Friday Facts #441 - Space logistics improvements

[Ekvivu]

1. We are SO CLOSE with fixing "custom minimum payload", but waiting only for bots currently delivering things creates a weird disparity between rockets fed by bots and rockets fed by inserters. Rockets will still launch prematurely if inserters are actively loading them when they reach the minimum. Can we add as another condition before launching a partially full rocket that all inserters facing it are idle?

2. Love the new silo animations! The blue cargo hatch is great for visually communicating that it functions like a blue logistics box, I hope more mod creators lean into that theming.

3.

quality silos aren't that useful. (well, it still consume less electricity when building rockets... but it's not that great advantage in the endgame)
If they build quality rocket instead of building normal rocket faster, it can be more meaningful than now.

Quality silos crafting faster keeps them in line with other quality production buildings, the reason why they fall off late game is because they uniquely have to wait for the launch animation. If quality rockets are implemented, it should have nothing to do with silo quality, and instead require quality ingredients like everything else. With the new rocket capacity api, mods (like Space Exploration) will be able to properly implement new larger silos as an extention of SA silos instead of as a separate system.

[Tertius]

Very nice addition to platform logistics and signaling. That was a major part missing in 2.0. Now we're able to communicate and to decide what to request. Even from where.

I don't know yet how to use this new freedom. As circuit-enthusiast, I will probably come up with something useful. Let's see... I extend my base and I need a fusion reactor from Aquilo. This is not a regular item on my trader platform. But now I'm able to communicate to my trading platform. The trading platform gets 5 radars, one for each planet channel. It knows the planet when it is in orbit. It passes the signals from the corresponding planet channel as request to the platform.

So if I transmit a fusion reactor on the Aquilo channel, no matter the planet, the trading platform will request it, whenever it is in orbit of Aqilo. It leaves with the reactor. The platform eventually gets to the planet that wants the reactor. The reactor signal is not only being sent to the Aquilo channel, it is also being requested by the cargo landing pad. The trading platform picks up the request and sends the reactor down. The planet detects the new item and removes the corresponding signal. The signal vanishes from the Aquilo channel and from the cargo landing pad requests. The cargo was delivered and doesn't occupy cargo space any more. The signals are gone.
Looks good.

There is one thing missing: if there is a reactor ghost and built, the item is removed from the logistic network and is requested again. I have to manually set up the request, and I have to manually remove the request after the item has been delivered and built, but before the platform is again on Aquilo to request the item again.

But there is one vital improvement: we're able to dynamically decide on a planet which items a platform should pick up remotely for local delivery. I can decide to request just 500 biter eggs for Gleba if there isn't currently any higher demand, and increase to 2000 otherwise, so they don't spoil and leave a mess as it is currently where I have to request 2000 eggs unconditionally.

[malecord]

Klonan just causally dropping "you can now exchang cargo between platforms" bombshell.

How is this even qol? This is huge. Huuuuge! I can refactor a the whole game now. Might as well start a new one.


Also, awesome silo animation!

[evandy]

Klonan just causally dropping "you can now exchang cargo between platforms" bombshell.

How is this even qol? This is huge. Huuuuge! I can refactor a the whole game now. Might as well start a new one.

Agreed - this is REALLY a good add. It always felt wrong to need to drop stuff to the surface just to lift it back to a different platform.

I will be starting a Space Exploration run after I finish my current Nullius, and I am salivating at seeing Space Ex on 2.1 with these changes.

[Terrahertz]

That is amazing!

These additions alone would justify the x.1, but I guess there is still a bit more to come.

This opens up the possibilty to build even smaller bases on Aquilo.

Also the graphics for the silo look great, especially as with buffer stations you can now have less silos but more active ones, as they fill up your station over time.

Great work!

[bobucles]

So there won't be planet backgrounds for space platforms?

Ooh, this question is pretty relevant with platform transfers in action. Ships will obviously be able to transfer items while in orbit, but how will we know the ship is in orbit? The visible planets mod is going to be pretty mandatory so that players have the real feedback, not just the spreadsheet note on the right of the screen.

To expand on this a little bit, how will players know when another platform is in orbit with the current platform? Showing an entire second ship(and third, and fourth, and 10th etc.) in the orbit background would certainly be a bit ambitious for the display engine. But perhaps some particle effects would be good enough. Show flashing stars in the background, representing other ships sharing the current orbit. Bonus points if alt mode shows the ship name next to the dot. The particles can fly into and out of view as the ships buzz about their daily routines.

Would ships be able to interact with other ships en route? Consider a ship that is damaged and adrift, and you want to rescue it. The obvious solution is to fly another ship to its location and launch materials over to rescue it. Overlapping 2 ships in the same space is probably a bit too ambitious, they'd just be in the same region and acting remotely on each other. A pile of huge drifting platforms would be very cool but perhaps too cool to work outside of an ocean world like aquillo.

The circuit network of a ship can currently can output a planet signal of 1 or 2, if the ship is coming or going. I don't really understand why it can't just send the km position. If the value is positive the ship is coming, if the value is negative the ship is going, perhaps both values add up to the total planet distance? Two ships would be able to communicate their positions to each other, or at least know their own position. That'd be pretty handy for flying to the shattered planet, for example going full speed until 30000km and then slowing down a bit every 10000km, perhaps?

[Rebmes]

In 2.0 when building Space Platforms, I'd think, "I have to build (y) in order to (x) and continue my game."

In 2.1 when building Space Platforms, I'll be able to think, "I can build anything I want up here."

[Tertius]

how will we know the ship is in orbit?

You need to activate "read moving to" and "read moving from", and when a planet signal equals 3, you know you're in orbit of that planet.

