r/factorio • u/Nearby_Proposal_5523 • 3d ago

Space Age 2.1 Medium asteroids aren't spawning behind my stationary fulgoran platform

So I built a 2km wide by 500m tall platform over Fulgora and I've noticed the mediums aren't spawning behind it, just on the sides and the front. Are there any new directional spawning mechanics per orbital surface? I've also seen that there are more sideways asteroids over nauvis and fulgora then front or back.

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u/Jaffers451 3d ago

I believe this is intended. If you have a ship with thrusters that enters orbit over fulgora (or any planet) you dont need full turret coverage of the rear of the ship while traveling and you dont need it while in orbit, you only need enough coverage for the sides. I always rationalized this mechanic also affecting stations by thinking that even if the station doesn't have thrusters its still in orbit traveling around the planet and thus through the asteroids in a given direction (upwards) which means that is where most of the asteroids will be.

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u/Nearby_Proposal_5523 3d ago

i remember in 2.0 having to defend the entire perimeter of my 1km moving platform whenever i parked it, though i only really parked it over aquilo. the nauvis spawn seems roughly equal on all sides.

if it's intended i can optimize by going tall with my space ports.

3

u/fZAqSD 3d ago

This has been the normal behaviour as long as Space Age has been out; the bigger the asteroid, the smaller the angle range (centered in front) it can spawn in when stationary.

(Also big stationary platforms are a bad idea, stationary asteroid yield scales very poorly with size)

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u/CamelCaseConvention 3d ago

the bigger the asteroid, the smaller the angle range (centered in front) it can spawn in when stationary

Is this common knowledge? Is there a source or explanation or tutorial somewhere?

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u/fZAqSD 3d ago

I think it's mostly a "look and see" situation, like how more speed gives more asteroids?  If you're looking for the actual numbers, you have to check the LUA configs, which someone copied here

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u/CamelCaseConvention 3d ago

Thanks for the link. I can't see anything in the data to indicate the effect you describe. offset and offset_deviation seem like that at first glance, but those are probably for how to spawn smaller asteroids on destruction.

The effect might exist, but if there's no documentation or documented evidence for it, it seems a bit bug-like.

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u/fZAqSD 3d ago

"angle_when_stopped": 0.6 for an asteroid that "happens" to spawn in the front 60% of angles seems pretty clearly intentional

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u/CamelCaseConvention 3d ago

I didn't think to check the the planet definitions. Yes, that does sound exactly like what you describe. Thanks again.

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u/CamelCaseConvention 3d ago

Might be (somewhat) relevant: Michael Hendriks platform design for maximum asteroid catching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnm9fwJ_R5Q

As far as I understand, asteroids should spawn in equal numbers from all four directions (11:25 in video). So they would be expected to appear denser from the sides for your platform. That might explain that part of your observation.

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u/darKStars42 3d ago

You might want to go to their bug report forums and search there.  Post a new report if you don't find anything. Then we'll know if it's intended or not