How to handle Biter eggs in the logistic network and on space platforms?

[Falesz]

Hey all,
I've been coming to terms with Gleba, expanding my views and getting slightly better at the game.
A few days ago I made a rant on how much I absolutely despise the implementation of the spoilage mechanics and explained my reasons as to why I feel this way. You guys actually brought back a lot of great ideas and points about my gripes with the system and on numerous occasions I was successfully convinced that I just need to understand what needs to be done and play the game better.
You can read all about it if you want here.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/427520/discussions/0/6589423683861767943/?tscn=1731627580

The story so far

One of my biggest problems was the fact that Nutrients are needed to make Nutrients in most cases of production. This was a misbelief on my part after being told that I should pretty much never use Assembling machines for biological production on Gleba because of the lost base productivity value that Biochambers would provide. Turns out using the "Nutrients from Spoilage" recipe in Assembling machines in not really a sin and so all of my production chains now start with a few Assembling machines making nutrients out of Spoilage. That problem is now solved.

My other major problem was with Biter and Pentapod eggs constantly bursting and spamming me with alerts as they inevitable hit a wall or laser turret once before they get annihilated by the absolute turret barrage I placed around all my facilities dealing with eggs.
I could solve this problem with the Pentapod eggs as they are only needed on Gleba. The main principle here was to never store Pentapod eggs - not sitting on belts and especially never in chests. So I designed a circuit network that reads the working status of all Biochambers that require Pentapod eggs as inputs and if all of them were working actively, then an inserter would just throw excess eggs from the end of the input belt into a Heating tower. If any of them were not working, that meant I needed to conserve the eggs until they are placed into the Biochamber and so the inserter would stop destroying them.
This worked well for Pentapod eggs, but I'm still struggling with Biter eggs as they need to be transported between planets.

The problems remaining

I have a few principles I explained in the previous discussion. I'll reiterate them here.

1. In my factories there is the safe zone inside the walls and turret perimiters where the Biters or Pentapods have no chance of entering and then there are the wilds outside the walls where I never build anything other than Rails or Large electric towers.
   
2. Any areas where Biters or Pentapods have a reasonable chance of entering or spawning is not considered safe.
   
3. If a Biter can appear in one end of my factory and has an undefended route to the other end of my factory, then the entire factory is considered unsafe.
   
4. I really want to avoid spamming laser turrets everywhere in my main base just to account for this.
   
5. I want to keep my Nauvis and Gleba production chains inside safe zones.

The problem that all of these "requirements" I have imply is that as far as I can tell, it's pretty much impossible to make safe zones in the game now, because:

1. Any areas touching a railway track that has any train on it that can transport Biter eggs are considered unsafe as the eggs might burst in the train wagons.
   
2. Any areas where a Logistic bot might take it's path that can transport Biter eggs is considered unsafe as the eggs might burst in the bot's inventory.

The first of these problems can be considered temporary as transporting eggs by train or by super-long transport belts is only necessary until I can build Captive biter nests.
The second one is a bit of a pickle though. As far as I can tell the only way to automate interplanetary logistics is with Logistic bots carrying items to Rocket silos, but the implementation of this is pretty lacking. There is no way to tell our space platforms which silo to request items from or to tell our bots which silo to bring specific items to. I considered using transport belts and inserters to input the eggs into the silos of my choosing inside isolated, fortified little facilities but there is no way for me to assert that the space platform request will actually be satisfied from said silo.
Then comes the problem on the space platform: there is no actual way to tell how spoiled an item is. There is no circuit condition that could be used to program inserters to yeet all eggs into space below 20% freshness for example. While it may be possible in theory, I REALLY don't want to design a circuit network that would keep track of how much time has passed since the last cargo pod arrived carrying Biter eggs and set up some time-based inserters to get rid of spoiling eggs. And then the next restriction that I still absolutely hate and can not currently accept that the devs thought this was a good idea: only 1 Cargo landing pod per planet. This means that Biter eggs on Gleba will get mixed together with ALL OTHER imports coming from space platform, essentially making the area the Cargo landing pod is located in an unsafe zone. Additionally, this forces all facilities producing anything with Biter eggs to be in a considerably short radius of the Cargo landing pod, which just.. feels wrong for Factorio. At least after the Biter eggs touch down of Gleba, the same logic can be applied to them as the Pentapod eggs.

Do you good people have any ideas how to solve these problems while keeping all my general principles about safe zones satisfied?
I wanted to thank you all for the great responses in the previous discussion. I hope we can keep the ideas going here, because at this point I think there isn't much more left that makes me hate Gleba, but these last few issues with interplanetary Biter egg logistics are still bugging me immensely.
I'd be grateful for any helpful feedback or ideas. If I stated anything incorrectly, please correct me.

[Diesel]

My principal with biter eggs so far is to always produce less than you need. It's counter intuitive to how a lot of Factorio works but that's just Gleba. It flips the main concept of Factorio on its head by it being a bad thing to be producing more than you are consuming.

Make sure that there is a rocket specifically dedicated to biter eggs on Nauvis, this way they are ready for when you space platform arrives. Surround each step of the logistic network (the train, rocket, chests, etc.) with walls and turrets to contain outbreaks. Try to have the rocket silo right next to where you produce your eggs (this requires the late game science)

The critical part is that you really don't want them turning into biters on your platform so make sure to have a dedicated and fast space platform fit with laser turrets just to deliver biter eggs.

When you deposit the eggs make sure they are consumed ASAP. If you increase you egg production you need to increase your consumption 2 fold

[Glyph]

Don't keep eggs around long enough that they spoil. If you make them and don't immediately use them, burn them.

