The Headquarters is obtained by going through the HQ plot.

This massive station enables the player to store a massive number of wares, ships and weapons. In fact, the station's storage hold is so large that it can store TL stations. The headquarters also has the ability to Repair, Decompose and Construct ships. All of these actions, however, require time and materials.

The Headquarters can act as a Shipyard. However, the cost is not in a direct currency. Instead, you must use direct materials. The ratio of these materials is:

Definitions:

• Recycle - Convert a ship into raw materials.
• Production* - Build a ship using raw materials.
• Reverse Engineering - Sacrifice a ship to gain the ability to create another of that type. (Blueprints)

Recycling will break a ship down into parts based on a special ratio. This Ratio is expanded based on the cost of the ship. After recycling, you can make the ship again if you have a blueprint.

Production will enable players with vast factory empires to build ships without having to trade their Wares for money. Some specific wares, such as Microchips and Quantum Tubes will be very difficult to get up the required numbers to build the ship making it very unbalanced. NOTE: Very large ships may be impossible to build because the materials required to build them exceed the station's freight cap. (500,000 units)

The Headquarters will normally spawn with the ability to make a Buster. The payer must sacrifice ships in Reverse Engineering to add more blueprints so that more ship types can become Producable.

The Headquarters is probably one of the best stations to store all of your fleet in. With the ability to store unlimited fighters, 15 Corvettes/Freighters and 10 Capital ships, the Headquarters is probably one of the most fierce hard-points in the game. However, it is also one of the most difficult to obtain.

The Headquarters also boasts the largest Freight capacity in the game. With the ability to hold 500,000 units of freight, it can help any player store their armaments or trade items with ease. The headquarters also has a built-in Ware management system that allows players to increase the types of wares possible in the headquarters. Unfortunately, there is no way to get rid of a ware once it has been added without modding.

The Terran version of the Player Headquarters is available in Albion Prelude as a reward at the end of the Terran and Aldrin gamestarts' plot (Loose Ends). It's not available to the other gamestarts, and is a general improvement over the Commonwealth version in several ways:

• Larger cargo bay: 700.000 units (40% more).
• 18 capital ship docking points.
• Unlimited docking for ships other than TL/M1/M2/M7.

The only other differences are that the starting blueprint is a Sabre instead of a Buster, the packed station takes up 30k cargo units instead of 25k, and the station itself is many times larger, as usual for the Terran.