[MOD 0.13] Cargo Rocket - the ultimate transportation mode

[binbinhfr]

Infos

• Type: Mod
• Name: Cargo Rocket
• Description: Use your rockets as a cargo to quickly send a payload to a distant outpost.
• Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.13.0
• Locale: english, french
• Multiplayer compatible: tested on a headless server.
• Tags: Rockets, Transportation, Cargo, Logistic, Chests
• License: You are free to use and distribute this mod and also to modify it for personal use, but not to release a modified version without permission (unless visibly not maintained anymore).
• Portal download : https://mods.factorio.com/mods/binbinhfr/CargoRocket

screen1b.jpg (23.06 KiB) Viewed 18705 times

DESCRIPTION

DESCRIPTION
Some are using these huge rockets to send spying satelittes or orbital ion cannons above their heads, but why not using them as a cargo to quickly send a payload to a distant outpost ?
They are quite powerful to handle a chest content, and quicker than any train !
Moreover, they do not need to reach orbital altitude, so a simplified and much cheaper version of these rockets and rocket-silo can be built and used for this only transportation purpose.

To establish a transportation path :
- Research the "Cargo rockets" technology.
- Build a Cargo departure chest on the side of a rocket silo (or a simple dedicated cargo rocket silo). Open it and rename it if you want.
Verify that the silo checkbox is checked : it means that the nearby silo was recorded and linked.
The content of this chest will be sent as a payload.
- Build a Cargo arrival chest at the delivery location. Open it and rename it if you want.
Open one of the chests and use the "To" or "From" button to link them together (it opens a list of possible departures or arrivals).

To send a payload :
- when the rocket is built and ready, you can manually launch the payload using the Launch button of the Departure Chest (do not use the Launch button of the silo !).
- or you can check the "autolaunch" option. In this case, the rocket will be launch as soon as it is ready (i.e. constructed) and every stack of the departure chest is full.
Note that you can use the red cross to limit the size of the chest.

Tips:
- The departure chest is also a requester chest.
- The arrival chest is also a smart chest and provides information to any circuit network.
- You can check the "map mark" option to display the name of the chest on the map.
- You can link several departure chests to one rocket silo. But if you switch all these chests to autolaunch, the first filled chest will always be launch first.
- The delivery is quick but not instant. There is a transit time. The departure chest is emptied when the rocket starts to rise.
Then you have to wait the incompressible time of the launch/rising phase (around 15 sec). Then the trip itself has
a duration that depends on the distance. But it's very rapid : around 0.01s / square. So a delivery to a 500 squares distance will take a total of 15+0.01*500=20 seconds. These durations can be customized in the config.lua file.
- When a payload is launched or delivered, a message is sent to every player of the force, with the duration of the travel. This verbose mode can be disabled in the config.lua file.
- If you want to optimize your cargo rockets transportations, you may use an item compression mod like boxing.
- If you want to keep track of the number of rockets you are launching, you may use Score Extended.
- The mod is taking forces into account in case of a PvP multiplayer and multi-teams map.

Credits: this mod is adapted from an original idea of Qon.

PICTURES

PICTURES

screen3b.jpg (263.74 KiB) Viewed 18705 times

HOW TO DISABLE THE NO-SATELLITE MESSAGE

HOW TO DISABLE THE NO-SATELLITE MESSAGE
If you play in solo mode and are using the new Cargo rocket silo, you will potentially receive the annoying "no satellite" message every time you launch a cargo-rocket. It's because the cargo-rocket do not have any inventory, to prevent players from using it to launch the vanilla satellite (wich would be too OP). These simpler cargo rockets are not meant to reach orbital range, but just to send a parachuted payload at lower altitudes.

So if you want to get rid of the "no satellite" message, you have to find your zipped save file in the ./saves directory of factory. Make a backup copy, in case. Then unzip it and edit the control.lua text file. Change line 85 :

Code: Select all

    if (#game.players <= 1) then

into

Code: Select all

    if false then

You will still have the "no satellite" message, but in the console, not blocking your game anymore.
If you want to completely get rid of these messages, delete lines 85 to 91.
Then rezip the map package and here it is.

