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LauncherPlus: An On-Demand Supply Network

With LauncherPlus, you can easily configure a request (supply & demand) network for transporting items throughout the cluster. This is a much more intuitive way to distribute items. A beacon requests an item, and a launcher delivers it!

The launchers and beacons will work normally if you do not use the supply/demand feature.

Beacons now have a settable storage filter (like the storage container). If you set an item (or list of items) here, the beacon will put out a request for that item to all demand-configured launchers in the cluster. If any demand-configured launcher sees that request, and can fulfill it, it will launch its payload toward the beacon.

Now you can supply your asteroids with needed items (food? atmo suits? reed fiber?) and the remote colonies can send back their produced items. No longer do you need to send items off into space and hope for the best!

To use this, you have to research BOTH High Velocity Transport AND Sensitive MicroImaging (which enables long-range communications). Once you have both, when you click on a beacon you will get the option to select specific items. In the Launcher, you must select "Beacon Request Triggered Only" and it will listen to and fulfill requests.

It is up to you to turn off the beacons once you have what you need. I highly recommend you look into the mods:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1900617368 (modified storage), and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2911545239 (resource sensor).

If you don't turn off the requesting beacons with automation, the launchers will continuously try to re-fulfill the requests every N seconds (default 15s, settable in the mod options). It's ok to have multiple beacons on an asteroid each with the own list. This can create potentially create some oversupply if the beacon is not disabled once they have the resources/items they need.

It's also up to you to ensure the launchers have the items they need to launch via conveyor. They need one (or more) of requested items in their inventory and have enough energy to launch. They will automatically target the appropriate asteroid. If no beacon requests their inventory they will wait and listen to the request network. They will choose the first operational beacon (whether that particular beacon requested the item or not) on the target asteroid to land.

Demand-based launchers and "regular" launchers can coexist.

The launchers and beacons lists are shuffled each update loop, so eventually all requests will get fulfilled if there are enough items. This is not a sophisticated fulfillment network, but it's WAY better than managing by hand!

If you do not select "Beacon Request Triggered Only" in the launcher, they behave in their usual way.

You can hit CTRL-SHIFT-F10 to see all participating launchers/beacons in the ONI debugging log.