Friday Facts #441 - Space logistics improvements

[Klonan]

Will the problem be fixed where I can't set the pickup planet in my logistics group from a planet's surface?

Yes

[Fedorrro]

Since we're discussing space logistics, I'd like to describe a problem I've run into. There may already be a solution that I haven't found, but if not, perhaps this could be an idea for a future Space Age improvement.

My goal is to maintain a buffer of various materials near a Rocket Silo so that incoming platform requests can be fulfilled immediately. If the buffer chests are supplied by belts or trains, this works fine. However, I haven't found a convenient way to do the same using only the logistic network.

What I would like is a workflow where logistic bots keep a set of requester chests near the Rocket Silo stocked according to their requests. Then, when a space platform arrives and requests cargo, the bots would load the rocket using the items already stored in those buffer chests.

The difficulty is that the logistic system currently seems to treat both tasks as competing requests for the same items. As a result, I haven't found a clean way to maintain a dedicated local stockpile near the silo while still allowing platform requests to be fulfilled from that stockpile.

Perhaps this could be solved with request priorities, dedicated rocket-loading buffers, or some other logistics-network feature. Is there already a recommended way to achieve this, or could this be considered as a potential quality-of-life improvement for Space Age?

[radical_larry]

Perhaps this could be solved with request priorities, dedicated rocket-loading buffers, or some other logistics-network feature. Is there already a recommended way to achieve this, or could this be considered as a potential quality-of-life improvement for Space Age?

Buffer chests should work, or do they not? The green ones I mean.

[Niizuki]

What I would really want are reuseable rockets, and nuclear/fusion engines for platforms. They could be late game thing, of course, but it feels like it is kind of thematically missed opportunity.

Also, space to surface armaments would be great.

Edit: What i would also love as an addition is some kind of asteroid miner. I dont know what shape it should be, but i think dedicated platform might work, but it is massive overkill, it eats up UPS, and carries unnecessary logic. What i would like is some kind of vehicle that autonomously mines asteroids in similar way as a dedicated platform, but more purpose build for this in game logic.

[Fedorrro]

Perhaps this could be solved with request priorities, dedicated rocket-loading buffers, or some other logistics-network feature. Is there already a recommended way to achieve this, or could this be considered as a potential quality-of-life improvement for Space Age?

Buffer chests should work, or do they not? The green ones I mean.

I’m not 100% sure anymore what exactly the issue was in my setup.

I remember I was switching between requester chests (blue) and passive provider chests (red) while experimenting with different configurations, and the behavior didn’t quite match what I expected in that scenario.

It’s very possible I either misconfigured something or misunderstood how the interaction between these two chest types works at the time.

I can re-check it in-game and try to reproduce it more carefully, then give a more precise answer.

[ori]

I really like this update. Can there also be multiple channels within a planet?

[TamTamTam]

Perhaps this could be solved with request priorities, dedicated rocket-loading buffers, or some other logistics-network feature. Is there already a recommended way to achieve this, or could this be considered as a potential quality-of-life improvement for Space Age?

Buffer chests should work, or do they not? The green ones I mean.

I’m not 100% sure anymore what exactly the issue was in my setup.

I remember I was switching between requester chests (blue) and passive provider chests (red) while experimenting with different configurations, and the behavior didn’t quite match what I expected in that scenario.

It’s very possible I either misconfigured something or misunderstood how the interaction between these two chest types works at the time.

I can re-check it in-game and try to reproduce it more carefully, then give a more precise answer.

Yellow (storage) - robots can put in it if they have nowhere else to put, robots can take from it, they take from it before they take from red chests
Red (passive provider) - robots can take from it.
Purple (active provider) - robots must take from it and put some place else.
Blue (requester) - robots can put in it whatever it asks, robots can take out unwanted stuff if "trash unrequested" checked, unwanted is anything that it doesn't request
Green (buffer) - robots put in it whatever it asks, robots can use it for logistic requsts BUT blue chests do not request from green unless "Request from buffer chests" is checked.

Buffer chests are very useful to isolate some part of the logisitcs from requests of the blues and if you have none that requests that particular item from buffer chests, it only provides to personal logistics, construction bots and silos.

In shot, put buffer chests near silos, request 4k refined concrete each or whatever you are importing en masse, enjoy the fact that your bots don't have to fly over half of your factory every time space platform asks for something.

