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Hey guys, I've been really excited for Space Age to come out. And although I love the myriad quality of life features, having done Vulcanus and Fulgora, the content feels.. flat.

The first thing that feels quite bad about Space Age is rockets. At first I thought that rockets seemed great as they were so much cheaper than 1.1. But when I saw how little you can put in each rocket, they actually feel very expensive, especially because they're almost always wanted in large bursts. It's easy to accidentally underbuild, and then you're like, well I don't want to rebuild my whole base to add five more copper belts, especially because I want to use the new stuff from other planets in my next build, so I guess I'll just wait. The bigger issue though is the crafting time of each rocket. Considering how little they carry, the item transfer into orbit feels really very slow. I decided to upgrade my platform for a safer transit to Vulcanus and this involved about fifteen minutes of sitting around waiting for the expanded platform materials to be sent. It feels really bad to send necessary but ultimately cheap items, like belts or pipes. But it feels really very bad to send items like foundries, recyclers, etc because you fit so few of them per rocket, your platform just ends up sitting around for ages waiting to load them. Some items like uranium ammo or personal armour just feel punitive. I get that you wanted the platforms to be self-contained, but it may have been better to restrict space gun turrets to only firing "space bullets" made in space, rather than heavily nerfing transport for an item the player worked hard to get.

The bottom line is that transporting stuff around just feels like a huge barrier that frequently results in a lot of waiting and awkwardness.

The second issue is about the rewards for each planet. I have to admit that originally, it seemed great. Foundries with +50% prod? Sign me up! Actually, Vulcanus's rewards were.. quite empty. The biggest issue is the need for Calcite to operate the Foundries - I ended up not bothering using them on Nauvis at all because shipping both Calcite and Foundries is horrible (see above) and you can't automate it locally until you've been to Gleba. But the second biggest issue is that mining productivity is much easier to come by and with steel prod as well, I kinda.. just didn't really feel the need for increased prod on Nauvis. The only way to significantly improve my base would have been to make a megabase, but this doesn't feel appealing if you feel like you're just going to have to redo it when you get electromagnetic plants or bioflux or whatever. For Fulgora I also looked through the list and.. well, the only one that seems really interesting is mech armour. Ultimately the vast majority of the planetary rewards are simply of the "number go up" variety rather than new mechanics or fun toys, but when the player receives them, they are in no position to start megabasing, so it's not actually particularly impactful.

Meanwhile Quality.. is pretty hit-and-miss. I got super lucky and got a Rare Power Armour MK2 which is pretty nice. But 90% of my time working with Quality, I just kinda hated it. Not for any principled reason, but because you can't handle byproducts without the recycler. The game gives you Quality modules quite early, so you feel like you should use them, but it's actually really painful because you can't use Uncommon materials in Normal recipes. This actually makes Uncommon items way less valuable than Normal items. The fact that different Qualities do not stack together kinda just makes managing them a pain. In practice it seems like the only way to use Quality when it's given is to stick it on some final mall items, like assemblers, but if you only figured this out afterwards, you're stuck with thousands of uncommon red chips you can't use and 500 normal assembler 3s you won't need to replace so no opportunity for Quality anymore. It seems like a mechanic where making a mistake feels very punishing.

I also felt like there are quite a lot of restrictions that feel really unnecessary. One example of this is not being able to transport rocket silos. I get that it makes logical sense, but really, it's just annoying to have to transport all the ingredients, then handcraft it immediately upon landing. The effect is the same, it just takes me longer and costs more. Not being able to make the recycler on Nauvis seems kinda pointless as it doesn't require any Fulgora-specific resources. You can't prepare chemical plants/oil refineries before pumping oil. You can't prepare lightning rods- really? They're not a valuable item. It would not ruin the game if you could make them on Nauvis and bring them with you.

