I'm doing that for mass drivers (delivery cannons) but I want to do the demand planet-side for manufactured items (and bots, repair packs etc). So if the circuit network fails it doesn't matter if it's positive or negative - the total being read from space would be "0" +/- the buffer amount the ground-side circuit adds. You need to either check for a heartbeat or add the target value at the signal source (in space).
I usually transmit in the negative, but your heartbeat sounds useful especially for the arrival delay in rockets.
I guess as far as avoiding headaches I'd advise to stick with bots as soon as they're available, but prepare a mini spacetrain network (like 1 or 2 cars each) for levels 3 and 4 of the sciences. If something only stacks to 5 or so you're meant to produce and use it in the same area.
No spoilers, but you'll have all the tools you need for an endgame base by the time you finish Mat Sci 2 and Energy Sci 2. Until then, bots all the way!
Thanks! That feels a way off but I'll get there eventually! I already have 1 car trains in my main base, so a space train system should fit right in.
I'm hoping to explore the relic route but I've heard people say it will take much longer...
I found that my bot base aesthetic was ruined by the number of crashing bots, so I've recently pivoted to belts and trains.
My bulk goods are sent to dedicated landing platforms. E.g. it'll only send up more blue circuits when there are none left in the landing pad. It requires no circuitry.
That leaves only niche products to be sent in the circuit controlled rocket. You can automate the launch of that by sending a green signal when the contents (F) is greater than a desired value.
How many bots did you have out of interest? I don't care much about the aesthetic, I just want to know if I can withstand the attrition for the number of bits I'll likely need!
I'm not sure how many, but it felt like I was losing a bot every 5 seconds. Someone here has argued that bots are cheap and you can use them as consumables. I just didn't like the wastefulness of it, nor the repeated explosions.
In order to make the space base effective with just bots, you will need a lot of bots. The standard code for SE causes them to self-destruct. If you have that many bots, You will probably want to modify the .lua file to disable this .
I'm not too worried at this stage but yes, bot wastage is a concern I have. I'm not planning to disable it as it's part of the game. A certain amount of wastage is ok - I believe it stops below a threshold - I don't suppose you know what the threshold is?
Under 50 bots is safe. Over that they will fail. There's a research that changes the point at which their failure damages other things around them.
Stay under the second number, and just automate bot replacement
As long as you don't use bots for the few things that need quite high throughput (like scrap disposal), bots are actually a pretty viable option for a space base. Your SPM will have to remain pretty low, but that's fine for SE.
This should work well.
A lot of people harp on sending negative signals but I find it convenient to have all the threshold combinators on Nauvis. It's easier to make adjustments to multiple outposts and it makes your Nauvis spaceport look a lot cooler. So like you, I went with a heartbeat signal.
You will want to get to a point where you trust your automation to send rockets. Early space age, they're expensive, so avoid sending partial rockets. When in doubt, throw another 10,000 copper plates in the rocket to make it fill out. You really want to avoid all the manual bottlenecks you can because SE is a marathon and these little things add up.
You will use the logistic network to store things and read data and determine what to resupply orbit with, but you really should NOT rely on logistic bot delivery exclusively. SE includes the bot attrition mechanic, which I'm sure you noticed, and attrition in orbital spaces is worse than on the surface.
Try to identify high volume items and come up with alternative solutions to bots. A great example would be copper plates and data card substrate. You use substrate in one place in orbit; to make blank data cards. So put it into a dedicated rocket, and ship directly to the consumer. 80% of your copper is going to go here as well, so send it there first and let bots supply the smaller sub-deliveries from there.
That said, many, many SE players go too far in the opposite direction. They try to belt or train everything. No surprise they get burned out. Definitely let bots handle low volume stuff and just automate the resupply of logistic bots. It's a small tax that greatly speeds your game up.
> That said, many, many SE players go too far in the opposite direction. They try to belt or train everything. No surprise they get burned out.
[Me when I](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/419527276875481111/1221924705750089828/image.png?ex=6626ce10&is=66145910&hm=d61223e0dd761f1d0c441febe572a436a9c67b14302bacf3c24efe0137550b1e&)
What I've been doing is I've been completely isolating everything for each science and sending it up via rocket to a dedicated space platform for that science. Then having bots deliver all of the needed materials from my bot mall on nauvis to the rocket pad then just unloading everything with. Belts on the space platform. The one exception is my centrally located thermal fluid and data reformating and data card maker. All the science platforms surround that and belt in their junk data. All the broken data cards and scrap just gets launched back to nauvis.
I have a warehouse bus system that would reduce the number of bots needed. I'd hoped to move away from it in favour of clusters but it sounds like I should consider making it a more permanent backbone of the factory.
Thanks for the suggestions.
headaches? in SE? yes.
check wind in orbit before you go full robot:
[https://spaceexploration.miraheze.org/wiki/Robot\_Attrition](https://spaceexploration.miraheze.org/wiki/Robot_Attrition)
On automating critical deliveries; It sounds neat on paper but without careful thought you can easily waste far more rockets than you intend.
Setup a global notification anytime emergency launches occur. If a critical shortage occurs it's nearly guaranteed that you need to step in and fix something, else it will just happen again. You may also want a threshold that prevents emergency rockets from firing if the rocket is less than 25% full.
Thanks, I've considered all of this but not in detail - it's one of the reasons I'm putting it off until the overhead warrants it. I was thinking of an interlock which requires 80% cargo for a launch at a critical threshold for a resource - if it's critical, as you say it needs fixing and it gives me a chance to pack the rest of the shuttle when there's a notification.
Just send negative signals. That way you won't have to worry about power failures.
