Auto-launching of mixed rockets

[Brambor]

"send rocket when full"

Usecase:
1. produce 1000 science on Gleba of varying quality
2. Load it into a rocket and automatically launch it (when full) to a platform that is requesting all the different qualities of science.
3. The space platform goes to next stop, when it has 1000 science (in total)

Also, build platforms that need very small amounts of an item, such as combinators, in a more satisfying (and effective) manner, not leaving 48 combinators in the storage (or let them be send down right away).

Expected implementation:
1. If the silo is full, check what is in the silo.
2. If it satisfies any platform requests, send it.

It currently works like that, but for a single item.

Which is also counterintuitive. I was wondering why manual rocket sometimes sends itself when building a platform. Turns out, if it is full of one item, it will launch, nothing you can do about it. Ctrl+(mis)click can send it away.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged several threads with the same suggestion.

[P.E.T.A.R.]

Really hope we something in 2.1 to enable sending mixed rockets.

[Causality]

I would also like to throw my two cents into this. If we could have some way to launch rockets when a particular ship is overhead it would add tremendous flexibility to space transport. That alone would fix so many problems because you can just set when the ship goes to the planet in the first place. Right now I'm in the middle of scaling up legendary production and I've been manually launching rockets of assorted legendary items from Fulgora to Nauvis. It would be fantastic to have more options for rockets because there are many use cases for not just sending up one type of item.

[SilentStorm]

You're supposed to automate that with the circuit network.

If only you could, but the vanilla game simply lacks the ability to do that.
- Mixed rockets never auto launch, even if the rocket contains all the items that are needed on the platform.
- You cannot tell a rocket to launch with circuits
- You cannot communicate between orbit and planet. The planet can only read what the space platform requests, which is insufficient.

[Brambor]

The vanilla game simply lacks the ability to do that.
- Mixed rockets never auto launch, even if the rocket contains all the items that are needed on the platform.
- You cannot tell a rocket to launch with circuits
- You cannot communicate between orbit and planet. The planet can only read what the space platform requests, which is insufficient.

I agree with the first two and I don't understand the third point. What communication would you like and for what purpose?

[Causality]

- "If X platform is orbiting above planet, automatically launch this rocket up to it"

[BraveCaperCat]

The vanilla game simply lacks the ability to do that.
- Mixed rockets never auto launch, even if the rocket contains all the items that are needed on the platform.
- You cannot tell a rocket to launch with circuits
- You cannot communicate between orbit and planet. The planet can only read what the space platform requests, which is insufficient.

I agree with the first two and I don't understand the third point. What communication would you like and for what purpose?

The third point is that there is no way to send a circuit connection from a space platform to the planet.

[R060]

I think just being able to launch rockets with a signal would be much simpler and more usefull sollution. We can depart trains with that, why not rockets? Honestly, the current "autoload with bots" design looks like just a workaround to please people who are so afraid of doing anything with signals and at the same time just want to place someones (offten insane in terms of infrastructure cost) blueprint and just bypass logistical challenge by printing bots for 10 hours and waiting another 10 hours for them to load and send all that crap.

Also, there must be a way to communicate between space platforms and surface, even if it would be all mixed up on "a single wire", like with radars. The only way current platforms ever worked out is because rockets are somehow just know how much stuff platform wants through black magic, again, automagically bypassing yet another simple enough challenge.

[DavidEscott]

I agree that the whole "automatically supply requests" thing is just broken. The algorithm I would like to see is roughly as follows:

Code: Select all

func try_fill_rocket(times_waited=0):
    # prioritize space_platform and cargo_bay launches as that speeds up construction
    # but when choosing what to send up always prefer the things that we have in inventory
    for item in [space_platform, cargo_bay, *space.requests]:
         if want(item) and fits(item) and item in robo_network:
             request(item)
    if rocket.fullness=100%:
       launch
    # at this point rocket isn't full, and either all requests are filled or nothing fits
    # in reverse order of prevalence in the rocket try to add something we already have
    # reasoning is that if you request 12 belts to finish your construction in space, 
    # getting a couple extra to fill up the space in the rocket isn't inherently harmful
    # there is a good chance you might need them as you tweak your design, 
    # and they can always be dropped back down
    for item in reversed(sorted(rocket.inventory)):
         if fits(item) and item in robo_network:
             request(item)
    if rocket.fullness=100%:
       launch
    if times_waited ? 0 and rocket.fullness > 95%:
      launch
    if times_waited > 10:
        alert("Having trouble filling a rocket with space requests")
    sleep(30) # wait a short period to see if any additonal requests are made, or requested items are produced
    try_fill_rocket(times_waited=times_waited+1)

