Increase Cargo Landing Pad Throughput

[SirKill-a-Lot]

TL;DR

To increase Cargo Landing Pad throughput, which can often feel like an artificial and boring limitation on production, I suggest that we add a new building, the Loading Bay, or increase Cargo Landing Pad size via Quality.

The Problem

The amount of items you can remove from a Cargo Landing Pad with inserters is very limited, even with Legendary Stack Inserters. You can use massive swarms of logistics bots to help, but this is 1) not UPS efficient 2) still limited throughput 3) not an interesting solution 4) limiting on player options. Also, the problem can feel 'immersion breaking' or 'artificial' as it has limited grounding in the gameworld - players can feel like there's insufficient reason for why the Engineer could not build multiple landing pads to solve the problem.

Problems with other solutions

Some solutions obviously create worse problems than they solve. I will quickly go over them to explain why they're not the solution I suggest.

Removing Landing Pad Limit
This would immediately trivialize onworld logistics as you could just drop any resource anywhere you would want. There would be one uncontested optimal logistics system, which is uninteresting.

Allowing items to be removed from Cargo Bays
This would allow players to instantly transport items across infinite distances, also trivializing onworld logistics and becoming uninteresting, plus item teleportation like this feels unrealistic.

Solutions

The Loading Bay
The Loading Bay would be a new building, unlocked alongside the Cargo Bay. It would have to be placed directly connected to the Cargo Landing Pad, similar to the Cargo Bay. A group of Cargo Bays could potentially be connected to a Loading Bay or remain needing to be connected to the Cargo Landing Pad. The Loading Bay would be similar to the Cargo Bay, but you would be able to use Inserters to remove items from it. This would (with a hypothetical 4x4 Loading Bay size) double the amount of space that inserters could interact with to remove items, doubling Cargo Landing Pad throughput.

Quality affecting Landing Pad Size
An alternative way to change the amount of space that inserters can access from the Landing Pad would be to have quality affect the size of the Landing Pad itself. Scaling could be arbitrarily determined by how much throughput would be a reasonable/balanced number, but for example adding 1 tile in each direction per quality tier, would have a Legendary Landing Pad maxing out at 18x18, or about 2x current throughput. This is nice because it avoids adding another building with a limited use, but perhaps runs into problems with sprite scaling.

Why?

Landing Pad throughput limitations are (to my understanding) an unfortunate byproduct of necessary balancing decisions. It doesn't feel good to encounter, or grounded in the gameworld. It's not difficult to run into the current inserter cap, which you hit at just 38k SPM of the planetary sciences, not to mention all other imports you may want. Creating a way to increase this cap would improve player experience.

[CyberCider]

Well, first of all, I have to commend you for having such a reasonable approach to this issue. Many people are very quick to dismiss the negative consequences of adding multiple landing pads or (especially) inserters being able to extract from cargo bays. It’s refreshing to see.

But this part I have to disagree with:

You can use massive swarms of logistics bots to help, but this is 1) not UPS efficient 2) still limited throughput 3) not an interesting solution 4) limiting on player options.

Bots in this case are virtually unlimited, both in terms of throughput and UPS. By the time you reach quantities of science packs which might bring you close to either of these limits, your UPS will have already been dropped much more significantly by other factors.

And, well, player options always have to be at least a little limited. It’s nothing new. Do you see anyone complaining that they’re “forced to use pipes”, and can’t beat the whole game using barrels? Most people will get used to it with time, I’m sure.

[quineotio]

Problems with other solutions

Removing Landing Pad Limit
This would immediately trivialize onworld logistics as you could just drop any resource anywhere you would want. There would be one uncontested optimal logistics system, which is uninteresting.

Allowing items to be removed from Cargo Bays
This would allow players to instantly transport items across infinite distances, also trivializing onworld logistics and becoming uninteresting, plus item teleportation like this feels unrealistic.

While the second point is valid, I disagree with the first. You still need to make items and get them into orbit, which is pretty expensive compared to putting stuff onto a train. The one area this doesn't apply is platforms that gather resources from space, but even this I don't see as a problem. Why not let players do it if they want to? It might be fun to have a fleet of platforms dropping to different locations.

