Basic Space Logistics Help

[jessechisel126]

Hey y'all, long time reader first time poster!

I'm at the point pre-Aquilo where I'm setting up my shipping networks between the 4 basic planets. The idea is to have Nauvis do just about everything important, with the other planets delivering their unique goods to Nauvis.

I've set up a ship that ferries supplies from Vulcanus to Nauvis. I have the requests all set up to fill the ship with various Vulcanus things (calcite, tungsten products, science, etc.), and have a schedule to go to Vulcanus and only depart when "All requests satisfied". All's well on that end.

However, once it gets to Nauvis, I want to only go back to Vulcanus if something's run out (e.g. if calcite runs out, go to Vulcanus now regardless of status of tungsten plates). I'm not seeing an easy way to schedule this - seems I need something like "Any request *from another planet* zero". I know we're not meant to be able to send platforms from planet to platform, so I can't really create a "go signal" on planet. Best I've jury-rigged is to just have a cargo condition for each individual item > 0. This seems like I must be barking up the wrong tree, I'm wondering what a less hacky approach might be.

[NineNine]

This isn't what you asked, but I'm going to throw this out... Since all platform engine fuel is harvested from asteroids, is there any reason not to just bounce the platforms back and forth from Vulcanus to Nauvis constantly, regardless of anything is needed at all? Is there any particular benefit in waiting until you need a particular resource?

[jessechisel126]

This isn't what you asked, but I'm going to throw this out... Since all platform engine fuel is harvested from asteroids, is there any reason not to just bounce the platforms back and forth from Vulcanus to Nauvis constantly, regardless of anything is needed at all? Is there any particular benefit in waiting until you need a particular resource?

Not a bad point, I'm stuck in "train brain" it seems. I suppose my Gleba science ship basically already runs on this paradigm since there's low downtime where it's not shipping packs, and I'm using the same ship design so it shouldn't run out of fuel. I could also monitor fuel and only launch if there's a healthy buffer. This should also up availability since I won't have to wait for a round trip and all the launches on Vulcanus and I'm likely to hit more favorable parts of the cycle if it's always cycling.

Thanks for the swift reply - cheers!

[mmmPI]

However, once it gets to Nauvis, I want to only go back to Vulcanus if something's run out (e.g. if calcite runs out, go to Vulcanus now regardless of status of tungsten plates). I'm not seeing an easy way to schedule this

The "simplest" way i think would be to use the condition "any request zero", if you request in your platform calcite and tungsten from vulcanus, and one or the other run out when the platform is at Nauvis, it will then go the next step of the schedule. This works well when you have 2 destinations on your schedule.

There exist other ways not using the existing schedule condition :

Another way would be to register the request of this platform in a constant combinator, since you can use logistic group in both the request for the platorm and that one constant combinator, on the platform itself, you can "measure" if any of the material signal from the constant combinator is = 0 in the platform's hub , and if so "send a signal " like a a green one, to the platform. Its schedule would then be to wait at nauvis with a circuit condition for waiting, and the combinators on the platform would trigger the departure to Vulcanus when "any" of the material is 0, similar result to first idea but different method to achieve.
That may let you automatically "disable" some group instead of manually, or handle situation where items are requested in several groups, or just be needlessly complex for the same result x).

Another more tedious way to setup but more 'powerful' to achieve this would be to create some "interrupts" in the schedule of the platform, one for each item, and when the item quantity is 0, go to Vulcanus, or to Fulgora depending on where this item is produced.

I think the "simplest" works well !! but you can couple it with an interrupt if your platform that does Aquilo => Nauvis needs occasionnaly something from elsewhere, like Fulgora

seems I need something like "Any request *from another planet* zero".

Isn't that how the game's condition already works ? Does your platform also carries things from Nauvis to Vulcanus and not only from Vulcanus to Nauvis ?

Since all platform engine fuel is harvested from asteroids, is there any reason not to just bounce the platforms back and forth from Vulcanus to Nauvis constantly, regardless of anything is needed at all? Is there any particular benefit in waiting until you need a particular resource?

With the interrupts you can have platforms that goes to either Vulcanus or Fulgora and back to Nauvis, with different frequencies, sometimes only one or only the other several time in a row depending on what you are building on Nauvis, where going to the "wrong" planet would add delays.

if your platform is like a giant buffer with 10K calcite and tungsten and 500 foundries and 500 big mining drill and so on, you may want to have it over Nauvis "most of the time" to access the material, and only have it leave to refill quickly as this would leaves you unable to expand for a while, if you have "minimum" buffer of those on Nauvis, counting on the platform as a giant buffer.