[DavidEscott]

This is not exactly trivial because: consider a naive solution. Sort requested items by weight, put in heaviest item that fits, repeat while there's anything that can be added. Now, the problem is: more likely than not, the rocket capacity is not 100% filled. What now? Launch anyway? Fill the rest with platform foundations "just in case"? What if there's a request coming in two seconds that'd let the rocket get completely filled (e.g. you're just designing the platform)? Set some minimum capacity usage % threshold maybe?

It isn't trivial, but I don't think it is all that hard either. You have basically addressed the main concerns I think most people would have:

* You try and fill the requests.
* If it isn't entirely full you may want to wait (30seconds) to see if the platform requests have stabilized.
* If requests are stable at this less than full state, its probably a good idea to add any a few extra readily available items from the current requests.
* and then launch at some high threshold.

Yes there are lots of configurable parameters here, but they don't have to be exposed to the user. Just do something sensible. Virtually any choice for these parameters would be better than the current implementation.

[Gaagaagiins]

Maybe a smaller and less balance upsetting change would be a third mode for rocket launches aside from logistic requests and manual launches, which could be like a semi-manual option.

Perhaps you could set requests for specific distinct items and distinct quantities of those items, much like with a requester chest. All requests combined would not be able to exceed the weight limit of a single rocket, you wouldn't be able to start the launch until you had set a request that is within the weight limit of a rocket, bots wouldn't even seek to fulfill the request until you can initiate the launch, which also necessitates manually choosing a platform to direct the rocket to.

I guess that is functionally like a manual launch, but, it would be nice to be able to get bots to find and schlep around the desired items for you as well as initiate and direct the launch through remote view. That feels like what the main limitation to manual launching mixed item rockets is to me, you can't really do them unless you have the items on hand and can visit the silo personally. I don't even find it that big of a deal to have to send up a lot of extras of something since I can just send unneeded stuff back down for free in a cargo pod, and it's returned back to the logistic network from whence it came.

[ichVII]

Maybe a smaller and less balance upsetting change would be a third mode for rocket launches aside from logistic requests and manual launches, which could be like a semi-manual option.

Perhaps you could set requests for specific distinct items and distinct quantities of those items, much like with a requester chest. All requests combined would not be able to exceed the weight limit of a single rocket, you wouldn't be able to start the launch until you had set a request that is within the weight limit of a rocket, bots wouldn't even seek to fulfill the request until you can initiate the launch, which also necessitates manually choosing a platform to direct the rocket to.

I guess that is functionally like a manual launch, but, it would be nice to be able to get bots to find and schlep around the desired items for you as well as initiate and direct the launch through remote view. That feels like what the main limitation to manual launching mixed item rockets is to me, you can't really do them unless you have the items on hand and can visit the silo personally. I don't even find it that big of a deal to have to send up a lot of extras of something since I can just send unneeded stuff back down for free in a cargo pod, and it's returned back to the logistic network from whence it came.

This can already be achieved by using the map view, opening the silo, and placing item requests in the silo by choosing them on the open menu and clicking them into empty slots using left or right click for full stacks or single items. Only difference is that this will be delivered by construction bots instead of logistic bots and the menu is a bit more clunky. I really dont think a different way to let bots load a rocket with manual stuff is warranted.

[SilentStorm]

The vanilla game simply lacks the ability to do that.
- Mixed rockets never auto launch, even if the rocket contains all the items that are needed on the platform.
- You cannot tell a rocket to launch with circuits
- You cannot communicate between orbit and planet. The planet can only read what the space platform requests, which is insufficient.

I agree with the first two and I don't understand the third point. What communication would you like and for what purpose?

