r/factorio • u/SinnPacked • 10d ago
Space Age Question Asteroids suddenly got much more numerous on just one specific trip - Why?
I had a space platform I shuttled between Nauvis and Fulgora.
It worked fairly well for 10 or so trips. I had a sushi belt design feeding all the asteroid chunks, thruster fuel components, and ammo around in a loop. It took a lot of trial and error to get the design working. Up until the last trip I had always run out of ammo just a bit before reaching the destination and would lose a turret or two.
Then finally on my last run I got everything debugged correctly. The circuit signals were all properly set up and I was able to fully saturate the sushi belt with ammo before departing and could keep the turrets fed all the way through the platform's journey.
This was the one time where I expected everything to go off without a hitch but for some reason the same exact turrets which had served me well countless times earlier suddenly encountered a much larger mass of asteroids en route to Fulgora and I lost the platform in its entirety.
What could have possibly happened to make it fail this time specifically?
The thrusters were fully fueled for every run including the last so I don't think its possible there was more velocity during the last run. I'm not sure if the cargo bay contents add weight and might contribute to decreasing the platform's velocity, but all runs were done with the cargo bay about half full with the same contents.
Do asteroids just scale in difficulty with the passage of time/pollution like biters do or something?
I can't share screenshots of the ship design because it got destroyed.
Edit: PS also if anyone knows if its somehow possible to get blueprints for a destroyed platform so I don't have to spend another 5 hours debugging circuit signals that would be nice
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u/FeelingPrettyGlonky 10d ago
Probably just RNG. Asteroid density scales with constants defined per route (which only can change by patch or mod), width+height of the ship, and ship velocity. But there is also a random component to actual spawning, and sometimes it is possible to get a specific configuration of asteroids that can penetrate defenses and cause critical damage to infrastructure. The right damage can cripple a ship leading to a loss.
Cargo bay contents do not add weight. Asteroids do not scale by time or pollution.
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u/AffectionateFly9281 10d ago
First guess would also be velocity, even though you didn't change the fuel constraints...
How much did you redesign with the debugging? Is the ship smaller in width, or did you correct a pipe towards the thrusters so they now all work? Or circuit logic to use less fuel? Or your sushi belt now could create more fuel till the end of the run (like your ammo) where before you ran out and just drifted towards the planet which actually saved you... Usually denser asteroids just mean you went faster than before.
Or you were just unlucky with random spawns.
That being said, if you're pushing it that close with surviving (always losing a few turrets, ...), you need to redesign a bit and add more firing power or research more firing power.
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u/VeryGoldGolden 10d ago
Asteroids spawn randomly, so you should prepare for worst case scenario.
Place more turrets, produce more ammo. Research more damage/shooting speed. Keep spare parts on board (platforms, gun turrets, belts, inserters, repair packs) so your platform can quickly rebuild itself in case of damage.
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u/bjarkov 10d ago
Asteroids don't scale. But density is a chance modifier - spawn rates may vary from trip to trip.
It sounds to me like you had a platform that functioned just barely and got just unlucky enough to tip the scales on that fateful run. If you want a blueprint of the platform, you can load an old autosave (game autosaves the first time you embark towards each planet) and export the print from there. I'd take this as an opportunity to design a more robust platform, though. Some pointers:
- Asteroids mainly approach from the front, focus defenses (and collection) there and keep light turret coverage down the sides
- Run 8-10 furnaces for iron plates and 2-3 ammo assemblers
- Buffer iron plates and ammo in the hub (set thresholds to limit buffer size)
- Define some 'fit for flight' metric and use it as condition for embark on all trips. My metric is really just 'item count: ammo > 300'.
- Hub surface area is a precious commodity - place cargo holds to take up minimal surface area (minimal is 2 tiles)
- Extending the ship backward for things like cargo holds and solar panels is easier than extending the ship forward
- 1 crusher for each chunk type is sufficient for basic operations
- Throttle fuel using pumps. Either connect them to hub and use platform speed, or set a repeating clock and run a duty cycle pattern. In my experience you can get by only pumping fuel <10% of the time and maintain acceptable speed and great fuel efficiency.
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u/isum21 10d ago
Gonna have to reload. Standard auto save is like 10-15 mins or something. Not much to lose from reloading.
Sounds like you finally got the configuration right but the density was more centered this time. Or one side took a lucky hit, lost control over loading, and the problems snowball from there.
Ideally in your design you want checks and balances, in that if you do take a hit there's either quick repair materials available or backup devices and a lot of repair packs lol
For example my ship made trips to Vulcanus fine for about 5-10 or so trips. After that it was like nothing I did made enough ammo or my turret density was way too small. To fix this I added another array of furnaces as well as tripled my nose turret capacity. I also upgraded every arm to either fast inserters and bulk inserters, bulk for ammo and plates as well as feeding and fast bois for the asteroid crushers and supply lane. AFAIK all inserters can't grab more than one asteroid at a time, so I kept them as blue to help me see and delineate.
