Once you get a Factory equipped, you can start making friendly fodder to follow you around.
Making Allies
With your Factory equipped, hit F to build the next blueprint in your build queue.
Resources are required to build a new ship. You also need enough space around the factory to spit-out the new command module.
Once constructed, the ally will follow you around and attack as you order.
Hiring Allies
Allies can also be bought from the ships of your faction in the surrounding area.
Enter Command Mode (hit 3), then click on a friendly ship that is not already in your fleet.
Credits are required to hire ships. Once purchased, hired ships behave the same as constructed allies.
Releasing Allies
You can release ships from your fleet by entering Command Mode (hit 3), and click on a ship in your fleet.
Released ships will no longer follow you around, and you earn Credits for donating allies to your faction.
Releasing allies as you advance is a good way to hold territory. You can also earn Credits in a pinch.
If the player dies, all allies in the fleet are Released and have to be re-hired again.
Controlling Target Acquisition
By default fleet allies will attack the target the player is attacking. However, this can be toggled by hitting G.
You can switch between:
- ATTACK MY TARGET
- FIRE AT WILL
- IGNORE UNTIL ATTACKED
Controlling Reproduction
Players can control what blueprints individual (Factory equipped) allies will produce.
Enter Command Mode (hit 3).
Click on an ally to inspect it.
Alt-drag the desired blueprints from your Inventory into the allies’ build queue.
There is no way to set a build queue for all allies. It can only be controlled on an individual basis.
Potential Work-Around:
Allies will build any blueprints available in your Inventory.
If allies have limited Resource capacity, they will be limited to only producing ships they have R capacity for. Thus you can control what designs allies build based on P cost and Factory ship capacity.