But you can still gather resources from space as it is - you just have to route them all through a single hub. I don't think the swarm of bots approach is any more interesting than having multiple hubs.

Maybe this could be a promethium science unlock? It would open up a completely new playstyle without having to add any new content.

[SirKill-a-Lot]

Problems with other solutions

Removing Landing Pad Limit
This would immediately trivialize onworld logistics as you could just drop any resource anywhere you would want. There would be one uncontested optimal logistics system, which is uninteresting.

Allowing items to be removed from Cargo Bays
This would allow players to instantly transport items across infinite distances, also trivializing onworld logistics and becoming uninteresting, plus item teleportation like this feels unrealistic.

While the second point is valid, I disagree with the first. You still need to make items and get them into orbit, which is pretty expensive compared to putting stuff onto a train. The one area this doesn't apply is platforms that gather resources from space, but even this I don't see as a problem. Why not let players do it if they want to? It might be fun to have a fleet of platforms dropping to different locations.

But you can still gather resources from space as it is - you just have to route them all through a single hub. I don't think the swarm of bots approach is any more interesting than having multiple hubs.

Maybe this could be a promethium science unlock? It would open up a completely new playstyle without having to add any new content.

If you could have multiple landing pads, it would be as gamebreaking as if bot delivery times didn't scale with distance, and you could have an infinite sized buffer chest. One rocket of each rocket material provides 16 rockets worth due to productivity bonuses, and can be shipped anywhere with no cost. Your base would be a collection of incredibly generic outposts that all go Landing Pad -> Mining/Processing/etc -> Silo, and all ship up to a massive ship in orbit that could drop anything anywhere, and could be expanded to have infinite storage.

Need more resource production? Drop a generic outpost blueprint down, and it's instantly connected to your whole network. Need more production of anything? Drop a generic outpost blueprint down and it's instantly connected. It simplifies the game too much, and removes too many of the challenges.

[FasterJump]

Loaders / Unloaders are already in the game right? Just available in sandbox, not in Freeplay.

How about updating their name to "Landing pad unloaders", updating their graphics to space-themed and giving them a checkbox for "stack items".

For the graphics, i suggest making the back of the unloader to extend beyond their tile, overlapping with the cargo pad, so it blends naturally. In freeplay, landing pad unloaders would be restricted to unloading landing pads. It already works in sandbox (but doesn't stack items)

03-25-2025, 15-12-46.png (810.11 KiB) Viewed 3411 times

[quineotio]

If you could have multiple landing pads, it would be as gamebreaking as if bot delivery times didn't scale with distance, and you could have an infinite sized buffer chest. One rocket of each rocket material provides 16 rockets worth due to productivity bonuses, and can be shipped anywhere with no cost. Your base would be a collection of incredibly generic outposts that all go Landing Pad -> Mining/Processing/etc -> Silo, and all ship up to a massive ship in orbit that could drop anything anywhere, and could be expanded to have infinite storage.

Need more resource production? Drop a generic outpost blueprint down, and it's instantly connected to your whole network. Need more production of anything? Drop a generic outpost blueprint down and it's instantly connected. It simplifies the game too much, and removes too many of the challenges.

I don't understand this concept of "gamebreaking". "Gamechanging" - sure. It would provide an alternative way to play, which you could optionally choose.

"Infinite sized buffer chest" - this makes no sense. You still have to make the materials, and there is a limit to cargo on platforms, and you can make a large buffer as it is now. And also, you still need to actually make the materials, so the size of the buffer is irrelevant.

The idea "shipped anywhere with no cost" is incorrect - it costs rocket launches, which are quite expensive (relative to a train or a belt).

Need more resource production? Drop a generic outpost blueprint down, and it's instantly connected to your whole network.

Firstly, this isn't as simple as you make out - you still need to build the platforms and outposts. And second, this is essentially what you do now, except with trains.

It simplifies the game too much, and removes too many of the challenges.

I did suggest that it be a promethium research - which would make it a post game option. But I don't understand your aversion to having options, and I don't think it would be as simple as you are implying. If you intend to essentially replace trains with platforms, you would need to provide rocket parts to every outpost, and you still need to produce everything you're going to use and route things to where they're needed. I actually think it would be quite interesting to scale up in this way.

