Auto-launching of mixed rockets

[engineersmurf]

I believe the problem is not if a mixed rocket thing is solvable - I surely is. The problem is the cost.

With single item rockets the computation is simple. Find a full rocket or fill a rocket with robots - done.

With mixed rockets you will have to iterate over all items, calculate weight,..... The game externalised those calculations to the player. Either you get a full rocket or you have to specify you are willing to waste - or do it yourself.

And then you will need a target for your mixed rocket. So you need circuit ID´s for ship - similar to trains, a launch signal and target signal. This might be complicated.

[dimm]

This might be complicated.

Surely so. But it is better to have the opportunity to solve the problem with the madness of combinators than to sit with the only option - to use a more resource-consuming workaround

[Twisted6]

Please fix devs. Manually loading rockets with niche items is so tedious. As if quality wasn't tedious enough with not being able to mix ingredient quality levels, now it forces us to manually load rockets too.

[Noites]

Simply put: Rockets need more Circuit connection options. they are currently lacking. any excuse you might think of falls when you compare them to the other very vast and complex options we get with almost all other entities.

[DavidEscott]

This would be so easily fixed by having the rocket silo accept any payload greater than 900kg for automatic launch, and it would just launch the first available 'mixed bag' of requested items that fulfills that requirement.

I think they just didn't finish Space Age and must have released it early for financial reasons.

I don't know that this proposed approach is any "easier" and would introduce its own set of problems with multiple silos, but it certainly isn't hard to solve. Naive bin-packing algorithms solve almost all the problems.

Yes computing how to fill a rocket is more calculations than one wants to do in a single tick, but it doesn't need to be done every tick.

To some extent it feels like the Factorio devs have gotten really lazy, but I think they also just don't give a **** about making a quality game. There are numerous weird and arbitrary behaviors (e.g. inserter always inserts on the right side of a belt in the direction of travel) and they got away with never addressing these things. People now take them to be part of the "puzzle" of the game.

They seem to be pulling the same bs with automated rocket launches, acting like its the players responsibility to implement some complex algorithm with circuits instead of actually implementing the feature the game advertises.

[mmmPI]

To some extent it feels like the Factorio devs have gotten really lazy, but I think they also just don't give a **** about making a quality game. There are numerous weird and arbitrary behaviors (e.g. inserter always inserts on the right side of a belt in the direction of travel) and they got away with never addressing these things. People now take them to be part of the "puzzle" of the game.

given the amount of mods allowing you to change that behavior it's one of the most obvious things devs decided not to implement because of a choice and not because or lazyness or not giving a **** . It seem like the most ridiculous example to undermine your point you could come up with.

They seem to be pulling the same bs with automated rocket launches, acting like its the players responsibility to implement some complex algorithm with circuits instead of actually implementing the feature the game advertises.

They clearly explained the game was made so that players wouldn't be forced to use circuits and it's the case. You don't have to implement any complex circuitry. If you want things to work in a certain way, indeed combinators are usually the way to go. That's the case for trains, machines, inserters ... Those have a regular simple default behavior that can be altered with circuits, many of the proposition for silos are that it could have more control with circuits.

You must be lacking of self-awareness or voluntarily aiming at inflammatory tone, which only serve to illustrate how entitled some players are and how it's impossible to satisfy everyone.

The proposition from OP on this thread that was discussed isn't as straightforward as it seems, and what appears lazy to me is your kind of comment that is just saying "this would be easy to do"; There can only be "one default" and the proposed one wouldnt work in some cases, for example, you have a platform that request 10 wall and 2 turrets , and another platform that request 10 wall and 2 turrets and 2 chemical plant, which platform should receive priority ? how does the game decide ? imagine you are manually loading your silo , you place the wall , the turrets, and just before you placed the chemical plant, well the rocket has disapeared, launched to another platform that was requesting just the walls and the turrets ? Why ? What's your proposal ?

[Warpspeed]

I am all for adding more signals to the rocket silo to better control rocket launches. I was so surprised learn there was no signal for completed rockets, so I couldn't tally up how many rockets I have waiting in my base. There should definitely be a launch circuit signal though, with the rocket silo configured to deliver to a specific platform, or to any available platform (in platform ID order).

[DavidEscott]

You must be lacking of self-awareness or voluntarily aiming at inflammatory tone, which only serve to illustrate how entitled some players are and how it's impossible to satisfy everyone.

I paid good money for this game. The game has a button which says to automate X. It doesn't automate X. The issue has been pointed out, and the devs have ignored it. The devs deserved to be flamed.

As for all your other comments and concerns I have addressed the previously.

* the game knows if a surface is active. There is no reason to be concerned that requests will change unless the surface is loaded. If the surface is loaded just have a simple timer and wait for the mouse to be idle for a period of time.

* as to which surface should get priority... i dont care. Any launches are better than none which is the current behavior.

I can't remember what other sad excuses you had for the laziness of the factorio devs. But until they implement the features in the game they deserve a bad review.

