Space Platform 101 Discussion

[mmmPI]

You totally can (and should!) produce Ammo onboard the Platform; it just happens that the example Ship Design I shared is from a Save where I was trying to produce/use as many Bullets-per-minute as possible to consume extra Uranium; versus the more conventional Science-per-Minute benchmark. The core Semaphore mechanism can exist on any planet within the schedule; it works best if there are no other Conditions for that Stop. I also use the Planetary Distance Adjustment mod to make Platform travel slightly more of a challenge.

Yeah sorry for the phrasing, i didn't mean your ship in particular, "uranium ammo" is confusing because it illustrate 2 different thing in my mind, either the "cargo" or the "necessary ammo". In the case of the semaphore, wether the "cargo" or the "necessary ammo ( or fuel)" is missing, the platform will not depart, causing a possible bus-munching. It's good and safe if the platform are prevented to leave without the minimum fuel & ammo buffer. Better have them all stuck in one planet than destroying themselves into space, as it's the risk with platform that have "time passed condition", if for whatever reason you're not supplying the "necesseray ammo" the platform is schedule to depart anyway. There are in a way less risk of bus-munching, because the lack of cargo won't interrupt anything, but the platform then need to be "safe" or "selfsustained" for ammo

[mrvn]

How do I schedule one ship (platform) to leave when another leaves from a different planet? With trains we can limit the number able to travel to a station but planets don't have this functionality.

I'm trying to make platform 1 load/unload at Nauvis while 2 is loading at Vulcanus etc. Without some form of cross-platform scheduling they always bunch up at whichever planet has the slowest loading.

While it is true that you cannot send a Signal between Surfaces or Platforms to coordinate their departure, you can send Items to create a 1-bit Semaphore - On or Off. This is a similar concept to old-fashioned Railway Tokens which ensured only 1 Train was present on a Track greatly reducing the chances of a deadly collision by two trains meeting head-on.

A rocket is a very expensive way to handle tokens. A cheaper way would be to have the space platform produce a token and have the landing pad request the token as a signal. This also has the advantage that you don't need to fill a whole rocket with tokens for it to automatically lift of.

For this to work the platform would produce exactly one item of something cheap but not stored on the platform or shipped around. A yellow magazine works for me. When speed > 0 place exactly one yellow magazine in the hub and set the schedule to wait for "item <yellow magazine> = 0". This then makes the space ship pause at it's destination. The ground can then request 1 yellow magazine to signal the space ship to leave.

You can use multiple such signal items. For example use 2 items A and B. Put A into the hub when speed > 0. Item A is always requested at each planet. When item A arrives on planet item B is requested on planet. The space ship puts item B into the hub 20s after item A has left and then waits for item B to be gone before it leaves. That way each space ship leaves when the next space ship arrives. This is great for Gleba where spoilage time is more important than waiting for requests to complete.

[mmmPI]

A rocket is a very expensive way to handle tokens. A cheaper way would be to have the space platform produce a token and have the landing pad request the token as a signal. This also has the advantage that you don't need to fill a whole rocket with tokens for it to automatically lift of.

There appears to be couple misconception, you never have to fill a whole rocket with tokens; you just need to send 1 item, there's an option on the platform request called "minimum custom payload" for this. You can also limit the inserter stack size to 1 so you don't insert more than 1 "thing" in the silo, which will automatically depart if a platform is requesting a single item with a minimum custom payload of 1. ( which you can read from the silo ).

Then a rocket isn't necessarily expensive, you have to consider the broader context, if your spaceship carry (only) 100 piece of refined concrete ( 1 rocket capacity), it would double the cost. if you need 500 rocket launch to fill- in your ship, adding 1 for the token it's down to about 0.2% of the price, if you need 5000 then it's 0.02% ... It's not very expensive then, it's only a marginal fraction of the the cost of shipping the items.

For the rest i'm not sure i can follow, Do you have a working version of what you describe ? I 'm lost when you say " the groud can then request 1 yellow magazine to signal the space ship to leave ", it appears problematic to me because i wouldn't know from the ground when and which platform is ready to leave, How would you know when to request that item ?

Say i have 5 platforms, they all have their unique item in ther hub, platform 2 is ready to leave but not the others. I don't see what kind of mechanism allows to know which unique item to start requesting from my hub, whereas if the platform is the one that request the token i can read that on the silo which allows me to identify which platform are present in orbit. I mean think i can follow what eugenekay described, but here i'm at a loss.

