Click the space platform hub, click the bolt icon in the upper right of that panel.Shalashalska wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 7:55 am You can view the power statistics of the space platform by placing a power pole anywhere on the platform. I'm not sure if there is a better way to do this, and there probably should be one.
Space Platform 101 Discussion
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hecktarzuli
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Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
I can't see how to automate transferring material/white science from a Space Platform to Nauvaris.
Looks similar to a train schedule but the the Space Platform isn't listed.
Is there a guide/tutorial about Space Platforms? I've not had much fun with figuring them out!
Looks similar to a train schedule but the the Space Platform isn't listed.
Is there a guide/tutorial about Space Platforms? I've not had much fun with figuring them out!
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Make an Order at Landing Pad.
Make sure that it have some Cargo Bays attached, if Order is above ~200 units total. For Orders above 500 units total some Cargo Bays at Spce Platform hub might be necessary too. Cargo Bays seem to increase air-to-ground thoroughput.
Make sure that Space Platform either do have a stop at current planet with Unload checkbox ticked or don't have any stops at all.
And that's it, matching items from Space Platform's inventory will start arriving at Landing Pad in all their blazing glory!
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
I've got two platforms above Nauvis. Is there a way to automatically send oxide asteroid chunks and/or ice from one platform to the other? I never seem to have enough water on the platform that's making thruster fuel and oxidizer.
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Transit through planet's surface only.
There's a graph of how often which chunks appear on different orbits and routes in in-game Factoriopedia.
It's worth checking there prior to starting minmaxing platforms.
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
After you get Gleba tech you can reroll all asteroids to random different types, making water from metal and carbon asteroids.
Before that just make sure your platform has full grabber coverage for the platforms front and sides, and that they never get full. Throw excess asteroids out into space.
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Today I spent the whole day trying to derive the formula for the platform max speed. It turned out to be a much more complicated process than I anticipated. At first I thought that it would be an easy linear relation between the platform mass, thrust and max speed. And at first it indeed looked like it. But then I found out that the platform width is actually much more important than the platform mass, and the speed increases non-linearly with the thrust. Here are my findings so far:
- The closest planet always pulls you with the speed of 10 km/s. You can ignore that speed, it doesn't participate in any calculations.
- The only parameters of the platform that matter are the number of thrusters (i.e. thrust), the mass and the width (the horizontal distance between the most left and most right foundations), the exact shape doesn't matter, and width is much more important than the mass.
- The "force of friction" is calculated as a quadratic equation of speed (adjusted to the 10 km/s pull), f = k1 * (V - k4)^2 + k2 * (V - k4) + k3, the platform accelerates until at Vmax the friction force becomes equal to the thrust.
- All the four coefficients k1, k2, k3, k4 depend on both mass and width. It looks like the mass comes into them linearly, I didn't test the width the same way, but I would guess that each of the four coefficients is a linear combination of m and W, like (a*m + b)*(c*W + d), which gives 16 parameters in total (actually, it seems for k1 the parameter d = 0, so 15).
The Measurements
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Is anyone struggling with water?
I always run out of water, I am trying to get an Aquilo platform, I think I need nuclear since solar has a penalty on the way to aquilo.
I seem to always struggle water wise between producing rockets and fuel.
I always run out of water, I am trying to get an Aquilo platform, I think I need nuclear since solar has a penalty on the way to aquilo.
I seem to always struggle water wise between producing rockets and fuel.
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
What are you doing with excess metal and carbon asteroids? You could be rerolling them and get ice asteroids from them.
- Don't ever throw iron ore, carbon or ice off the platform, that conflicts with the whole idea of asteroid recycling. Since you wouldn't have excess iron asteroids you wouldn't have anything to recycle, for example.
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Different planets have different asteroid compositions. I got water-locked in orbit around Fulgora (no water for the nuclear on my platform). The solution was to send some ice up from Fulgora by rocket, along with a few solar panels. A filtered ice output from the platform hub let me get some ice to the ice-melting plants, they very very slowly made water. Once I had some water to turn to steam, everything came back online.
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Some of my observations about space platforms:
The core mechanics around space platforms are power generation, storage, and fuel efficiency.
POWER:
There are three viable power generation options:
Solar - With enough panels, you can use solar for all planet destinations, including Aquilo (60% power in space). It is generally not viable to finish the game, as the output drops to 1% at the system edge. Technically with enough accumulators, you could probably do it anyways.
Nuclear, and Fusion: Both are similar, with fusion coming after Aquilo, in that both require return trips to refuel occasionally. Both have high power outputs, and make large ships much easier to build.
STORAGE:
Chests are not allowed in space, just the hub. Platforms can directly use the hub, and small ships don't really need chests. The workaround otherwise is belts. Sushi belts (A belt that is a loop) are popular because they have the items go in circles, which means anything that wants to pull the items out will get periodic opportunities to grab the item. Belts hold around 4 items per lane per square. This changes a bit when the belt turns, but its a good estimate. This also changes when you get stack inserters, so your belt capacity improves when you get them and use them.
