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TL;DR:

Add a "Cargo Landing Pad Count" infinite technology which lets us place more than 1 Landing Pad per surface.

What?

This new technology directly competes with Research Productivity. It requires every science pack, with a high cost for the first level and VERY steep scaling from there.

I'm thinking a 1 million SPM megabase should expect to unlock maybe 4-5 Cargo Landing Pads in the course of their game.

Why?

1. Vanilla megabases do run into the throughput limits of a Cargo Landing Pad, and no solution is satisfactory. Bot-based unloading is UPS-intensive, while inserter handoff to wagons, cars, rocket silos, etc. is an ugly trick that feels like exploiting jank. Letting us unlock more Cargo Landing Pads widens the bottleneck, making the jank unnecessary.

2. While beta testing showed that being able to drop resources from orbit anywhere we like was too convenient, the other extreme of needing to pass all resources through a single bottleneck is also boring. Constraint breeds creativity, but too much constraint stifles creativity. And this is too much. The solutions to the puzzle of maximizing throughput through a single Cargo Landing Pad are some truly ugly jank (see #1), and ultimately, it's just not an interesting puzzle. There aren't enough levers to pull; the puzzle is one-dimensional. It would be both prettier and more interesting to have a small handful of Landing Pads for us to work with. There will be more variety as different people make different decisions about how to best-use their limited (but not oppressively-limited) number of Landing Pads.

3. Making this an infinite technology lets player power grow (to a limited extent) with the size, complexity, and capability of their megabase.

4. This technology does something rare: It creates paradigm shifts during the megabasing stage of the game. For example, having 2 vs. 3 Cargo Landing Pads could make a huge difference in how we want to organize our megabase, and with the steep expense I proposed, this happens WELL into megabasing. There aren't many other examples of paradigm shifts while megabasing, and I daresay Cargo Landing Pad Count will be the most impressive "chase item" of them all.

5. Research Productivity and Cargo Landing Pad Count directly competing with each other is interesting. Do you make research a little bit cheaper, or do you start working towards +1 Cargo Landing Pad? The former is incremental while the latter is very all-or-nothing. When do you switch from one to the other? It's an interesting, difficult decision.

6. The argument that "it is satisfying to have a single point in your base that is very active" does not conflict with adding this infinite technology. Even level 1 of Cargo Landing Pad Count will require a proper megabase, and during that time (many hours!) you'll have one very busy Landing Pad. Then you unlock two and, well, it's a megabase! Now you have two very busy Cargo Landing Pads. Satisfaction doubled!

Reddit thread here

There are other similar suggestions, but usually they also explain how it should work, like how are you going to choose which landing pad is used by a platform to drop their goods on a planet ?

Less filled?
Random?
Default one, others are only "on logistic demand"?
Filters?

It seems any way would work.

Only one landing pad is too weird. Alternative way would be to research in space.

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 1. Vanilla megabases do run into the throughput limits of a Cargo Landing Pad, and no solution is satisfactory. Bot-based unloading is UPS-intensive, while inserter handoff to wagons, cars, rocket silos, etc. is an ugly trick that feels like exploiting jank. Letting us unlock more Cargo Landing Pads widens the bottleneck, making the jank unnecessary.

As is explained here 130220 it is possible to do it with only belts, inserters, and chests.

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 2. While beta testing showed that being able to drop resources from orbit anywhere we like was too convenient, the other extreme of needing to pass all resources through a single bottleneck is also boring. Constraint breeds creativity, but too much constraint stifles creativity. And this is too much. The solutions to the puzzle of maximizing throughput through a single Cargo Landing Pad are some truly ugly jank (see #1), and ultimately, it's just not an interesting puzzle. There aren't enough levers to pull; the puzzle is one-dimensional. It would be both prettier and more interesting to have a small handful of Landing Pads for us to work with. There will be more variety as different people make different decisions about how to best-use their limited (but not oppressively-limited) number of Landing Pads.

This is a good point. (I don't want to imply that I disagree with everything you say).

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 4. This technology does something rare: It creates paradigm shifts during the megabasing stage of the game. For example, having 2 vs. 3 Cargo Landing Pads could make a huge difference in how we want to organize our megabase, and with the steep expense I proposed, this happens WELL into megabasing. There aren't many other examples of paradigm shifts while megabasing, and I daresay Cargo Landing Pad Count will be the most impressive "chase item" of them all.

