Rocket silo logistic is just broken

[Khazul]

That's a great idea! It would also tend to send up cargo bays early, since they're next to the hub and should become buildable well before most other things.

They should be highest priority after foundation once buildable as those of us with a decent sized silo array can easily swamp the hub before it decide to get around to requesting them.

For now - I still have my 'Build the f*****g platform!' logistics group to solve this in a non-auto manner

[mmmPI]

This was also a version or more ago and since then it seems to be behaving more reasonably and not seeing sign of shipping up the same duplicate payload via several rockets concurrently (which is what I assume caused this).

good to hear it's gone now

And the devs have only flagged one single thing as wrong, that the rocket silo wouldn't fetch from buffer chests. It's something I saw in the game but can't reproduce. Not sure what happened there.

Good to hear that it doesn't happen anymore. That doesn't mean the other points are valids.

Instead O often find with larger ship it chooses to send up pretty much every EXCEPT foundation and cargo bays first despite there being 10 of 1000s of foundations and 100s of of cargo bays right next to my rocket silo array. End result is it deadlocks itself by filling up the hub with stuff, but cannot build anything because it has no foundations.

That happened couple times to me but I like to automate things myself with circuits and one CAN load space platform tiles with inserters on silo have a few silo always loaded and that's it , you made a planet into a shipyard ! Quite the waste early game, but for large ships late game i use the shipyard x).

[mrvn]

That's a great idea! It would also tend to send up cargo bays early, since they're next to the hub and should become buildable well before most other things.

They should be highest priority after foundation once buildable as those of us with a decent sized silo array can easily swamp the hub before it decide to get around to requesting them.

For now - I still have my 'Build the f*****g platform!' logistics group to solve this in a non-auto manner

I have a logistic group for everything minus full stacks. My platform needs 202 belts so logistic group has 2 belts in it and so on. I request everything from that group into a requester chest next to the rocket silo and then send up rockets manually. The request also includes some extra stacks of scaffolding to get construction started. After that I can let the automation take over and request the stack sized chunks and finish the platform. Seems to be the most economical and time saving way.

[Khazul]

you made a planet into a shipyard ! Quite the waste early game, but for large ships late game i use the shipyard x).

Its a shame you cant setup a platform as an orbital supply base for other platforms and building. Rocket stuff up there over time ready for when its needed. That way I probably wouldnt need an array of 25 fully beacons silos and still be complaining stuff takes too long. Yes - I'm tempted to double it to 50

[mmmPI]

That happened couple times to me but I like to automate things myself with circuits and one CAN load space platform tiles with inserters on silo have a few silo always loaded and that's it , you made a planet into a shipyard ! Quite the waste early game, but for large ships late game i use the shipyard x).

Its a shame you cant setup a platform as an orbital supply base for other platforms and building. Rocket stuff up there over time ready for when its needed. That way I probably wouldnt need an array of 25 fully beacons silos and still be complaining stuff takes too long. Yes - I'm tempted to double it to 50

Yeah throughput issue is solved with numbers x). Now I think if you have that many, you can add a couple without beacons, one always loaded with cargo bay and like 2 or 3 always loaded with platform. This way when making a new platform those will be sent right away, and you won't deadlock the autoconstruction without manual intervention.

[Khazul]

That happened couple times to me but I like to automate things myself with circuits and one CAN load space platform tiles with inserters on silo have a few silo always loaded and that's it , you made a planet into a shipyard ! Quite the waste early game, but for large ships late game i use the shipyard x).

Its a shame you cant setup a platform as an orbital supply base for other platforms and building. Rocket stuff up there over time ready for when its needed. That way I probably wouldnt need an array of 25 fully beacons silos and still be complaining stuff takes too long. Yes - I'm tempted to double it to 50

Yeah throughput issue is solved with numbers x). Now I think if you have that many, you can add a couple without beacons, one always loaded with cargo bay and like 2 or 3 always loaded with platform. This way when making a new platform those will be sent right away, and you won't deadlock the autoconstruction without manual intervention.

Sure - this thread seemed about how it *should* work rather than how to work around what doesnt

I do have a few silo now that are belt fed, but my attention is elsewhere at the moment (optimising a precision thruster/speed controller - bringing some space engineers tricks to factorio). Eventually silos will be the shiny thing that get my proper attention eventually

[mmmPI]

Now I think if you have that many, you can add a couple without beacons, one always loaded with cargo bay and like 2 or 3 always loaded with platform. This way when making a new platform those will be sent right away, and you won't deadlock the autoconstruction without manual intervention.

