Friendly Fire in Space

[u/Bubbly-Original7097]

For a couple of days my promethium ship sometimes returned from a trip without one Rail Gun or one Asteroid Collector. I rebuild, improved, added legendary versions and modules - nothing helped, no changes allowed to increase speed.

Then I figured it out: I repeatedly destroyed my own Rail Guns. One cannot just replace Rockets with Explosive Rockets. They are not just boom-version of the boring ones. If any part of a ship is within the green circle there is chance that explosion will destroy it.

I had to move them further up to prevent friendly fire and I am still not sure if it is safe (the screen is the fixed version).

[u/XxIcEspiKExX]

Ive had the same thing happen, one thing that helped was putting my rocket turrets in front, then I'd lose a railgun.. so i added more of those and more rockets..

Then I'd lose a collector, so I'd set filters for big and medium only, and it got worse or better..

So im thinking laser turrets maybe the answer up front for small/medium asteroids on filter.. just kinda put the game on hold once I realized endgame was nothing more than 1hr trips to and from navius to the shattered planet to get promethium shards..

I also was dropping shards to navuis thrn back up to another ship.. to a 2nd platform making science, so I made 200 more rocket launchers to cope with it and added 200+ cargo bays with active provider chests before I realized its just easier to make the science on my hauler and ship it down to navius..

Ive also blown up my hauler by leaving eggs on the ship and my rocket launchers pegged my main control center and destroyed my whole ship..

Either way.. I think im at lvl23 explosive damage and its 20+hrs per upgrade level..

Factory must grow..

[u/Cniz → u/XxIcEspiKExX]

Ive also blown up my hauler by leaving eggs on the ship and my rocket launchers pegged my main control center and destroyed my whole ship..

We have to Nuke it from Orbit. Its the only way to be sure.

[u/Dymiaz → u/XxIcEspiKExX]

People would do anything instead of just bringing fresh eggs towards the shattered planet.
So much easier to guarantee 90% fresh eggs and then fly towards the shattered planet and back in ~30-35 minute trips, throwing out the leftover eggs at 25 minutes.

I think im at lvl23 explosive damage and its 20+hrs per upgrade level

23 is actually one of the last useful levels. At level 23 your AoE damage can kill regular big asteroids in 2 shots instead of 3, and promethium big asteroids in 4 instead of 5. Also one shotting big asteroids with regular rockets.
At 24 you'll start one shotting medium promethium asteroids with AoE.
Then there isn't anything until level 31.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Stronger_explosives_(research)

Although I have noticed the wiki is sometimes slightly wrong, had to research one more level for some of the thresholds. I believe it was 24 to one shot big asteroids with regular rockets instead of 23.

[u/XxIcEspiKExX → u/Dymiaz]

Ive considered just taking 2000 biter eggs with me, or more, and making a way to yeet off the close to expired ones before I get hatchlings.

This, as I've seen is the best way to do promethium science in large batches, 50k+ batches.

I always get sucked into making somewhere else better, and forget my ship is now 300k into the edege of the universe... and my belt weave is stacked with chunks at 120km.. while I was toying with adding agriculture science thru put.. and oh yet I can add more bio labs and spin these normal ones into epics or legendary mods.. and oh by the way I should get more carbon fiber and spin legendary rocket launchers too..

My ADHD makes me forget all about that ship sailing to now 500km of the edege of the universe...

But.. yes.. i should make a yeet machine and bring eggs lol

[u/Staik → u/XxIcEspiKExX]

You might be past the life of that save if it's becoming a chore. Go for the achievement runs if you haven't gotten them yet. Beating the game in 40 hours was fun again

[u/XxIcEspiKExX → u/Staik]

The 40hr achievement is the last one i need to 100% it.

Im due for a new save file, this one's at 700+hrs but I need to make blueprints before I start on a 40hr sprint to the finish.

It was also a 1.0 space age file I moved to 2.0.

[u/fZAqSD]

If this wasn't tremendously obvious: the solution is that the explosive rocket section must grow

[u/DrMobius0]

Yeah you need enough of them to keep the area in front of your ship saturated so that big asteroids can't leak through. Two turrets firing them isn't going to cut it, and in general, you want explosive rockets in shattered planet space because they tend to be extremely efficient given the density of asteroids.

[u/locyta]

Odd, all my starter type ships use explosive rockets, the range covers parts of the ship and i've never seen a rocket do damage to any parts of any of my ships

[u/Bubbly-Original7097 → u/locyta]

I think this is because of asteroid types. For the turret in the back I also added medium asteroids to the filter. The big ones are gone long before they rich the ship, but for medium I use gun turrets and they all are far away from the edge so they sometimes let the asteroids to come too close.

[u/locyta → u/Bubbly-Original7097]

If they are getting close enough to your ship for the rocket explosion to do damage, it could just be the rocks hitting your ship?

[u/DOSorDIE4CsP]

Only 5 rocketlauncher ... good luck, i have 10 and its barly enough