[ThePazza]

Bots in this case are virtually unlimited, both in terms of throughput and UPS. By the time you reach quantities of science packs which might bring you close to either of these limits, your UPS will have already been dropped much more significantly by other factors.

And, well, player options always have to be at least a little limited. It’s nothing new. Do you see anyone complaining that they’re “forced to use pipes”, and can’t beat the whole game using barrels? Most people will get used to it with time, I’m sure.

I vehemently disagree with the assertion of bots not becoming the limiting factor for UPS. I'm currently approaching 30k SPM for all off-Nauvis sciences, but by far and away the biggest bottleneck is getting them from the landing pad to my labs. Running this process with bots drops my UPS instantly from 60 to 30/40, depending on the research, I.E. which science packs are needed.

And regarding player limitations, the limitations of the game are meant to be in the mechanics, not in your PC hardware. While there will obviously be limitations in programming, the developers are more than aware of the scope that people build their bases to. We don't mind being limited by designs and building and complexity, but a limitation that is tied to the world outside the game isn't something that should be accepted when viable solutions are being presented.

TL;DR - Limits via mechanics and complexity are fine. Limits via CPU shouldn't be.

[computeraddict]

And regarding player limitations, the limitations of the game are meant to be in the mechanics, not in your PC hardware.

TL;DR - Limits via mechanics and complexity are fine. Limits via CPU shouldn't be.

Factorio has been memory bound for as long as I've been aware of the upper ends of construction. Even non-Space Age Nauvis has an area the size of the real Brazil.

While the second point is valid, I disagree with the first. You still need to make items and get them into orbit,

Make them in orbit and drop them wherever you want. This is a pretty common tactic in the Space Exploration mod, where landing pad spam is highly efficient. Or if you have something that always comes from another surface, like carbon fiber, tungsten, holmium, etc. you can just drop a landing pad for it wherever you need it.

Landing Pad throughput limitations are (to my understanding) an unfortunate byproduct of necessary balancing decisions.

They're also kind of barely limitations? Legendary stack inserters in 30/32 locations around a landing pad can extract 3600i/s, which is enough to sustain 36k spm without resorting to bots. Or 18k spm if you are shipping in basic sciences too.

And if you want to push beyond what you can import to Nauvis for Biolab bonus, you can stick regular labs on space platforms and fly them around to collect science, unbounding any bottlenecks since you can always add more science receivers by adding more research platforms, and all still bot-free. Albeit at a bit under half the material efficiency of importing to Nauvis.

[Hurkyl]

Here's a use of bots that I've seen satisfy a few people with this kind of complaint.

Use bots just for the sole purpose of 'expanding' the landing pad into a larger complex.

E.g. rather than have the cargo landing pad connected to a wider logistics network, you put it in its own separate, small network that you load that up with bots (and roboports for charging) that just have the task of moving items to nearby chests, which you then unload with inserters as normal to transport items via belt or train or whatever.

[CyberCider]

Here's a use of bots that I've seen satisfy a few people with this kind of complaint.

Use bots just for the sole purpose of 'expanding' the landing pad into a larger complex.

E.g. rather than have the cargo landing pad connected to a wider logistics network, you put it in its own separate, small network that you load that up with bots (and roboports for charging) that just have the task of moving items to nearby chests, which you then unload with inserters as normal to transport items via belt or train or whatever.

Is there anyone that doesn’t do it this way? I’ve always assumed it was the default approach for everyone. At larger scales, it’s really the only way that’s practical. Bot throughput falls off the further they have to travel.

[Hurkyl]

Loaders / Unloaders are already in the game right? Just available in sandbox, not in Freeplay.

How about updating their name to "Landing pad unloaders", updating their graphics to space-themed and giving them a checkbox for "stack items".

For the graphics, i suggest making the back of the unloader to extend beyond their tile, overlapping with the cargo pad, so it blends naturally. In freeplay, landing pad unloaders would be restricted to unloading landing pads. It already works in sandbox (but doesn't stack items)

Not stacking is a major problem with this approach. IIRC, it's four legendary stack inserters to a green belt*, so with stack size 4 the unloaders can only match the throughput of the inserters.

(and that's if you're going straight to belt, rather than doing tricks like chest-to-chest transfers to give yourself a greater surface area to work with before moving to belts)