THE JUMPGATE DEFINITIVE GUIDE - Tripod

If multiple production processes are running, a specific required commodity may
be used up more quickly than was expected.
Electronics Part III
Aluminum is used to produce both Electronics and Construction Materials at
Amananth.
The requirements for Construction Materials are Aluminum, Lumber, Machined
Parts, and Titanium.
If all the requirements for both Electronics and Construction Materials are
present at the station, both production processes will run. The initial supply of
Aluminum will be used by both processes, and hence will be used up more
quickly and result in fewer units of Electronics than would have been produced
had Construction Materials not also been produced.
It is often possible to manipulate the public market to target scarce resources
towards a specific production process. For example, removing Lumber from the
market by buying it all up will eventually stop all production of Construction
Materials. Note that production will not stop immediately because it is likely
some Lumber will have already been stockpiled in the station's hidden
inventory.
Note that many of the other requirements for Electronics production are also in
part requirements of other production processes. These are not all avoidable
using the method above. For example, RAM is produced at Amananth and
requires only Copper and Silicon. Both commodities are required for
Electronics, so it is impossible to prevent the production of RAM alongside
Electronics.
Information Sources
By now you are probably asking how we know what makes what where and
what-have-you.
Basic production information (locations and requirements) is shown by JOSSH's
database - http://www.jossh.com/database/ . For example, Electronics
http://www.jossh.com/database/commodities/electronics.html .
JOSSH does not show the production index, the size of the hidden inventory,
the precise proportion of required commodities used to make a unit of finished
product, or the station's overall efficiency. Watching markets change in
response to the delivery of commodities will give you a basic understanding of
the magnitude of these variables.
JOSSH can be used to reveal multiple uses of the same commodity at a station,
but it's awkward to use. This widget, http://www.capsu.org/jumpgate/
(shameless plug) should help identify such uses quickly.
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