The third one is simply that you cannot send signals from planet to orbit (ship / platform). This is needed for example if I want to take away excess stuff from the planet, but not make the ship wait forever in case I don't have anything to export.
Say if I have excess blue chips on Fulgora for whatever reason, and I want to use them on some other planet. I can make the ship request a rocket worth of it, but then the space ship would wait until timeout (or forever when you don't have a timeout condition).
If I could either read the number of stuff the planet has available for shipment on the spaceship (whenever it is in orbit of a planet), or have the planet send a signal to any orbiting spaceship, I could simply conditionally request these items based on conditions.
Due to the lack of communication (you can only read the requests on the planet side, which is almost useless since you cannot force launch rockets using circuits), this is not possible. I have to either have a timeout (that is short enough to not delay vital shipments, but long enough to wait for regular shipments) or not request conditional items and send them on a separate ship that is only doing those, or manually ship them.
None of those options are particularly appealing.

[SilentStorm]

Yes there are lots of configurable parameters here, but they don't have to be exposed to the user. Just do something sensible. Virtually any choice for these parameters would be better than the current implementation.

You might not *have to* expose them to the user, but you could. If you don't provide any of the parameter adjustment signals, simply go with reasonable defaults. But if any of those signals are present use them as inputs in the decision making as to what to load / when to just launch or something.

But it's not absolutely necessary as people who would want to could do all that themselves - if we had the option to order a launch through the circuit network.

As to the issue of where to launch to, I'm absolutely positive that ships / platforms have an ID similar to trains. We could specify the signal of the platform ID to launch to and the silo would only launch if both are specified. This does leave the issue of multiple platforms in orbit around the same planet, which could be solved by some multiplexed way of reading the platforms in orbit. But then we already have that issue when multiple platforms are in orbit and we try and read the orbit requests from a rocket silo - which ones do you actually read? The combined requests would not really be of much use as is, so again this would require some sort of multiplexing. Which the need for that is already kind of there.

[DavidEscott]

But it's not absolutely necessary as people who would want to could do all that themselves - if we had the option to order a launch through the circuit network.

I very much disagree with the approach of punting to the circuit network and not implementing some sensible logic to automatically handle this. I don't mind if launch control is exposed to the circuit network, but the auto request of construction materials together with the auto-filling of rockets exists to make the game easier for players who may not want to program a bunch of circuits. My occupation is in computer programming and I don't want to have to set up a circuit network to control what gets loaded into a rocket and when it can get launched. I don't really like the circuit network and find it tedious and overly complicated to set up.

[BlakeMW]

All I'd want is a change to the automatic launching of rockets set for manual loading.

Namely if the rocket is completely full, and a platform is requesting everything in the rocket, then it'll launch.

This won't make everyone happy, but would cover common cases like loading a rocket with mixed science packs (for example different quality levels).

[BraveCaperCat]

The vanilla game simply lacks the ability to do that.
- Mixed rockets never auto launch, even if the rocket contains all the items that are needed on the platform.
- You cannot tell a rocket to launch with circuits
- You cannot communicate between orbit and planet. The planet can only read what the space platform requests, which is insufficient.

I agree with the first two and I don't understand the third point. What communication would you like and for what purpose?

The third one is simply that you cannot send signals from planet to orbit (ship / platform). This is needed for example if I want to take away excess stuff from the planet, but not make the ship wait forever in case I don't have anything to export.
Say if I have excess blue chips on Fulgora for whatever reason, and I want to use them on some other planet. I can make the ship request a rocket worth of it, but then the space ship would wait until timeout (or forever when you don't have a timeout condition).
If I could either read the number of stuff the planet has available for shipment on the spaceship (whenever it is in orbit of a planet), or have the planet send a signal to any orbiting spaceship, I could simply conditionally request these items based on conditions.
Due to the lack of communication (you can only read the requests on the planet side, which is almost useless since you cannot force launch rockets using circuits), this is not possible. I have to either have a timeout (that is short enough to not delay vital shipments, but long enough to wait for regular shipments) or not request conditional items and send them on a separate ship that is only doing those, or manually ship them.
None of those options are particularly appealing.

You also can't set space platform requests based on conditions... Another issue preventing you from enacting the mentioned scenario.