The .. hardness .. of limitations on Vulcanus and Fulgora also feel pretty weird. It's slightly difficult to express why I didn't like them, because I'm a Warptorio enjoyer and that mod is all about building in much smaller spaces. On Vulcanus, you start in a tight spot (literally) because of all the cliffs, and you're not going anywhere really without cliff explosives, which you can't get until you're done. On the other hand, it feels like the production chain takes up a lot of space, with a lot of large Foundries. But the biggest issue here is impermanence. The player doesn't want to invest in their Vulcanus base because they know that when they come back with Lavafill or elevated rails or cliff explosives, or after they've built a small base so they can automate rails or whatever, they would do things very differently. But the starter zone is just too tight to comfortably bash out what you need. It feels like an awkward spot of "don't invest here" but also "can't do it quickly". The base required is also just a bit too big to change easily after you've done it, so any mistakes feel like you are just starting over. I way underprepared how many rockets I needed but couldn't fit anything more in without rebuilding everything. Fulgora is in a bit of a better place, but you can also end up in a similar situation where you built three quarters of your base, then you realise you don't have enough area to collect enough lightning strikes, but you can't get a robot connection to the island you now realise you should have built on so moving your base would be an incredible pain. It feels like another place where the player can get trapped easily.

Finally, let's talk about the cargo hub. At first this seemed to work reasonably well. However it became a pain point pretty fast because there's a very limited unloading space. I'm trying to unload a bunch of sciences and different buildings all at once with very limited space. It feels like the only solution is to just use bots for everything which doesn't feel great.

TL;DR: If you make mistakes in Space Age, it feels like you get punished very severely. The rewards for each planet feel pretty lacklustre at the time at which you receive them. And rockets cost way too much considering how little they can do.

I'd make the following suggestions:

• Have the player be able to keep their inventory when using the space platform. It would make it far more obvious how to bring items when starting on a new planet, and make the experience way smoother as you don't need to spend a bunch of rockets building your platform and then a bunch more rockets sending up goods. This change wouldn't impact automated hauling either.
• Halve or even quarter the number of rocket parts needed. Additionally revisit items with a disproportionately small capacity, like Foundries, uranium ammo, power armour, etc.
• On Vulcanus, make cliff explosives a trigger tech after mining Calcite, so they don't come too late.
• On Fulgora, make the island minimum size a bit bigger, or make smaller islands always in roboport range of another island.
• Always allow the player to downgrade an item's Quality if desired
• Grant the asteroid Calcite tech when it's really needed- after completing Vulcanus, not Gleba (or maybe either of the two). That way the player can actually use those Foundries.

I agree with problem with quality, unsure about rest yet.


It bothers me so much there is no "use any quality ingredients"option in assemblers. Direct insertion with quality modules is impossible. I was sure that sprinkling some quality into production lines, would result in some random quality results, but now quality ingredients makes need for additional assemblers. Annoying.

Junorus wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 4:34 am It bothers me so much there is no "use any quality ingredients"option in assemblers.

I think this is a countermeasure for using things like high quality steel/bricks and skipping high quality processing units to make advanced equipment more easily.

Completely agree with the direct insertion problem, its like dyson sphere programs proliferator that forces you to put items on belts between each production step. its more factors being added to the game, but the possible solutions that work for it shrinks.

I agree with many points. Most Changes make little to no difference in the long run but would make the journey more enjoyable. I totally agree, that calcite should be available easier on Nauvis. Putting the access to Gleba is just mäh.

You have some great improvement ideas!o

I would like to add, that the first mobile space platform is a hard puzzle (in some great but even bad ways):
We are still pausing the platform in transit, because it is too fast and crashes in asteroids on full speed - and that with a full line of towers with ammo and we do not see a chance to come by with that. Please add the possibility to connect the thrusters to the circuit network and disable them. The automation aspect lacks a little.
On the other side it was a great effect (no sarcasm) at the first start to be killed.

I don't understand the problem, especially regarding sending calcite to other planets. Rockets are literally free on vulcanus. Not just that but with advanced asteroid mining iirc you can also just get calcite from asteroids? Thruster fuel in space is made by asteroids so once again calcite is another free resource.

DeadMG wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2024 11:58 pmMeanwhile Quality.. is pretty hit-and-miss. I got super lucky and got a Rare Power Armour MK2 which is pretty nice. But 90% of my time working with Quality, I just kinda hated it. Not for any principled reason, but because you can't handle byproducts without the recycler. The game gives you Quality modules quite early, so you feel like you should use them, but it's actually really painful because you can't use Uncommon materials in Normal recipes. This actually makes Uncommon items way less valuable than Normal items. The fact that different Qualities do not stack together kinda just makes managing them a pain. In practice it seems like the only way to use Quality when it's given is to stick it on some final mall items, like assemblers, but if you only figured this out afterwards, you're stuck with thousands of uncommon red chips you can't use and 500 normal assembler 3s you won't need to replace so no opportunity for Quality anymore. It seems like a mechanic where making a mistake feels very punishing.