To expand on this a little bit, how will players know when another platform is in orbit with the current platform?

Once a platform knows it is in orbit of some planet, it can transmit this information to some radar channel. For example, use a decider and filter each planet signal that equals 3 and feed it to some radar channel. Everyone reading that channel knows there is a platform in orbit of that planet. You don't know which platform is in orbit of which planet, you only know some platform is in orbit of some planet. That's better than nothing.

[coffee-factorio]

Well, there's at least 3 things I wanted plus radar with channels which counts as five things. So that made my week.

[atarihomestar1]

Space platform "QOL" is HUGE, but something that seems to be going under the radar (no pun intended ) is the new rocket silo animation. It looks great! And now I don't need to hover to make sure that the rockets are crafting.

[SeigneurAo]

I don't post that often, but...

This single FFF is enough to remind me why I had such a weird feeling last week, when I thought "well, this is it".
I'm of course aware we'll still get bugfixes and the game is not going anywhere, I *will* definitely play it over and over, but there is still this slight sadness, mixed with infinite thankfulness and of course excitement at seeing what you guys have in store for us next.
What a ride it has been. I joined way back when Steam wasn't even a thing, don't remember the exact version but whatever.

Factorio is the #1 game for me, both in terms of the actual gaming experience, and also freakin perfect communication, and almost perfect decision making in terms of bug solving, feature additions, with Satisfactory being a close second in both of these aspects.
Born from this experience, stemmed my deep and honest conviction that you can always 100% *know* when devs 1/ play their own damn game 2/ listen to their community.
This new FFF does nothing if it doesn't prove it once more, one of the last times, and it's a mixed payload of joy and nostalgia.

Thank you for the countless hours you stole from us, we were grateful for being deprived in such a way, also had a slight pang of shock when seeing legendary Posila leaving for other endeavors, as is perfectly understandable after such a long and unusual time, especially for this industry.
I have seen this name for almost as long as I have known this game, and it was almost as much a given part of Wube as Klonan was, in my mind.

Again... What a ride.
Thank you thank you thank you.

Edit and PS : you mentioned additions to merch. Caps, pretty please !

[Ekvivu]

It is also possible to use 'Set requests' at the same time as 'Read contents', due to a little bit of magic self-subtraction of the circuit network signals.

you are talking about being able to set requests and read the contents due to magic self-subtraction.I hope this gets also added to train/ train stations. as it currently isn't the case as seen below.
grafik.png

There might be cases when self-subtraction is unwanted, or at least confusing if someone builds with the expectation that it won't happen. A two-channel system would be better; eg. output on green, input on red, or vice versa.

[Shabbers]

I personally don't like the idea of rocket logistics auto-requesting more materials than required - if I wanted more, I would have asked for it, especially with the new ability to set requests directly.

Everything else sounds great tho, a lot of really nice QOL in there.

The problem with the alternative is discussed in the fff. Sending half rockets is its own form of inefficient and since it costs nothing to drop them back down to the planet having it prioritise sending a full rocket is the best idea imo.

[sarge945]

These QoL changes are amazing, well done, I just hope that 2.1 also contains an overhaul to the Quality mechanic, because it's extremely abusable and that's probably the last remaining large-scale gameplay issue with the game right now.

It is also possible to use 'Set requests' at the same time as 'Read contents', due to a little bit of magic self-subtraction of the circuit network signals.

you are talking about being able to set requests and read the contents due to magic self-subtraction.I hope this gets also added to train/ train stations. as it currently isn't the case as seen below.
grafik.png

There might be cases when self-subtraction is unwanted, or at least confusing if someone builds with the expectation that it won't happen. A two-channel system would be better; eg. output on green, input on red, or vice versa.

I really wish all circuit connection parameters had the little R and G buttons like Combinators do

[kpreid]

Platform-to-platform transfers are going to be great for upgrading existing space platforms with new buildings like quality asteroid collectors — you’ll be able to load them up into one platform that visits all the planets your other platforms visit, instead of having to either redirect your platforms or transfer small quantities of items to other planets.

[soldans]

I really wish all circuit connection parameters had the little R and G buttons like Combinators do

Agree. That would be so nice for inserters too, comparing the red signal to the green signal in the condition for the inserter. Seems like low hanging fruit.

[mergele]

This also applies to any items manually trashed of course, so your expedition ships don't leave while you're waiting for your construction robots and such.

What does this mean? Afaik my personal construction robots can't do stuff while the character is in orbit, so does this mean all space ship logistics grinds to a halt while I have anything in the trash slots while on surface?

[Linck]

I have a convoluted way to use radars to notify my trains (with interrupts), that they have to pick up/deliver items, so as to not interfere with other signals. With radar channels, that seems like it will make this sort of setup easier now?

[Nidan]

It is also possible to use 'Set requests' at the same time as 'Read contents'

Yay?

…, due to a little bit of magic self-subtraction of the circuit network signals.

Oh. Did the attempt to add a wire selection for most/all circuit control options not work out, or are you hiding that for a later FFF?

[BanditFactory]

2.1 Hype! Honestly got a bit tired of the discussion focusing around the quality adjustments that were proposed. This was the true game changer, really refining the space logistics system and implementing a more robust interaction loop surrounding the space platforms themselves. Having the ability to set multiple circuit modes really pushes the capability forwards. And the cross transfer of space stations... CHEFS KISS.

Mixed mode requests is going to save so much tedium for the optimized blueprints many of us have crafted to perfection. Not needing to set up each request by hand is going to be a very welcome change. Players using a skeleton crew of rocket silos can breath a sigh of relief now that they can enable auto launch! Really looking forward to trying this!