Interstellar tower throughput too low and too restrictive for what they are

[Forblaze]

So I'm at the stage of the game where I'm dedicating worlds entirely to production. This means I'm importing massive amounts of materials to them. My first instinct was to have a central tower for the planet and pull everything off of it and onto a bus. This was immediately impossible because it only has 5 slots and I need more than 5 resources, so I'm already forced into multiple towers. The next problem is that even if I have a single tower for each resource, they just can't pull in resources fast enough because of the limit on 10 transport vessels. This process iterated pretty quickly into having no meaningful bus at all and just spamming dedicated towers for requesting all of the resources for each product and supplying that product. This works pretty perfectly, but has simplified the game to the point of it becoming tedious.

The problem is that this seems like the most intuitive solution to large scale production given the limitations of the interstellar towers. Is this actually what's intended?

[kris44dad]

My impression is that DSPDev wanted to make something that is more then just a "make a bus" game.

[Superguru]

Even with more vessels a bus system is not feasible. Belts have too low capacity for that. 10 Mk3 assemblers making electronics already saturate 2.5 Mk3 belts (1 electronic, 1 iron, 0.5 copper belt) and you will need 100s of those electronics assemblers at some point. There is no other major way of transport making towers the intended way.

My current approach is to use interstellar towers (ILS) for orbital import/export and planetary towers (PLS) are then the bus. Logistics works like this then:
Planet A <-> Planet B
PLS A <-> ILS A <-> ILS B <-> PLS B

By routing everything over the ILS towers I can put them as a central cluster on my planets to see current stockings and what is lacking. They are placed like this with 5 wares each and additional ones below it once capacity exceeds:
ILS 1-5 - ILS 6-10 - ILS 11 - 15
ILS 1-5

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by kris44dad:

My impression is that DSPDev wanted to make something that is more then just a "make a bus" game.

You essentially still have a bus though, it's just invisible, has infinite throughput, and everything is immediately available everywhere. Interstellar towers just become the way to pull things off of the bus. Basing so much of the logistics on towers just simplifies everything.

[Kendov]

yup, the latter option is pretty much how it works best. throughput is limited by number of towers and warper access. the more towers, the better.

[Ohm is Futile]

Part of what might be limiting your throughput may also be the charging speed of your towers. I know you're deep into the late game, but just in case: you know you can infinitely upgrade your logistics' vessels speed, right?

Not much else you can do unfortunately. I don't think the game was designed for us to go this big and build more than a few spheres, etc...

[Bobucles]

1) Use more towers
2) Upgrade your ships
3) Use spare slots on odd towers to pull in more high demand resources
4) Import warpers to one tower on a planet, then use belts and local towers to fill the rest. This is a bit easier if you....
5) Don't use ships for import stations. The way logistic works is that ships begin their journey when they see a trade. An importer has to send a ship out, wait for it to reach the target, and wait for it to come back. An exporter sends the items directly to the target, and the return trip doesn't tie up anything.

[Koro]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

1) Use more towers
2) Upgrade your ships
3) Use spare slots on odd towers to pull in more high demand resources
4) Import warpers to one tower on a planet, then use belts and local towers to fill the rest. This is a bit easier if you....
5) Don't use ships for import stations. The way logistic works is that ships begin their journey when they see a trade. An importer has to send a ship out, wait for it to reach the target, and wait for it to come back. An exporter sends the items directly to the target, and the return trip doesn't tie up anything.

Number 5 is just bad advice
The one that sends it also has to go back so over time it equals out and you might run out of ships to deliver items if only the supply side has ships.
The rest is good though

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by Ohm is Futile:

Not much else you can do unfortunately. I don't think the game was designed for us to go this big and build more than a few spheres, etc...

I'm really not even *that* far into the game, I'm not even at white science. I'm sure there's a point where you just stack so many upgrades that one tower can do enough throughput to do whatever you want, but I'm hitting this point so much sooner than that's possible and the tower spam solution is so available and effective.

Originally posted by Bobucles:

1) Use more towers

Yeah, I mean, that was my point. That the game pushes you to use more towers and it results in the game being simplified too much. The game would be more interesting if they functioned like factorio trains instead of uber-drones.

[Koro]

I only use ISL and completely skip the planetary ones.
Sure you can fit a but more perhaps with the planetary ones but space is not an issue.
You can fit 20.000 smelters more or less on 1 planet and when that was not enough...I just built another..
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1769330443012861261/9EB169D39C116E59309FF68D72AB483E4FA02D15/

[Ohm is Futile]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Originally posted by Ohm is Futile:

Not much else you can do unfortunately. I don't think the game was designed for us to go this big and build more than a few spheres, etc...

