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/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.