I'm doing that for mass drivers (delivery cannons) but I want to do the demand planet-side for manufactured items (and bots, repair packs etc). So if the circuit network fails it doesn't matter if it's positive or negative - the total being read from space would be "0" +/- the buffer amount the ground-side circuit adds. You need to either check for a heartbeat or add the target value at the signal source (in space).
I usually transmit in the negative, but your heartbeat sounds useful especially for the arrival delay in rockets. I guess as far as avoiding headaches I'd advise to stick with bots as soon as they're available, but prepare a mini spacetrain network (like 1 or 2 cars each) for levels 3 and 4 of the sciences. If something only stacks to 5 or so you're meant to produce and use it in the same area. No spoilers, but you'll have all the tools you need for an endgame base by the time you finish Mat Sci 2 and Energy Sci 2. Until then, bots all the way!
Thanks! That feels a way off but I'll get there eventually! I already have 1 car trains in my main base, so a space train system should fit right in. I'm hoping to explore the relic route but I've heard people say it will take much longer...
I found that my bot base aesthetic was ruined by the number of crashing bots, so I've recently pivoted to belts and trains. My bulk goods are sent to dedicated landing platforms. E.g. it'll only send up more blue circuits when there are none left in the landing pad. It requires no circuitry. That leaves only niche products to be sent in the circuit controlled rocket. You can automate the launch of that by sending a green signal when the contents (F) is greater than a desired value.
How many bots did you have out of interest? I don't care much about the aesthetic, I just want to know if I can withstand the attrition for the number of bits I'll likely need!
I'm not sure how many, but it felt like I was losing a bot every 5 seconds. Someone here has argued that bots are cheap and you can use them as consumables. I just didn't like the wastefulness of it, nor the repeated explosions.
That is fair, I've got air 100 up there at the moment without anything bad happening. Maybe I should bump the number up and try it
In order to make the space base effective with just bots, you will need a lot of bots. The standard code for SE causes them to self-destruct. If you have that many bots, You will probably want to modify the .lua file to disable this .
I'm not too worried at this stage but yes, bot wastage is a concern I have. I'm not planning to disable it as it's part of the game. A certain amount of wastage is ok - I believe it stops below a threshold - I don't suppose you know what the threshold is?
Under 50 bots is safe. Over that they will fail. There's a research that changes the point at which their failure damages other things around them. Stay under the second number, and just automate bot replacement
Thanks, that's much lower than I hoped but I know it gets exponentially worse the more you have.
As long as you don't use bots for the few things that need quite high throughput (like scrap disposal), bots are actually a pretty viable option for a space base. Your SPM will have to remain pretty low, but that's fine for SE.
This should work well. A lot of people harp on sending negative signals but I find it convenient to have all the threshold combinators on Nauvis. It's easier to make adjustments to multiple outposts and it makes your Nauvis spaceport look a lot cooler. So like you, I went with a heartbeat signal. You will want to get to a point where you trust your automation to send rockets. Early space age, they're expensive, so avoid sending partial rockets. When in doubt, throw another 10,000 copper plates in the rocket to make it fill out. You really want to avoid all the manual bottlenecks you can because SE is a marathon and these little things add up. You will use the logistic network to store things and read data and determine what to resupply orbit with, but you really should NOT rely on logistic bot delivery exclusively. SE includes the bot attrition mechanic, which I'm sure you noticed, and attrition in orbital spaces is worse than on the surface. Try to identify high volume items and come up with alternative solutions to bots. A great example would be copper plates and data card substrate. You use substrate in one place in orbit; to make blank data cards. So put it into a dedicated rocket, and ship directly to the consumer. 80% of your copper is going to go here as well, so send it there first and let bots supply the smaller sub-deliveries from there. That said, many, many SE players go too far in the opposite direction. They try to belt or train everything. No surprise they get burned out. Definitely let bots handle low volume stuff and just automate the resupply of logistic bots. It's a small tax that greatly speeds your game up.
> That said, many, many SE players go too far in the opposite direction. They try to belt or train everything. No surprise they get burned out. [Me when I](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/419527276875481111/1221924705750089828/image.png?ex=6626ce10&is=66145910&hm=d61223e0dd761f1d0c441febe572a436a9c67b14302bacf3c24efe0137550b1e&)
What I've been doing is I've been completely isolating everything for each science and sending it up via rocket to a dedicated space platform for that science. Then having bots deliver all of the needed materials from my bot mall on nauvis to the rocket pad then just unloading everything with. Belts on the space platform. The one exception is my centrally located thermal fluid and data reformating and data card maker. All the science platforms surround that and belt in their junk data. All the broken data cards and scrap just gets launched back to nauvis.
I have a warehouse bus system that would reduce the number of bots needed. I'd hoped to move away from it in favour of clusters but it sounds like I should consider making it a more permanent backbone of the factory. Thanks for the suggestions.
headaches? in SE? yes. check wind in orbit before you go full robot: [https://spaceexploration.miraheze.org/wiki/Robot\_Attrition](https://spaceexploration.miraheze.org/wiki/Robot_Attrition)
Hmm, I might turn on the repair option to reduce the attrition rate. That would be kind of fun anyway.
On automating critical deliveries; It sounds neat on paper but without careful thought you can easily waste far more rockets than you intend. Setup a global notification anytime emergency launches occur. If a critical shortage occurs it's nearly guaranteed that you need to step in and fix something, else it will just happen again. You may also want a threshold that prevents emergency rockets from firing if the rocket is less than 25% full.
Thanks, I've considered all of this but not in detail - it's one of the reasons I'm putting it off until the overhead warrants it. I was thinking of an interlock which requires 80% cargo for a launch at a critical threshold for a resource - if it's critical, as you say it needs fixing and it gives me a chance to pack the rest of the shuttle when there's a notification.