Rocket launch bay

[psusi]

So I've been back for a month or two after taking several months off since just after the rocketry upgrade.  Last time I didn't ever get to build rockets because I got bored with it trying to deal with all of the regolith falling from the sky.  They did add shove voles but I didn't want to start all over after nearly 1000 cycles to get the critters.  Now that I'm back, I've got a good rodreguez spom supplying most of my power, supplemented with an ethanol run petrol gen from 4 pip planted wild arbor trees, and tons and tons of spare hydrogen from a hydrogen tamed vent ( no NG on this map, how weird? ).  I've set up a 2 scanner column at the surface with some bunker doors to protect the scanners and an observatory and even though I placed it poorly, it quickly scanned the first few asteroids.  I think I'm ready to finally try launching some rockets.

So my question is, how do you set up a good launch bay?  I broke through near the middle of the map and plan on building out solar to the right side as needed, and launch bays to the left.  How wide does a launch bay need to be?  What does it need to be made of?  I'm thinking bunker tile since meteors may fall as the rocket returns, but maybe it's not worth it as it's a rare thing to have a rocket return at the same time as a meteor shower and would be easier to just repair the damage?  What's the best way to deal with the heat of the rocket exhaust?  Where do you place the additional scanners for the returning rockets?  Do you tune them each to an individual rocket?

[Glassyfo]

4 hours ago, psusi said:

So my question is, how do you set up a good launch bay?  I broke through near the middle of the map and plan on building out solar to the right side as needed, and launch bays to the left.  How wide does a launch bay need to be?  What does it need to be made of?  I'm thinking bunker tile since meteors may fall as the rocket returns, but maybe it's not worth it as it's a rare thing to have a rocket return at the same time as a meteor shower and would be easier to just repair the damage?  What's the best way to deal with the heat of the rocket exhaust?  Where do you place the additional scanners for the returning rockets?  Do you tune them each to an individual rocket?

Two bunker doors plus 3 tiles wide. The three extra tiles are for the gantry and ladder. As for materials, steel at least for the centerline of the rocket, everything else can made of iron since there's plenty of it. I usually just repair the stuff if meteors break my ladders. It's not like being broken stops dupes from using them.

[suxkar]

Last gameplay I've tried something different: open launch bays. Access only by jetsuits, nothing but rockets one next to the other, no doors no scanners, nothing. Works like a charm and is much simpler to setup. You can even put a steam room underneath to take advantage of regolith and rocket/comet heat, gives a lot of energy for free. You can even add tempshifts to keep the exhaust for a bit and gain even more heat.

In my current gameplay I've yet to build it. Until I do, I'm running a bit of rockets with no support whatsoever. You have to dig the tiles after showers once in while, but it still works and is ENOURMOUSLY simpler then setting up a ceiling and automation.

[psusi]

It's the steam room part to capture the heat I'm a little fuzzy on.  You need some kind of tile between the rocket and the steam room right?  Bunker tiles?  They need to be actively cooled?  Should the room be filled with igneous tempshift plates?  Or maybe dirt would be better?  Also what's a good way to make steam to power the rocket?  Liquid tepidizer with the pulse timer trick?

[suxkar]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

It's the steam room part to capture the heat I'm a little fuzzy on.  You need some kind of tile between the rocket and the steam room right?  Bunker tiles?  They need to be actively cooled?  Should the room be filled with igneous tempshift plates?  Or maybe dirt would be better?  Also what's a good way to make steam to power the rocket?  Liquid tepidizer with the pulse timer trick?

One row of bunker tiles between rockets and steam room is enough. Bunker tiles are made of steel, so they conduct heat fairly well, which means they transfer heat to the steam chamber by themselves and don't need to be cooled, they are essentially part of the heat transport.

I'm not sure if it is necessary but I usually loop petroleum around to help spread the heat, as steam by itself is not very efficient. And yes, tempshift plates will help A LOT the heat transfer. I believe they become essential with hydrogen rockets as their exhaust is so hot it might melt stuff unless you make everything out of steel and obsidian. It takes a lot of time to make a room out of tempshifts instead of drywall but it's worth it. I use either granite or igneous rock, but I was told copper works too and doesn't melt. I'll try soon, although I'm a bit scared of the low SHC. It's space so if anything goes wrong it goes VERY wrong.

Dirt flashes to sand at 326C, which is a very reachable temperature underneath rockets, so don't use it.
I also suggest to put a lot of steam to stabilize the room, like more then 40kg per tile. It will trap more energy but again, the ensurance is worth it imo.
If you want to help with petroleum, beware high temperature shifts and radiant pipes: the petroleum might flash and you get a steam room with sour gas.

If you mean making steam to power steam rockets, in case you don't know, you should send as many rockets as you need to get to petroleum rockets and them forget about them, they are terrible. Usually 2 launches to 2 different planets with SIX science modules is enough. So the first 2 rockets can be build randomly, then when you have petroleum rockets you might start to think about building a more permanent solution with a steam room. Or do as I do, and launch a few petroleum rockets with no setup whatsoever, as I suggested in my previous post, and build a permanent solution once you have LOX.