[leoch]

Thanks both; I used your tips to evenly schedule Vulcanus-Nauvis platforms (early game, almost always less than 5 rocket launches per stop, drops iron gears as a token since these are easy to make and widely consumed on Nauvis).

Side note: the main Nauvis export is coal followed by plastic and barrelled lubricant. Such is the cost of turning off coal on Vulcanus in map-gen.

[mmmPI]

Thanks both; I used your tips to evenly schedule Vulcanus-Nauvis platforms (early game, almost always less than 5 rocket launches per stop, drops iron gears as a token since these are easy to make and widely consumed on Nauvis).

Side note: the main Nauvis export is coal followed by plastic and barrelled lubricant. Such is the cost of turning off coal on Vulcanus in map-gen.

That's great it works as you want

But i'm curious to understand now, why do you drop an iron gear ? can you show a system that works with this ?

[leoch]

But i'm curious to understand now, why do you drop an iron gear ? can you show a system that works with this ?

Iron gears are easy to build on the space platform. Inserter inserts when hub contains < 90. The platform leaves when it contains 0 gears only (no other conditions used).

On Nauvis I have these combinators:
- Constant outputs Clock 1
- Decider when Gear=0 [red wire only], output input Clock value
- Decider when Clock > 25k output 100 Gear

All inputs and outputs are connected via green wire to the hub and used to set requests.
The first decider's input is connected via red wire to an inserter which removes gears from the hub and reads hand contents (pulse).
25k is the time value that worked for my 2-ship Nauvis-Vulcanus route (4x stock distance).

[mmmPI]

Iron gears are easy to build on the space platform. Inserter inserts when hub contains < 90. The platform leaves when it contains 0 gears only (no other conditions used).

On Nauvis I have these combinators:
- Constant outputs Clock 1
- Decider when Gear=0 [red wire only], output input Clock value
- Decider when Clock > 25k output 100 Gear

All inputs and outputs are connected via green wire to the hub and used to set requests.
The first decider's input is connected via red wire to an inserter which removes gears from the hub and reads hand contents (pulse).
25k is the time value that worked for my 2-ship Nauvis-Vulcanus route (4x stock distance).

I wanted to see a setup because sometimes i'm stuck on an idea and i can't see the obvious, maybe it's the case there, i don't understand how is this resulting in something different than using 25K as time passed condition on a platform

like if for whatever reason the 2 platforms end up at the same location, and they both have the gears ready, there is not a single "token" item, can't it happen that they are dropped on the planet when there were not yet a full "100" in a single platform but 50 and 50 in each, so the next cycle 25K tick later, both platform depart ? ( not sure if you count the gears fed in the hub of each platform).

I don't have any working version that uses the filter combinator in random mode for this particular purpose to demonstrate myself, i am just curious sorry x), i used them to sync "sound in speaker" accross planet , so i have a pretty good idea on what to do to trigger platform departure for them to never be simultaneous, or with a defined time interval between them, but it's a lot of circuits and i'm not sure it would fit the need of the factory,

It's sometimes easier for me to understand what is the behavior intended and replicate when seeing a working example than trying to understand the worded description so if you want to share an example that's fine otherwise since it works for your use case (and i seem too slow to understand) it's fine too

[leoch]

Ah, no, it's not a mathematically certain solution. It can fail if gears are not removed from the hub fast enough (using fewer gears would make this more robust). It can fail if multiple platforms using the same tokens are present at the same time. But, so far with two platforms that have been manually spaced out, it does work.

> i don't understand how is this resulting in something different than using 25K as time passed condition on a platform

25k ticks is (approx.) the time delay between a platform leaving Nauvis and the next platform leaving. If a platform arrives early, it would leave early using a "time passed" condition on the platform but won't with this setup.

25k ticks leaves enough time that (un)loading *should* have completed, but if a platform were to arrive late or rockets/supplies were not ready it could end up leaving a little late (waiting for en-route rockets) and without being fully loaded, therefore the timing should not be too tight.

[mmmPI]

explanations

Thanks for your patience your explanations make sense to me !

i made a mock-up synchronized clock, you can install it anywhere, and it will count 0 2 4 8 0 2 4 8, all copy will be synchronized no matter the exact tick when placed, that's a quirk of the filter combinator in random output, when placed it doesn't start its own time counter for when to change, they all have the same one.