This doesn't seem like it will be that interesting. What do I do with more cargo landing pads other than more easier science throughput?

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 5. Research Productivity and Cargo Landing Pad Count directly competing with each other is interesting. Do you make research a little bit cheaper, or do you start working towards +1 Cargo Landing Pad? The former is incremental while the latter is very all-or-nothing. When do you switch from one to the other? It's an interesting, difficult decision.

Is it that interesting though? Research productivity is very immediately useful; an extra cargo landing pad only seems helpful once I am unloading hundreds of thousands of science packs per minute.

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:15 pm

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 1. Vanilla megabases do run into the throughput limits of a Cargo Landing Pad, and no solution is satisfactory. Bot-based unloading is UPS-intensive, while inserter handoff to wagons, cars, rocket silos, etc. is an ugly trick that feels like exploiting jank. Letting us unlock more Cargo Landing Pads widens the bottleneck, making the jank unnecessary.

As is explained here 130220 it is possible to do it with only belts, inserters, and chests.

Which is ugly jank, as I just said. We also need to connect the Cargo Bays in an ugly way to get sufficient orbit-to-surface throughput while still leaving as much surface area as possible for inserters.

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:15 pm

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 4.
5.

This doesn't seem like it will be that interesting. What do I do with more cargo landing pads other than more easier science throughput?

Is it that interesting though? Research productivity is very immediately useful; an extra cargo landing pad only seems helpful once I am unloading hundreds of thousands of science packs per minute.

If you don't need them for science throughput, you can start using Landing Pads for things other than science. You can have proper high-volume interplanetary logistics for more than just science.

You can also use them to ship items across the same surface. People have been asking for an item teleporter as an endgame feature for a long time, and this would be similar, yet balanced-out by the limited number of place-able Landing Pads, plus we still need to find a way to create and supply Rocket Parts to the Rocket Silos.

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:40 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:15 pm

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 1. Vanilla megabases do run into the throughput limits of a Cargo Landing Pad, and no solution is satisfactory. Bot-based unloading is UPS-intensive, while inserter handoff to wagons, cars, rocket silos, etc. is an ugly trick that feels like exploiting jank. Letting us unlock more Cargo Landing Pads widens the bottleneck, making the jank unnecessary.

As is explained here 130220 it is possible to do it with only belts, inserters, and chests.

Which is ugly jank, as I just said. We also need to connect the Cargo Bays in an ugly way to get sufficient orbit-to-surface throughput while still leaving as much surface area as possible for inserters.

I don't think it is, but there are alternatives (you don't need to use biolabs).

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:40 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:15 pm

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 2:42 am 4.
5.

This doesn't seem like it will be that interesting. What do I do with more cargo landing pads other than more easier science throughput?

Is it that interesting though? Research productivity is very immediately useful; an extra cargo landing pad only seems helpful once I am unloading hundreds of thousands of science packs per minute.

If you don't need them for science throughput, you can start using Landing Pads for things other than science. You can have proper high-volume interplanetary logistics for more than just science.

What do you need such high throughput to Nauvis for other than science?

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:40 pm You can also use them to ship items across the same surface. People have been asking for an item teleporter as an endgame feature for a long time, and this would be similar, yet balanced-out by the limited number of place-able Landing Pads, plus we still need to find a way to create and supply Rocket Parts to the Rocket Silos.

This is something Kovarex explicitly doesn't want though, so I see little chance of it being added. (I don't really have a problem with it and think it would be quite interesting)

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:50 pm I don't think it is, but there are alternatives (you don't need to use biolabs).

It is. Using tanks, cargo wagons, rocket silos, etc. as containers is obviously not aligned with their intended functions and is textbook degenerate gameplay. I don't have a problem if people want to do it, but it is not and should not be the intended strategy for increasing cargo landing pad throughput.

Also, yes, you do need to use biolabs. By pretty much every metric, the cost of whatever you're doing to squeeze more throughput out of the landing pad is always going to be significantly lower than the cost of making your science on a planet other than Nauvis without biolabs.

nzer wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 6:50 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:50 pm I don't think it is, but there are alternatives (you don't need to use biolabs).

It is. Using tanks, cargo wagons, rocket silos, etc. as containers is obviously not aligned with their intended functions and is textbook degenerate gameplay. I don't have a problem if people want to do it, but it is not and should not be the intended strategy for increasing cargo landing pad throughput.