In any case, yes, tricked tepidizer is by far the fastest. If you don't want to be "exploity", you can use bottled magma, regolith or an aquatuner producing heat (very expensive and complicated to set up at that stage of the game for something you are going to use twice). In any case, it has to be close to the rocket. Even ceramic piping will cool down the steam and break if the pipe is too long. As a rough idea, if you produce 120C steam, up to 30 tiles long ceramic insulated pipe is more then safe.
 

As an offtopic note, I've just put salt water into my petroleum boiler by accident instead of crude oil. It's ugly

[psusi]

57 minutes ago, suxkar said:

Dirt flashes to sand at 326C, which is a very reachable temperature underneath rockets, so don't use it.

Ahh, right... good point.

57 minutes ago, suxkar said:

If you mean making steam to power steam rockets, in case you don't know, you should send as many rockets as you need to get to petroleum rockets and them forget about them, they are terrible.

Really?  I was thinking they would be good for space tourism since the further the trip, the longer it takes, so you may as well send them to the first line only and you may as well just use some steam for that instead of petrol and oxylite or LOX.  I guess I had better start ranching pufts now ( oddly I have not found any wild ones on this map ).  If it's a bit of a struggle to keep up with the oxylite production for the petrol rocket so you can't just spam 3 or 4 of them, then why throw out the steam?  It can at least get you some more data banks in a shorter trip while the petrol rocket goes far.

[suxkar]

1 hour ago, psusi said:

Ahh, right... good point.

Really?  I was thinking they would be good for space tourism since the further the trip, the longer it takes, so you may as well send them to the first line only and you may as well just use some steam for that instead of petrol and oxylite or LOX.  I guess I had better start ranching pufts now ( oddly I have not found any wild ones on this map ).  If it's a bit of a struggle to keep up with the oxylite production for the petrol rocket so you can't just spam 3 or 4 of them, then why throw out the steam?  It can at least get you some more data banks in a shorter trip while the petrol rocket goes far.

Steam rockets take FOREVER to load since you can give them a maximum of 1kg/s, for the 10k mark I think you need around 600kg of steam: that takes an entire cycle. Their range is also extremely limited.

2 oxylite refineries are currently enough for me for 5 rockets on the 10-30k mark, although I understand the huge power consumption might be a problem for some bases. I think that if you wanted to fund them with dense pufts, you would need the entire map as a ranch . Also pufts are too annoying to ranch for my personal liking.

If you want to do space tourism (which I don't recommend, but could be fun just for the "experience"), you are still better off sending petroleum rockets. On short range they consume very little.

All of this is supposing that you boil petroleum, otherwise energy, water and petroleum consumption is probably unsustainable. Boiling and not boiling petroleum basically makes for 2 different games.

Finally, may be you already know this, you gain 50 data banks for every time you investigate a (???) for the first time, each requiring a research module, plus 10 per research module. If you already investigated all the (???) on a planet, you get very little databanks. That's why people usually send 2 steam rockets with 6 research modules, obtain around 620 databanks (50x5 for each (???) plus 10*6 for each research module, times 2 rockets), research petroleum engine and forget about steam rockets.

[psusi]

32 minutes ago, suxkar said:

All of this is supposing that you boil petroleum, otherwise energy, water and petroleum consumption is probably unsustainable. Boiling and not boiling petroleum basically makes for 2 different games.

Heck I haven't even built a normal oil refinery yet.  I'm just running the petrol gen from ethanol and have more hydrogen than I know what to do with.
  As for water, when I used to play I only ever got 2-3 cools steam vents for water.  On this map I have 2 cool steam ( one I plugged up, the other has filled its box and the reservoirs inside and I haven't used any yet so I cut the coolant and let it stall ), 2 polluted water ( only opened one so far ) and 3 salt water geysers.  I haven't dug up 2 of them and I plugged up the one that was already open because so far I've only used a little of the water for growing waterweed, which I have since had to uproot because I ran out of NG to cook mushroom wraps.  I have more water than I think I could ever use.  Maybe if I build an oil refinery or two I can use the petrol for rockets and get enough NG to keep the gas grill running.  One fertilizer maker and a few farting dupes just isn't enough.

34 minutes ago, suxkar said:

2 oxylite refineries are currently enough for me for 5 rockets on the 10-30k mark, although I understand the huge power consumption might be a problem for some bases. I think that if you wanted to fund them with dense pufts, you would need the entire map as a ranch . Also pufts are too annoying to ranch for my personal liking.

Naw, only need 15 dense pufts

 

[psusi]

1 hour ago, suxkar said:

That's why people usually send 2 steam rockets with 6 research modules, obtain around 620 databanks (50x5 for each (???) plus 10*6 for each research module, times 2 rockets), research petroleum engine and forget about steam rockets.