[mmmPI]

You must be lacking of self-awareness or voluntarily aiming at inflammatory tone, which only serve to illustrate how entitled some players are and how it's impossible to satisfy everyone.

I paid good money for this game. The game has a button which says to automate X. It doesn't automate X. The issue has been pointed out, and the devs have ignored it. The devs deserved to be flamed.
I can't remember what other sad excuses you had for the laziness of the factorio devs. But until they implement the features in the game they deserve a bad review.

It's hard to believe you wrote this for another reason than illustrating the part you quoted

I believe it's most likely what i called your lack of self-awareness that causes you to mistakenly assume that if your feedback isn't implemented in the game then it must have been ignored. But there's a whole range of options that lies in between. Like devs reading it silently, realizing it's not going to work and moving forward x). Maybe they even occasionnly gave some hints that you just can't remember or conflated for excuses, forgot about them and now such lack of memory is causing you to sound entitled and ignorant.

It's quite counter productive i believe because i feel the original proposition has some merits, i hope the useful direction for feedback as been pointed at for the others that could read the thread, that's what i attempted to do, by asking question for more precise answers about what you think the game should do, but unfortunaly that didn't get any useful answer :

As for all your other comments and concerns I have addressed the previously.
* as to which surface should get priority... i dont care. Any launches are better than none which is the current behavior.

This is to me showing a lack of understanding about the other various proposition about the silo, this particular thread is one that is attempting to answer that question, without using circuits. Supposedly answering that question. If there are niche cases where it's not so clear, it should be clarified instead of shrugged away. It's easy to say you don't care, but the details are what makes the proposition not so straightforward, so if you don't care , you are missing the point, no useful things are to be extracted from your answer here.

* the game knows if a surface is active. There is no reason to be concerned that requests will change unless the surface is loaded. If the surface is loaded just have a simple timer and wait for the mouse to be idle for a period of time.

What do you mean by "surface loaded" ? that seem to make no sense to me because surfaces are always "loaded".

Another reason why it seem to make no sense to me is that i wasn't mentionning a situation where request would change, you have 2 platforms waiting for 5 walls and 5 turrets, one has an additionnal request for 2 chem plants, you only have 1 silo. And in your logistic network you had no "walls" but the assembly start outputting them, and now your silo has to decide wether it will auto launch the chem plant , or not. There's no change of request.

A third reason why to me it doesn't make sense is the timer for idle mouse, what's the point ? x)

[crimsonarmy]

I can't remember what other sad excuses you had for the laziness of the factorio devs. But until they implement the features in the game they deserve a bad review.

The general rule for how automating anything in Factorio works is that the game will deal with simple things (train/spaceship automation has simple conditions, rocket launches will only do one item, requester chests can only have constant requests, etc.) but anything more than that requires you to use the circuit network.

However, there is a point to be made that the rocket silos should be easier to use the circuit network with.

[mmmPI]

The general rule for how automating anything in Factorio works is that the game will deal with simple things (train/spaceship automation has simple conditions, rocket launches will only do one item, requester chests can only have constant requests, etc.) but anything more than that requires you to use the circuit network.

I agree

However, there is a point to be made that the rocket silos should be easier to use the circuit network with.

I'm not sure there is a point to be made, but there are several others threads that are slightly different than this current one about "auto-launching" , related more specifically to "circuits and silo", and also regarding this particular point, several mods that already exist implementing one or the other suggestions , like : this https://mods.factorio.com/mod/CircuitLaunchableRockets It seem to "work" judging by the ratio between number of download and number of problems reported, i haven't tested it, , it implement one way to do but others were suggested, sometimes with exclusive behaviors.

(edit : removed a link to outdated mod and reworded sentence accordingly, after trying to test it, sorry)

About auto launch, i may be wrong but i feel the main problem is that players have different ideas of what a "smarter" one should do, because they have different playstyle and such, so the "lowest comon denominator" the "smallest brick of logic" is choosen. Then it's the game to make a working multi-planetary factory with such tools. I feel like any "complicated" (term being relative) rules about auto-launch could adds a layer of "things a players needs to understand" before being able to build the factory, when the aim of the auto-launch is to be the simplest possible to understand, the most basic.

Despite this I think the original proposition of the thread is quite good, has not many drawbacks, only some edges cases that need clarifications, to gauge what players would find intuitive for an auto-launch, in practical cases.

[crimsonarmy]

I'm not sure there is a point to be made

I haven't played around with it too much so I'll trust you on this.

About auto launch, i may be wrong but i feel the main problem is that players have different ideas of what a "smarter" one should do, because they have different playstyle and such, so the "lowest comon denominator" the "smallest brick of logic" is choosen. Then it's the game to make a working multi-planetary factory with such tools. I feel like any "complicated" (term being relative) rules about auto-launch could adds a layer of "things a players needs to understand" before being able to build the factory, when the aim of the auto-launch is to be the simplest possible to understand, the most basic.

Couldn't agree more.