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

Copy blueprint

it's not perfect either with only 40 signals there's a risk the random combinator picks twice the same in a row, 1/40, this version is minimal, it's possible to use 2 sets of inputs that alternate for 100% safety, or just more signals , easier to do x)

You can change the time so it's not 400 like in the demo but more like 25000 in the filter combinator.

This is to illustrate the idea, i thought "leaving early" would be a good thing somehow so i would have advised to make it so platform 1 is allowed to move when clock >= 1, platform 2 when clock >= 3 , for the platform 3 it would be when clock is equal or above 5 and so on but i'm not so sure what would be the "best" behavior, i thought of it as a way to enforce the timed departure, but you may need/want some platform to stay in orbit rather than travel empty which would change the way to use the quirk of the filter combinator, it's another way than "timed passed", more like you plan a bus every 20 minutes on a lane, and you have the bus 10:00, the one of 10:20, and the one of 10:40, to avoid drift over time when there are unexpected delays. With this analogy if the bus supposed to depart at 10:00 is only ready at 10:05, should it wait the next hour ? or leave with 5 mins delay ? is the kind of question that complicate the logic to implement such clock system.

Sorry for the noise, good to hear you have a working system already x)

[mrvn]

It can fail if multiple platforms using the same tokens are present at the same time.

The whole railway token idea relies on there only ever being one token at a time. So if your trade route goes Nauvis - Vulcanus - Gleba then you can have at most 6 spaceships. After that it is guaranteed to break down. And for every circular route you need separate tokens.

Personally I think this is total overkill. Just make a single spaceship for each route (or pair of planets) and use cargo bays to scale up throughput. I always found the limiting factor for shipping are the rocket silos. Build one rocket silo per item you trade, set it to manual and load the rocket up with the items. It will still start if someone requests the item when full. You can launch 2 rockets worth of items really quickly that way. Need more? Then build more rocket silos. Now you can load a spaceship quickly. Use cargo bays on the cargo pad and request large amounts to make unloading quick too.

The problem that you have multiple space ships at a slow planet just means you have too many space ships. If you have 2 space ships going Nauvis - Vulcanus - Gleba then just split that into Nauvis - Vulcanus and Nauvis - Gleba. Then both will fly as fast as the planets can produce stuff.

Just my 2c for what is practical. I find token systems more a fun thing than a practical thing.

[leoch]

The whole railway token idea relies on there only ever being one token at a time.

Railway tokens are designed to avoid collisions on a route. That's not what I'm trying to do; I'm trying to space out multiple ships on the same route to get more frequent arrivals which requires some form of planet-to-space-platform communication.

It's not really about throughput either, and it's less important in vanilla Space Age due to the short distances between planets (excepting the shattered planet). If you think it's over-complex, sure... why are we playing Factorio again?

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An issue with the solution I recently described is that the timer will reset without ensuring a platform leaves meanwhile the platform did not persist the "ready to leave" state. A simple fix is to only insert gears to the platform hub when the quantity is zero AND the velocity V > 0.

[mrvn]

The whole railway token idea relies on there only ever being one token at a time.

Railway tokens are designed to avoid collisions on a route. That's not what I'm trying to do; I'm trying to space out multiple ships on the same route to get more frequent arrivals which requires some form of planet-to-space-platform communication.

It's not really about throughput either, and it's less important in vanilla Space Age due to the short distances between planets (excepting the shattered planet). If you think it's over-complex, sure... why are we playing Factorio again?

------------------

An issue with the solution I recently described is that the timer will reset without ensuring a platform leaves meanwhile the platform did not persist the "ready to leave" state. A simple fix is to only insert gears to the platform hub when the quantity is zero AND the velocity V > 0.

Did they ever fix the problem that if you set the amount required for a rocket lower that it won't fill up a rocket even when more is available?

Because if they have then set the required amount low and leave on time instead of requests fullfilled. Sure you sometimes only get a partial load but at least you don't have to leave empty.

[mmmPI]

The meaning of the question is hard to decipher for sure but it appears to be wether or not a rocket will launch with say 5 iron plate if the custom payload of the platform is 5 even if the platform request 100, and the answer is no, that won't cause 20 rocket launch, that's fairly easy to see in game.

If the whole token idea relies on there only ever being one token at a time, it makes little sense to mention "rockets full of tokens" and it appears incompatible with the system you suggested earlier.