Factorio Forums

So here's the situation:

I currently have a minimal Gleba base which produces a mere 180 (agricultural) SPM and i am running into issues automating the logistics to send it to Nauvis. There is currenlty just one rocket silo on Gleba. I am using high tier quality modules in the machines that produce the science, because that's just free extra science packs and extended durability - but it means my output is mixed with anything from normal to legendary quality science packs.

That leads to an issue for the space platform responsible for hauling the science to Nauvis. I can't find any way to get the rocket silo to automatically send cargo loads with mixed quality science packs. Anything i try the rocket silo will just kick out the other quality science packs and just send one quality type. Which means the other quality science packs are getting left behind and left to rot, unless i build more rocket silos to haul the other science packs - which is a huge waste of the resources required for that rocket. Especially on godamn Gleba.

And the situation gets even worse: i cannot tell how many science packs will be ready for shipping when the space platform arrives to pick them up. It most certainly is always below the cargo pod capacity. So i have to add a minimum payload value to the request on the space platform. But then it will only ship that minimum payload value, despite there being way more that would fit in a rocket and way more being requested in total anyway.

Now i love problem solving as much as the next engineer... but it feels like there is no solution to this other than "just make more science" and more of an logic oversight in the space logistics. For example this could be solved easily by being able to communicate with the space platforms and/or being able send mixed cargo rockets automatically.

Right now i have to sit next to the rocket silo and manually launch the payloads to ensure the science packs dont rot and get lost. And that is most certainly not what the game expects from me.

Anybody got any ideas? (please, other than "just build more science").

Mixed rockets can currently only be launched manually. The solution is to just not bother with quality on agri science packs, I'm afraid. It wastes more than you gain, unless you scale up to fill enough rockets for all quality tiers. Even then higher tiers will either waste most of the rocket or be launched less often and so they spoil as much or more than the quality bonus provided.

The minimum pod size works better when you have the packs in chests and delivered by bots, but not when you "preload" the silo. Then the platform will not "see" any packs available and will take the minimum as soon as that appears in chests from purging the silo. If you already have more in chests when it arrives, it will take all the packs and not just the minimum.