Rocket silo should have a 2x2 area exclusive for rocket parts, and the rest should be for inserting into the rocket

[BraveCaperCat]

Rocket parts never existed as an item outside of rocket silos, so I think the suggestion here would be to make them a distinct item that can be loaded into silos?

Ahh, right. I think I was doing a weird mixup with them and RCUs (which didn't serve the function either that I have in mind here). You're exactly right about what I was trying to suggest.

The only thing there is that if rocket parts aren't made in silos, it would gut the utility of quality silos.

That's a valid point. If the quality bonus was changed to a faster launch sequence animation, though, I'd be happy with the trade!

This is actually a reasonable idea and could be implemented in a mod. (Even in 1.1 this was possible)

[s6x]

After running afoul of this one myself, I went ahead and made a mod. It uses three separate new intermediates that you can choose to use, or not, to try to stay as compatible as possible with whatever existing rocket setup someone might have, and also still gain any benefits for making the rocket parts in the silo.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RocketCargoInsertion

[jamiechi1]

After running afoul of this one myself, I went ahead and made a mod. It uses three separate new intermediates that you can choose to use, or not, to try to stay as compatible as possible with whatever existing rocket setup someone might have, and also still gain any benefits for making the rocket parts in the silo.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RocketCargoInsertion

Yes. I really needed this.

[JOndra91]

Not being able to insert processing units using inserters does sound like a design oversight.

But after minute of thinking I came up with an idea, why not make the rocket silos modular. Let the rocket silos itself take only the rocket part ingredients, but then have some kind of cargo loader (1 × 3 would be best fit for 9 × 9 rocket silo) that you have to put next to the rocket silo to load stuff into the rocket.

As for the new rocket silo only accepting the rocket part ingredients, which would break current builds, there are few choices:

1. Have a legacy rocket silos available for existing saves, that still use the current behavior. Both silos versions are able to be built with the same rocket silo item from inventory, but the legacy silos is not available in the building menu, so it can be built using only blueprint or copy-pasting.
2. Scratch the "take only the rocket part ingredients", this is compatible with no changes necessary. But then you need the cargo loader only for the rocket part ingredients, which makes its functionality bit redundant in most cases.

[DeadMG]

My opinion is to prevent using inserters to load the silo of any cargo. That way all cargos behave the same. The player can load them manually or use bots which are far superior solutions.

[Tinyboss]

My opinion is to prevent using inserters to load the silo of any cargo. That way all cargos behave the same. The player can load them manually or use bots which are far superior solutions.

I believe you will find yourself in the minority on this one!

[Cerberus]

My opinion is to prevent using inserters to load the silo of any cargo. That way all cargos behave the same. The player can load them manually or use bots which are far superior solutions.

On Aquilo this does not work well. I started using inserters to insert cryogenic science packs to a rocket because of that. That's how I discovered LDS, rocket fuel and blue circuits are only used to build rockets and you can successfully insert another item for launch (science packs in my case). Which made me think of the shortcoming in design this thread is about and I agree.
The proposed solution is not good in this topic because it indeed breaks our existing designs. However, a new filter to rocket silos (similar to filter inserters) could signal to the game we also want to fill the rocket with blue circuits for example, if that filter was set. There could be an option to set the filter via the circuit network, for mixed rockets, or reuse the same rocket silos for multiple items that are manually inserted for different rockets. This does not break existing designs and is much easier to handle than limiting the part of the rocket silo for different purposes.

[Sworn]

The proposed solution is not good in this topic because it indeed breaks our existing designs. However, a new filter to rocket silos (similar to filter inserters) could signal to the game we also want to fill the rocket with blue circuits for example, if that filter was set. There could be an option to set the filter via the circuit network, for mixed rockets, or reuse the same rocket silos for multiple items that are manually inserted for different rockets. This does not break existing designs and is much easier to handle than limiting the part of the rocket silo for different purposes.

That is an interesting take, so it would have filter signals, right? so it would still insert at the rocket parts as needed but also inserting it on the cargo as well if one of the three cargo parts are present in the filter signal. So, if you enabled the option, it would work similarly the filter signal for asteroid collectors.
But instead of a "filter" would be more like an "allowed list"

If we got the ability to separate cables in assembly machines like mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=117481, that would be a big deal together with this suggestion, since one could read the rocket content in red wire and set filter in green wire. And it would not have any backwards compatibility issues. Nice one!

[Tinyboss]

The proposed solution is not good in this topic because it indeed breaks our existing designs. However, a new filter to rocket silos (similar to filter inserters) could signal to the game we also want to fill the rocket with blue circuits for example, if that filter was set. There could be an option to set the filter via the circuit network, for mixed rockets, or reuse the same rocket silos for multiple items that are manually inserted for different rockets. This does not break existing designs and is much easier to handle than limiting the part of the rocket silo for different purposes.

I agree with the importance of not breaking existing designs, although it seems to me that many would not be broken, and the ones that are could be fixed without too much effort, so it might be acceptable on the experimental branch.

Your proposal is interesting! So rocket ingredients would go first into the ingredient slots until the rocket is ready, and then into the cargo but only if the filter is set? Or directly into the cargo if the filter is set, and it would have to be unset to supply items to build the rocket?

[Cerberus]

Your proposal is interesting! So rocket ingredients would go first into the ingredient slots until the rocket is ready, and then into the cargo but only if the filter is set? Or directly into the cargo if the filter is set, and it would have to be unset to supply items to build the rocket?

If a filter is set for the cargo, both rocket parts and rocket inventory can be inserted at the same time, otherwise you are losing time for no reason. Especially if you are inserting something else than rocket parts in the rocket, like science packs.
But when you set the rocket inventory filter for LDS, blue circuits or rocket fuel, the rocket inventory could even fill itself up WHILE the rocket is also being built, provided you are inserting ingredients faster than the rocket can build itself.

[Scellus]

However, a new filter to rocket silos (similar to filter inserters) could signal to the game we also want to fill the rocket with blue circuits for example, if that filter was set. There could be an option to set the filter via the circuit network, for mixed rockets, or reuse the same rocket silos for multiple items that are manually inserted for different rockets. This does not break existing designs and is much easier to handle than limiting the part of the rocket silo for different purposes.

Was thinking something similar. Maybe just add a checkbox to inserters that overrides them to be able to insert into silos without restrictions.

[Cerberus]

However, a new filter to rocket silos (similar to filter inserters) could signal to the game we also want to fill the rocket with blue circuits for example, if that filter was set. There could be an option to set the filter via the circuit network, for mixed rockets, or reuse the same rocket silos for multiple items that are manually inserted for different rockets. This does not break existing designs and is much easier to handle than limiting the part of the rocket silo for different purposes.

Was thinking something similar. Maybe just add a checkbox to inserters that overrides them to be able to insert into silos without restrictions.

That would be the wrong entity, as an inserter has very little to do with rocket silos. The checkbox would be visible on all inserters then, just for this small usecase. It is also not the inserter deciding if an entity should accept an item or not, but the entity itself.

[Linsanga]

I have noticed the limitation of not being able to use inserters to launch blue circuits into space. But I would rather this be solved with a setting on the rocket silo (some sort of recipe or filter selection), rather than creating special zones on the building.