Hi there,

I can't figure out how you're supposed to use cargo crates such as food and medical supplies. I'm doing Mission 2 and I don't have a cargo bay. Do the crates get used out of your inventory if needed, or how do you "give" them to the building that needs them (sickpay or Dino-mat, for instance)?

I've played the tutorial, read the manual and checked a few of the more obvious guides, so apologies if this should be obvious, but I have tried to answer it myself.

Thanks!

Pertusaria

Startopia works on the idea that pure energy can be used to create matter.

Your Sickbay and Dino-mat can function without cargo. The difference is when your patients and clients will be charged for your services, a certain amount of energy will be deducted from your profits to cover up the cost it required for your Energy Collector to create the food or medicine out of pure energy.

To avoid that fee you can stock your Sickbay with a medicine cargo crate and your Dino-mat with food and mineral cargo crates. To do that a cargo crate needs to be on the ground or in a cargo bay (not your inventory) when a patient or client is charged for your services. The cargo crate will then dematerialize and if you right-click on your Sickbay or Dino-mat, you should see the a green bar indicating the number of food or medicine remaining before it needs to be restocked lest you want to lose yet again a chunk of your profit to that pesky "materializing food or medicine from pure energy" fee.

Later on you will be able to build stores. Stores works the same way, except each store type needs a specific cargo crate. You can right-click on a store to know which cargo it needs to avoid the fee.

Per default, Dino-mats serve only energy, if you want your Dino-mats to serve food or minerals, you must right-click on your Dino-mat and click on the various buttons there, there's one for Energy, which is already checked, and two unchecked buttons one for Food and one for Mineral. The process needs to be repeated for every other Dino-mat you own, and your Dino-mats will serve all possible food choice to your visitors.

Be careful though, if a mission objective requires you to collect twenty cargo crates on a specific deadline, try to stock more than twenty because your stores, Sickbay and Dino-mats are likely to consume some by the time you meet the deadline.

If you don't have a cargo bay yet, be also careful not to let your cargo crates rot on the ground at the beginning. Try to drop them a minute before the crate is likely to be used by a room.