You still ignore that chests can give maximum throughput.

nzer wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 6:50 pm Also, yes, you do need to use biolabs. By pretty much every metric, the cost of whatever you're doing to squeeze more throughput out of the landing pad is always going to be significantly lower than the cost of making your science on a planet other than Nauvis without biolabs.

Rseding91 mentioned that it was an intentional tradeoff because Gleba 129833 (I agree with you that biolabs are really helpful and practically required for megabasing)

HeliGungir wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 5:40 pm You can also use them to ship items across the same surface. People have been asking for an item teleporter as an endgame feature for a long time, and this would be similar, yet balanced-out by the limited number of place-able Landing Pads, plus we still need to find a way to create and supply Rocket Parts to the Rocket Silos.

Just chiming in to clarify, it's currently impractical to use cargo landing pads for same-planet shipping, because when a platform requests thing A from planet X, it will never drop A back to X. I have to process my rocket-launched fruits to bioflux in space to work around that on Gleba.

Personally I like the centralization as bandwidth / bot UPS aren't the bottleneck once you start using tanks.

I think a meet in the middle solution would be interesting. I don't much care for the looks of the thing if it doesn't feel like it plays well with others. Cargo pad doesn't play well with trains. And using a tank as an adapter...

...it encourages such horrible thoughts as "You know, I could use tanks as storage instead of cargo pads. They unload faster and fit more into a confined space, even if there's a throughput bottleneck in theory. If you put on logistics filters, they redistribute items to bots. This is one more way that tankasaurus solves every problem..." The puzzle of cargo pads is already "put on corner, minimize bottleneck, make square or write cursive".

Right now it seems like I can just get away with having short sub kilometer runs of spaghetti belts everywhere. I'd prefer to be challenged by the horror of long range logistics from an airport terminal.

Making it so there where dedicated load/unload points that had to allocated to the pad might be interesting; this is my proposed solution. I do want to pull a 64 car train up to the pad and see a structure that could interface with it's cars. I feel like I'd be considering bigger logistic problem.

If you wanted to attach assemblers to dedicated unload points and run their base out of a giant chest, well... that actually seems like a funny puzzle.

The main technical issue I see is "How do you keep a person from just unloading from a cargo pad into science labs directly." You can already do this. It caused me pain to realize it.

Sad_Brother wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:31 am Less filled?
Random?
Default one, others are only "on logistic demand"?
Filters?

It seems any way would work.

I don't think if it's "random" people are going to be happy with this, there are suggestions for circuits controls x)

That's where most suggestion diverges, how are you expected to use this in practice ?

Sad_Brother wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:31 am Only one landing pad is too weird. Alternative way would be to research in space.

Unfortunatly research in space breaks the spirit of Gleba, as you never "ship" away spoilable packs, they are consumed in orbit.

I think we should just be able to pick items from attachments of Cargo Landing Pad

Obviously with some limitations like no insertion into landing pad (i havent't checked could you even do this now or not.)

Bots and wagon-contruptions should not be answer to issue.

BTW I see no problem with "global logistic" if player ready to pay "tax" in rocet parts. At the moment where you can use rockets instead of bots, belts and trains you already "beat" game.

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:01 pm Rseding91 mentioned that it was an intentional tradeoff because Gleba 129833 (I agree with you that biolabs are really helpful and practically required for megabasing)

Then Reseding needs to be convinced otherwise. Regular labs on Gleba are clearly suboptimal in the midgame/lategame and are clearly not viable in a megabase because Wube balanced Biolabs this way on purpose! The "just don't use Biolabs" argument relies on circular logic with convenient amnesia.

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:01 pm

nzer wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 6:50 pm It is. Using tanks, cargo wagons, rocket silos, etc. as containers is obviously not aligned with their intended functions and is textbook degenerate gameplay. I don't have a problem if people want to do it, but it is not and should not be the intended strategy for increasing cargo landing pad throughput.

You still ignore that chests can give maximum throughput.

Slapping 100 chests and inserters around the Landing Pad is also "degenerate gameplay."

The only thing that looks vaguely like an intended solution is bot-based unloading, which is wildly UPS-inefficient just simply because bots can only carry 4 items at a time. I think the bot solution is also misaligned with the stated goal of having "a single very busy point in your factory which looks cool."

Moreover, I'm arguing that "a single very busy point in your factory which looks cool" isn't worth bending-over backwards to achieve, because multiple very busy points in your factory looks even more cool.

