Manufacturing
Manufacturing turns known schematics and stored material inputs into real physical resources, ammunition, equipment, hull-slot modules, and—through Shipyard production—packaged hulls.
Manufacturing quality is a distribution, not a pass/fail gate.
For equipment with authored manufacturing variance, each variable characteristic receives its own deterministic production roll. Capability relative to design complexity shifts the center and consistency of those rolls; supported optimization choices bias selected characteristics without guaranteeing the result.
Perfect is intentionally exceptional: every variable characteristic has to land essentially ideal, not merely average into the next bracket.
The item remembers how it was made.
A manufactured equipment instance stores its craftsmanship tier and rolled stat modifiers, original design identity, any reconstructed treatment identity, maker, manufacturing time and location, facility context, condition/durability history, and any later Science enhancement. Two physical copies of the same base design can therefore differ meaningfully.
Production belongs somewhere.
Station production consumes inputs from that station's storage, uses an available facility allocation, charges the local facility fee, and leaves completed output waiting to be claimed at that same station. Onboard Fabricator production exists for supported non-hull recipes when a ship actually carries a capable fabricator; its inputs and output stay aboard that ship.