Factorio Forums

I have a space platform "Bastok" that has "Auto request missing construction materials" set.
All requested construction materials are satisfied (0).

However, due to the platform requesting "Crusher (Rare)" with a quantity of 0, the platform won't fill the requests to the cargo landing pad for the same "Crusher (Rare)". Briefly disabling the auto request construction materials will allow the platform to fill the landing pad request.

However, as a user I feel that this is counter intuitive as from my perspective the 0 request for construction materials should not interfere with fulfilling ground requests. I assume that the intent is to avoid a loop where the space platform requests materials for construction and then immediately drops them to the planet, but in the case where the materials are no longer needed this causes the drops to stop without a clear indication as to why they aren't being dropped.

Unlike the other "Space platform not fulfilling requests" bug posts, I have only 5 platforms, which are sending down requests at a leisurely pace so I believe this is a different issue than what was addressed in 2.0.33

The attached save should show the issue.

Snicky Snacks wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 6:23 pm However, as a user I feel that this is counter intuitive as from my perspective the 0 request for construction materials should not interfere with fulfilling ground requests. I assume that the intent is to avoid a loop where the space platform requests materials for construction and then immediately drops them to the planet, but in the case where the materials are no longer needed this causes the drops to stop without a clear indication as to why they aren't being dropped.

Thanks for the report. Your reasoning is correct, we don't want to send items down if players are actively building stuff on the platform. When building is done, platforms usually leave the orbit which clears the construction requests. This seems like a duplicate of 122929.

Kind of. My concern isn't that the requests don't clear, but rather due to them not clearing it becomes very hard to determine why items are not dropping to the planet.

My platform was constructed to make space science and rockets/crushers/grabbers for my traveling platforms so it never had an engine or moved from Nauvis.
I ended up spending a lot of time trying to figure out why it would never auto-drop the crushers to the planet despite making plenty of them.

While I do understand that this is intended behavior to avoid a request/supply loop, my concern is that when this happens it is not very clear *why* the platform stops dropping the items, especially since (at a glance) there are no requests *for* the item it isn't dropping so it took me much longer than it probably should have for me to try disabling the auto request construction materials, as I spent most of the time fussing with the cargo landing pad requests, moving the other platforms to/from nauvis, making more crushers, etc.

At any rate, I appreciate you taking a look.