I don't think there's that much drawbacks in having the platform goes back and forth all the time, as you say fuel is infinite from asteroids, but it's about the "opportunity cost" , what else could your platform do if your platform isn't busy doing this back and forth, or how to make its trip more efficient instead of making such platform bigger, or faster / riskier design for UPS too.

[Tertius]

I built my logistics like this:
For every planet, there is one dedicated platform always flying from that planet to Nauvis and back, bringing the science pack from that planet and optionally stuff that's meant to be used on Nauvis. On its way back from Nauvis, it brings stuff manufactured on Nauvis and consumed on the planet like biter eggs on Gleba.

Additionally, there is one big warehouse/trading platform that visits one planet after the other. It loads planet exclusive material and items and supplies it to the other planets.

This way every planet can request any material, science packs don't clutter the warehouse platform and spoiling items are being transported as fast as possible.

[Mr Wednesday]

Best I've jury-rigged is to just have a cargo condition for each individual item > 0. This seems like I must be barking up the wrong tree, I'm wondering what a less hacky approach might be.

This is pretty close to what I do. I have a series of ORed groups of AND conditions, one of which is the individual item going to zero (calcite and science bottles for sure, and I think I do it for tungsten plate too), the rest are common conditions for release that aren't important for this discussion.

[NineNine]

I built my logistics like this:
For every planet, there is one dedicated platform always flying from that planet to Nauvis and back, bringing the science pack from that planet and optionally stuff that's meant to be used on Nauvis. On its way back from Nauvis, it brings stuff manufactured on Nauvis and consumed on the planet like biter eggs on Gleba.

Additionally, there is one big warehouse/trading platform that visits one planet after the other. It loads planet exclusive material and items and supplies it to the other planets.

This way every planet can request any material, science packs don't clutter the warehouse platform and spoiling items are being transported as fast as possible.

I do the same, but I break out biter eggs and bioflux onto their own platforms that constantly bounce back and forth between Nauvis and Gleba.

I do let the science delivering platforms sit at Nauvis until they're empty. just so that the supply of science stays full-ish on Nauvis.

Also, I have a dozen of the platforms that circulate between five planets, one after another.

[Tertius]

I do let the science delivering platforms sit at Nauvis until they're empty. just so that the supply of science stays full-ish on Nauvis.

I don't let platforms wait in orbit until something becomes empty. The planets request a rather high amount that works as a buffer down on the planet. So the platforms will leave immediately after all requests were satisfied and inactivity > 2 seconds. It flies back to the other planet, then doing the same. If nothing is being consumed, the platform will fly back and forth, completely full. Fuel is free after all. This way the platform has always the most possible supply available, or with other words its cargo space can be smaller because it is being refilled more often.

If it comes to biter eggs, bioflux and agricultural science packs: I pretend these doesn't spoil. I load them like ordinary cargo.

However, I always request all biter eggs down to Gleba, so biter eggs never hatch on the platform. And on Nauvis, I make sure I always have biter eggs no older than 10 minutes. If the last delivery from the egg farm was more than 10 minutes ago, I destroy all buffered biter eggs and get new ones from the farm.
And on Gleba, I detect if eggs were delivered from space. If any were delivered, I destroy any existing old eggs, then import the just delivered new eggs and start a timer. If this timer is > 15 minutes, I also destroy all existing eggs. The Nauvis/Gleba express delivers eggs continuously and fast, so this 15 minute timeout is just a safeguard never actually kicking in. Instead, the old eggs are destroyed on arrival of the new ones.

The agri science packs just spoil on the platform, if the buffer on Nauvis is full and they're not requested. Trash removal by requesting spoilage from the platform.
And bioflux just spoils as well. On the ground or on the platform, doesn't matter. It's constantly being delivered, so there's never any shortage. I consume much on Nauvis and convert them to nutrients, so there's always some flow, so it isn't that much spoiling on the platform.

This isn't yet built for collecting promethium chunks and bringing eggs to the promethium science pack factory on the platform. I still run my biter egg farm on the outskirts of my base with manually captured egg spawners, but for the promethium factory I intend to build egg spawners directly next to the rocket silo(s) and employ a more direct harvest and instant upload to the platform. It's just not ready yet.