That's the price for it being potentially too damn powerful.

If you want to gamble - you can. Throw as many resources as you can in - and pray. 12.8% chance (4x Rare T2 Q modules) is ALOT.
If you want guaranteed result - you can. Build whole crafting chain from ground up with Quality grade by Quality grade leveled resources refinement.
It's your choice to make. It's good when the game offers you choices.

You don't want to deal with byproducts of Quality gamba? Great! Fulgora is a viable first destination - and it gives you BOTH T3 Quality modules and Recyclers!
Or you can go Gleba and raise the stakes by unlocking Epic Quality. And only then start winning big (and stockpiling byproducts).
It's also your choice to make. It's good when the game offers you choices.

Or you can stick Quality modules into where these offer most bang for the buck with 0 byproducts. manufacturing.

I can't comment on the other aspects of the game except quality (I still haven't left the starting planet).

I really like quality so far! Just like fluids or trains, it's a new thing that gives you something cool but comes along with some new logistics challenges. For me Factorio is all about having fun with these challenges. If anything, I'm a little disappointed that bots with the logistics network trivialize it...

I use quality modules everywhere, starting with ores. Direct insertion still works, you just have to use filters to make sure the wrong qualities go down a different route.

I also don't see uncommon varieties as an undesirable byproduct that you have to recycle (I don't have recyclers yet!) but they are just a better version of the product I want, and a stepping stone to rare quality. I stash them away for later use or forward them to a place dedicated to higher qualities, or handle them in a "make anything" kind of combinator setup. Having thousands of uncommon red chips should not be a problem, it is a resource!

This is especially true of intermediate products like red circuits. I would understand wanting to recycle e.g. uncommon ammunition if you only want to carry rare.

Of course with the new combinators and ability to set recipe & read ingredients, you have many more choices for dealing with quality in a smart way without having to duplicate your factory for all tiers.

Set recipe + quality modules are great btw. I have a single assembler that makes quality modules "from scratch" (the input is copper plates, iron plates, plastic bars). This assembler has quality modules of course, so the process results in a random quantity of all intermediates as well as the desired final product in all possible qualities, which I very much want. The rest is just logistics, getting these items where I want or need them.

As for making a mistake and misdesigning your production chains? Yes, that's Factorio too If you play by muscle memory and fail to account for the new logistic challenges brought on you by the new features, I'm sure it can feel punishing. On the other hand, if you're playing it like you're new to the game.. well, your first attempt is always going to be a horribly inefficient spaghetti mess that keeps punishing you until you rebuild it. Just when you thought you had it figured out, you get to liquids and it's a mess all over again.. You spend time experimenting with things and figure out how to do things better. That's the draw of the game to me, so if dealing with quality felt punishing to you, that should be a positive thing in my book. Next build you figure out a better system for dealing with quality intermediate items. Could be the best feature in SA as far as I'm concerned. Shame I can't make epic petroleum gas and legendary steam.

So far I've decided that I'm just not messing with +Quality components. I haven't found a use case that justifies all the extra work.
Since you can't inserter them into factories unless you have a LOT of all the exact same quality, the best I've come up with is "Stick them in a chest and when you build power armor, hope you have exactly 40 of mid-quality items for all components" and then hope that using X Quality components produces X quality item. I'm not sure quality components do, as only quality modules seem to?

It's nice to know that you can do +Quality with science packs, but why not just use production modules instead? Guaranteed return on investment.

J-H wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 12:45 pmIt's nice to know that you can do +Quality with science packs, but why not just use production modules instead?

Uncommon research packs supply twice as much "research potential" than Common. 1% chance to get virtual +100% Productivity at 0 Energy/Pollution cost and negligible production speed slowdown. Which stacks with regular Productivity procs at no extra cost. With nigh to no consequences to your regular science packs logistics.
Productivity + Quality modules = more gamba rolls with occasional jackpots of 400% "research potential" (more with Rare rare procs) for absolutely same resource amount.

Even in the best case with maximum Q5 quality modules, quality loses to productivity for science packs. The higher quality packs just don’t come up often enough to offset lost productivity.

