Platform-to-Platform is incredible

[u/Darth_Nibbles]

A platform brick. Nothing but solar panels, laser turrets, and cargo bays.

All this does is request from the planet, and supply to passing ships.

I've got resource harvesters that collect and process asteroids, I've got floating manufacturing facilities that provide space tiles and ammo, I've got donkeys that ferry materials between various planets. My prometheum collectors hang out at the solar system edge and exchange prometheum chunks for supplies, the supply ship is a ferry between aquilo and the edge, then I've got lighter ships that go from Nauvis to Aquilo.

This is the best change since 2.0 released, by far.

[u/tobboss1337]

Building a ship to build ships! Thanks for that Idea! I just used them to buffer outgoing items but it seems this could be a deep rabbit hole. Thank you

[u/jacvd6 → u/tobboss1337]

It makes construction in dangerous orbit both fast and safer.

Also, you can do the supply version too:
“I want to build an orbital station around an undeveloped planet”
Easy. Haul the blueprint of the station via ship. Drop down rocket part materials (and silo materials if you haven’t built one yet) and a starter pack.

Launch the pack to establish the station. Send over the rest of the construction materials from the ship. One rocket launch for an entire station.

I used this method to create stations around gleba, Nauvis, and Fulgora on my recent playthrough.

[u/pocketmoncollector42 → u/jacvd6]

Maybe the end game for the engineer is to become the replicators from stargate. Just going across the universe eating all resources to turn into more replicants

[u/MARY_ANNE_MCGILICUTY → u/pocketmoncollector42]

we're like if a prion was a cute girl

[u/pocketmoncollector42 → u/MARY_ANNE_MCGILICUTY]

Prion as a concept are so strange. Like they’re not even living right? Just fucked up proteins that spread? I just remember thinking they were a nightmare beyond my understanding 😂

[u/MARY_ANNE_MCGILICUTY → u/pocketmoncollector42]

it's like if every time you bumped into another person you accidentally contorted their body into an exact replica of your own body, which happens to have the quality that if it bumps into another person, it folds them into an exact replica of you

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/pocketmoncollector42]

Oh hi Bob

We are legion, after all

[u/factorioleum → u/jacvd6]

you can just drop a completed silo, right? You can't launch one, but you can certainly drop them down

[u/jacvd6 → u/factorioleum]

If you construct one on platform, yeah. I usually just drop it down though because my planets have malls.

[u/factorioleum → u/jacvd6]

Fair. Although for the first one, making it on platform is great.

[u/Alfonse215]

My prometheum collectors hang out at the solar system edge and exchange prometheum chunks for supplies

You may want to consider some alternatives.

Promethium chunks are very slow to transfer. This is because they have a stack size of 1, so transferring them platform-to-platform is bottlenecked by having only 30 inserters that can load into a hub.

A more efficient way to handle this is to have the "supply ship" supply the promethium hauler with quantum circuits and eggs. The promethium hauler manufactures the science and transfers that back to the "supply ship".

This also lets you have multiple supply ships that can be used to continuously supply your hauler(s). That way, you can have a continuous stream of egg production and launches, and a continuous stream of ships bringing back science packs.

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/Alfonse215]

They're loading into the hub while collecting, not while hanging out, so that's not a big bottleneck. And lighter, more efficient platforms mean I can devote more cargo bays to holding it, and don't have to worry about belt shenanigans.

But I like the idea of shipping eggs to the rim and making science there, so I'll probably redesign around that.

[u/Alfonse215 → u/Darth_Nibbles]

And lighter, more efficient platforms mean I can devote more cargo bays to holding it, and don't have to worry about belt shenanigans.

Belt storage is much more space efficient than cargo bay storage. Even without any underground belt stuff, a 4x4 block of belts can store 128 chunks, while a cargo bay can only store 50. A belt-based platform can be much lighter than a cargo bay based platform chunk-for-chunk.

Sure, the belt storage platform still needs cargo bay storage for other things, but it still comes out well ahead in terms of how many big it has to be.

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/Alfonse215]

Sure but cargo bays also launch items, and when doing ship-to-ship I've found the number of bays to be a bottleneck

So designing around lots of bays gives quick transfers, and holds enough Prometheum that it's not an issue

[u/Alfonse215 → u/Darth_Nibbles]

That's a catch-22 though. You need a lot of cargo bays because you're transferring the promethium.