[trancexpress]

I got 1 platform per item transported between 2 planets. Its very easy to make the logic work then, it just costs more materials to get the platforms up.

[jessechisel126]

I got 1 platform per item transported between 2 planets. Its very easy to make the logic work then, it just costs more materials to get the platforms up.

Curious, how many platforms you end up with doing this?

[jessechisel126]

I do let the science delivering platforms sit at Nauvis until they're empty. just so that the supply of science stays full-ish on Nauvis.

I don't let platforms wait in orbit until something becomes empty. The planets request a rather high amount that works as a buffer down on the planet. So the platforms will leave immediately after all requests were satisfied and inactivity > 2 seconds. It flies back to the other planet, then doing the same. If nothing is being consumed, the platform will fly back and forth, completely full. Fuel is free after all. This way the platform has always the most possible supply available, or with other words its cargo space can be smaller because it is being refilled more often.

If it comes to biter eggs, bioflux and agricultural science packs: I pretend these doesn't spoil. I load them like ordinary cargo.

However, I always request all biter eggs down to Gleba, so biter eggs never hatch on the platform. And on Nauvis, I make sure I always have biter eggs no older than 10 minutes. If the last delivery from the egg farm was more than 10 minutes ago, I destroy all buffered biter eggs and get new ones from the farm.
And on Gleba, I detect if eggs were delivered from space. If any were delivered, I destroy any existing old eggs, then import the just delivered new eggs and start a timer. If this timer is > 15 minutes, I also destroy all existing eggs. The Nauvis/Gleba express delivers eggs continuously and fast, so this 15 minute timeout is just a safeguard never actually kicking in. Instead, the old eggs are destroyed on arrival of the new ones.

The agri science packs just spoil on the platform, if the buffer on Nauvis is full and they're not requested. Trash removal by requesting spoilage from the platform.
And bioflux just spoils as well. On the ground or on the platform, doesn't matter. It's constantly being delivered, so there's never any shortage. I consume much on Nauvis and convert them to nutrients, so there's always some flow, so it isn't that much spoiling on the platform.

This isn't yet built for collecting promethium chunks and bringing eggs to the promethium science pack factory on the platform. I still run my biter egg farm on the outskirts of my base with manually captured egg spawners, but for the promethium factory I intend to build egg spawners directly next to the rocket silo(s) and employ a more direct harvest and instant upload to the platform. It's just not ready yet.

After deliberating and some testing, I've also arrived at this solution for my direct back-and-forth ships. It's so nice to always know materials are ready to be delivered and not deal with complicated conditions for logistics. I'm also making a round trip warehouse ship with 28 cargo bays that holds basically all of the materials and intermediates that aren't unique to a planet, pulling them from the planet that does it best (plates, gears, etc. from Vulcanus; circuits, wires, etc. from Fulgora, rocket fuel, plastic, etc. from Gleba) and just circles around all planets shipping down any needed materials. It'll not need bullet or rocket production, they'll just ship in from Nauvis. Only production is for fuel, solar powered (low production), lots of engines.

Haven't yet dove into biter eggs (that's the next major thing - I'm dreading it...) but I'll keep this solution in mind! I try not to do timers generally but I might try it for this application.

[NineNine]

I do let the science delivering platforms sit at Nauvis until they're empty. just so that the supply of science stays full-ish on Nauvis.

I don't let platforms wait in orbit until something becomes empty. The planets request a rather high amount that works as a buffer down on the planet. So the platforms will leave immediately after all requests were satisfied and inactivity > 2 seconds. It flies back to the other planet, then doing the same. If nothing is being consumed, the platform will fly back and forth, completely full. Fuel is free after all. This way the platform has always the most possible supply available, or with other words its cargo space can be smaller because it is being refilled more often.

I think you're right on this one. I just need to increase my buffrers on Nauvis, but this makes more sense than doing what I'm doing right now.

