[2.1] Add space platform import from specific platforms

[unclebrady]

TL;DR

Add space platform import from specific platforms to enable a hub-and-spokes logistical system

What?

I want to set up a main space platform depot that other space platforms can send items to or request items from.

Imagine the depot is set up above Gleba and a Fulgora spaceship moves 1,000 Holmium Plates to the depot.

The depot can request 1,000 Holmium Plates and get these from the Fulgora spaceship.

Now my Aquilo spaceship shows up sometime later and requests 500 Holmium Plates. The depot will not send them as both the depot and ship are set to import them from any platform, the depot only has it's requested amount, and the current logic won't let the Aquilo spaceship's request come from the depot. If you turn off the depot's request, then it will send the plates to the Aquilo spaceship. There needs to be some way to automate this.

What would solve this issue is if I could set up the Depot to request Holmium Plates only from Fulgora spaceship, and Aquilo spaceship to request Holmium Plates only from Depot.

Why?

This change allows ship-to-depot-to-ship logistics. Currently only planet-to-depot-to-ship works with the import from (any) platform logic.

[pentaquark]

I've also run into this limitation and would like a solution if possible.

Another possible solution would be to add a priority to each space platform, and platforms would send items to platforms with higher priority even if that means they end up lower than the amount they request. E.g. in the OP's example you could set the depot to priority 100 and the Aquilo ship to priority 200, and the depot would then send holmium to the Aquilo ship (and if you set the holmium resupply ship to priority 50, and it happens to be at Gleba, it'll prioritize sending holmium to the Aquilo ship over the depot). I'm not sure whether this would be easier or more difficult to implement than the OP's idea; I think either one would work about as well to fix this limitation.

Edit: actually, my suggestion might be more limited than the OP's: if you have a ship that wants to both send some items to the depot, and request other items from the depot, my idea would require a bit of tweaking to handle that. Maybe it would still work if the priority is ignored sometimes: if the depot has priority 100 and a second platform has priority 200, the depot could request e.g. holmium plates from the second platform, and even though the depot has lower priority, the holmium would still be sent because the second platform's request for holmium is inactive (it's only active around Fulgora).

A possible workaround using existing game mechanics is to use radars configured to "universe" to send signals: the resupply ship sends a signal when it's at Gleba, and the depot only requests holmium plates when it detects this signal. Then, when the Aquilo ship arrives, the depot will be able to send holmium to it since it's not itself requesting holmium (or if the resupply ship is present too, it'll send holmium to both the depot and the Aquilo ship). Another player had a similar idea here: https://old.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... t/otts2ra/. I haven't fully tested this idea, but it seems like it should work. One limitation is, circuit-controlled requests always request from "any location"; there's no way to configure it to request from "any platform" instead, so it's possible that the depot might accidentally be sent items from Gleba instead of the resupply ship.

[flamingdragon]

+1 to this. This would make it much simpler to have orbital platforms that request items from certain planet transfer ships and distribute it to others.

See: https://old.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... hip_issue/