Begin with the recipe
A recipe records its profession, workstation, ingredients and output. Follow ingredient links to see whether a resource is a purchased input or the output of another recipe. The database preserves canonical IDs, quantities and relationships.
Allocation changes what happens to an input
CONSUME spends an input. REFERENCE reuses a master asset. RESERVE_USE allocates a permitted use. INSTALL places an installable output into its destination. Do not add every referenced asset price as if it were consumed again on each run.
Work budgets are not countdown promises
Minimum productive time, standard work budget and maximum work budget are distinct canonical fields. Worker availability, skill, equipment and game simulation affect the job. A reference budget is not a guaranteed completion time.
Check the downstream consumer
Some recipes exist in the catalog while their downstream use is not implemented. Those entries show their unsupported state and reason. Producing an asset does not automatically mean it earns revenue, is installed or improves a workstation.
Use calculated cost carefully
A listed input price is canonical; a computed sum is a derived estimate. Referenced, reserved or installed assets are not necessarily consumed. Where an input has no canonical purchase price, a total cannot be treated as a complete cash cost.