However, I always request all biter eggs down to Gleba, so biter eggs never hatch on the platform. And on Nauvis, I make sure I always have biter eggs no older than 10 minutes. If the last delivery from the egg farm was more than 10 minutes ago, I destroy all buffered biter eggs and get new ones from the farm.
And on Gleba, I detect if eggs were delivered from space. If any were delivered, I destroy any existing old eggs, then import the just delivered new eggs and start a timer. If this timer is > 15 minutes, I also destroy all existing eggs. The Nauvis/Gleba express delivers eggs continuously and fast, so this 15 minute timeout is just a safeguard never actually kicking in. Instead, the old eggs are destroyed on arrival of the new ones.

On this one, I think what you're doing might be a little bit unnecessary. Why not let them hatch on the platform? They make really wimpy little things that a few lasers around the platform core take care of instantly. I've never had a problem with them hatching either on Nauvis or the platforms.

[mmmPI]

I don't let platforms wait in orbit until something becomes empty. The planets request a rather high amount that works as a buffer down on the planet. So the platforms will leave immediately after all requests were satisfied and inactivity > 2 seconds. It flies back to the other planet, then doing the same. If nothing is being consumed, the platform will fly back and forth, completely full. Fuel is free after all. This way the platform has always the most possible supply available, or with other words its cargo space can be smaller because it is being refilled more often.

I think you're right on this one. I just need to increase my buffrers on Nauvis, but this makes more sense than doing what I'm doing right now.

That makes me unconfortable somehow. I know the parralel with trains is not necessarily the best, but i feel like fuel train is free too, with oil not fully depleting on Nauvis, but one do not let the trains run back and forth all the time because that would uncessarily clog the rail networks.

This doesn't risk happening with platforms ^^ so i understand why the idea is tempting, however when reading OP's conclusion from that, i think there may be some misunderstanding :

After deliberating and some testing, I've also arrived at this solution for my direct back-and-forth ships. It's so nice to always know materials are ready to be delivered and not deal with complicated conditions for logistics. I'm also making a round trip warehouse ship with 28 cargo bays that holds basically all of the materials and intermediates that aren't unique to a planet, pulling them from the planet that does it best (plates, gears, etc. from Vulcanus; circuits, wires, etc. from Fulgora, rocket fuel, plastic, etc. from Gleba) and just circles around all planets shipping down any needed materials. It'll not need bullet or rocket production, they'll just ship in from Nauvis.

I encourage you to consider the fact that if you are shipping bullet and rocket from nauvis for your platform AND you let it run back and forth all the time, you will force upon yourself to add new ore patch over time for your platforms. It changes the situation mentionned by Tertius imo into one where the travels aren't "free" anymore.

The condition " Any request zero" seem to be doing what you described in your OP unless i didn't understand what you mean, but otherwise, i would advise to try and make the rocket and ammo on the platform, to make sure you don't add some kind of "ressource-drain", or ship them from Vulcanus, if you plan to have the platform go back and forth all the time.

Another reason i wouldn't recommend the constant back and forth is performance for your computer, but that's not a concern for many players

[trancexpress]

I got 1 platform per item transported between 2 planets. Its very easy to make the logic work then, it just costs more materials to get the platforms up.

Curious, how many platforms you end up with doing this?

Ugh I dunno, prolly less than 20 for material hauling. Usually they deliver 5 stacks, as my standard platform for transport is compact (so I can make new ones with fewer rockets) and I use a lot of platform cargo space for fuel and bullet related crafting.

For space science hauling (excluding space science crafting) prolly 200+ (each platform transporting 1000 packs per trip). Though I make science packs on Vulcanus, consuming them on Nauvis, this needs quite a few platforms.

[jessechisel126]

I encourage you to consider the fact that if you are shipping bullet and rocket from nauvis for your platform AND you let it run back and forth all the time, you will force upon yourself to add new ore patch over time for your platforms. It changes the situation mentionned by Tertius imo into one where the travels aren't "free" anymore.

Fair point for sure. I would say that I'm not too concerned about them not being free because they're still pretty cheap, one trip is not terribly many green bullets (as used by my there-and-backs I think it's like 2 rockets of bullets). If I do want to do local bullet production I could, but I think that would require a nuclear plant (until I get fusion post-Aquilo) which still eats up uranium, and the juicy uranium no less. And I think they'd have to at least be red bullets to get good speed, and greens would negate the benefit of being free and untethered from Nauvis anywho. Maybe with high quality solar panels I could crack it, but I don't have any quality loops setup yet so that's also somewhat far away.