Download
For Factorio 0.13.X :
Please now use the portal for downloads (see link above or use ingame mod install/update), as I won't update both downloads links here anymore.

[AlexTheNotsogreat]

A full rocket is designed for orbit, not cargo delivery. Maybe allow a smaller rocket/rocket silo for this use, using only, say, 10 rocket parts instead.

[binbinhfr]

A full rocket is designed for orbit, not cargo delivery. Maybe allow a smaller rocket/rocket silo for this use, using only, say, 10 rocket parts instead.

That's a good idea. I thought that rocket-silo was very hardcoded, but I just checked and the fact is that we can change the number of parts needed !
So I will implement a cargo-rocket-silo, but will still allow people to use standard rocket if they want. I just have to insure that this new silo won't be able to launch satelittes, or it will be too OP.

[binbinhfr]

I made the test and added a less expensive "cargo rocket silo". But to avoid people using it for satellites or other stuff that are launch to orbit, I had to suppress the 1 slot inventory of my cargo-rocket. And then when you launch a cargo-rocket with this silo, you have the annoying "no satellite" message with the need of hitting TAB... I don't like it at all. Don't know how to avoid this (apart editing the map control.lua, but I cannot ask this to the average factorio user). Note that with the vanilla rocket silo, I avoided the message by inserting at the last moment a "free" hidden satelite in the rocket.

If you want to test it by yourself :

CargoRocket_1.0.1.zip

(543.47 KiB) Downloaded 242 times

[AlexTheNotsogreat]

The Delivery itself didn't work, but that, more than likely, is because I made a custom scenario for the test. The rocket does launch, though, and doesn't give me the "No satellite" message. Good to go!

[binbinhfr]

The Delivery itself didn't work, but that, more than likely, is because I made a custom scenario for the test. The rocket does launch, though, and doesn't give me the "No satellite" message. Good to go!

If you use the classic scenario, you will have the "no satellite" message, it's part of the control.lua of the map.
I wonder why you do not have the delivery. I have no problem with that, and did not changed anything on this side.
Do you have the same problem with the classic silo ?
Can you send me the control.lua of your custom map/scenario ? And a copy of you mod list (mod-list.json)

MOST IMPORTANT : Did you launch the cargo using the Launch button of the departure chest (not the one of the rocket silo) ? You have to use this button, because you can have several departure chest linked to the same silo, so I had to differenciate the launch buttons.

[Qon]

What a great idea!
Personally I would never cheat and use the cargo rocket though! I think trains are a great and fun option for long distance transport. I want this for extremely long range. I think I will also decrease the travel time/distance because as it is now it is just slightly faster than a train and at extremely long range less minutes of waiting time is nice for convinience. It doesn't really affect balance either since the rockets aren't limited in throughput by the travel time at all. Good thing it's a config option so I can easily set it to travel 10 times faster.

Time for me to mod some boxing mod so that I can use these for non-lossy ore/plate transport.

Thank you for this mod @binbinhfr!

[binbinhfr]

Yes, nice idea, indead !

For the travel time, I just thought it was strange to deliver the payload before the rocket has not even disappear from the launch area... That's why I put a 15sec offset time + time per distance. But of course, this config.lua is here to be edited and you're free to do it.

Have fun.

[Qon]

For the travel time, I just thought it was strange to deliver the payload before the rocket has not even disappear from the launch area... That's why I put a 15sec offset time + time per distance. But of course, this config.lua is here to be edited and you're free to do it.

I would not decrease the offset time at all, only the time per distance. So it will never arrive before it disappears, it will just arrive with less delay on distances where trains takes minutes. I might even double the offset and set it's travel speed to something that is 10 times higher.

[sporefreak]

Yet another great mod from binbinhfr!

[Supercheese]

I dunno about the "ultimate transportation mode" -- that would probably be teleporters -- but it's still pretty cool nonetheless!

[binbinhfr]

I would not decrease the offset time at all, only the time per distance. So it will never arrive before it disappears, it will just arrive with less delay on distances where trains takes minutes. I might even double the offset and set it's travel speed to something that is 10 times higher.

