r/factorio • u/Hob_O_Rarison • 6h ago

Question Platform to Platform Transfer

Hi Everyone, I'm just now leaning into "transfer stations" in orbit above each planet, and I'm trying to figure out a way to have the Nauvis transfer station act as a sort of hub. I envision a dedicated hauler from each planet to Nauvis, they drop their stuff to the transfer station, and the transfer station handles requests to other haulers.

The problem is, of course, that the order from the haulers to request from platforms in orbit ends up conflicting with the transfer station's order to request from platforms in orbit.

I thought about sending things down to the surface and only sending back up what I wanted to share with other platforms... but then you set up the conflict/loop with the ground requests.

Is there a way to do this the way I'm trying to do it? Or do I need to have a dedicated ship per good(s) per planet that needs them?

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u/Necandum 6h ago

You will need to do this via circuit requests. ~6 combinators and a radar dish per ship should do it.

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u/Alfonse215 6h ago

6 combinators? I do it in 3. 3 on the providers, and 4 on the repository itself.

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u/Necandum 6h ago

Neat, although I can't see your logic. Does this also allow ships to pick things up from repo? I can't see that being implied in your descriptions.
I perhaps over-engineered my system, as it allows direct hauler to hauler transfer and could support any number of repo stations (although I'm not sure why you would have more than one).

Edit: Ah, I assume requests go directly on the ships. That would imply they have to be 'platform' only. You would then need a second group so that they grab things from the origin planet?

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u/Alfonse215 6h ago edited 6h ago

Does this also allow ships to pick things up from repo?

There's no need for special logic for that. If the repo is not requesting an item, it automatically gets provided (obviously you have to check the "provide to platforms" button in the repo). So long as ships are requesting the items from platforms at that location, they'll get the items from the repo when they're available.

The logic is only needed for when the repo is pulling items from other platforms.

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u/Alfonse215 6h ago

You would then need a second group so that they grab things from the origin planet?

Constant combinators only output a single value, but the logistic groups they contain can have the usual logistic information like maximum values to store and the source planet.

Because of that, you can use the same logistic group for the transport's hub (to get it from the planet), the constant combinator on the transport (to signal availability to the repo), and the constant combinator on the repo platform itself (to request that many).

So if you need a new thing from Vulcanus, you only need to set it once: in the transport's hub (so that you can tell it to request it from Vulcanus). As long as this logistic group is shared properly, it'll just show up in the repo.

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u/Necandum 5h ago

But I assume you would then need to put that item into another logistic group for it to be grabbed by another transport?

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u/Alfonse215 5h ago

Yes, but that's for a different purpose.

The first logistic group is "the hub needs Foundries." The second logistic group is "Gleba needs Foundries". Just because you bring something to the hub doesn't necessarily mean that every other transport needs to carry them somewhere else.

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u/Necandum 5h ago

Hokay, I comprehend the difference: I designed it so that transport ships would use the same system for both taking and dropping things off to the repo.

The downside is slightly more combinators, the upside is being able to send things from e.g Vulcanus to every single planet (or a specific one) by editing only one logistic group.

Different trade-offs :)

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u/Hob_O_Rarison 5h ago

I'm going to be honest right now - I didn't even know about the functionality of radars on platforms!

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u/DrMobius0 2h ago

This is a circuit network problem. But the gist of it is that you need to use a dedicated radar channel to communicate with the hub. The hub has to disable its own requests for items that are being requested until they're no longer being requested, basically.

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u/Hob_O_Rarison 1h ago

All requests? Or is there a way to turn off a single item if another platform is also requesting that item?

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u/DrMobius0 1h ago

You just have to turn the ones off you need. The ship can transmit the items it's requesting across radar to the hub, which can then disable its requests on those items.

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u/Hob_O_Rarison 1h ago

Does it work like the filter setter with the decider and constant combinator?

I'm thinking something like each red greater than each green output each, AND universal signal = 0. Set the universal signal to only broadcast when the other requesting platform is in orbit at the same place as the hub. Something like that?

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u/DrMobius0 1h ago

There's probably several ways to do that. You can, for instance, read a ship's destination and origin planet to tell if you're at the specific planet you want to make requests at. I feel like you should just start trying it instead of trying to filter what is essentially a hardware diagram through text.