If you are going to use a sushi belt and mix different products on the line, you want to control how many of each type are allowed on, and you generally do not want to oversaturate. Staying at around 75% total capacity helps ensure your machines aren't stuck waiting for an open spot to place down the item from the output. If only one item type is going into a lane, you can fully saturate it (for instance, if it's nothing but ammo magazines for your turrets)
If you want to monitor your belt contents, you can connect a wire to a belt segment, and set it to output "hold, all belts", which will output the contents of the entire sushi belt.
Asteroid collectors have a large inventory for chunks, and are the notable exception to non-hub storage on platforms. They are also criminally underutilized, or are set up in ways that cause deadlocks of excess undesirable chunks.
You can set up filters for collectors with just two combinators: 1 constant, and 1 arithmetic.
1. Add a signal for each chunk type to the constant combinator, and the limit on the amount you want each collector to store for each type (For example, adding metallic, carbonic, and oxide chunk signals at 12 each).
2. Next, place down the arithmetic, and connect the collector to the input. Tell the collector to set filters, and output contents. Take note of which wire color you use to connect to the arithmetic combinator. I will assume green here.
3. Set the arithmetic combinator to multiply each signal by -1, so the collector's inventory is represented as a negative number, or a reduction in demand for what it already has. Then connect the output using the other wire color (red in my case) to the collector.
4. Finally connect the constant combinator to the collector with the same color as the arithmetic output (red in this case)
Signals add together, so the collector will see an external signal for each chunk type that is a positive number when it's inventory is less than the demand, but zero or negative when it is greater, so it's filters will get set accordingly. You can pull out different chunk types as you need them using other methods with filtering inserters.
FUEL EFFICIENCY:
Thrusters have fuel efficiency, if you do not control the rate that fuel is coming into your engine, it will burn at max rate to operate at 100%, which burns 2x as much fuel for the thrust it provides as if it was operating at minimum thrust. You generally want to have a fuel reserve, and use pumps to control how much fuel you are using. There are two popular ways of doing this:
1. Based on speed. You can output your platform's speed from the hub, and simply enable the pumps when your speed is too low. This is the simplest way to help control fuel usage, but results in bursts of speed and isn't as good as other options (but still much better than nothing). You need to experiment on which speed to set for your desired fuel usage.
2. Based on desired fuel usage (generally close to your fuel production rate). This uses combinators to precisely control when, and for how many ticks each second to turn on the pumps to get the desired fuel usage. Here is an example BP:
This is from the forum discussion here: viewtopic.php?t=118009
These controllers generally result in very stable speeds. If you do have reserve tanks, it is often desirable to set your consumption to more than your production, since you will often be idling at your destination for at least a minute or two waiting for deliveries to finish before leaving again.
If you find that your consumption is high for your number of thrusters, (they are mostly full) you may want to add more thrusters, you will get better thrust for the same fuel.
You don't ALWAYS want to go faster. You want to go at the fastest speed that is SAFE. The number of turrets you have, and ammo reserves available help determine what that speed is.
ADDITIONAL TIPS:
You can't send up a rocket silo, but you can send up the materials to make one. If you have an assembler directly set up next to your hub, you can set it to make a silo, and send up the components to make one and it will get made in space. This is an excellent way to come prepared to a new planet, ready to place down a landing pad, silo, and bringing some materials to make another rocket immediately and leave if you need to.
Efficiency modules are extremely helpful for keeping power requirements down on your ship. More power needed usually mean more solar panels, which means more space, and thus more weight and a slower ship that is harder to keep protected and covered by turrets.
Higher quality solar panels and crafting machines are also very good in space. More power for the same space, and for crafting machines, faster speed for the same power, which means you need less machines to get the same desired items / second.
Higher quality turrets have longer range. This can be desirable for turrets in the front middle of your ship, or when you are trying to squeak out full coverage, but is actually usually undesirable on the sides of your ship, as the longer range usually means you are wasting ammo on asteroids that were never going to hit you or come in collector range.
Damage research is highly impactful. each research level helps you reach new breakpoints where asteroids take less ammo to destroy. This can be seen very easily with the first few physical damage levels, and also for explosives when rockets go from 4, to 3 , then 2 rockets needed per asteroid to kill.
Setting up a "Departure Ready" signal can be very helpful for creating schedules and interrupts. Having a single signal that only shows up when your cargo, ammo and fuel are at acceptable levels plus any additional logic you want, limits the logic you need to add to each station or interrupt to just check one circuit signal.
As a final note, here is a BP of a small starter ship I made that uses most of the subjects I wrote about.
The core mechanics around space platforms are power generation, storage, and fuel efficiency.
POWER:
There are three viable power generation options:
Solar - With enough panels, you can use solar for all planet destinations, including Aquilo (60% power in space). It is generally not viable to finish the game, as the output drops to 1% at the system edge. Technically with enough accumulators, you could probably do it anyways.
Nuclear, and Fusion: Both are similar, with fusion coming after Aquilo, in that both require return trips to refuel occasionally. Both have high power outputs, and make large ships much easier to build.
