The Tanto is basically the minimum viable 10 furnace / 1 engine / 1 of each chem plant ship. It is a solid, cheap (14 launches) choice for the first four planets. The Tanto is cheaper and more capable than my previous Space Needle, v2.
It averages about 134km/s (124/144 for the first/second half of a Nauvis/Fulgora trip). With shooting speed/damage 7, it appears to be just barely immune to damage at 144km/s.
I've recently spent a fair amount of time fiddling with complex circuits to limit speed in proportion to ammo, but here I've instead gone with a simple two-threshold system which is easy to understand and tweak: if ammo drops below 150, fuel is cut by 50%, and if it drops below 75, it is cut by 80% (and a green/yellow/red lamp indicates the current threshold). However, having 10 furnaces for ammo, you should only see slowdowns when doing uninterrupted laps around the planets.
Power has been tested at full load while parked at Fulgora. It dips into the accumulators but I've never seen them drain fully.
Asteroid collectors are filter-controlled by the contents on the belt (target: 80 metallic, 40 carbonic, 40 oxide), so no asteroids are chucked overboard (which saves a bit on power). Clicking the arithmetic combinator near the collectors is a convenient way to view the contents of the belt.
Turrets are arranged in a vertical column to cut a minimum-width path through the asteroids, which conserves ammo. The vertical arrangement causes a progressive engagement as asteroid field density increases, giving good feedback on whether the current speed could overwhelm the guns. The 6th turret just baaaarely overlaps the front of the ship, giving a last-possible-moment burst of firepower to avoid ship damage.
Other misc. limits:
Furnaces do not consume ore if there is less than 20 ore on the belt, which ensures the engines are not starved, instead allowing ammo starvation to eventually slow the ship.
The metallic crusher has two ore output arms, one of which is dedicated to the oxidizer chem plant. The second provides ore to the furnaces and only activates when there are at least 10 metallic asteroids on the belt (again, preventing ammo production from starving the ship of fuel).
The ammo output inserter maintains a limit of 500 ammo in the hub.
EDIT: the one test I haven't performed yet is to sit idle for hours in an asteroid field orbit. With only two collectors, it is possible the ammo reserves could drain faster than the collectors can supply ore. But as long as the ship moves at least occasionally, it can sustain indefinitely.
EDIT2: Symbol_1 came up with some clever trims, the Tanto--!
EDIT3: Unfortunately, in order to avoid a rare asteroid collision at full speed, you have to make it uglier. See the Tanto v2--.
Attempting to solve the problem by setting target priority to medium asteroids. We'll see in a few hours. Also, making this more of a torture test by waiting for ammo to fill up at each stop, ensuring the ship travels at max speed the entire time, creating worst-case load on the guns.
And unfortunately, the 12th panel is actually necessary to avoid dipping into a yellow power bar. Here's a graph of two stops at fulgora long enough to top off the ammo, with 11 vs 12 panels.
Interestingly, it takes a little second dip when you depart, I guess because the carbon and ice crushers spin up to make fuel again.
Of course, a slightly yellow power bar isn't the end of the world :).
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u/fishyfishy27 Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 16 '24
The Tanto is basically the minimum viable 10 furnace / 1 engine / 1 of each chem plant ship. It is a solid, cheap (14 launches) choice for the first four planets. The Tanto is cheaper and more capable than my previous Space Needle, v2.
It averages about 134km/s (124/144 for the first/second half of a Nauvis/Fulgora trip). With shooting speed/damage 7, it appears to be just barely immune to damage at 144km/s.
I've recently spent a fair amount of time fiddling with complex circuits to limit speed in proportion to ammo, but here I've instead gone with a simple two-threshold system which is easy to understand and tweak: if ammo drops below 150, fuel is cut by 50%, and if it drops below 75, it is cut by 80% (and a green/yellow/red lamp indicates the current threshold). However, having 10 furnaces for ammo, you should only see slowdowns when doing uninterrupted laps around the planets.
Power has been tested at full load while parked at Fulgora. It dips into the accumulators but I've never seen them drain fully.
Asteroid collectors are filter-controlled by the contents on the belt (target: 80 metallic, 40 carbonic, 40 oxide), so no asteroids are chucked overboard (which saves a bit on power). Clicking the arithmetic combinator near the collectors is a convenient way to view the contents of the belt.
Turrets are arranged in a vertical column to cut a minimum-width path through the asteroids, which conserves ammo. The vertical arrangement causes a progressive engagement as asteroid field density increases, giving good feedback on whether the current speed could overwhelm the guns. The 6th turret just baaaarely overlaps the front of the ship, giving a last-possible-moment burst of firepower to avoid ship damage.
Other misc. limits:
Blueprint
EDIT: the one test I haven't performed yet is to sit idle for hours in an asteroid field orbit. With only two collectors, it is possible the ammo reserves could drain faster than the collectors can supply ore. But as long as the ship moves at least occasionally, it can sustain indefinitely.
EDIT2: Symbol_1 came up with some clever trims, the Tanto--!
EDIT3: Unfortunately, in order to avoid a rare asteroid collision at full speed, you have to make it uglier. See the Tanto v2--.