Your method for sending mixed rocket payloads?

[Tinyboss]

HEADS UP: This is not a complaint about orbital logistics! There are plenty of other threads for that...

How are y'all doing it? I wanted to create a platform capable of self-defense in Fulgora orbit in as few launches as possible. The best I've come up with is a requester chest with the exact item counts I need. When it's full I disable it, then aim an inserter into the rocket silo, and launch manually.

Is there something more elegant?

[MeduSalem]

There currently isn't any other way to do it any better that I am aware of. ^^

And I also tried different things with inserters & circuit logic, but ended up doing it manually exactly like you do for quite a while.


But that said now that I am less resource/production starved on Nauvis and I have stockpiled everything galore, while building my most recent platforms I eventually said "screw it" and let the platform auto-request all building materials. Even if it sends up a whole stack of items when I only need handful. xD

In the end the thought here was "going to drop it down anyway on the other planet; so spares me another rocket".


But then I stopped caring about the amount of resources that go into rocket launches altogether. It is definitely cheap enough that you can do totally crazy things without worrying. ^^

Even more so after you get the big mining drill, the foundries, electromagnetic plants up in your main production chains on Nauvis as well. Holy damn, my miners barely work anymore because of all the productivity that stacks over the crafting cascade. (a sign that I should expand Science production, but I just don't feel like going bigger yet while I still figure most new mechanics out yet).

Rocket production gets really cheap with it.

[mmmPI]

Is there something more elegant?

You can't launch mixed rocket automatically, so the manual launch is going to be there

If you are not making this remotely, you can always dump the material in the silo manually too, but if you want to automate, without bots and mixed rockets, you can have a sushi belt with the materials that are potentially requested, and "read content" of the silo, to "set filter" to inserter, to they fill in with the proper number of item, and something like ring a speaker to remind you of manual launching. Not sure if that is more elegant though.

There is no way to send a signal to the silo for it to (auto)launch, from what i remember when asking, it was something like "how would you choose with circuits which platform to launch to", as you can only transmit number, each platform would have to have an ID, which may change when getting destroyed, or repurpose similar to trains ID that is not a very robust thing to base automation on.

[MeduSalem]

[There is no way to send a signal to the silo for it to (auto)launch, from what i remember when asking, it was something like "how would you choose with circuits which platform to launch to", as you can only transmit number, each platform would have to have an ID, which may change when getting destroyed, or repurpose similar to trains ID that is not a very robust thing to base automation on.

Which on an unrelated side-note always made me wonder why there is not a field for circuit network purposes where you can set an ID number manually. So that if you give that ID once the thing will keep it forever, even if it is destroyed and has to be rebuilt.

That would make some circuit logic setups way easier.

[mmmPI]

Which on an unrelated side-note always made me wonder why there is not a field for circuit network purposes where you can set an ID number manually. So that if you give that ID once the thing will keep it forever, even if it is destroyed and has to be rebuilt.

That would make some circuit logic setups way easier.

Where would be that field ? I mean for train, if it's destroyed there's nowhere you can click to see or access this ID, and when you rebuild a train, the game cannot know if you are rebuilding one that should take a previously used ID, and which one if you lost several train with custom ID ? So in the end you'd be prompted everytime you make a thing, or at least it couldn't be rebuilt automatically without it being a mess imo.

[MeduSalem]

Where would be that field ? I mean for train, if it's destroyed there's nowhere you can click to see or access this ID, and when you rebuild a train, the game cannot know if you are rebuilding one that should take a previously used ID, and which one if you lost several train with custom ID ? So in the end you'd be prompted everytime you make a thing, or at least it couldn't be rebuilt automatically without it being a mess imo.

Well, that was more meant for a platform or stuff that can leave a ghost build.

If a train gets wrecked (for whatever reason that would ever happen, it never happened to me once in all the time) then there is nothing much you can do other than manually place it again and set it up again. (albeit you could get help now with parametrized blueprints if they supported it). ^^

[mmmPI]

Well, that was more meant for a platform or stuff that can leave a ghost build.

