Rockets vs Bunker Doors

[chemie]

3 hours ago, Craigjw said:

The double doors seem to actually delete regolith at a substantial rate.

The filter on the right, above the red box on the line that opens the rocket bay doors is not required and set to 0.1.

The two atmo sensors on the AND gate are used to open close the doors manually for what ever reason.

not related to rocket and doors, but I prefer to not use doors to delete regolith; seems a little exploity to me.

[Craigjw]

I disagree, this is directly relevant to the original question, This setup correctly opens for my rockets landing, with or without a meteor storm, I do not believe that there is a bug, but rather an implementation issue.

The regolith deletion was a side note, however, it's only exploit if you exploit it, I am not exploiting it, as my intention was to collect and stockpile it rather than delete it entirely, therefore, it's just a bug in this instance.

[mathchamp93]

6 hours ago, chemie said:

or just assume the rocket keeps accelerating so longer runs take increasingly less time.

It could be a function of how much fuel you load. If you have the bare minimum fuel for the range then the mission will take the maximum amount of time, as there is only enough to get off the ground and no extra to accelerate. If you load extra fuel (and oxidizer) and your range is longer than the travel distance, then the extra fuel is used for speed to shorten the mission. This could be particularly effective for longer missions where the rocket would be spending more time travelling rather than being landed at the destination.

Perhaps in general the minimum fuel requirement could be a function of "gravity" rather than distance/range. Your asteroid has some gravity that must be overcome when launching, and the destination would have additional gravity to overcome for the return trip, depending on its size. So a derelict satellite would have zero or nearly zero gravity, an asteroid would have a little, a moon a bit more, a planet even more, and a giant planet the most. Perhaps your asteroid has way more gravity than a normal one due to having a neutronium core that creates a lot of gravity. There could also be a bit of a distance multiplier effect on gravity, which could be less than 1 for close objects and approach 1 for further objects, with the reasoning being some overlap of the gravity wells.

Your rocket would have two stats based on engine and fuel: how much thrust it can produce, and the maximum weight the engine can push. Thrust would be a function of the fuel type (steam < petroleum < hydrogen), oxidizer type (oxylite < LOX), and amount of usable fuel. Maximum weight would be a function of engine type (and perhaps oxidizer type as well, but not the amount of fuel). Solid boosters would add to both stats.

The minimum thrust you'd need to just be able to do the mission would be based on a product of four factors:

• The sum of the gravity of your asteroid and the destination.
• The distance modifier.
• The weight of your rocket.
• An additional "weight penalty", which starts at 1 and approaches infinity as your rocket's weight approaches the engine's maximum weight.

Any thrust you have over the minimum would be divided by your weight (with no penalty factor) and converted into speed. The mission duration would then be twice the distance divided by your speed, plus some fixed duration spent at the destination (or perhaps this can be a function of the number and type of functional modules, i.e. research and cargo). Perhaps there could be a minimum speed or maximum time before you can launch so you don't accidentally launch a tortoise rocket that won't come back for hundreds of cycles.

Steam rockets without boosters would have a relatively low thrust and maximum weight, as the steam engine is weak. The low thrust means you can't reach destinations further than the closest ones, and can't reach destinations with significant gravity. The low maximum weight means you can't have much of a payload. As well, you're probably not going too fast. Perhaps the weight of the steam engine itself could be reduced substantially, as the maximum weight variable could then be used to limit the rocket payload. The solid thruster could then add both more thrust and more weight capacity; especially useful for the steam rocket.

Petroleum rockets would have much better stats. First off, the weight limit would be much higher than on the steam engine. Second, the thrust per unit fuel would be much better. Third, more fuel tanks provide extra capacity, which means even more thrust. These rockets would be fairly versatile. You'd be able to take a light payload to nearly all destinations, heavier payloads to closer and/or lower gravity destinations. Short trips with a light payload could be either done at high speed or with less fuel.

Hydrogen rockets would have even more thrust and a higher weight limit. All destinations would be in reach, and you could send a decent payload to most of them, or send very large payloads. Alternatively you could use less fuel or go really fast.

Generally, a medium-sized rocket would be most efficient. A light rocket would have more dead weight (i.e. weight that isn't fuel or payload). Plus with less payload, a light rocket is less productive unless you make it up with more speed. A heavy rocket needs much more fuel to overcome the weight penalty. Generally, a better engine would permit a bigger rocket.

Solid thrusters up the weight limit and add thrust, but would have a much lower thrust/weight ratio than a petroleum or hydrogen engine. So they could be beneficial if your rocket is very heavy and close to the maximum, but wasteful or even detrimental otherwise (particularly for destinations with high gravity and distance modifiers where thrust/weight ratio is important).

Of course, the tougher destinations should be more lucrative. Perhaps the ones with more gravity have better resources in general. Or certain destinations can have some or all resources be finite. For example, for a derelict satellite, all resources could be finite and after a few runs you wouldn't be able to collect anything. For an asteroid, the rare materials could be finite, so as you send trips, their percentages would go down and eventually reach zero. You'd still be able to harvest common materials from them indefinitely. Moons and planets could have unlimited resources.

I also think there should be a requirement to pack rations and an oxygen supply for the astronaut. These would go to the command capsule. For oxygen you could either send compressed (gaseous) oxygen or LOX, with more capacity if you use LOX (necessary for longer missions). Additional storage tank modules for crew oxygen could be required for very long missions. Requirements would be based on the duplicant's traits (bottomless stomach needs more rations, diver's lungs needs less oxygen, etc.).

If the mission time is variable, there needs to be a better way to automate it, though.

[Nitroturtle]

Here's my silo bunker door automation. This works regardless of meteor showers.  The only time I've had doors break is when I forgot to set the sensor to the correct rocket after a rebuild.

Spoiler

 

[cblack]

Yep, rocket sensing detectors work just fine, even with doors closed.  I've had more than 20 launches in my current game, and it always detects the rocket early enough, even with a 20s delay before the second set of doors open.

That said, you'll need your scan network quality high enough for it to work reliably.

[cpy]

If they can't fix it, let us have things made out of steel to be unbreakable by those damn meteors.