How do you drop auto-requested construction items from a space platform?

[trancexpress]

I'm making my science on Vulcanus (I've found a nice lake in Nauvis where I do research and I don't bother with biters that way). I ship the science with a lot of space platforms. When I need to expand and research faster, I must make more platforms that ship science.

So how do I make e.g. 10 platforms with as little clicking as possible?

The part that I'm the most annoyed with is, when auto-requesting materials is done, I don't know how the platform should drop the items it has automatically. I don't want 10-20 slots of my platform to be just building materials, I want to drop them down.

So far I've made a request on my Nauvis landing pad, for the materials that I build the platforms with. But, when construction is done, the platform auto-request stays at zeroes and so the platform drops nothing:

07-28-2025, 09-02-35.png (33.16 KiB) Viewed 234 times

I have to click the auto-request checkbox on and off, for the items to start dropping... Which is not a big deal considering all the other clicking, but it annoys me. Also the items get dropped veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly... E.g. it takes 10-15 sec to drop them all, despite having a ton of extra cargo buildings for my landing pad.

Also the landing pad request is not great, I need to request absurd amounts of items to make sure that the landing pad doesn't stop requesting items.

Overall I wasn't happy with building rockets mid-game - when I sent exact material amounts manually, to not waste rocket parts. And I'm not happy with building platforms late game. Everything is done automatically, yes. Aside from dropping extra materials (requesting them is own its own very wasteful).

Am I supposed to just leave the materials in the space platform, adding 2 extra cargo buildings to not care about the wasted item slots? Or just optimize my platforms to not care about the wasted item slots? The items that I build the platforms with get made by the tons... It doesn't matter if a platform uses 5 or 50.

[Tertius]

I want to drop them down.

Shift-leftclick on a stack will move it to the trash, which will be dropped if the platform is in orbit. Ctrl-leftclick on a stack moves all stacks of the same material to the trash, and ctrl-leftclick on an empty stack moves all stacks of the whole inventory to the trash (up to 10 stacks, which is the trash limit). This is the usual item movement game mechanic when 2 inventories are involved.

[trancexpress]

Shift-leftclick on a stack will move it to the trash, which will be dropped if the platform is in orbit. Ctrl-leftclick on a stack moves all stacks of the same material to the trash, and ctrl-leftclick on an empty stack moves all stacks of the whole inventory to the trash (up to 10 stacks, which is the trash limit). This is the usual item movement game mechanic when 2 inventories are involved.

Maybe I should've been more specific, I don't want to drop them manually. Also dropping items from a space platform is a pain once the space platform starts producing things that get inserted into the space platform hub (which the platforms I use for moving space science do, in order to be more compact).

[Tertius]

I know no easier way. There's also no way to "drop everything" automatically. Or to just send the needed material up in correct quantities and auto-filling rockets with mixed content. It's also not possible to build a dynamic list of items to drop, for example with the circuit network, or to determine on the ground what a platform in orbit has available and request a selection of that. I hope handling one or more of these issues is part of improvements in a possible 2.1 game update.

[eugenekay]

Does it matter if you drop the excess items to the Planet, or can you live with throwing them Overboard?

You can use a Combinator Contraption to read the contents of the Platform Hub, and the Location of the Platform in Space. When the Platform is in-transit (so, not waiting at a Planet for material to arrive) you can have an Inserter remove the excess Construction Materials via a Filter (excluding anything you want to keep as Cargo) and then toss them off the edge of the Platform, or feed them to a looped Recycler.

Good Luck!

[trancexpress]

Does it matter if you drop the excess items to the Planet, or can you live with throwing them Overboard?

You can use a Combinator Contraption to read the contents of the Platform Hub, and the Location of the Platform in Space. When the Platform is in-transit (so, not waiting at a Planet for material to arrive) you can have an Inserter remove the excess Construction Materials via a Filter (excluding anything you want to keep as Cargo) and then toss them off the edge of the Platform, or feed them to a looped Recycler.

Good Luck!

Hmm, I didn't think about using the trip destination signal... The only issue with this would be the available filter slots. Maybe I can set the filter via a constant combinator...

Yes, I'll try this. It might do exactly what I need. Thank you for the idea!

[trancexpress]

This is compact enough for my platforms:

07-28-2025, 17-17-51.png (434.8 KiB) Viewed 104 times

Should work in space. Thanks again!