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Today after some optimization, I managed to get most my agricultural science packs on Nauvis to 95% freshness!



Here is a breakdown of my setup, starting from the production side:



Basically it's a huge bot base. All fruits are produced on-demand (tower only enabled when there is logistic network request for the corresponding fruit). I overplanted everything so there is always a ripe tree when I need its fruit. The harvested fruits are immediately air-lifted (by bot) to a bioflux maker block, and processed in their freshest state (99.5% fresh):



The upper block here makes the bioflux. It only starts requesting fruits when there is orbital demand for science or bioflux. Fruit crushers are throttled to avoid overstocking the easily-rotten mash / jelly.

The science block requests bioflux (99.0% fresh) and eggs over bots. Since eggs rot quite fast, the requested eggs are laundered with one last round of reproduction and direct-inserted into the science maker at 100% freshness. On the right side is an egg brewer, which slowly cycles eggs in a normal biochamber normally, mass-produce eggs when there's demand, and burn eggs to a manageable level when demand is gone. The sciences are belted to rocket silos, and launched at 98% freshness.

All the blocks use fish for nutrients.

Next comes the transport part. With legendary thrusters flying speed is never an issue, the real challenge is to avoid stockpiling science on Nauvis, or worse, on space platforms. This is what naturally happens when one just requests for science on the Nauvis hub and space platforms.

To this end I built an iron-stick ticketing system:



Basically, I have a fleet of identical shuttles. Each shuttle loads 14k science on Gleba, while making 1 iron stick during the trip. The Nauvis hub requests 3 iron sticks, representing a stockpile of 3*14k batches. Each shuttle only leaves Nauvis when its iron stick is gone. The hub also makes a really large science request to ensure all shuttles fully unload. and destroys iron sticks as science gets used up.

This way, the shuttles maintain a staggered schedule and never stockpile science themselves. Every science gets transported to Nauvis fast and hopefully gets used before it rots.

After arriving at the Nauvis hub, the science just gets air-lifted again by bots to each lab. This sounds stupid and uses a lot of power, but it's actually the fastest method with enough worker robot speed research.

Very cool.

Does overall throughput suffer from an on-demand production system vs. constant full production and recycling the excess?

I never quite got the appeal of the fish nutrients though. If I ran the numbers right, it results in at best a 30% drop in spores. Not insignificant, but also not worth the hassle, I think. Most of the crop goes to the bioflux directly for science, not bioflux for nutrients.

Sostratus wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 1:57 pm Very cool.

Does overall throughput suffer from an on-demand production system vs. constant full production and recycling the excess?

Yes it does. I'm not throughput-limited by Gleba so my focus is minimizing spores.

Sostratus wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 1:57 pm I never quite got the appeal of the fish nutrients though. If I ran the numbers right, it results in at best a 30% drop in spores. Not insignificant, but also not worth the hassle, I think. Most of the crop goes to the bioflux directly for science, not bioflux for nutrients.

Well, i did want the 30% drop. Besides, it simplifies the logic to keep cycling eggs (slowly) with bioflux production disabled.

If all three shuttles are idling over Nauvis, and one stick is destroyed, how do they know whose stick it was and therefore which shuttle should depart?

I assume the shuttles are identical, but how do you keep all three shuttles from leaving at once when only one stick is destroyed?

If Nauvis doesn't need science it has 3 stick in its hub.
If it needs science it "destroys" one stick. Which generates a request for 1 stick in orbit.
One of the shuttles can now drop it's stick and can then leave. It doesn't matter which one.

The others have to way until another request is generated.

OK, I think I get it now:

• Each shuttle possesses 1 iron stick.
• Nauvis has a permanent cargo hub request for 3 iron sticks. The entire logistics network contains only 3 iron sticks (at most).
• When 14K of science has been consumed, 1 iron stick is destroyed on Nauvis.
• One shuttle drops its iron stick, which then triggers the condition (0 iron sticks) telling it to go to Gleba.
• On Gleba, rockets fill the shuttle with a full load of agriscience.
• Some condition (leaving Gleba, possessing >1 agriscience, whatever) tells the shuttle to craft 1 iron stick.
• The shuttle returns to Nauvis, unloads all its science, but then idles and keeps the iron stick until it's requested.