Prioritise Space Platform Construction Materials

[overskye]

TL;DR

Logistics requests for a space platform's construction materials should be prioritised over it's other requests.

What?

Screenshot 2024-11-02 132200.png (545.25 KiB) Viewed 1677 times

I have noticed that when a space platform reaches orbit in a damaged state there isn't a clear rationale for which items are delivered first.
Note that all items requested in the above screenshot are available on planet in the same logistics network as the rocket silos.
I think that the items requested for construction should be sent first so that the platform can be repaired and prepared for another journey

Why?

As a player I feel that sending the resources to repair the platform is more urgent than the platform's normal logistics requests.
If the construction materials are delivered first then the player can choose to launch the space platform with an incomplete cargo if it is needed urgently.
This is not a significant problem unless the base on the orbited planet is struggling to produce rockets on time.

Thanks for the amazing expansion!

[mmmPI]

I like the suggestion, it make sense that construction request would be prioritised over regular request to me.

[Rauschkind]

i do not like this idea. I DO want something simmilar, but just prioritizing the construction material was bad if a ship under construction was dependend on certain deliveries to not blow up, like, maybe ammo.

instead, i would suggests to be able to prioritize a product manually, with seperate settings for desired quantity and prioritized quantity. so you could say: i want item x 100 times, but if i run below 50, make that a priority.

[mmmPI]

i do not like this idea. I DO want something simmilar, but just prioritizing the construction material was bad if a ship under construction was dependend on certain deliveries to not blow up, like, maybe ammo.

I think given the balance of the game you are expected to make ammo on the platform, and it's a bit on you when you try to expand and you can't defend your platform, you don't need to defend your platform in Nauvis, and you can build them there fine in game currently.

However, if a platform gets damaged and a cargobay is destroyed, it would be beneficial to have the material for construction before anything else, since it is possible that nothing else may fit including the ammo. This is sometimes a problem in game currently.

If ammo are a priority, then building materials must be higher on the list imo.

[Rauschkind]

while i build my ships, i might not have the capacity yet.
i do not think you made a very good argument. forced priority on one thing would be even worse then no priority at all.
look, i am supporting your idea generally. i just think we would need control over such a feature.

[dzikakulka]

When a space platform has "Auto request missing construction materials" checked and ghost entities placed on ghost foundation tiles, there doesn't seem to be any particular ordering in fulfilling created requests.

With big enough builds (large blueprinted platforms) this can lead to a frustrating deadlock where the hub inventory space is depleted before any foundation gets requested and arrives, which then needs manual intervention to drop some of the (still needed) materials, wasting time and rocket launches.

While I agree that normally logistic network should fulfil requests in an unspecified order, this case could use an exception to make building space platforms at scale much more convenient.

[kpreid]

What?

When a space platform makes requests for construction, always sort space platform foundation first in the list, and cargo bays second.

Right now, foundation and cargo bays are usually in about the middle of the list (for the platforms I’ve designed). This means that a lot of buildings may be launched before any of them can be built. Instead, request foundation first, so that buildings can always be built as soon as they’re received.

Why?

• If you’re building or modifying a platform by hand rather than from a blueprint, it’s harder to read when lots of things are ghosts. Sending foundation first will reduce the chances of that, because while you always need both foundation and a building to put on it, foundation is useful for all buildings whereas a rocket load of that building is more specific.
• Another user mentioned (but not in the suggestions forum or I can’t find it) that with a large platform, it’s possible for the automatic construction requests to get into a stuck state where the hub is full but nothing can be built. If foundation were launched first, it would always be possible to build the buildings so they don’t take up hub space. Similarly, launching cargo bays second ensures that any necessary cargo space expansions are available (but that is a much less likely problem since it requires there be non-building items involved).

[Sworn]

Another user mentioned (but not in the suggestions forum or I can’t find it) that with a large platform, it’s possible for the automatic construction requests to get into a stuck state where the hub is full but nothing can be built. If foundation were launched first, it would always be possible to build the buildings so they don’t take up hub space. Similarly, launching cargo bays second ensures that any necessary cargo space expansions are available (but that is a much less likely problem since it requires there be non-building items involved).

