Rocket launches even when output slot is full

[BlakeMW]

I like the idea of a warning: after the rocket launches it just warns the player there was no space to put the science packs. Upsetting maybe to have lost a load of space science, but at least it would only be one load, and it would prompt the player to start unloading the space packs and use them (if they've forgotten to, rather than are unloading them but have backlogged)

[LD100]

After 100 rocket starts I always thought my bottleneck with science was rocket science. But I just figured out that it was blue science -.- As I did not know of this behavior I don't know ho many rockets I wastefully send to space.

I never read anything about this behavior in any blogpost or tutorial etc. The only way I noticed it was by watching a rocket start.

My game intuition based on the other mechanics of the game was that the automated rocket sending would take the science pack into account when to send a rocket into space. Getting Rocket science is the only reason for a vanilla player to send rockets. So I can not understand the decision to keep the mechanics the current way.
All other Plants stop producing when the output is full. Why not the Rocket Launch pad?

Please change this.

[Zavian]

It occurred to me that one fix that retains the need for players to use circuits to manage satellite launches, is to spill the excess science packs over the ground. That way science isn't destroyed, and players will notice, and need to clean up. (The other alternative is a console message, everytime science flasks are destroyed).

[m44v]

My game intuition based on the other mechanics of the game was that the automated rocket sending would take the science pack into account when to send a rocket into space.(...)
All other Plants stop producing when the output is full. Why not the Rocket Launch pad?

This is my impression as well when using the rocket silo, what you learned with assemblers doesn't apply to it. Losing products because it didn't stop when output is full isn't the only "gotcha" the rocket silo has, you can't either pick it up when there's a rocket ready or in progress, because you'll lose all the resources, while everything else will give you back the input ingredients.

[Ranakastrasz]

My game intuition based on the other mechanics of the game was that the automated rocket sending would take the science pack into account when to send a rocket into space.(...)
All other Plants stop producing when the output is full. Why not the Rocket Launch pad?

This is my impression as well when using the rocket silo, what you learned with assemblers doesn't apply to it. Losing products because it didn't stop when output is full isn't the only "gotcha" the rocket silo has, you can't either pick it up when there's a rocket ready or in progress, because you'll lose all the resources, while everything else will give you back the input ingredients.

Actually any recipe in progress doesnt give back the resoirces last i checked

[kitcat]

Discarding excess space science packs makes sense for players who want to launch as many rockets as possible with no limits, which was kind of the post-end-game goal before space science was implemented. Silently discarding the excess space science packs isn’t a good design choice, though.

I believe there’s already a notification for launching a rocket with no satellite, which basically means “Congratulations. You wasted all those resources and got nothing.” Just like that, there could be a message for discarding space science packs: “Some space science packs were discarded because the rocket silo result inventory is full.”

[pleegwat]

I could see tying it into the auto-launch option. Either never auto-launch when the output slot is not empty, or have three values. But that would be a feature request.

[Caine]

This problem is very easily resolved with a trivial circuit network and some buffer chests. I do not see a problem with the current behaviour.

[LD100]

This problem is very easily resolved with a trivial circuit network and some buffer chests. I do not see a problem with the current behaviour.

The behavior is a problem as it differs from the behavior of other assamblers mainly stopping production if output is full.

I would be happy, if there would be at least a warning that space science got destroyer with a rocket launch. This still makes the implausible why should there be no space science coming back just because you did not empty the rocket silo?

Another proposal would be to set the stack size of space science within the rocket silo to infinity. This would also prevent from science distraction and would reduce possible frustration of players as they did not waste resources to send a rocket into space for nothing.

[Caine]

The behavior is a problem as it differs from the behavior of other assamblers mainly stopping production if output is full.

It is not an assembler. If your main goal is just to launch as many missiles as possible, you don't even want it to block when your science consumption cannot keep up.

Really, a wire from a buffer chest to the inserter for the satellite with a condition "space science = 0" (or space science < YOUR_BUFFER_AMOUNT). That's it.

[gHoST INFERNO]

Everybody agrees it's easy to work around this *once you know this is happening*. I for example destroyed the space science of 10+ rockets because I didn't realize this was happening.

I think all this thread wants to improve is to make it less hidden for people that aren't aware of this quirk yet.

[Caine]

Right, I am not even sure how I know that it works this way, perhaps from an FFF.

Well,.. I suppose a tiny message would make some sense.

[m44v]

My game intuition based on the other mechanics of the game was that the automated rocket sending would take the science pack into account when to send a rocket into space.(...)
All other Plants stop producing when the output is full. Why not the Rocket Launch pad?

This is my impression as well when using the rocket silo, what you learned with assemblers doesn't apply to it. Losing products because it didn't stop when output is full isn't the only "gotcha" the rocket silo has, you can't either pick it up when there's a rocket ready or in progress, because you'll lose all the resources, while everything else will give you back the input ingredients.

Actually any recipe in progress doesnt give back the resoirces last i checked

Yes they do, I just checked.

[mrvn]

My game intuition based on the other mechanics of the game was that the automated rocket sending would take the science pack into account when to send a rocket into space.(...)
All other Plants stop producing when the output is full. Why not the Rocket Launch pad?

This is my impression as well when using the rocket silo, what you learned with assemblers doesn't apply to it. Losing products because it didn't stop when output is full isn't the only "gotcha" the rocket silo has, you can't either pick it up when there's a rocket ready or in progress, because you'll lose all the resources, while everything else will give you back the input ingredients.

Actually any recipe in progress doesnt give back the resoirces last i checked

Yes they do, I just checked.

Problem is that a rocket runs through 100 cycles of the recipe before it can start. I bet when you mine it you get back the resources for the current cycle. But not the 47 cycles completed before that.

[m44v]

Problem is that a rocket runs through 100 cycles of the recipe before it can start. I bet when you mine it you get back the resources for the current cycle. But not the 47 cycles completed before that.

Well, isn't that issue?, only the rocket silo does that, and it goes against players' intuition because it isn't what you learn with assemblers, assemblers don't destroy outputs and neither lose ingredients.

The rocket silo is actually doing two recipes at the same time, one for the rocket parts and another for the rocket itself, thus is has two progress bars and two outputs. Why isn't rocket parts made in assemblers and then feed to the silo for the rocket? that would met the players' expectation better.

[ChildishGiant]

Can anyone explain how to work around this? I understand the design decision but I disagree with it. If you want to keep this, it should be clear to the user that they aren't gaining anything from launching satellites.

[DaleStan]

If you remove the loss of white science, then it becomes much harder to automate factories that launch rockets but don't consume the science; you have to figure out some way to destroy the white science if you don't want to use it.

Preventing science loss is not hard, as long as you know it's going to happen. My solution is to use a stack inserter to pull science into a chest, and wire the chest to the satellite inserter. The satellite inserter is enabled if the chest has less than 2k white science. Why 2k science? Simply because 2 rockets of science as a buffer seemed like plenty.

[Loewchen]

Closed. For further information open a Gameplay Help topic.