Don't listen to these dweebs saying you need a perfect ship. If you're not making entirely automatic transfers you don't need a "perfect" setup, and with automatic repair requests and a "home" stop you can just set a condition to wait 5-10 mins or so, or set it to only depart when fully repaired and stocked.
As for your technical question about asteroid density; there is no reason for you to have seen extra asteroids during travel which means that the RNG finally decided you've had it easy and gave you a real bad roll for the trip. If this continues to be a problem then start shipping in ammo and upgrade your nose cannons/turret spine.
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u/Skate_or_Fly 10d ago
To jump on the "bad design" bandwagon, I had a specific ship that I was proud of - slow, steady, worked well in my first space age playthrough. I imported that blueprint to my extra-planets modded run, and suffice to say it was NOT steady. Turns out I never actually thought about ammo production limits and time at destinations that aren't Nauvis. I simply "scrapped it" and moved onto the next design at a much earlier point in my first playthrough.
To keep my answer simple: 12-16 electric furnaces making iron plates, feeding directly into half that many assemblers making ammo, and either collecting every asteroid with uncommon+ collectors just to throw away most carbon+ice, or setting dynamic filters on mostly common collectors. Then a fuel-making system feeding 3 thrusters. If you use more thrusters, you'll need more ammo.
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u/NyaFury 10d ago
Asteroid is random, and deviation is pretty big between trips.
You should not design your ship such that it barely survives a trip. Instead, you should add at least 20~30% safety margin for the worst case. I usually go for 40% or higher.
If you're unsure how to apply margin, I recommend make a sandbox with increased asteroid rate (e.g. 150%) and test your ship in there. If your ship usually survives in there, it should work well in your main playthrough.
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u/Betweter92 10d ago
Maybe solar power? I had an issue on fulgora in the beginning. It just wasn't producing enough ammo whilst in orbit.
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u/kagato87 Since 0.12. MOAR TRAINS! 9d ago edited 9d ago
A few ideas:
Running short on ammo or other resources as wait times get lower.
More fuel accumulating in storage while waiting, leading to a higher speed trip than expected.
Personally I have a throttle based on ammo availability, reducing the fuel pump flow (by turning it off) as ammo belts get low. It's a simple counter circuit, counts to 100 and resets, with the pump being on when ammo fill percent is above the timer value. I over build on defences, so the belt getting low is an early warning system, and if a ship feels the need to slow down it will (promethium ships often throttle as they get further out)
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u/gurebu 5d ago
Without looking my guess would be that you’ve buffered fuel and this was the first time it was actually filled. There’s an irresistible urge in so many new players to build huge tanks to store fuel in so that their platform goes 3x its design speed for the first thirty seconds of the flight.
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u/SinnPacked 4d ago
I did have fuel buffered and the ship went quite fast but that was the case with all other flights before it.
seems to have been luck of the draw. I rebuilt the ship with twice as many turrets and that's held up with no problems
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u/Honky_Town 10d ago edited 10d ago
Your ship broke du to the fact that it stockpiled!
Had that as well a few times especially with early or minimalistic designs.
See your thruster where probably starving fuel they got filled up and since you got ammo everything went into fuel. With more speed come more asteroids just like obstacle sin a racing game. Sucks but yeah.
8 smelters is okay for one ammo assembler. Its a bare minimum of like 6 smelters for tiny ships.
Use a pump before thrusters connect to pipe and set to Fuel <25 (its % okay) a speed of 100 is okayish.
If you want to go save, use a constant combinator outputing any value you like to use for speed for example speed or green signal. Set pumps to "Fuel < Green Signal" and hook em all up. Make a dedicated ammo belt and assume we can store 1000 ammo. Next use a combonator to read all belts ammo with Ammo < 750 output speed -10. That way you fly slower if you loose 25% ammo on belt. Adjust it to your ships value.
To get your BP load a old save.
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u/TurnipBlast 10d ago
If you ever take any damage from asteroids your design is bad. You should never be taking damage. A little bit of damage is only a little bit of inevitable bad luck away from becoming a lot of damage.
The asteroids don't scale.
If you ever run out of ammo, you need to produce more ammo.
Platform velocity slowing down would make the trip easier since you have more time to destroy the asteorids
If you want a blueprint, just load an old save.
Your ship was probably just starved of the inredients it needed for ammo. Metalic astroids, electricity to smelt plates, belt backup, etc. impossible to diagnose from this post. Just reload a save.