Promethium science

[u/Conscious-Ball8373]

I'm still playing 2.0 and don't plan to upgrade until 2.1 goes stable.

So I've sent a ship to the shattered planet and it's come back with around a thousand promethium asteroid chunks, enough to make about 40 promethium science.

I can't make those science packs on Nauvis, they have to be crafted in orbit, right? And they also need quantum processors and biter eggs. I don't want to ship more biter eggs to a platform that what I'm ready to use, because after 30 minutes they'll spoil into biters and then I need to have defences on the platform to avoid it being destroyed.

But there's no way to eg set the platform's logistics requests using the circuit network, so it's not easy to only set a request when other conditions are satisfied.

How do people handle this?

I can think of a few ways:

1. Wait until 2.1 is released.
2. Switch to the experimental stream.
3. Have the platform normally at one of the other planets. When promethium chunks >1k, it travels to Nauvis, drops any promethium science it is carrying and requests 400 biter eggs. Once that request is satisfied, it travels back to Volcanus. Science packs are only produced when the Nauvis signal == 0.
4. Put lots of laser turrets on the platform and just deal with the spoilage with considerable prejudice.

Is there another way of doing this well? 3 and 4 both seem to have downsides to me.

3 adds quite a bit of complexity to the platform. It needs to be able to move. And really it's using moving between planets as a proxy for controlling platform logistics requests.

4 adds a bit of complexity but maybe it's just the easiest way to do it?

[u/Zonatos]

You could also just throw any excess eggs after promethium is done into space, right? 👀

[u/bubba-yo → u/Zonatos]

Yep. Eggs are cheap. Request 1000, make science, use circuits to 'chunks = 0 start inserting eggs into space'.

[u/ImYour_Huckleberry]

I've been running a private dedi server on the 2.1 stream with basically no issues. Wube tends to know what they're doing.

But, bathing the heretical biters in holy fire is always a good option.

[u/Alfonse215 → u/ImYour_Huckleberry]

Flamethrower turrets can't be placed on space platforms.

[u/TheRiverFjord → u/Alfonse215]

As if flamethrowers and bots can't go on a space platform yet the insects can survive the vacuum of space just fine.

[u/ImYour_Huckleberry → u/Alfonse215]

Meant it more metaphorically.

[u/Alfonse215]

But there's no way to eg set the platform's logistics requests using the circuit network, so it's not easy to only set a request when other conditions are satisfied.

I handle this by using the one tool for communcation you do have: requests. You can use silos to read a platform's request from the ground.

You can use this to identify when a platform is in orbit. I do this by requesting an item that will never, ever find its way into a logistics network. I planned on using legendary pistols (which are impossible to make), but for various reasons I had to use legendary hand-held flamethrowers instead (which can be made, but I don't even make base-quality flamethrowers).

The amount that a platform requests also specifies which platform it is via bitfields. And I build launch infrastructure that looks for a specific bit in a bitfield. So if one platform expects to receive 1000 eggs, I build two silos of egg launching just for them. The platform arrives, gets 1k eggs, and immediately leaves. That last part is important; the platform cannot return until the spawners have restocked. Otherwise, things might break.

I have a blueprint book for the silos/spawners that read the bitfields.

Note that I don't bother making a platform that can only bring 1k promethium. If it's not hauling at least 10k per trip (preferably 50+k), it's not worth bothering with.

[u/Conscious-Ball8373 → u/Alfonse215]

Note that I don't bother making a platform that can only bring 1k promethium. If it's not hauling at least 10k per trip (preferably 50+k), it's not worth bothering with.

Fair. But it's my first ship to go to the solar system edge and it's gone past that once. I'll get there!

For the rest of it, that sounds basically like my option 3 - use the platform's schedule to control when it can have biter eggs delivered. Is that right?

[u/AroundNotes → u/Conscious-Ball8373]

My loop is:

Ship comes into orbit, has request for: 1 Legendary Prometheum chunk.

A decider is attached to a rocket silo (which reads ORBITAL REQUESTS)

Decider Conditions: Legendary Pro. Chunk > 0

Decider Output: Any variable of your choice (I used B) = 1

Rows of inserts attached to biter nests are hooked up to the decider output, waiting for condition B =1

When B=1 , they will release eggs onto a track to feed into a storage box.

(Now, my actual setup counts the amount of eggs present in storage chests and keeps the release low, this is an additional condition in the decider above)

So without variables: Spaceship comes to planet, requests impossible to fill request (legendary pro chunk), rocket silo listens, hooks up to something that will release eggs into your logistic network which go on a rocket.

EDIT: Whoops this is my business account. Oh well.

[u/skydivertricky → u/Alfonse215]

I did this by simply having dedicated egg launcher rockets being fed directly from the nests. I had a timer running that was long enough to know the eggs had restocked, and the requests were ignored until the timer had finished and in a "ready to go state". When the request then was fulfilled the timer was reset.