+1

Yah, I got this one myself, copy and paste my space science, and it got full of items, and nothing got build because there was no platform to expand it.
Annoying as hell. Sure, just send some items down, and some platform up and job is done, but still annoying

[mmmPI]

That kinda make sense but i've seen people on other topics complaining that they want the ammo to be loaded first.

[kpreid]

Good point. I build all my platforms on Nauvis, so I don’t need to worry about quickly supplying ammo. But, that sounds like something that would be hard to handle automatically at all, and so would be better served by building a small interim blueprint before a big one — because you’re going to want to build everything involved in supplying the turrets, and that could be all sorts of things.

[Muche]

Ref 122185 Space Platform can deadlock on initial build preventing build progression due to race condition.

[macdjord]

Note that if you're building a platform in the orbit of a planet other than Nauvis, you can't just slap down a giant blueprint and then start sending stuff up to build it with, because even if you send the ammo first, it does no good without guns to shoot it, and those guns are presumably at the edges of the blueprint. You'd have to build up in stages, first build a minimal platform with guns and ammo to defend itself, then ship up the resources to build the blueprint, then build the blueprint all at once so you can start using the new guns.

Now, you do need to keep the platform supplied with ammo as you're shipping up the parts for later expansion. I think it would work fine if the priority list went ammo -> foundation -> cargo bays -> everything else. As long as nobody requests so much ammo that it completely fills the hub, it won't stall out.

[Paradroid]

+1 from me too. I've just run into this trying to make a platform from a blueprint. The blueprint needs 7000 foundation so it deadlocks itself, because it fills up with building first before request foundation, by which time its storage space is full.

Very annoying and means big platforms can get themselves into a situation where they can't be built from blueprints.

[Khazul]

+1 - Ive had deadlocks from this many times.

Out of frustration made a logistics group containing just foundations and a few cargo bays called 'Build the f****** platform!' and switch that one immediately and auto-logistics off.

Be nice if I didn't have to do this.

I dont care about ammo as I always build at Nauvis anyway so it doesnt keep getting trashed while it is being built.

[Hommit]

Very reasonable

[Tinyboss]

Someone in another thread had a great idea, a bit more general: prioritize things that could be built now if we had them. So that's naturally going to be platforms, and it will work outward from the hub, meaning cargo bays will get sent up early, too.

This generalizes better to any future modded content.

[mrvn]

While I agree that space platform foundation is crucial for all construction once you get the recipe to produce copper from asteroid chunks you can build space foundation in space.

Which brings me to another feature request that I think meshes with this one: I don't want to request space foundation or anything else I produce in space.

And I don't want to be able to request construction stuff at just some planets so I can still use the "All Requests satisfied" condition.


So overall what is needed is a way to prioritize and filter and extend the construction requests so one can:

- always see what the platform is made of showing what's present and what's missing (top/bottom number)
The construction requests should just be the first group in the requests box and and enabling/disabling the group itself enables/disables automatic deliveries. I want to be able to request construction materials but load rockets manually, too.
- reorder items and get them delivered from first to last
- blacklist items from being requested
- whitelist / blacklist planets for each item
This needs multiple choices. More than one planet might be able to supply items.
- change minimum amount for rocket delivery

[Sworn]

If the space platform hub would just only request items where there is foundation under the ghost it would greatly improve things.

viewtopic.php?p=647795#p647795

This, that you mention in another thread, would be a really good solution, it would request only things that it can actually build.
So, when first pasting a blueprint it the only thing it can build is the platform, so that would be the only thing going up.

As it expands, it will start to request the rest as well

[J-H]

Yes.
Also, having construction robots prioritize power lines would be great.

[Xellnix]

this needs to be fixed, would even say that is not a suggestion, it is a BUG, a platform that just requests auto stuff that isnt sortable, requests stuff it cant even place without foundations, i want to place a platform and dont care about, but i have to, first i have to place a bp with the foundation+storages and after that the real bp

so requesting only the stuff it can build (and foundations are always buildable) would be nice (ofc if there are turrets ammo should be piped too)
another option would be to NOT auto request stuff if there is already a rocket size stack of it present at the storage, the platform doesnt have to gather 2k belts first and block the storage if it cant even place 100