The condition " Any request zero" seem to be doing what you described in your OP unless i didn't understand what you mean, but otherwise, i would advise to try and make the rocket and ammo on the platform, to make sure you don't add some kind of "ressource-drain", or ship them from Vulcanus, if you plan to have the platform go back and forth all the time.

As far as I can tell unless I'm missing something, "any request zero" only checks requests regarding the current planet you're orbiting, so I can't reference requests to Vulcanus while parked at Nauvis, which is what I'd need to do. That kinda spurs the whole problem in the first place, if I had that none of this complexity is really required.

Another reason i wouldn't recommend the constant back and forth is performance for your computer, but that's not a concern for many players

Yeah, I've never ran into UPS issues as I've never really megabased. I'm a fairly slow and casual player.

[mmmPI]

Ah 2 points here sorry x)
This point i think can be clarified more easily than the next one :

The condition " Any request zero" seem to be doing what you described in your OP unless i didn't understand what you mean, but otherwise, i would advise to try and make the rocket and ammo on the platform, to make sure you don't add some kind of "ressource-drain", or ship them from Vulcanus, if you plan to have the platform go back and forth all the time.

As far as I can tell unless I'm missing something, "any request zero" only checks requests regarding the current planet you're orbiting, so I can't reference requests to Vulcanus while parked at Nauvis, which is what I'd need to do. That kinda spurs the whole problem in the first place, if I had that none of this complexity is really required.

I think you are missing something ! Or maybe it's me who didn't understand the situation, here is how a platform can be set up :

06-01-2025, 08-27-08.png (389.13 KiB) Viewed 527 times

You can see it is requesting "green circuit" and "red circuit" from Vulcanus, and it is stopped at nauvis , with the condition "any request zero".
It's in editor mode, if i remove either the green or red circuit, then the platform leaves for Vulcanus. And also if i add another request for tungsten carbide from Vulcanus for example.
If the request were from Fulgora or Gleba, the platform would still go to Vulcanus though, because that's the next station on the schedule, hence why mentionned the interrupts.




The next one is more of a side topic sorry , more "personnal preference" :

If I do want to do local bullet production I could, but I think that would require a nuclear plant (until I get fusion post-Aquilo) which still eats up uranium, and the juicy uranium no less.

You are correct to mention that nuclear plant do consume a non-renewable ressource ! And that quality solar pannel would be a powerful alternative, and you can't ship ammunition from Vulcanus if you are using green ammo x).

But you don't necessarily need those i think "before Aquilo". Aquilo is further from the sun than the other making solar pannel less and less effective along the way, i think that's the main incentive to use nuclear power, but for the "inner planets", the research for physical damage and turret speed and asteroid productivity allow to still be safe with "normal quality thrusters" and their max speed even using yellow ammo !

Now obviously those research cost quite a lot of ressource, as they are infinite, but the more ship you have or the more trip they do, the cheaper each level will sound compared to shipping ammo to each platform. I suppose it depends on your goals ^^.

A platform that makes its own ammunition is more complex than shipping from a planet, but you can duplicate it and improve or refine the way you do, in future game, another thing that sometimes happen is the platform can make "some" ammunition, but not as fast as they are consumed while travelling, so it needs to wait at each planet, for the buffer of ammunition to refill, but they are still made from asteroids. And then the more you research, the less "waiting" is needed. Sound complicated but it's just an additionnal condition on the schedule :

ammo safety.jpg (112.4 KiB) Viewed 527 times

This platform will not leave Nauvis just because red or green circuit request has become 0, it will also wait for the ammunition to be more than "1000" in the platform hub. This i'm showing because i think it helps re-using a platform you spend time making on the next game if you have less research, you can just change the number of safety ammo before one trip. May also explain why i am ok with yellow ammo, you can stockpile them ! The same goes for asteroid chunks In a single trip you can store some asteroid chunks, and process them into ammo while "waiting" for the rocket silo to deliver other goods.

With nuclear plant, in the inner planet, i found the risk is lacking "ice" to have enough water for power and fuel in early game, which is another thing that is less of a problem when going to the cold Aquilo but it does helps tremendously to produce ammo on the platform, you're right about that, i just meant that it's not stricly necessary. I think producing ammo on the platform was what other player may have had in mind when saying there is no drawback in having the platforms going back and forth all the time because fuel is free, i just wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding.

( And you're right quality solar pannel makes the job much easier ! )