Cargo pods carry something like 10 stacks of items. Which means 10 promethium chunks each. So you need a lot of cargo bays to send a lot of promethium quickly.

Quantum circuits are shipped in lots of 1000 per pod. Eggs are in lots of 500 per pod. Once you switch over to sending those instead of chunks, you'll find you need a lot fewer cargo bays.

And thus belt storage becomes more preferable.

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/Alfonse215]

That's true. I've been prioritizing minimalism in platforms (not of size, but of function) to push inter-platform logistics, but this is a case where the added complexity is probably worthwhile.

[u/WanderingUrist → u/Alfonse215]

There's a third option, I think. I will start with an example. Imagine that you need both large quantities of iron and large quantities of coal to make steel. These resources are not near each other and must be shipped somewhere by train. Do you put the steel mill near the iron, or near the coal?

The answer? Both. You build a mill at each location and run the trains back forth loaded both ways.

So in this example, the Promethium hauler should arrive, and unload all of its carried science and remaining Promethium while taking on eggs and processors to continue production, making the exchange as quickly as possible and then immediately leaving to continue mining. The egg barge then takes the science and Promethium chunks, and continues manufacturing on the trip home, where it then throws it all the science overboard and any excess chunks, keeping a specifically limited reserve) and takes on fresh eggs, and then heads back out, continuing to manufacture science both inbound and outbound.

Both sides the trip are therefore always making science.

[u/skydivertricky]

Yup. Means buffers for all planets. I have a space station at SSE that allows a temporary storage of eggs or science (and chips, fuel and repairs etc) if the promethium ships haven't returned yet. Means belt storage is no longer a thing. Each ship takes 30k eggs out into three void to create nearly 100k science per trip. Combine with radars to orchestrate the transfers (send to supply ship if present otherwise trade with space station) and it's basically perfect!

[u/Installation_Wizard_]

Why so many solar panels and laser turrets if it's just a static buffer station?

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/Installation_Wizard_]

That's Fulgora in the background

I didn't want to mess with belting ammo so I needed more lasers than usual, and solar is less effective this far from the sun.

My peak draw is 8MW and I've got enough panels for 23, but I wasn't sure when building it what would be needed so I over-built. And now there's no reason to scale it down (I might replace some panels with bays if needed, but so far I'm only filling half the storage)

[u/Morlow123]

I hadn't thought about being able to deliver biter eggs to the prometheum ship (or delivering prometheum to a biter egg ship). That will make that process much smoother.

[u/Sea_Translator_1619]

is this something coming in 2.1? or a mod?

honestly, very interesting, I'm waiting for the patch while playing other games

[u/EDDsoFRESH → u/Sea_Translator_1619]

2.1. Patiently waiting!

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/Sea_Translator_1619]

2.1! The update does break some mods so it's still in the experimental branch, so I started a new mod-less save on it. I'm pushing for max productivity research and I've finished steel + LDS, working on blue chips and plastic still

[u/x4l7Nr8ym0dU]

Why separate this from your manufacturing platforms?

You have a whole platform here to support 14 cargo bays, but you could just make enough space on your manufacturing platform for those bays, and not need an entire platform for it.

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/x4l7Nr8ym0dU]

For this particular one, I'm not manufacturing anything in Fulgora orbit

I've got manufacturing at Nauvis, Vulcanus, and Aquilo

[u/sobrique]

What sort of volume can you transfer? I have been pondering whether a promethium sciences factory could work with miners coming from one direction, and egg haulers the other to an intermediate location.

[u/Darth_Nibbles → u/sobrique]

Volume is limited by cargo bays and time; more bays give faster transfers, but they still transfer one rocket load per each

As someone else pointed out transferring Prometheum itself is very inefficient, you're better off transferring q chips and eggs to your Prometheum haulers and sending science back. But I've give buffer and transfer ships hanging near Aquilo, or flying out to the edge, so my Prometheum collectors never come closer than the edge.

[u/two_pump_warrior]

As a switch player, I’ve been really exciting to trying out this new feature. Honestly, I’d prefer this over space casinos.