With the way quality items are handled everywhere else, will a lab even recognize them as a valid input, or do you have to have a lab set aside for just +Quality items? Assemblers doing other recipes won't pick up +Quality gears, circuits, engines, etc.

J-H wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 2:15 pmWith the way quality items are handled everywhere else, will a lab even recognize them as a valid input

They do.
You might need to unclog them from time to time, if you're doing greedy setup where all science packs are being sticked into single laboratory first.
But it's not the only place in the game where some manual plunging is necessary from time to time... space rock crackers are giving me more headache currently.

About the rewarding aspect of each planet... Well I think the rewards are fine. In the end the game is about optimization and you get a some additional items on each planet that further help you with that. With more or less effort involved to get them.

If one questions the necessity of it then you could do the same back when Spaced Out! for Oxygen Not Included came out. In ONI there is absolutely NO reward whatsoever for playing spread out on 5 planetoids. It just makes everything much harder and you get nothing in return for your efforts except for the prestige that you have "done it". ^^

So in that regard Factorio already is better because at least you get some more machinery and different crafting chains to toy with. And different crafting chains & optimizations in the end that is what the game is about. So I am not complaining about more things to do.




On the quality issue... well I have not toyed around with it as much yet and I am kinda regretting that I haven't started working on it earlier when I unlocked the quality modules.


Out of habit I rather again went for productivity modules; which in hindsight might have been a mistake when going into Space Age, because as it currently feels like there will not be many recipes where it actually still makes sense to use Productivity Modules. Same with Speed Modules, since they ruin quality.

To me it feels like it is an "all or nothing" thing. Either you go full quality on everything to increase the chances; or you don't care about quality at all and go productivity & speed modules. It is either or. The two paradigms don't combine well at all.


In general my current approach with quality is that I first want to use all the quality ingredients on quality modules & its crafting chain so the quality modules themselves are the best quality they can be. And I am not done with crafting enough modules in that fashion yet.

As said I haven't used quality for extended periods yet, so I don't know how "terrible" the increasing amount of the "side products" is yet.

That said I don't think side products are necessarily a problem per se. Sure you get stuff you will not use in your target products as a result from the gamble.
But what I am doing currently is dumping the "less useful" stuff into science packs & ammo to get rid of it as much as possible. Then they were not completely wasted.

At least I will consider twice whether I will want to dump something that took resources & time to make into the recycler (once I unlocked it, I am not even on Fulgora yet and with my pacing I won't be there for a while; I am intending to go to Vulcanus first) when it only returns 25% of the input resources. It is just a waste.

I will likely only throw stuff into the recycler which accumulates from inevitable imbalances in the crafting chain and which naturally cannot be "consumed" in any different fashion; but for me it is too early to say how much that will be and which items will be a culprit. But I will definitely do some exhaustive testing on the matter and I am sure there will other people too.

Anyway I will likely get back to commenting more detailed on the matter (on other more dedicated threads) when I have done more extended testing with quality and came up with a better strategy, if there is a better one.


In the end as I see it the whole quality thing is a long-term & prestige project. I don't think you really need any of it to complete the game. It is an optional thing, just as they wrote. You might be able to complete the game even before you get reliable legendary stuff. So it is more stuff that you can do once you have actually done everything else in the game. It is a goal for people who don't want to leave the solar system and keep playing the same campaign forever. ^^

FunMaker wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 5:28 am I would like to add, that the first mobile space platform is a hard puzzle (in some great but even bad ways):

I agree, the first platform was a difficult puzzle for me too and I am very experienced. It still took me the whole night to get accustomed to the recipes on the space platforms and design something I am somewhat "satisfied" with.

I didn't expect the design challenge because usually I am eventually doing difficult & space restricted designs eventually with logistic bots. So I totally welcomed the change of not being able to use bots on the platform.

Sure, my platform is still not as "space efficient" as it could be if I invested another week just in that, but it does not matter as much as I first thought it would. A few tons more or less will not ruin the platform.

FunMaker wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 5:28 am We are still pausing the platform in transit, because it is too fast and crashes in asteroids on full speed - and that with a full line of towers with ammo and we do not see a chance to come by with that. Please add the possibility to connect the thrusters to the circuit network and disable them. The automation aspect lacks a little.
On the other side it was a great effect (no sarcasm) at the first start to be killed.

