size of the rocket

[Pedra]

almost ready to start building a rocket and want to start building my rocket bay. i have to start with steam but i want to build it large enough that also the later rockets can fit in easy

what is the optimum size of the rocket to reach the furthest stars.

[cswiger]

You need to have 50 tiles of vertical room to build the largest rockets.

[Hedning]

Not including engine and command capsule your steam rocket should be 5 sections all 5 of which should be research modules.

From now a x/y/z rocket will be the number of cargo/fuel/lox in that order.
There are 3 great rocket types that fit the same size as your original steam rocket:
A 3/1/1 rocket can reach the 20k planets and really clear them quickly.
A 2/2/1 rocket can reach 90k and if you are lucky bring in some high value materials quickly.
A 1/3/1 rocket can reach 170k. This is "the optimum size of the rocket to reach the furthest stars".

Going up to 6 modules a 2/3/1 can reach 120k. It is very likely that you have at least some valuable planets in this range. A 3/2/1 is good for 50k. With these 5 rocket types you should be able to do anything so 6 module spaces is all you really need.

It is possible to build a 2/4/2 rocket to reach 130k with 2 cargo bays (one distance further than previously mentioned) but check your starmap first if there actually is something valuable there that you need to have 2 cargo bays for. A 1/4/2 rocket would reach 190k with a cargo bay, but I don't know if that is ever needed as it seems 170k is the end of normal planets.

To reach the *spoiler* you don't need to bring cargo bays, so the size needed isn't actually that great.

In summary the optimum size to reach the most distant stars is 5. 6 modules will be enough to reach a variety of distances with optimum cargo size. That's 6 modules in addition to the engine and command capsule, so 8 in total which is 8*5=40 tiles. The only exception is if your best planets happen to be exactly at 130k where you may want an 8 module rocket (+engine and CC) totaling 50 tiles.

[cswiger]

In order to research starmap destinations efficiently, you want to carry 5 Research modules.

Using Hedning's description, you can do a 5/0/0 steam rocket to 10K or a 5/0/0 steam rocket to 20K using a solid fuel booster.

After that, with petrol engines, you can get up to 80K using 5/3/1, which is 8 modules plus engines and command capsule; 10 * 5 = 50 tiles of height.

With hydrogen engines, you can get up to 130K when carrying 5 research modules, again using a 5/3/1 setup needing 50 tiles of height.

[The Tempted Man]

there is a mod that calculates the amount of fuel you need or online calculator that does the same thing

[Hedning]

I don't think you should build your rocket pads with research in mind (because research is temporary), at least not if you plan to not rebuild it later. You can build one long silo for one research rocket though it is often best to NOT send many research modules to the further planets because that may discover more elements, diluting the ones you are after.

[cswiger]

It's a gameplay choice. I generally end up with one big research rocket, one small steam rocket with a single cargo bay and a solid booster to harvest materials from the targets at 10K, and then one petrol rocket with two cargo bays that can go to 20K or 30K.

Once I send research rockets to every target and finish researching all technologies, the only thing left for me to do is send a final rocket to REDACTED and then start a new colony. Other people like to play for a thousand cycles and more, so focusing more on the smaller cargo rockets is reasonable for them.

Likewise, it wouldn't have occurred to me that someone would not try to research everything on a starmap target, to try and optimize the materials being returned by cargo rockets. Aren't you more interested in getting a kg of fullerene and 999kg of coal or iron or whatever rather than 1000kg of coal and no fullerene?

[cswiger]

Originally posted by The Tempted Man:

there is a mod that calculates the amount of fuel you need or online calculator that does the same thing

The ONI assistant website here is handy:

https://oni-assistant.com/tools/rocketcalculator

[Hedning]

Originally posted by cswiger:

Aren't you more interested in getting a kg of fullerene and 999kg of coal or iron or whatever rather than 1000kg of coal and no fullerene?

Yes, if those were the options, but lets instead say you have 100% niobium, and if you research more you may get it diluted with abyssalite.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by Hedning:

Yes, if those were the options, but lets instead say you have 100% niobium, and if you research more you may get it diluted with abyssalite.

Interesting. It seems like research modules would generally unlock the common materials first and the rare space-only materials last, so sending a rocket with only one research module didn't seem helpful in obtaining more of the rare materials.

But if you can get lucky sometimes, I can see why you'd not want to dilute a full cargo hold worth of a rare material....

[Hedning]

I think abyssalite is the only common material that you might get after a space material, but 1 bad result is enough (at least for me) to avoid it. Also some planets like glimmering and gilded you want for their wolframite and gold, respectively, which depending on what asteroid you are playing might be harder to get than actual space materials, so the same rule applies there.

Since you don't need to visit many planets to get enough data banks you can retire your science rockets fairly early. The only thing you might miss by not fully researching a planet are vascillator charges.