Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Rocket Silo should be able to output if it has a rocket ready or not.

What?

Currently if you connect Rocket silo to a circuit network it can only output its cargo or orbital requests. There should be another option - rocket construction progress. Either in whole rockets (0, 1, 2) or as a percentage/parts (1-200).

Why?

"Do I have a rocket ready to launch right now?" is a very useful question to ask when dealing with interplanetary perishable logistics, especially biter eggs. But there is currently no way to automate an answer to this question. You may try to count chips, fuel, and LDS you insert, but with different silos having a different amount of different level and different quality productivity modules that's going to be a per silo calculation. And then you research one more level of Rocket component productivity and the setup becomes invalid.
It may also be useful if you're having a component shortage and would like to only build one rocket per silo and not two.

+1

Could be included as part of the "Read Content" output. With Rocket Parts serving as the percentage gauge (mod 100) and the Rocket itself only being on the signal when it is ready to launch.