Have you thought of putting put a pump after the chemical plants & before the thrusters and disable the pump with the circuit network? Not pretty, but do-able. (I currently don't use any restriction; but I am considering to do that for the nastier trips) ^^

Anyway where do you have the problems? Going from Nauvis to Vulcanus/Gleba/Fulgora?

My first platform managed it just fine without any slowing down. Only going back & forth repeatedly in an endless loop within a short period will wreck it after like the 3rd trip (I stress-tested it xD ). So it is definitely do-able with the tech & upgrades available on Nauvis before going to any of the other planets.

But all that said I might have over-engineered my first space platform a little bit exactly out of fear of the asteroids and because I didn't know how long the trips take & density of asteroids. Don't know what your platform looks like, but I have like 6 furnaces, 4 ammo assemblers and I believe 20 gun turrets on it or something. xD

I think what definitely is also a key and which will surely be a thing other people research... is not building TOO many thrusters, even if it is tempting. I only have 5 on the platform. It moves the barely 200 ton platform just fine and in a reasonable time span.

xeneonic wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 5:54 am I don't understand the problem, especially regarding sending calcite to other planets. Rockets are literally free on vulcanus. Not just that but with advanced asteroid mining iirc you can also just get calcite from asteroids? Thruster fuel in space is made by asteroids so once again calcite is another free resource.

Agreed. When you get to that point it is free. Basically like space science. A stationary platform in orbit & you probably get enough stuff you can use down on the ground. At least that is my current impression. ^^


But that said, on a side note, I am still on the fence whether I actually want to use the Foundry everywhere in the crafting chain. Exactly for the reason of quality.

If one uses the foundry recipes to cast everything in the crafting chain, one also kinda cuts out some of the crafting cascade where one might have gotten a better quality intermediate item. Like for example going from Copper Plates to copper cable... you skip that step with casting directly to copper cables.

EustaceCS wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 1:23 pm

J-H wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 12:45 pmIt's nice to know that you can do +Quality with science packs, but why not just use production modules instead?

Uncommon research packs supply twice as much "research potential" than Common. 1% chance to get virtual +100% Productivity at 0 Energy/Pollution cost and negligible production speed slowdown. Which stacks with regular Productivity procs at no extra cost. With nigh to no consequences to your regular science packs logistics.
Productivity + Quality modules = more gamba rolls with occasional jackpots of 400% "research potential" (more with Rare rare procs) for absolutely same resource amount.

Nemoricus wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 2:07 pm Even in the best case with maximum Q5 quality modules, quality loses to productivity for science packs. The higher quality packs just don’t come up often enough to offset lost productivity.

I read your post EustaceCS and also Nemoricus.

And I think Nemoricus is right. I have done a little bit of preliminary math yesterday evening on the quality stuff (while getting into it) that I can say that using Productivity modules still edges out the % chance of a higher quality science pack (even if it gives more science for better quality)... for the same amount of resources used. Only the later tier quality modules can barely make up, but still not entirely.


Another thing is, you can use Productivity Modules in machines together with Speed Modules in Beacons. You cannot do that with Quality modules because the speed modules wreck quality.

Assuming that you put quality modules everywhere you will slow your production due to the speed penalty. Even if "negligible" it still amounts over the cascade.
But with productivity modules & speed-beacon combination you get more stuff produced in the same amount of machinery... and overall use less resources due to the cascade.

Assuming you have the same target Science per Minute as a goal...

*) You get the target SPM easier with PM machines + SM beacons than using quality modules in machines.
*) With quality modules you will need way more machinery and more modules which themselves also take resources to craft. (at least until eventually the better machinery eventually offsets some of the speed penalties to the point it might compete with a beacon setup)

That is where an opportunity cost arises.


But that said, it is also 2 different paradigms and they DON'T mix well. You get better quality results if you go full quality everywhere. And if you go for productivity you want speed beacons (which as said kill quality). So the result is...

*) With productivity modules one assumes you don't give a damn about quality stuff whatsoever. You can get good output early on.
*) With quality stuff you get better machines & other items in the long term and that overall benefits your factory.

What do you value more?


Anyway I think quality on science pack is only a natural "sink" to get rid of a good deal of the intermediate byproducts that you otherwise would have to dump into a recycler.

EustaceCS wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 2:23 pm [...] space rock crackers are giving me more headache currently.