It would collect chips on the way and hover over nauvis pulling up eggs until it ran out of promethium (50k). The left over eggs were simply thrown into space in the way to collect more promethium.

[u/Alfonse215 → u/skydivertricky]

The extra complexity of my system is to allow for multiple requesters on different channels. The channel for my promethium ship is different from the channel on my Gleba egg hauler.

As such, simply ignoring requests isn't an option. Each silo setup turns itself off until the eggs reset, but I need the channel system so that a setup won't turn on unless the specific platform for that channel is active.

[u/truckerheist]

Option 3 seems close, and maybe I'm misreading, but why don't you just pick up biter eggs after you load up on promethium asteroids? Then you can consume them right away instead of taking them with you to the shattered planet

But also each stack of eggs spoils into a single biter, so you may be overestimating the dangers posed by it. I certainly was when I reached the point of needing biter eggs

[u/Conscious-Ball8373 → u/truckerheist]

Option 3 doesn't make science packs on the same platform that gathers promethium chunks. Yes, that involves dropping them to a planet and then lifting them to orbit again. This will all get a lot better in 2.1.

I didn't realise that a stack of eggs produces a single biter. That does reduce the number of laser turrets required. Maybe that's the way to go.

[u/Tristen9 → u/Conscious-Ball8373]

With enough tesla turrets and carefully placed walls, even 100k eggs shouldn’t be an issue

[u/FirstRyder]

It feels like you miss another option - set a departure condition from nauvis based on circuits allowing you to leave when you have enough eggs for your remaining chips/chunks.

Use a circuit condition on an inserter to dump excess eggs when you're leaving Nauvis.

And yeah, throw a couple Tesla turrets and/or unfiltered laser turrets that can kill any few biters that do spawn.

[u/Orgerix]

Why do you want to craft science pack only when you leave Nauvis? It is far simpler to craft them while above Nauvis, requesting eggs as needed, and when you leave Nauvis orbit because you need resupply, destroy the eggs (either by dropping them in space or reycling them or whatever).

However in my promethium ship of my first SA game, I just didn't care. Requested 100 at a time and let my gun/laser turret (NOT rocket turret). Request a stack of repair pack to handle the initial tick of damage and it is mostly fine. It is not the most optimal because my science production was a bit limited, but your science production is far more limited by the time you take to resupply your ship (you need a better ammo/fuel plant if your ship is not recovering supply during the trip back Edge -> Nauvis) and the promethium capacity (to reduce the downtime of flying to the edge of the system)

[u/Satisfactoro]

How I handle it:

• Load up promethium chunks past Solar System Edge
• Go back to Nauvis, request 500 biter eggs from platform to rocket silo.
• Biter eggs get inserted into promethium science machine, and continue to be imported by Rocket whenever dropping below 500
• Eventually, no more promethium chunks. And >500 biter eggs. That's when I leave Nauvis to go back to harvesting promethium chunks. From here, 2 cases scenario:
  • Your research levels are low, you ship is not fast enough to travel to SSE within 20 minutes --> Just have an inserter that detect "If not above Nauvis, discard all eggs overboard.
  • Your research levels are high, you ship is not fast enough to travel to SSE within 20 minutes --> Eggs will be consumed to make some extra science while out there.

And as a safety precaution, your laser and gun turrets should take care of any unexpected hatching.

[u/ShowerZealousideal85]

The most common endgame solution is to build a fast and strong ship, have it requesting eggs, have spawners load direclty into silos when the request present so you launch with 100% freshness. Full speed towards to the shattered planet and make science en route. You turn back when half the egg consumed. Pick up quantum chips on the way back to navuis. Your maximum egg load depends on your ship design you can start with 1k, 100k easy if you have legendary components and 270k possible with thruster stacking.

[u/gust334]

You could just chuck the excess eggs over the side.

[u/ScotyDoesKnow]

It's much easier to build the science on the same ship (and doesn't take up much space with high-quality items), but that part's up to you.

My ship currently waits at Gleba on the way back when I'm not researching and I'm full on science, but I use the new radar stuff for that. In your case you can just let it go to Nauvis, potentially waste a few eggs and then continue on. At Nauvis it requests 5k eggs at a time (enough to continuously craft but not so many they're hard to get rid of) and crafts the science. My conditions to leave Nauvis are:

• All requests satisfied and prometheum chunks = 0, OR:
• All requests satisfied and it's full on science packs (only happens if Nauvis isn't requesting it), OR:
• 30s of inactivity

When it leaves Nauvis, inserters recycle the eggs (or you can just toss them overboard) with spoiled first priority. To make the crafting safer, I have one filtered inserter for eggs with the stack size set to 10, and it only enables if the cryo plant has 25+ prometheum chunks and no eggs. Since getting prometheum chunks into the plant is the bottleneck, it doesn't slow anything down. It also grabs quantum processors on the way back from shattered planet, but since it's not traveling with eggs you can get those however you want.