STORAGE:
Chests are not allowed in space, just the hub. Platforms can directly use the hub, and small ships don't really need chests. The workaround otherwise is belts. Sushi belts (A belt that is a loop) are popular because they have the items go in circles, which means anything that wants to pull the items out will get periodic opportunities to grab the item. Belts hold around 4 items per lane per square. This changes a bit when the belt turns, but its a good estimate. This also changes when you get stack inserters, so your belt capacity improves when you get them and use them.
If you are going to use a sushi belt and mix different products on the line, you want to control how many of each type are allowed on, and you generally do not want to oversaturate. Staying at around 75% total capacity helps ensure your machines aren't stuck waiting for an open spot to place down the item from the output. If only one item type is going into a lane, you can fully saturate it (for instance, if it's nothing but ammo magazines for your turrets)
If you want to monitor your belt contents, you can connect a wire to a belt segment, and set it to output "hold, all belts", which will output the contents of the entire sushi belt.
Asteroid collectors have a large inventory for chunks, and are the notable exception to non-hub storage on platforms. They are also criminally underutilized, or are set up in ways that cause deadlocks of excess undesirable chunks.
You can set up filters for collectors with just two combinators: 1 constant, and 1 arithmetic.
1. Add a signal for each chunk type to the constant combinator, and the limit on the amount you want each collector to store for each type (For example, adding metallic, carbonic, and oxide chunk signals at 12 each).
2. Next, place down the arithmetic, and connect the collector to the input. Tell the collector to set filters, and output contents. Take note of which wire color you use to connect to the arithmetic combinator. I will assume green here.
3. Set the arithmetic combinator to multiply each signal by -1, so the collector's inventory is represented as a negative number, or a reduction in demand for what it already has. Then connect the output using the other wire color (red in my case) to the collector.
4. Finally connect the constant combinator to the collector with the same color as the arithmetic output (red in this case)
Signals add together, so the collector will see an external signal for each chunk type that is a positive number when it's inventory is less than the demand, but zero or negative when it is greater, so it's filters will get set accordingly. You can pull out different chunk types as you need them using other methods with filtering inserters.
FUEL EFFICIENCY:
Thrusters have fuel efficiency, if you do not control the rate that fuel is coming into your engine, it will burn at max rate to operate at 100%, which burns 2x as much fuel for the thrust it provides as if it was operating at minimum thrust. You generally want to have a fuel reserve, and use pumps to control how much fuel you are using. There are two popular ways of doing this:
1. Based on speed. You can output your platform's speed from the hub, and simply enable the pumps when your speed is too low. This is the simplest way to help control fuel usage, but results in bursts of speed and isn't as good as other options (but still much better than nothing). You need to experiment on which speed to set for your desired fuel usage.
2. Based on desired fuel usage (generally close to your fuel production rate). This uses combinators to precisely control when, and for how many ticks each second to turn on the pumps to get the desired fuel usage. Here is an example BP:
This is from the forum discussion here: viewtopic.php?t=118009
These controllers generally result in very stable speeds. If you do have reserve tanks, it is often desirable to set your consumption to more than your production, since you will often be idling at your destination for at least a minute or two waiting for deliveries to finish before leaving again.
If you find that your consumption is high for your number of thrusters, (they are mostly full) you may want to add more thrusters, you will get better thrust for the same fuel.
You don't ALWAYS want to go faster. You want to go at the fastest speed that is SAFE. The number of turrets you have, and ammo reserves available help determine what that speed is.
ADDITIONAL TIPS:
You can't send up a rocket silo, but you can send up the materials to make one. If you have an assembler directly set up next to your hub, you can set it to make a silo, and send up the components to make one and it will get made in space. This is an excellent way to come prepared to a new planet, ready to place down a landing pad, silo, and bringing some materials to make another rocket immediately and leave if you need to.
Efficiency modules are extremely helpful for keeping power requirements down on your ship. More power needed usually mean more solar panels, which means more space, and thus more weight and a slower ship that is harder to keep protected and covered by turrets.
Higher quality solar panels and crafting machines are also very good in space. More power for the same space, and for crafting machines, faster speed for the same power, which means you need less machines to get the same desired items / second.
Higher quality turrets have longer range. This can be desirable for turrets in the front middle of your ship, or when you are trying to squeak out full coverage, but is actually usually undesirable on the sides of your ship, as the longer range usually means you are wasting ammo on asteroids that were never going to hit you or come in collector range.
Damage research is highly impactful. each research level helps you reach new breakpoints where asteroids take less ammo to destroy. This can be seen very easily with the first few physical damage levels, and also for explosives when rockets go from 4, to 3 , then 2 rockets needed per asteroid to kill.
Setting up a "Departure Ready" signal can be very helpful for creating schedules and interrupts. Having a single signal that only shows up when your cargo, ammo and fuel are at acceptable levels plus any additional logic you want, limits the logic you need to add to each station or interrupt to just check one circuit signal.
As a final note, here is a BP of a small starter ship I made that uses most of the subjects I wrote about.
Re: Space Platform 101 Discussion
Good information, thanks for sharing. And the blueprints are great! Thank you!
My own personal Factorio super-power - running out of power.