Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Introduce an "Orbit" operation mode for radars next to "Surface" and "Universe".

This would connect all space platforms staying in the same orbit and the planet's surface.

Why?

I am very happy to see that radars will get "Universe" mode, as noted on FFF-441.

A common use case for Universe mode could be to either:

• communicate between planet surface and platforms in the planet's orbit
• communicate between space platforms in the same orbit (even more relevant since we will get platform to platform materials transfers)
• broadcast materials requests for automated interplanetary logistic

The channels of universe mode could get easily oversaturated.

Eg. if one would use the wires of the planet channels for broadcasting available and requested materials for automatic interplanetary material delivery, there would be no more room to communicate between platforms in orbit and the local surface anymore. One would need to evade to other signals, eg. using "Wood" channel for Nauvis orbit communication and also set up signal translations (mapping read moving from / to signal to the wood signal). An elegant and efficient solution would be an "Orbit" communication mode as proposed.

This may already exist? The linked section of FFF-441 actually says:

On a platform you can filter the channels by current location to get missing planet materials or available cargo, and implement whatever logic you might like to control and command your fleet.

Yeah, it's possible, but the max of two coloured wires per channel might be too few for some applications.

3x communication paths can hardly fit into only two wires.

It would get worse if some of the paths would actually require both wires.

What I want is an unnamed channel, similarly to the surface channel, but connecting the surface with the space platforms at it.

You would still need to set and filter the universe channels in many scenarios, eg. for requesting the materials onto the platforms in the automated interplanetary logistic scenario.