Factorio Forums

I added a request for exactly 500 (min = max = 500) iron plates to a space platform.
That space platform has an electric furnace on it producing iron plates, and an assembler on it consuming iron plates to create firearm magazines.
The minimum rocket quantity setting for the request is at its default value.

When the number of iron plates on that platform is greater than 500, some get dropped to the planet. This is what I want.
However, when the number of iron plates on that platform is any less than 500, for example, 488, a rocket gets sent up from the planet with the difference, even if that difference is very small (12). This is not what I want.

I expect that nearly-empty rockets will not be sent to fulfil automated requests.

I am not entirely sure what the correct behavior is here, but it was surprising to me that a request that worked fine pre-2.1 suddenly caused mostly empty rockets to start launching post-2.1.

How did it work pre-2.1?

But throwing out some ideas: A rocket can hold 1k iron plates, so could set min=500 and max=1500 to make full usage of the rocket capacity if that is the goal. Or bring them in to min=750 and max=1250 if you are ok with only 1/2 the rocket capacity not being utilized (500 plates on the rocket). If you only want max=500 on the platform at all times, then perhaps set the min value to what you want it to get down to before a new rocket is sent up (ex: min=250) so you get 250 plates per launch.

2.1 changed the rocket system to allow partial and mixed deliveries to avoid over-supplying a given request. Apparently that also means partially empty rockets are allowed too. There may be a setting on the rocket silo or the platform to disable mixed rocket deliveries, you could try changing that.

The game is doing exactly what you told it to. You asked for deliveries when less than 500 plates, and returns when greater than 500. Why would the rocket send items that would be immediately returned. If you don't want a rocket to launch when you have 499 plates, then set the minimum to when you actually want it to launch. Or set the maximum to when you actually want returns.

In your specific case, Fletch's solution is good. The key point is to use different (wider) thresholds for planet requests than you use in the circuits that enable onboard smelting.

It seems there are still some complicated interations between surface requests and platform -to-platform requests, so if that plays a role in your game we can discuss that issue as well.

Thanks for the report, this works as intended. If you had 499/500 plates in 2.0, the rocket would send 1000 and the platform would drop 999 down. Partially empty rockets are allowed to (sort of) match 2.0 behavior.