[Falesz]

One idea I just got to solve the space platform problem is to use a circuit network to set the Biter egg requests only when rocket fuel and ammo requirements for the trip are already met so I could minimize the time the eggs spend on the space platform enough to make sure they never burst up there. I'm not sure if space platform requests can be set with circuits, I'll have to check later.

[Falesz]

Originally posted by Glyph:

Don't keep eggs around long enough that they spoil. If you make them and don't immediately use them, burn them.

Ok.. the entirety of the original post is about how to do that :D

[Falesz]

Another idea I just got to sole the problem on the Nauvis side which I don't even know how it didn't occur to me until now:
I could just use a small, dedicated, isolated and fortified logistic network that only deals with Biter egg logistic requests. Since this logistic network wouldn't be connected to my main base's logistic network the bots would never take the eggs over my safe zones and I could control all other inputs and outputs of this this area with transport belts and inserters.

[Glyph]

Originally posted by Csöpper:

Ok.. the entirety of the original post is about how to do that :D

You insert them into a heating tower. If you want an example of how I handle, say, pentapod eggs: any I make are put onto a belt that passes by all the machines that want them, and that belt ends in a heating tower. If you're worried about eggs sitting in a machine and hatching there, why is that machine not running? Make it run continuously and nothing in it will ever spoil.

[Falesz]

Originally posted by Glyph:

Originally posted by Csöpper:

Ok.. the entirety of the original post is about how to do that :D

You insert them into a heating tower. If you want an example of how I handle, say, pentapod eggs: any I make are put onto a belt that passes by all the machines that want them, and that belt ends in a heating tower. If you're worried about eggs sitting in a machine and hatching there, why is that machine not running? Make it run continuously and nothing in it will ever spoil.

At this point I don't believe you actually read the original post.

[Dertin]

i would love to see your base and your requirements in detail so if you would like to add me and have a litle chat we may figure out something for your base to be safe again :)

[Vyndicu]

I appreciated the original post; it was excellent and well thought out.


I started to think of a solution for the 'safe zone' problems after watching live streamers, and Csöpper has faced the same issues regarding the lack of an 'internal safe' zone since the release of the Space Age Expansion.

It has been a while since then, and unfortunately, I still don't have a good solution that doesn't involve modding.

[Dertin]

My idea would be using the Logic Network to control the Flow of Egs. They dont loose freshnes inside the Nests so you can time the Extraction with Demand and make Sure the Production Line is Timed in a way so you Process everything before Spoilage.
Like in the Food Industry you only Produce what you can Use and thereby reduce Spoilage. Some Timers and Logicnetwork Programming will do the trick

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Csöpper:

Another idea I just got to sole the problem on the Nauvis side which I don't even know how it didn't occur to me until now:
I could just use a small, dedicated, isolated and fortified logistic network that only deals with Biter egg logistic requests. Since this logistic network wouldn't be connected to my main base's logistic network the bots would never take the eggs over my safe zones and I could control all other inputs and outputs of this this area with transport belts and inserters.

Landfill is now removeable. You can build landfill out into the middle of a lake, set up a facility, and then remove landfill that connects the facility to the unacceptably accessible infrastructure.

[VoidGrazer]

Why are you transporting biter eggs between planets? Import Bioflux to Nauvis instead, and do all production there. The capture rockets and bio-labs are only useful there anyway. The only reason to launch eggs into orbit is end-game research.

To put eggs into space, put a dedicated rocket silo outside the logistic network and belt in the rocket parts and eggs.

You're absolutely right that you don't want this stuff running across your base. Eggs can hatch while being carried by bots, and in space.

[Falesz]

Originally posted by VoidGrazer:

Why are you transporting biter eggs between planets? Import Bioflux to Nauvis instead, and do all production there. The capture rockets and bio-labs are only useful there anyway. The only reason to launch eggs into orbit is end-game research.

For the Overgrowth soil production on Gleba.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by VoidGrazer:

Why are you transporting biter eggs between planets? Import Bioflux to Nauvis instead, and do all production there. The capture rockets and bio-labs are only useful there anyway. The only reason to launch eggs into orbit is end-game research.

To put eggs into space, put a dedicated rocket silo outside the logistic network and belt in the rocket parts and eggs.

You're absolutely right that you don't want this stuff running across your base. Eggs can hatch while being carried by bots, and in space.

You need to take eggs to Gleba for overgrowth soil too.

Which is admittedly SUPER optional.

My current setup.

Eggs go to furnace (well and prod 3 modules and stuff not relevant here)

Inserter takes them off the belt ONLY if a request in orbit wants them so they're fresh. If there isn't a request in orbit it turns on the other inserter and I toss them back in the furnace

Rocket silo not too far away (no eggs on trains)

Any ship carrying them leaves on a timer condition and is sure to empty (no coming back with old eggs).

Eggs move directly to where they are used from there.

Lasers at each end, basically separate high security sections of base.

[scaarab]

My solution is to put eggs into infinite production. On gleba I have 4 machines making eggs from eggs and I half the line and feed 4 science makers. I always have eggs in production and always have science. Now, when it comes to biter production which is my next step, I would simply burn half the line if there is no stable end product that is cheap and does not hatch into something nasty. The general idea is to produce just for maintenance. I use the same ethos for my bacteria and plastic too.
Gleba is fun.
If I could build the fancy science modules here, I would use it exclusively for the sciencing. Another solution you could do is have a larger ship with a whole ass armies worth of continually processed ammo for every weapon system you can have. Laser turrets are easy with a nuclear plant on board for example. And make it so that its also lean and has a bunch of engines with the best quality that you can make so your ships are quick.