I do have a few silo now that are belt fed, but my attention is elsewhere at the moment (optimising a precision thruster/speed controller - bringing some space engineers tricks to factorio). Eventually silos will be the shiny thing that get my proper attention eventually
[/quote]

They don't even have to be belt fed, you can use bots, and just don't tick the box for auto-request, this way the game doesn't trash the item and you can keep a silo loaded with platform and one with cargo bay, to make sure you don't accidentaly deadlock when building large blueprint repeatdly.

[mmmPI]

Now I think if you have that many, you can add a couple without beacons, one always loaded with cargo bay and like 2 or 3 always loaded with platform. This way when making a new platform those will be sent right away, and you won't deadlock the autoconstruction without manual intervention.

I do have a few silo now that are belt fed, but my attention is elsewhere at the moment (optimising a precision thruster/speed controller - bringing some space engineers tricks to factorio). Eventually silos will be the shiny thing that get my proper attention eventually

They don't even have to be belt fed, you can use bots, and just don't tick the box for auto-request, this way the game doesn't trash the item and you can keep a silo loaded with platform and one with cargo bay, to make sure you don't accidentaly deadlock when building large blueprint repeatdly.

[Sworn]

They don't even have to be belt fed, you can use bots, and just don't tick the box for auto-request, this way the game doesn't trash the item and you can keep a silo loaded with platform and one with cargo bay, to make sure you don't accidentaly deadlock when building large blueprint repeatdly.

not entirely true, bot feed option is only manual, one has to manually keep adding the stacks for the construction bots to fill up the rocket.
Then if we try to use the logic to read the request and set to a requester chest and still be able to control the inserter, we fall into the issue for blue circuits, lds and rocket fuel.

It also wouldn't prevent "accidentaly deadlock", well that depends on how many rockets one has, but it is very possible that just some rockets get send while others, including the manual bot feed, to just get stuck since it was picked last on the game sequence, however the game decides to pick the rocket to send.

There is no "logical" way (circuit based), or "logistic" way (logistic system) to prevent the annoying dead lock for missing space in ship.
The only solution is to manually send loads of foundations first.

Even if one have like 1k rocket silos ready to go, it would just make it worst since the starter pack has barely any space and more rockets as options means more chance to send something that is not a space platform.

This if the station is requesting the items, otherwise is just a manual process, since if the platform is not requesting the items, nothing get sent

[mmmPI]

It also wouldn't prevent "accidentaly deadlock", well that depends on how many rockets one has, but it is very possible that just some rockets get send while others, including the manual bot feed, to just get stuck since it was picked last on the game sequence, however the game decides to pick the rocket to send.

I don't understand what you call manual bot feed, to me that make no sense.

It is possible to have requester chest request space platform tile and load one or more silo that are not configured to auto-request from the platform.

Then as soon as a platform is requesting tiles to expand, those would be ready to launch BEFORE any other silo that request from bots in automatic mode, because those are not preloaded. This easily prevent dead locks in my games.

There is no "logical" way (circuit based), or "logistic" way (logistic system) to prevent the annoying dead lock for missing space in ship.
The only solution is to manually send loads of foundations first.

This is wrong, it doesn't have to be manual.

[mrvn]

They don't even have to be belt fed, you can use bots, and just don't tick the box for auto-request, this way the game doesn't trash the item and you can keep a silo loaded with platform and one with cargo bay, to make sure you don't accidentaly deadlock when building large blueprint repeatdly.

not entirely true, bot feed option is only manual, one has to manually keep adding the stacks for the construction bots to fill up the rocket.
Then if we try to use the logic to read the request and set to a requester chest and still be able to control the inserter, we fall into the issue for blue circuits, lds and rocket fuel.

It also wouldn't prevent "accidentaly deadlock", well that depends on how many rockets one has, but it is very possible that just some rockets get send while others, including the manual bot feed, to just get stuck since it was picked last on the game sequence, however the game decides to pick the rocket to send.

There is no "logical" way (circuit based), or "logistic" way (logistic system) to prevent the annoying dead lock for missing space in ship.
The only solution is to manually send loads of foundations first.

