How do I download partial stacks?

[factorio_player]

Right now I feed crap onto belts, download the remainder, and then refeed it back into my orbital cargobay. This is super lame though.

[Kyralessa]

"Download"?

[Muche]

I believe the intended way is to set up requests in the planet's Cargo landing pad.
For example, you add a request for 100 Space science packs. A platform above will launch a cargo pod with 100 packs.
When inserters or bots take some packs from the landing pad, the platform will launch another pod to top up the amount back to 100.

Another way is to set up a limited request on the platform.
For example, you add a request for Space science packs, minimum 0, maximum 100. When the amount of packs in the platform hub rises above 100, the difference gets put into orbital drop slots automatically.
Then, once per 30 seconds, the items from that slot get launched down to the planet.
This batching is done so deliveries of very small amounts of items don't block other deliveries. Without it, the concurrent deliveries (limited by the number of cargo bays) would be much more severe.

[factorio_player]

Yeh, that's what I thought. I get the sense they really don't want us to do manual downloads.

[NineNine]

Yeh, that's what I thought. I get the sense they really don't want us to do manual downloads.

You keep bringing this up across multiple threads. I think you're missing something that could make the game more fun for you. Do you want to describe the situation you're trying to create and/or resolve?