Anothing thing i usualyl do is put biter eggs in buffer chests, keeping certain amount of freshest and then i make requester chest asking for biter eggs with inserter pointed to heating tower, with box "request from buffer chests" unchecked. That way i can fulfill rocket requests for eggs and clean my logistics network of any dangerous items that can occasionally find themself in it.

[Tooster]

I don't think I understand the intent behind your optimization algorithm for rocket sending and over-capacity handling. Why don't you just make it as dumb as possible, "if request fulfilled, send", and instead let power users control that manually with combinators??? I think you are trying to solve this problem on your end for us, instead of letting us handle it on our end — just expose appropriate signals for sending rockets, checking it's capacity etc. and we can adjust it to our needs — if we don't care for optimization, I can just send the items without caring about being wasteful.

Even the item prioritization could be a puzzle for the players themselves — if we send and fill the cargo bays with belts but don't have enough space foundations, then it's our mistake. Maybe if you exposed ghost entities and regular requests separately — you have red and green wire interfaces, so why not use them for 2 separate information sources? Except this would be an exception to how other machines work, so violates the "least surprise" rule — but I bet other solutions could be found.

TL;DR — let users have more control of optimizing their cargo bays and dealing with their problems, while you keep the complexity of code lower and disregard the optimization algorithm altogether. I suppose this was playtested to lower friction and barrier to enter space platform, but I think when someone reaches that stage they should be on a level where they can be trusted with solving that problem on their own, no?

Cold someone shed a bit of light on that matter — why did you decide to implement it on your side instead of exposing that problem as a puzzle for players to solve?

Final dream of mine — expose different functionalities per green and red wire from the same entities, for instance "read requests from red", "set requests" on green, it would be such a game changer <3

[Robosium]

Platform to platform logistics are top tier. I'm finally able to build a platform capable of producing more platforms up in space.

Only thing missing from this list in my opinion would be more than 1 landing pad per surface. The sight of cargo pods dropping all over the factory would be epic. Could even have the limit set by research, so as you get to more planets you unlock more landing pads with an eventual infinite promethium science research for it.

[Kibb99]

Love all the updates and that the FFF is back! (for now )

Couldn't help but notice that some of the ship designs look an awful lot like FTL ships... For sure noticed the Bulwark and probably the Kestrel too!

[sbsbsbsb]

How much does an orbital transfer cost? It would be cool if it costs at least some token amount (1 rocket fuel and 1 LDS? Maybe a blue or red chip as well)

Will launching rockets on different planets cost differently? (or rather: Will a mod be able to alter rocket costs per planet?)

[LuxSublima]

Overall, these changes sound fantastic! Especially platform-to-platform logistics, handling small item launches better, and universe signals with radars.

However, I'm sorry but I do not enjoy the new rocket launcher crafting animation or the sound it makes when it grabs a new piece to weld. I can easily see that sound becoming grating very quick, enough so that I'm already hoping there will be a mod to revert that change if this sticks.

The sound you already had is deep and satisfying. But in the new version, the repetitive little click of that new piece getting into place somehow overshadows all of that for me. The visual of building that continuous tube, too, seems distracting and a little out of place.

[KillingTimeItself]

Like a few other users have suggested, it would be really nice to be able to read/set requests from a generic logistics chest, buffer/requester at the same time. The way I'd prefer it to be done would be to use the same red green circuit selection in combinators, and I'm assuming there are plans to clean up and unify some of the current funk throughout the circuit universe so to speak.

Notably I'm rather disappointed in roboports and their logistic group functionality, i was really hoping i could set them with circuit conditions, or at the very least join them with normal logistics groups but unfortunately you can't do that right now. It would also be nice if you could have more control over them, for example "hard requests" so a roboport has the exact amount of robots in it that are requested, this would be really nice for automating robot insertion into the network.

Also, it might be time to give storage chests the ability to set multiple filters or at least the ability to control them from the network like other chests. You can already enable and disable them so i feel like it would make sense. Also, perhaps it should say "logistic filter" not "logistics filters" since you can only filter one item currently but that's a small nitpick lol.

I'm very excited to see what happens in 2.1, looking forward to this update as it should be worthy of the "complete game" status.