Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs

[AdamK]

I propose a competition of some kind: fastest spaceship for a given space route
Rules:
1) unlimited startup time (to grab stuff and produce starting fuel&ammo)
2) any quality you want
3) can't take any damage
4) must go there and back

To be discussed: allowed tech level for repetable military technologies.

[mmmPI]

The problem i see with that is it's going to yield very very very ( to the limit) long needle. Which would have such a speed that that a back and forth trip would be finished before the front touches the first dangerous asteroids or something. :s

I think there should be a limit of space platform tile allowed , like 1000 5000 or 10K for categories to limit what wouldn't be otherwise

[coffee-factorio]

I am in the early game still because I work and I don't have super powers.

You need to fix quality as a competition variable. You need to fix advanced asteroid processing as a competition variable:

A "kite" that flies back and forth can be done for about 200-300 hull tons weight. Example at 890 foundation.
Whether a kite can complete Rush to Space reliably is an interesting question, because part of the trip is returning to Nauvis. It may have to pause and reload ammo - the 890 foundation design certainly does!

A "seed" capable of printing its own space platform can be done for about 500-600 hull weight. Example at 2.4K units.

"Colonial support" without quality can be done from anywhere from 2.9K (probably less) to 13K units foundation - that's like ~500 hull to 2500+ tons. The smaller end is my first brick ship that could do underground belts. The larger end can also be called a "crystal" because it's capable of manufacturing 1 ips space platform while it makes red belts available on demand. 3600 foundation an hour adds up fast. You can get near that capability at about 5.6K space platform - the same ship that was 13K grew up from that.

Please pardon my compulsive need to classify these things :S

But as soon as I put good quality engines on those, one of the designs can increase thrust now (I ran out of things to put in 13K units that where also sane) and all could increase it by adding surface area for chemplants. I'm more interested in just doubling the surface area because ten engines on 2500 tons turns out to be still fast enough. And I can just print foundation till I feel like it moves fast enough. But it's worth pointing out that the size of the engine is going to be based on whether or not a builder can get advanced fuel running.

But all these things look very different on a ship that can't make its own copper. The 13K design can make splitters and inserters. And red ammo if you just rotate the machines making space platform to that purpose. A ship that can't well... underground belts are still great! Anyone want some burner inserters!

At "Rush to Space" physical damage upgrades you need about 4 guns to a cluster to not lose the ship. But even at "I'm sloppy, crazy and have a day job" levels I can get physical damage to 11 off a 1 ips line. And at that point I can throw banana ammo like it was made out of DU. So that changes my defense allocation. All this goes into size and speed.

[Ranakastrasz]

Normal Quality only.
No more than twice the height as width.
No infinite researches.

Also no importants. Or at least no ammo imports, because nuclear.

Maybe use rule, must manufacture everything on ship, timer starts when asteroid collecters are activated (force disable until ready to start timer)

[coffee-factorio]

Actually, I do have more thoughts. I'm doing youtubes; I'll post a link over in the show your own creations of the kites I just made tonight. Here's why: I can push a sub 200 ton brick everywhere but in between Gleba and Fulgora. And it's just not going to be able to refresh it's magazines on the basis of machine speed, power and asteroid composition. I'll have video up. But if you want a Kessel run it's between Gleba and Fulgora or vice versa.

But that 200 ton brick is kind of the best I can do. I tried a DI into platform build and somehow that came out as a 850 design instead of a 798 design. I'm not saying you can't do better, but the thing is you'll probably get a brick within ~100 foundation of that without factoring in quality. So to have a variety of designs, you might or might not need a minimum weight.

You might be able to drop redundant ice and fuel parts. But that'll save you maybe 12 hull plus assemblers on this frame.

Now, if you set up research to be "Max for Rush to Space", that brick will fly faster on one engine than anything else I have. In theory. But in practice, the asteroid mix and power is different between each planet. And that affects speed to rack a magazine for a safe flight. I typically am seeing a thousand rounds on a belt with about a third of that available to to the forward magazine. And then that has to reload enough for the front guns to not burn through a design dependent amount of ammo. A bigger ship with more iron running would do better on a lot of counts - this is a mono-engine design whose main purpose is to get more loot from somewhere else so it can run forges. You can also do things like run a mobius strip of bullets around a hull because then technically everything has even feed. But basically you need rope to hand yourself with.

Quality changes all this to some degree but only, at a glance and not from experience on a few counts. Guns have longer range. Ammo can be fed faster. But machine speeds don't double and power draw won't drop. Solar panels will work better though. Engines matter a lot, as do chemical plants to feed them and crushers. I'm holding off on quality till I secure Gleba. I still have to secure Fulgora first in my game. Space platforms are just too fun for me

You could also do, as an idea; derby runs. I kept on forgetting to set the ship I was stress testing with a pause condition, so it liked to break apart doing repeated flights between Gleba and Nauvis

Another kind of competition would be "first hull of a size (given by testing) to double it's area based off manufacturing space platform foundation; has to use the same blueprint and cannot rely on launches from planets".

Once you get to physical damage 10-11, which is relatively easy, I can probably fly anything anywhere. So someone should get on a map editor and mess around with rockets.

[coffee-factorio]

Hmm, I took a look at other Space Platforms. There's a thread going on in show your own creations. I saw some DI builds that appear to be able to get to at least Gleba on 108 tons.

There was also interesting solutions between 100 and 200 tons. God forgive me for being slow and having a day job.

[coffee-factorio]

Got a 99 ton machine to do Fulgora, Gleba and Vulcanis. I think that's pretty good so I decided to lean into it, it's over in the show your own creation sections in videos.

For the sake of this discussion though:

* Time to refresh ammo was the thing that made the run long. A long needle might end up being beaten by a cinderblock on the basis of safe flight characteristics. But it'd be a close thing.

* Rare quality is available. That makes Fulgora easier. Gleba's orbit is full of carbon asteroids, so I was watching ammo go down by about 150 magazines and recover 200 magazines. It was great.

* That's probably close to as small as you can get now. And it takes 12 hours to make that run in game time. The only way I got a good benchmark was in the editor. So bigger doesn't mean less entertaining, and you might want to have a timeout of an hour game time (about a minute in the map editor). That way you can do multiple runs, see if a brick got lucky. And you can say "well, the tonnage puts it in a certain league but it honestly has to perform too". CVE, the design I was running, wouldn't qualify.

* Fulgora-Gleba-Fulgora is probably a worse cycle, worthy of derby routes with early game/Rush to Space achievement tech.

* For late game routes, Aquilo appears to have a nasty balance of mainly oxide asteroids. But the thing is, there's iron at Fulgora. Gleba is dominated by carbonic asteroids. So Fulgora-Aquilo-Gleba means you start with a fair hand and end up a rough spot from the point of view of magazine manufacture - but Gleba might end up being easier because you can manufacture rockets. I lack experience in that matter and if there's still interest in this topic in about 80 game hours, I might open my mouth.

* Plotting tech might need to be unrealistic because I am going to have 10 damage upgrades in several categories before I visit Aquilo.

Someone else take over, I feel like I'm being too passionate