I set the offset by measuring the time the rocket takes to go out of the screen. I was 15-20 sec.
For the time per distance, please tell me what you choose, because I must admit that I put a (almost) random number. Any other better balanced number would be great (especially if you compared it to the equivalent train duration).

@sporefreak : thx for your support man !!! Well yes, the "ultimate" was for advertising purpose

[ssilk]

I'll give that a try with my next world, cause it reminds me very strong to the results of this discussion:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13200 Discussing the (missing?) 4th type of transport!

[binbinhfr]

Yes, give it a try and tell me what you think about it.

About the idea, I did not read the post you mention before, but as I told in the mod description, I adapted an idea of Qon :
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=25830
I suppose that many people had this idea about the rocket transportation.

[BULIGO]

Having access to that nice Aircraft mod, with 4 types of aircraft, I am still puzzled by the fact that nobody came out with an automated point-to-point airlift cargo system mod. This is the closest thing to that. And less cheesy i must add
P.S.
How about a mod for road transportation? A modified car/tank/rail car entity with new sprites and that can travel only on paved (concrete) surfaces/roads? Between chests obviously. For when those clumsy rail tracks are too.err.clumsy in an cramped space?
Just an idea.
Thanks for the mod.
What is the cost of the modified silo/rocket?
P.P.S.
OK, read the .lua and got my answers. The rocket is not expensive. As it is, I have no incentive of building the pointless satellites (not a completionist) nor the Orbital ion Cannon past say, 5 cannons or so. This way, i still need to keep those end-game little factories up producing the kinky rocketry stuff but just a fraction of the quantities required to launch the satellites/Ions. I like it.
Right now i am using a plane to transport batches of products to-fro my expansions/bases. It works, but its all manual and not as cool as the rocket delivery system which just..feels 'right'. Plus the rocket won't aggro milions of Behemoths along it's travelling route
Alright, sinking my teeth into that lenghty blob of a post about the misisng 4th type of transportation. Most my wishes were adressed there, i can see. Thanks for the link!

[binbinhfr]

A modified car/tank/rail car entity with new sprites and that can travel only on paved (concrete) surfaces/roads? Between chests obviously.

Oh yes, I had several nice ideas about automated airplane or zeppelins or trucks road transportation. The problem is that the factorio API does not allow modders to easily and smoothly move objets without a lot of CPU consumption. It is something to ask to the devs, not to the modders, as we are limited in the factorio API offered capabilities

With the cargo rocket, I just had to reprogram chests linked to the existing rocket event and animation. I do not remember the exact cost of the simplified silo/rocket, but it must be around 10% of the original. And 10% rocket parts needed.

[BULIGO]

Thank you for the quick reply Binbin. The cost of each rocket is 5-5-5 of each item (fuel, control thingies etc).
The silo is affordable too, need only one per base/expansion. NOT pointng at you, min-maxers!
For what it counts, I will be using the rocket to ferry home coal from distant deposits/mining outpost to be used in Klonan's Bergius Process plants which i grew very fond of. It will significantly affect my gaming playstyle.

[shadowdragon]

Just a little confused. Do the rockets need a constructed landing site for this to work or do the materials just appear in the chest?

[binbinhfr]

Just a little confused. Do the rockets need a constructed landing site for this to work or do the materials just appear in the chest?

No. Look at the picture I put in the description.
You have a departure chest and an arrival chests that you link together. There is a silo linked to the departure chest and that's all. The silo can be a vanilla one or a simplified cheaper one. When you click on the launch button of the departure chest, the chest is emptied, the linked rocket flies, and a few seconds after, the arrival chest received the items. No landing site nor animation on the landing side. Modders cannot add such new items to the game. They can just use existing items and reprogram their behaviour in a quite limited way.

[BULIGO]

The rocket has a sub-orbital ballistic trajectory and, before burning in the atmosphere at the re-entry, it ejects the cargo which is parachuted to the ground, collected and stored in the destination box by..er..Gremlins
RP enuff?