However, I understand why being able to place Landing Pads freely would remove the centralization puzzle, which is a desirable puzzle, which is why I'm suggesting an endgame infinite tech that with extreme cost scaling which prevents unlocking more than a handful of Landing Pads even if you were to run the game for years.

HeliGungir wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 5:44 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:01 pm Rseding91 mentioned that it was an intentional tradeoff because Gleba 129833 (I agree with you that biolabs are really helpful and practically required for megabasing)

Then Reseding needs to be convinced otherwise. Regular labs on Gleba are clearly suboptimal in the midgame/lategame and are clearly not viable in a megabase because Wube balanced Biolabs this way on purpose! The "just don't use Biolabs" argument relies on circular logic with convenient amnesia.

The idea is it is significantly worse to not use biolabs but not using them is far easier.

HeliGungir wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 5:44 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:01 pm

nzer wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 6:50 pm It is. Using tanks, cargo wagons, rocket silos, etc. as containers is obviously not aligned with their intended functions and is textbook degenerate gameplay. I don't have a problem if people want to do it, but it is not and should not be the intended strategy for increasing cargo landing pad throughput.

You still ignore that chests can give maximum throughput.

Slapping 100 chests and inserters around the Landing Pad is also "degenerate gameplay."

The only thing that looks vaguely like an intended solution is bot-based unloading, which is wildly UPS-inefficient just simply because bots can only carry 4 items at a time. I think the bot solution is also misaligned with the stated goal of having "a single very busy point in your factory which looks cool."

Moreover, I'm arguing that "a single very busy point in your factory which looks cool" isn't worth bending-over backwards to achieve, because multiple very busy points in your factory looks even more cool.

However, I understand why being able to place Landing Pads freely would remove the centralization puzzle, which is a desirable puzzle, which is why I'm suggesting an endgame infinite tech that with extreme cost scaling which prevents unlocking more than a handful of Landing Pads even if you were to run the game for years.

I think that getting an efficient (small) unloading setup is a minor interesting challenge.
I have to disagree on the multiple busy points being more interesting, but that is a matter of taste.
Your last point makes perfect sense and is why I don't really like the Maraxsis implementation of it.

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:01 pm Rseding91 mentioned that it was an intentional tradeoff because Gleba 129833 (I agree with you that biolabs are really helpful and practically required for megabasing)

That thread got me thinking: They want to reward shipping spoilable Ag Science to other planets... but does it really HAVE to be Nauvis? What if we could place Biolabs on every planet except Gleba? That would alleviate the Landing Pad throughput issue, and there are other knock-on effects that seems desirable. So I made another suggestion thread: 130458

HeliGungir wrote: Fri Aug 22, 2025 7:20 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 10:01 pm Rseding91 mentioned that it was an intentional tradeoff because Gleba 129833 (I agree with you that biolabs are really helpful and practically required for megabasing)

That thread got me thinking: They want to reward shipping spoilable Ag Science to other planets... but does it really HAVE to be Nauvis? What if we could place Biolabs on every planet except Gleba? That would alleviate the Landing Pad throughput issue, and there are other knock-on effects that seems desirable. So I made another suggestion thread: 130458

It actually solves the problems described here too.

An infinite research could allow to grab from closest cargo bay.
Level 1: can grab from cargo bays directly connected to the landing pad
Level 2: can grab from cargo bays connected to the ones enabled by level 1
Level 3: can grab from cargo bays connected to the ones enabled by level 1-2
Level 4: can grab from cargo bays connected to the ones enabled by level 1-3
Etc.

Or maybe allowing to connect more landing pads to the original would work better, as it would still be one large storage.

FasterJump wrote: Sat Aug 23, 2025 11:40 am An infinite research could allow to grab from closest cargo bay.
Level 1: can grab from cargo bays directly connected to the landing pad
Level 2: can grab from cargo bays connected to the ones enabled by level 1
Level 3: can grab from cargo bays connected to the ones enabled by level 1-2
Level 4: can grab from cargo bays connected to the ones enabled by level 1-3
Etc.

Or maybe allowing to connect more landing pads to the original would work better, as it would still be one large storage.

That’s pretty much what my latest mod in combination with Cargo Bay inserters implement

Cargo Bay Limit Research – adds research to control how many cargo bays can be used. (shameless plug )

Cargo Bay Inserters – adds capabiliy for inserters to interact with cargo bays. (by Quezler)