Even if one have like 1k rocket silos ready to go, it would just make it worst since the starter pack has barely any space and more rockets as options means more chance to send something that is not a space platform.

This if the station is requesting the items, otherwise is just a manual process, since if the platform is not requesting the items, nothing get sent

What you can do is read the requests. If it includes foundation then load exactly one stack of foundation into the rocket. Otherwise pick an item and load exactly rocket size amount of that into the rocket. Loading exact counts is easier with 2 rocket silos, one for read request and one for read content.

So there you have it: A way to circuit control what gets send to space and in what order. It's just not a good way.

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

[Sworn]

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

This is a freaking good idea, also linked it to viewtopic.php?f=6&t=121977 as well, suits perfectly.

What you can do is read the requests. If it includes foundation then load exactly one stack of foundation into the rocket. Otherwise pick an item and load exactly rocket size amount of that into the rocket. Loading exact counts is easier with 2 rocket silos, one for read request and one for read content.

So there you have it: A way to circuit control what gets send to space and in what order. It's just not a good way.

So, it's a clever way to prioritize foundation, reading the platform request, and if there is any platform begin requested, just pass it to a requester chests and load into the silo, otherwise load everything else.

So, it seems to be a solution to building the platforms problems, but it makes so you can't have any other rocket silo listening to the requests, since it will just ignore that silo with circuit and load whatever it wants. And also, again lose the ability to load lds, blue chips and rocket fuel.

Its an issue that became more evident as you have more rocket silos ready to go.
If you consider a very large base, having rockets for everything, so you could just past the blueprint and have the entire thing shipped at once.

This solution would work only if all silos are set with the same logic priority with the platforms and would still fails to load those 3 rocket part.
and the only way to load those is with automatic requests, which then now goes against the combinator logic on every other rocket silo.
This just highlights how inconsistent this behavior with blue circuit, low density structure and rocket fuel is. It always come back to this problem.

What could work though, if we had an extra option at the rocket silo, to disable it, just like we can disable requester chests now, that would allow one to check if any of the requesting items have platform, if so, disable the automatic rocket silos, then it would work

[mrvn]

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

This is a freaking good idea, also linked it to viewtopic.php?f=6&t=121977 as well, suits perfectly.

What you can do is read the requests. If it includes foundation then load exactly one stack of foundation into the rocket. Otherwise pick an item and load exactly rocket size amount of that into the rocket. Loading exact counts is easier with 2 rocket silos, one for read request and one for read content.

So there you have it: A way to circuit control what gets send to space and in what order. It's just not a good way.

So, it's a clever way to prioritize foundation, reading the platform request, and if there is any platform begin requested, just pass it to a requester chests and load into the silo, otherwise load everything else.

So, it seems to be a solution to building the platforms problems, but it makes so you can't have any other rocket silo listening to the requests, since it will just ignore that silo with circuit and load whatever it wants. And also, again lose the ability to load lds, blue chips and rocket fuel.

Its an issue that became more evident as you have more rocket silos ready to go.
If you consider a very large base, having rockets for everything, so you could just past the blueprint and have the entire thing shipped at once.

This solution would work only if all silos are set with the same logic priority with the platforms and would still fails to load those 3 rocket part.
and the only way to load those is with automatic requests, which then now goes against the combinator logic on every other rocket silo.
This just highlights how inconsistent this behavior with blue circuit, low density structure and rocket fuel is. It always come back to this problem.

What could work though, if we had an extra option at the rocket silo, to disable it, just like we can disable requester chests now, that would allow one to check if any of the requesting items have platform, if so, disable the automatic rocket silos, then it would work

Indeed. If you go circuit controlled on one silo then you basically need to do it on all silos.

The inability to load processing units, low density structure and rocket fuel sucks as much as the inability to send mixed cargos. You can build an automatic silo outside your normal logistic area and only provide the 3 problematic items there with a dedicated, unconnected roboport. That's actually another way to control what's going to be send up. When scaffolding is requested disable the provider chests for all other items or remove them from the provide chests the silo can reach. Then put them back in order of preference. Every time something with higher preference is requested remove all items with lower preference from the logistic network.
All that needs is leaving some space around the rocket silo and sorting items into provider chests by preference levels. (Note: haven't tested disabling provider chests. It may leave the rocket silo requesting e.g. transport belts with none in the logistic system and deadlock.)

