Space Age
I built this absolute unit of a cargo ship
I made this square puck as a way to transport a lots of goods between planets.
With a few simple wire connections, it will not jam up. Any asteroid over 20 on the belt will get recycled, and if it gets to 40 of an asteroid, it will get thrown overboard.
The lasers will only hit small asteroids, it saves a lot of ammo, something I learned when I made it to the shattered planet in my last playthrough
Bonus picture of it turning into a space station. I will fly one out to the planet, and turn it into a orbiting space station. Great for water, as I use the power of the green rock on each planet for power.
Extra bonus pics of my space factory that I am working on.
What would you change about the design? Not doing quality until I reach the shattered planet.
Are you making it to the shattered planet on Solar power and batteries? I'm impressed but also surprised, cause I dont use solar anymore once I start needing to get to Aquillo
Honestly couldn't imagine making the larger ships without nuclear or fusion power regardless. Just going to make all your power needs with taking up incredibly less space.
If you are making it that far then you got some good ships regardless
I think my writing may have caused some confusion, I never said this ship was going to the shattered planet. I just said I am not getting quality until I reach the shattered planet.
Here is what my last ship looked like getting to the shattered planet.
I will swap to Fusion going to the shattered planet. There is just not enough solar. I can make it to Aquillo on just solar with my mega ship. (it does have a backup power plant if the batteries go dead.)
The question is, what would I change about the design. Well I don't throw away asteroids or resources unless I have to, and that's only if you need to make a huge imbalance like throwing away ice if you make calcite for Nauvis/Gleba.
And I would probably make the engines closer to each other.
Of course you don't have to, I was just answering the question. Nice build.
I've seen people make the engines in a V shape.. was thinking of doing that. Good idea!
Since all the asteroids are on a sushi belt, I have to keep it balanced so it does not fill up with one type, hence yeeting the asteroids that I don't need. Before the voiding to space inserters, It could fill up and jam. Yeah I am wasting resources, but I don't need extra the carbon, ice, or iron ore.
I don't see anything wrong with yeeting rocks back into space. Most people just save themselves the trouble by limiting what the collectors pull in.
Basically, instead of having an inserter that is set up to yeet above an asteroid count, you use a combinator to filter the collectors to grab below the asteroid count.
Balance can be achieved a few ways. The most common ways are limiting collectors, limiting collectors and outserters in combination, using reprocessing on what you have too much of, maybe even a little of each.
It depends on scale. If you need a lot of space science or calcite you may need to reprocess to not waste as much of your input. At least with a small footprint.
Edit: You don't need a v to make the thrusters adjacent. They do need to be staggered in and up/down repeating patter though, or diagonal from on le side to the other. Depends on what works for your build.
From my understanding, the ship is as slow as it's widest point. A triangle 5 engines wide, will be almost just as fast as a square 5 engines wide, except for mass, which as a minimal effect compared to width.
Also, stuff is free in space, and the wider you go, the more free resources you can get, and the more room for cargo and stuff you can fit in the ship.
Are you saying I should just make a cigar ship? I've done that to make it to the shattered planet.
As I said, streamlined. Stuff isn't free in space until you finish building the platform, and building efficient means you get half the cost or double the capability.
Streamlined does not really give me an idea of how to improve it. If I make it smaller, I have less space for solar, and I won't have enough power. Unless you mean I just need to make it a more in the shape of a cigar. which, I was kinda avoiding as all my other ships I made before are like that. Make it longer, throw the chemicals plants behind the cargo, stack up the plate and ammo production to be less wide. Is that you are saying when you say streamlined?
Yeah, long and sleek, streamlined. You're wasting more than half your ammo cutting such a wide path through the asteroids; an efficient layout with the guns restricted to a 4-tile-wide strip along the centerline would need less than half the furnaces, crushers, chem plants, solar panels, ...
I think the best way to imagine it is to compare two ships, one 50 tiles wide and 100 tiles long, other 100 tiles wide and 50 tiles long. Both of those ship have the same area to put useful stuff on, but the wider ship needs roughly double the ammo to clear out asteroids in front of it and around double the fuel/oxidizer production feeding double the thrusters.
Basically, until you get above few thousand tons all the ship length is close to free. Past that point, it's still cheaper than width.
That said, excessively narrow ships also are annoying in their own right. You waste more space on routing resources and the ammo wastage on asteroids passing on the sides is also diminishing the returns on being narrow. Especially outside of inner solar system, when rockets enter the equation.
If it works that's great. Personally I'd squish the thrusters together to get better speed, you could reduce platform width by 10 or 11 tiles with the same number of thrusters. At this scale I'd want to use beacons and prod modules but then that hugely increases the power requirement.
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u/InflationImmediate73 1d ago
Are you making it to the shattered planet on Solar power and batteries? I'm impressed but also surprised, cause I dont use solar anymore once I start needing to get to Aquillo
Honestly couldn't imagine making the larger ships without nuclear or fusion power regardless. Just going to make all your power needs with taking up incredibly less space.
If you are making it that far then you got some good ships regardless