exceeded, no more resources are produced by the mine of that resource. This is the major reason for increasing the storage space. Note that anything sitting on a planet is an open invitation to raiding, and this includes amounts in storage. Further amounts of the resource may be deposited in the planetary coffers by raiding, trading, and transport, and amounts sent off as part of a FRS/harvest are not considered "in warehouse" or on-planet. The solitary other benefit to increased warehouse size is when using the trade merchant; the maximum "incoming" resource is limited by the maximum warehouse capacity for that resource (including anything on-hand). Hence, if you have a level 8 warehouse capable of holding 2,200,000 resources, and 200k of that res on hand, then the most the trade merchant will allow you to trade "for" is an additional 2,000,000 of that resource. You can trade "from" any amount of resources you have on hand, regardless of warehouse capacities.
Costs and Capacities
The cost for storage tanks double with each level.
The formula for capacity is as follows:
Capacity = 50,000 * (RoundUp(1.6Level)+1)
Table
| Level | Ore Cost | Crystal Cost | Capacity | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | N/A | N/A | 100,000 | N/A |
| 1 | 2,000 | 1,000 | 150,000 | 50,000 |
| 2 | 4,000 | 2,000 | 200,000 | 50,000 |
| 3 | 8,000 | 4,000 | 300,000 | 100,000 |
| 4 | 16,000 | 8,000 | 400,000 | 100,000 |
| 5 | 32,000 | 16,000 | 600,000 | 200,000 |
| 6 | 64,000 | 32,000 | 900,000 | 300,000 |
| 7 | 128,000 | 64,000 | 1,400,000 | 500,000 |
| 8 | 256,000 | 128,000 | 2,200,000 | 800,000 |
| 9 | 512,000 | 256,000 | 3,500,000 | 1,300,000 |
| 10 | 1,024,000 | 512,000 | 5,500,000 | 2,000,000 |
| 11 | 2,048,000 | 1,024,000 | 8,850,000 | 3,350,000 |
| 12 | 4,096,000 | 2,048,000 | 14,150,000 | 5,300,000 |
| 13 | 8,192,000 | 4,096,000 | 22,600,000 | 8,450,000 |
| 14 | 16,384,000 | 8,192,000 | 36,100,000 | 13,500,000 |
There is no maximum level of storage tanks. Capacities and costs increase as per the formula above. Note that, while storage capacity grows exponentially (~60% per level), the cost of expending your warehouse doubles (100% per level); cost of expansion exceeds the increase in size around level 12, and exceeds overall capacity at level 15. This could still be worthwhile if you were doing merchant conversions a lot, especially towards crystal, as seems likely.