But then if you want to blueprint this, you can't, because if two player attempt to use it , or a player attempt to use it twice it would create conflicting ID.

If a train gets wrecked (for whatever reason that would ever happen, it never happened to me once in all the time) then there is nothing much you can do other than manually place it again and set it up again. (albeit you could get help now with parametrized blueprints if they supported it). ^^

It can happen if you have an outpost that get killed , the train there would get reckt too. But again it could become quickly messy if the game is expected to keep track of ordering when player blueprint things hoping to get the unique ID when it's built. In general i mean i don't expect it to be possible due to this.

[Tinyboss]

But that said now that I am less resource/production starved on Nauvis and I have stockpiled everything galore, while building my most recent platforms I eventually said "screw it" and let the platform auto-request all building materials. Even if it sends up a whole stack of items when I only need handful. xD

Yeah, I too am at the point where a rocket launch is "free" in terms of resources. But it still takes time! I specifically want to launch a platform starter kit into a hazardous orbit and have it be capable of self defense in a reasonably short time frame.

I'll probably end up blueprinting my minimal self-defending platform, then blueprint a requester chest for each rocket needed to build it.

Thanks for the reply!

[mmmPI]

But it still takes time! I specifically want to launch a platform starter kit into a hazardous orbit and have it be capable of self defense in a reasonably short time frame.

Just make more silos

[MeduSalem]

Yeah, I too am at the point where a rocket launch is "free" in terms of resources. But it still takes time! I specifically want to launch a platform starter kit into a hazardous orbit and have it be capable of self defense in a reasonably short time frame.

I'll probably end up blueprinting my minimal self-defending platform, then blueprint a requester chest for each rocket needed to build it.

Ahh.. yea.

For the stations I plan in the other planet's orbits I am always going to start by building a copy of one of my "trade" platforms which has guns and whatnot in Nauvis orbit where you have "peace". And once it is space capable then move the station into the target orbit of the planet I want it to be and expand on it further from there while it is already capable of defending itself. ^^

I think that is for me the least risky way to do it.


But that said I don't know whether I even want or will get to having stationary platforms in every orbit anyway.

For example in Vulcanus orbit it is pointless. There is nothing you can produce on the platform that would make a having a stationary platform there worth it. The planet is totally self-sufficient with infinite resources for everything. The easiest planet (even easier than Nauvis).

Fulgora might be worth it for the ice cubes and will likely be the next station I build; because I am kinda struggling a bit with the water there. I can't make enough sulfuric acid to produce enough batteries to make more science. I have to import batteries from Nauvis currently so that I can craft away all the holmium. Sure, could expand the scrap recycling, but then I would also get even more Holmium that I cannot craft away into science because... not enough ice cubes. At least that is what I already found out about the crafting chains there that you are constantly starved for water. ^^

Gleba might be useful for Calcite like I already do in Nauvis orbit. At least it would make setting up low density structure production a cakewalk (currently I am still importing it from Nauvis with every return trip after delivering the agri science packs). But it is not really necessary because you get iron/copper ore for free anyway if you just scale your bacteria bio chamber stuff accordingly (just too lazy to do it currently).

On Aquilo I guess one might make use of one because as far as I saw you start with absolutely nothing there. So having some local space orbit production for some less demanded items might actually be worth it so I don't have to wait for shipments from other planets all the time. However I also suspect that a platform there will have massive energy problems because solar power will literally not work at all. You would need a nuke plant on it or something; but good luck with restocking if one is still in terrible shape down below on the planet. By the time I might be able to ship fuel cells up to the platform I might have developed Aquilo reasonably already or even think "screw a stationary platform there, just deliver the crap with ships". At least i would consider a space platform in Aquilo orbit a "luxury" goal. it would definitely be the most advanced station. After all you also need production for rockets turrets because there are probably big asteroids in its orbit.