I'm really not even *that* far into the game, I'm not even at white science. I'm sure there's a point where you just stack so many upgrades that one tower can do enough throughput to do whatever you want, but I'm hitting this point so much sooner than that's possible and the tower spam solution is so available and effective.

Well, then you went all out on the scale before hitting the last tier of upgrades. I started over from scratch and reached the white tech cubes before needing more than 1 or 2 towers per main resource. Granted, I moved to a lava planet with tons of resources and I'm mostly shipping locally.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Originally posted by Bobucles:

1) Use more towers

Yeah, I mean, that was my point. That the game pushes you to use more towers and it results in the game being simplified too much. The game would be more interesting if they functioned like factorio trains instead of uber-drones.

Eh, I probably wouldn't bother with that aspect myself... I actually enjoy the simplicity of just dumping everything into the logistics' system.

There are other challenges, such as managing byproduct. Other mechanics will also be added later, which I'm sure will make the game more interesting than having to organise trains and stuff.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by Koro:

I only use ISL and completely skip the planetary ones.
Sure you can fit a but more perhaps with the planetary ones but space is not an issue.
You can fit 20.000 smelters more or less on 1 planet and when that was not enough...I just built another..
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1769330443012861261/9EB169D39C116E59309FF68D72AB483E4FA02D15/

Yeah, that's basically what I ended up making. The concept of logistical hierarchy seems completely unnecessary.

[Koro]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Originally posted by Koro:

I only use ISL and completely skip the planetary ones.
Sure you can fit a but more perhaps with the planetary ones but space is not an issue.
You can fit 20.000 smelters more or less on 1 planet and when that was not enough...I just built another..
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1769330443012861261/9EB169D39C116E59309FF68D72AB483E4FA02D15/

Yeah, that's basically what I ended up making. The concept of logistical hierarchy seems completely unnecessary.

Yeah I with there was a deeper purpose to planetary ones.
I guess I could have used them for some of the stages of my quantum chips world. There are two intermediaries that only go to quantum chips so they could have been planetary ones instead.
But sometimes before you upgrade your vessels you will find 1 isl is not enough to continuously fees your belts so you even to to build an extra to supply the resources locally too fx hydrogen for casimir crystals

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

5) Don't use ships for import stations. The way logistic works is that ships begin their journey when they see a trade. An importer has to send a ship out, wait for it to reach the target, and wait for it to come back. An exporter sends the items directly to the target, and the return trip doesn't tie up anything.

While that is a solid approach, I usually do it the other way around. Typically early/mid game.

Reasons:

1. You don't need to supply warpers off planet right away.
   
2. A single tower can easily provide up to five resources from a single planet with no management once it's set up.
   
3. The tower on the export planet does not require power if no ships are being sent out. Which is helpful early on when limited power goes into production instead of transport on distant planets.

Late game once multiple productions are established, then I see your way being better for requesting products anywhere you go.

[Kyrros]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

The problem is that this seems like the most intuitive solution to large scale production given the limitations of the interstellar towers. Is this actually what's intended?

Yeah, this is pretty much it.

Looking at the tech tree and how everything is gated/focuses on ship/transport upgrades, and almost nothing other than basic I / II / III upgrades for on-planet infrastructure like belts. Even the idea of a 'bus' itself is an import from a different game. The devs had a different vision for DSP in mind than what was already out there - it's just that a game like this also tended to attract the same kinds of players of those other games, so those players imported the previous concepts into this game as well - with all of the Pros/Cons that come with it.

DSP starts out like a lot of the other 'bus building' infrastructure games in the early stages - but once you get PLS and ILS unlocked - it's a completely new game.

The initial planets/system are the mini-game you practice on to learn the micro mechanics - but then once you open up multiple systems - it very much becomes a macro logistics game of weaving all of the separate mini-games together. The sooner you break out of the 'bus' mentality and embrace the logistics system that the Devs intended, the better.

You seems to have done so - and as you noted - it 'feels' like you're somehow cheating the system because it 'feels' too easy. That because the intent was to avoid all the tedium of babysitting the logistics system and focus more on the exploring/journey of the player and designing/building of spheres themselves.

The Devs, while enjoying the predecessor games, had a different vision for their own game and wanted a different take on the genre.

[The_Mess]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

5) Don't use ships for import stations. The way logistic works is that ships begin their journey when they see a trade. An importer has to send a ship out, wait for it to reach the target, and wait for it to come back. An exporter sends the items directly to the target, and the return trip doesn't tie up anything.

Sort of - Importing is good for pulling in buildings for setting up new worlds so you don't have to manually shuttle stuff back and forth.