When you unlock the asteroid chunk processing for copper you can also build space platform scaffolding in space. Just send up a started platform that includes a scaffolding production and then wait for it to produce enough. Only then blueprint a bigger platform. This also gives you the ability to build processing units (send up plastic) and low density structure in space. If you unlock coal liquification and send up a barrel or two of heavy oil then you can build rocket fuel in space too. Actually nearly everything else too. Everything except stone and uranium. You have to send up stone or stone brick (more efficient than stone) for Aquilo at least. Uranium you only need a handful so no big deal sending a rocket.

My recommendation is to send up a new space platform hub as soon as you are finished building out the last one and set it up to build scaffolding. If you need it you will be happy to have it ready. If you don't need it then all you lost is one space platform starter kit and 2-3 rockets with manual loading. It really is too bad you can't send items from one platform to another. A platform construction yard in orbit would be awesome.

[mmmPI]

my solution to avoid deadlocks : have a silo always loaded with space platform tile and not in auto-request mode. This way any new platform created will receive as first shipment rockets from this silo, and would thus get some foundations as first shipment. That seem straightforward to do in late game when you are about to paste large blueprint of ships several times.

It is possible to also do this with cargo bays. I called this "spaceyard". This way any big blueprint that one attempt to deploy is dealt with automatically. Receiving first tiles and cargobay, there is no way the platform deadlock, this only occured before i started to think of a smarter system than the one i used before that had some deadlocks and it doesn't require anything changed from the game.

I think it will become pretty much the standard when players start to learn how to do so x)

[Khazul]

If you unlock coal liquification and send up a barrel or two of heavy oil then you can build rocket fuel in space too. Actually nearly everything else too. Everything except stone and uranium. You have to send up stone or stone brick (more efficient than stone) for Aquilo at least. Uranium you only need a handful so no big deal sending a rocket.

I did briefly try making nukes on board but after the front of the ship vanished in a mushroom cloud - gave up on that idea

[mmmPI]

If you unlock coal liquification and send up a barrel or two of heavy oil then you can build rocket fuel in space too. Actually nearly everything else too. Everything except stone and uranium. You have to send up stone or stone brick (more efficient than stone) for Aquilo at least. Uranium you only need a handful so no big deal sending a rocket.

I did briefly try making nukes on board but after the front of the ship vanished in a mushroom cloud - gave up on that idea

Yeah that works only if the ship is very slow x)

And there is no need to send the barrel of heavy oil in space, one can just use the "simple coal liquefaction" to get it.

[mrvn]

If you unlock coal liquification and send up a barrel or two of heavy oil then you can build rocket fuel in space too. Actually nearly everything else too. Everything except stone and uranium. You have to send up stone or stone brick (more efficient than stone) for Aquilo at least. Uranium you only need a handful so no big deal sending a rocket.

I did briefly try making nukes on board but after the front of the ship vanished in a mushroom cloud - gave up on that idea

I tried that with the worms on Vulkanus. The rocket turrets have less reach than the explosion from the nuke so the first one that fires destroys itself and everything near it. Unless you use one nuke per turret and get them to fire all at the same time it's a bust.

Might be possible to use legendary turrets with nukes. Is their range large enough to escape the blast? If you have enough you might be able to shoot everything before it comes close enough the explosion kills the ship too.

[Khazul]

If you unlock coal liquification and send up a barrel or two of heavy oil then you can build rocket fuel in space too. Actually nearly everything else too. Everything except stone and uranium. You have to send up stone or stone brick (more efficient than stone) for Aquilo at least. Uranium you only need a handful so no big deal sending a rocket.

I did briefly try making nukes on board but after the front of the ship vanished in a mushroom cloud - gave up on that idea

I tried that with the worms on Vulkanus. The rocket turrets have less reach than the explosion from the nuke so the first one that fires destroys itself and everything near it. Unless you use one nuke per turret and get them to fire all at the same time it's a bust.

Might be possible to use legendary turrets with nukes. Is their range large enough to escape the blast? If you have enough you might be able to shoot everything before it comes close enough the explosion kills the ship too.

There was a mod IIRC called nuke safety launcher or something like that. It applied a minimum range. Seems to need something similar - ie a minimum safe range on a turrets to make nukes viable (and as you say - longer range).