What is the problem there? That they have a % chance to return a chunk again? xD

I solved that by using 2 filtered inserters for output.

One filtered inserter takes the iron ore/carbon/ice out of the rock crusher and puts it on a belt to the follow up machinery.

The other filtered inserter takes out the chunk and puts it back on the belt leading up to the rock crusher... BUT this output inserter is located before the input inserter that takes the chunk and puts it into the rock crusher. That way it is a loop and the rock crusher has another chance to reprocess it.

If the rock crusher is already busy then the chunk passes by and moves to the garbage inserter that throws stuff off the platform. Bad luck, but better than clogged belt.

But the first time I had the same issue because I did not look in detail at the rock crusher recipes and then wondered why all of a sudden chunks were blocking the other machinery and I had to tear down the setup and change it and it made the platform even bigger than I wanted it. xD

EustaceCS wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:13 amYou don't want to deal with byproducts of Quality gamba? Great! Fulgora is a viable first destination - and it gives you BOTH T3 Quality modules and Recyclers!

Going to Fulgora first as a strategy for Quality still means that the game gives you Quality and Quality 2 modules before you go to Fulgora, which is the odd part.

clarity wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:48 amI also don't see uncommon varieties as an undesirable byproduct that you have to recycle (I don't have recyclers yet!) but they are just a better version of the product I want

But they aren't better, because I can't use them for the things I want. You can't use Uncommon red chips to make Normal blue chips, Normal logi bots, or pretty much anything else. They're only useful if you Quality'd every other intermediate and then happened to get everything you want in the right ratio, then you can make Uncommon stuff with them. They're much less useful than their Normal counterparts because of this restriction.

xeneonic wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 5:54 am I don't understand the problem, especially regarding sending calcite to other planets. Rockets are literally free on vulcanus. Not just that but with advanced asteroid mining iirc you can also just get calcite from asteroids? Thruster fuel in space is made by asteroids so once again calcite is another free resource.

You can't get Calcite from asteroids when you need it, which is after Vulcanus. You can only get it after Gleba. So when you first get the foundry, you have no local Calcite supply. As for shipping Calcite, the biggest issue is that although rockets are free, finding space in which to produce them is not. And when you suddenly realise you need about 100x as many rockets as expected because shipping foundries and drills costs a pointlessly large number of rockets, there's not a lot of rockets left over for Calcite. You're faced with either redoing everything (that probably won't fit in the desired space anyway) or just giving up and moving on.

There's a fundamental contradiction between "build in this small space" and "build more than you can quickly rebuild if you messed it up" or "build expandable if you need more rockets than you thought". It should be a "pick one" affair.

Reading all that, after posting my own "i dont want space travel, i want the cool stuff without space platforms" post myself, i feel like i have to make a suggestion i had in mind for a few months now.
Because i could smell all of your points vaguely from a distance, just reading FFFs

I´d prefer a world gen setting where you have continents with different resources, connect them via new rails and be done with it. Make it so different enemy only spawn on those tiles

Normal map in the middle

Fulgora to the west
Gleba to the east
Vulcanus south
Aquilo north

New machines with SA DLC only. No multiple surfaces. Just pure factory building and train connections
As of now, im pretty disappointed with the gameplay. No, scratch that, i kinda expected it to be that way

MeduSalem wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 2:53 pm What is the problem there? That they have a % chance to return a chunk again? xD

I solved that by using 2 filtered inserters for output.

One filtered inserter takes the iron ore/carbon/ice out of the rock crusher and puts it on a belt to the follow up machinery.

The other filtered inserter takes out the chunk and puts it back on the belt leading up to the rock crusher... BUT this output inserter is located before the input inserter that takes the chunk and puts it into the rock crusher. That way it is a loop and the rock crusher has another chance to reprocess it.

If the rock crusher is already busy then the chunk passes by and moves to the garbage inserter that throws stuff off the platform. Bad luck, but better than clogged belt.

But the first time I had the same issue because I did not look in detail at the rock crusher recipes and then wondered why all of a sudden chunks were blocking the other machinery and I had to tear down the setup and change it and it made the platform even bigger than I wanted it. xD

I made a small conveyor loop on my first station (solely for farming science) for the chunks, so the precious ice asteroids dont go waste and i have always a small buffer to cancel the unreliable collection. My garbage inserters are connected to a whole belt reader and only work when their chunk is >25, ice >40.
But if i would build it again, i would probably use the hub storage as a buffer and let garbage inserters clean everything of given ressource which is above a threshold.


