Description
it's a work in progress, what you see now is an early experimental platform where I'm testing and learning.
What it is in it's current state, a large mobile platform that makes it's own fuel, ammo, and has a fully functional automall. My suggestion for your planet side base is to build a landing pad and add 8-10 cargo bay's to it. Then in the logistics tab add the mall t1 through t5, but do not edit those groups! just add them. lastly make a group to add ore, plates, pipe and so on. this'll bring everything on platform to the ground and keep at least one stack of each. you can of course build your own list of what to bring down if you prefer. I'll try to include a good ground starter blueprint for deploying on a new planet when I get the chance.
I will update this as I make changes.
PS, I am a full time truck driver and rarely have much free time, so this is a long term project. Check back at least once a month though to see my progress and give me your feedback.
fyi, feedback on the inefficient design in it's current state isn't needed. it's a test bed at this point and I'll no doubt do many things much differently as I learn
Version update, 0.03. it's functional! although it doesn't do much yet. what works, resource gathering, engines/fuel. ammo production. Limited manufacturing. Yes I know it's kinda ugly looking, and it's very slow traveling. I didn't intend it to go fast for now, and might keep it slow on purpose for traveling into dense asteroids further out into the system. it lacks weapons to go anywhere but the inner planets. better weapons are planned for a future update but for now I'm focusing on inner planets.
I abandoned my plan to make this a starter platform, I'll do a starter platform later which will be a decent hauler and such. this one does require foundries and advanced asteroid processing. fyi, not updating image because too much effort after each update.
version update 0.04. it's fully functional! it's ugly, disorganized, and inefficient, but it works without fail [I think]. again I haven't bothered to update the picture. This first version requires foundaries to work as well as advanced asteroid processing. I'll start working on a starter platform that requires neither, and as a bonus the starter platform will support building out to the full platform by applying a few blueprints in order fully without ground support to accomplish it [except for oil processing plants as they need stone]. until I get the starter platform done, this entire thing will require ground support to be built. I know there's a lot of seemingly wasted space, it's because I plan to add more to this and want room to spare. Also if you need more storage to make this do double duty as a hauler, just place some more cargo bays, you've got lots of room to do so.
version update 0.05 fixed a few bugs, had a couple stacker arms where they didn't belong, and forgot to make explosives and send some coal back to the hanger.
version update 0.06. I think I have eliminated all the bugs. there was a lot of them. In theory, once you have this built, it should eventually build it's entire inventory bots and all. although I don't have logistics bots added, you can add them yourself using the constant combinator near the factory to the left of the cargo bay. I haven't actually tested logistics bots yet. but everything currently in the combinators does built. beware making edits, I don't have any conditional logic in place to sort out recipee's that refuse to build in order. I'll add more items as I get time. My next major project is reorganizing to improve efficiency a bit, and to make expanding from a starter platform possible.
Major version update 0.1 and worthy of the major version increment too! while it's slow, inefficient, and ugly, it works 100% start to finish. Please note in this version I have downgraded inserters to their most basic electric versions on purpose. this is because this version of the platform is intended to be built from the starter platform series I'll begin later, and at those early starter platforms it won't be able to make better inserters than the most basic. But I'll have a couple of upgrade blueprints you can drop down when ready. First is a simple upgrade everything to common fast inserters and belts, second will be a full blueprint that'll convert the manufacturing to produce uncommon and rare items, and replace everything with rare quality as replacements can be built for itself. Please note there's lots of items that the platform will eventually make that the current version doesn't handle yet. I plan to have it make every single item that can be produced in space, and I do mean every one of them, up to rare quality at a minimum. With the exception of a few items this platform is already superior to the abandoned one named RIP mines, although it is slower due to only having a single engine in this current state. But since the thing works best deployed to a location then left there, speed isn't a super big concern. You can use the starter platform once I get it designed as a get me there quicker ride, or use any of the other good platforms on factorioprints :) I do have one word of warning though, while this platform can handle every single inner planet including aquilo, it will run out of fuel trying to reach aquilo. it's not a problem though as it does make fuel fast enough to finish out the trip, but you might want to leave it hanging out in aquilo for a while to replinish fuel before the return trip, otherwise the trip will take ages!
Quick update, forgot my test server had guns research up to insane levels because of how long it's been running, platform can only survive aquilo if you have stupidly high levels. Will include rockets in next version and adjust guns to only target smaller asteroids.