This is the whole beauty. I love it and cant wait to build a real thing which flies and shoots.

Starfly wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:10 pm

MeduSalem wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 2:53 pm What is the problem there? That they have a % chance to return a chunk again? xD

I solved that by using 2 filtered inserters for output.

One filtered inserter takes the iron ore/carbon/ice out of the rock crusher and puts it on a belt to the follow up machinery.

The other filtered inserter takes out the chunk and puts it back on the belt leading up to the rock crusher... BUT this output inserter is located before the input inserter that takes the chunk and puts it into the rock crusher. That way it is a loop and the rock crusher has another chance to reprocess it.

If the rock crusher is already busy then the chunk passes by and moves to the garbage inserter that throws stuff off the platform. Bad luck, but better than clogged belt.

But the first time I had the same issue because I did not look in detail at the rock crusher recipes and then wondered why all of a sudden chunks were blocking the other machinery and I had to tear down the setup and change it and it made the platform even bigger than I wanted it. xD

I made a small conveyor loop on my first station (solely for farming science) for the chunks, so the precious ice asteroids dont go waste and i have always a small buffer to cancel the unreliable collection. My garbage inserters are connected to a whole belt reader and only work when their chunk is >25, ice >40.

10-26-2024, 01-10-43.png

But if i would build it again, i would probably use the hub storage as a buffer and let garbage inserters clean everything of given ressource which is above a threshold.


This is the whole beauty. I love it and cant wait to build a real thing which flies and shoots.
10-26-2024, 01-20-23.png

How did you enable evolution in "vanila"?, or you are using mods and not caring about steam achievements?

Starfly wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:10 pm I made a small conveyor loop on my first station (solely for farming science) for the chunks, so the precious ice asteroids dont go waste and i have always a small buffer to cancel the unreliable collection.

Ah well, that works. ^^

And it is still not enough space science packs? My science platform is a little smaller and I have so many science packs that the hub was full and I had to throttle it lest I would not be able to send anything up in case I want to expand. ^^

Starfly wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:10 pm But if i would build it again, i would probably use the hub storage as a buffer and let garbage inserters clean everything of given ressource which is above a threshold.

If you do, then buffer the plates/ice/carbon. I made the mistake once to buffer the chunks but the stack size is 0 or whatever so it immediately filled the hub. With other words you need way more crushers or boost them with speed modules if you want to crush everything in time without the loop filling up. ^^

I also don't think one needs to be as "resource efficient" about that. In the end it is free & infinite resources. If you dump the excess into space nothing is lost.

Starfly wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:10 pm This is the whole beauty. I love it and cant wait to build a real thing which flies and shoots.

Yea, the requirements for a flying platform are extremely different. It is a whole different design challenge. xD

TioQueToca74 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:36 pm How did you enable evolution in "vanila"?, or you are using mods and not caring about steam achievements?

Using a mod which shows some info in top right, if you meant that. No i dont care about achievements =)

MeduSalem wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:49 pm If you do, then buffer the plates/ice/carbon. I made the mistake once to buffer the chunks but the stack size is 0 or whatever so it immediately filled the hub. With other words you need way more crushers or boost them with speed modules if you want to crush everything in time without the loop filling up. ^^

I also don't think one needs to be as "resource efficient" about that. In the end it is free & infinite resources. If you dump the excess into space nothing is lost.

Starfly wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:10 pm This is the whole beauty. I love it and cant wait to build a real thing which flies and shoots.

Yea, the requirements for a flying platform are extremely different. It is a whole different design challenge. xD

Oh good to know, i would probably have buffered the chunks in there
It's far enough space science. Which makes me sad because i would have loved to build it much bigger. It's now on pause, as its storage and my home base is swimming in it. But it's ok, I mainly build it to learn about space stations and because it was fun (love that building anim.) and thought better a bit bigger than sorry.
Yea I cant wait for a traveling station, but i still need to put some hours on Nauvis before I can start to puzzle. The new force-build-mode is awesome, makes it so convenient to plop something right into conveyors, as it builds underground belts on its own. This makes building space efficient ... in space... much easier