Hrm... according to the calculator you can load 9 research modules on an unboosted steam rocket and make it to 10,000 km.  Is there any reason to limit it to only 6?

[suxkar]

it's just time and resource inefficient. As I said, first time you visit a planet you never want less then 5 res modules, otherwise you miss out on the 50 data banks from the (???), but any more then that yield only 10 data banks. So ideally 5 is the most efficient. you get 250 data. 9 res modules would only give you 40 more. The exeption to this with steam rockets, you wanna send just 2 of them but with 6 res so you get 310 twice, so you have the 600+ to get you the research to obtain petroleum (data banks are consumed by the planetarium in decimal calculation, so if you get precisely 600 with 5 res modules you will lose a bit of them in the calculation and will be left with like 1 or 2 data banks missing).
After that you get more then enough data banks with planets reachable with petroleum with only 5 modules.

I've just realized I said something wrong: the sources of 50 data banks are obviously the 5 kind of different research that appear on the planet properties and are ticked after you "research them" with research modules. The (???) appear on some of said researches and reveal the secret resources of that planet when you do that reseach. I'm sorry I made a bit of confusion and my english is a MESS. Have you understood what I mean? I can try again tomorrow if not 

[Craigjw]

Just situate your rockets just above your dupe living quarters, so that the inside of the living quarters is within 9 tiles from the base of the rocket. hehehe.

I reckomend a vertical scanner coloumn, gives you so much more space to play around with when situating the rocket bays.

I have 2 rockets set to automatically refuel and launch for close systems, to bring in a regular supply of super coolant stuff.  A 3rd goes a bit higher, to recover thermium and a 4th one, I use for scientific missions.

The move to petrol as soon as I can, as steam rockets are quite naff.  The two small range rockets run off petrol, while the 2 longer range rockets run of LH & LOX.

I store my LOX & LH in infinite storage boxes.

I have no idea what databanks are for, they don't seem to be useful anymore, please someone correct me if I'm wrong.  My final research into hydrogen, I didn't use any databanks.

There's no need to send more than 5 research modules, as 5 is all you need to conduct all the research on a particular planet.  Once 5 researches are done, you don't get any more databanks from that planet.  I'm not saying dont' send further research, as I think you get other stuff from it, like recharge chips for the brain enlarger.

[suxkar]

37 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

I reckomend a vertical scanner coloumn, gives you so much more space to play around with when situating the rocket bays.

You don't need scanners at all with an open rocket bay

38 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

I have no idea what databanks are for, they don't seem to be useful anymore, please someone correct me if I'm wrong.  My final research into hydrogen, I didn't use any databanks.

As I wrote before, planetarium uses data banks, like a supercomputer uses water, to produce research points. Data banks are necessare for ALL rocket research after steam.

40 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

There's no need to send more than 5 research modules, as 5 is all you need to conduct all the research on a particular planet.  Once 5 researches are done, you don't get any more databanks from that planet.  I'm not saying dont' send further research, as I think you get other stuff from it, like recharge chips for the brain enlarger.

Have you even read the posts above 

[psusi]

3 hours ago, suxkar said:

it's just time and resource inefficient. As I said, first time you visit a planet you never want less then 5 res modules, otherwise you miss out on the 50 data banks from the (???), but any more then that yield only 10 data banks. So ideally 5 is the most efficient. you get 250 data. 9 res modules would only give you 40 more. The exeption to this with steam rockets, you wanna send just 2 of them but with 6 res so you get 310 twice, so you have the 600+ to get you the research to obtain petroleum (data banks are consumed by the planetarium in decimal calculation, so if you get precisely 600 with 5 res modules you will lose a bit of them in the calculation and will be left with like 1 or 2 data banks missing).
After that you get more then enough data banks with planets reachable with petroleum with only 5 modules.

Yea, 5 is enough but it only costs a little more steam to send 9, so why not?

3 hours ago, Craigjw said:

I reckomend a vertical scanner coloumn, gives you so much more space to play around with when situating the rocket bays.

Yep, got that but with only 2 scanners.  More would allow solar some more time but I don't have any of that yet.  I'm surprised by how close the surface was to the build limit this time.  Last time meteors had destroyed most of the surface and was chipping away at the abyssalite.  I'll have to dig out more area down to fit more scanners eventually.

 

[Dosephshih]

May i ask if now the performance of the jetsuit is acceptable? I am thinking to use it in the Rocket silo for easier building.

I heard and was scared that it would drop the FPS so significantly before.

[suxkar]

5 hours ago, Dosephshih said:

May i ask if now the performance of the jetsuit is acceptable? I am thinking to use it in the Rocket silo for easier building.

I heard and was scared that it would drop the FPS so significantly before.

Obviously the important thing is that is has to be very well enclosed so the pathing will not "leak". My fps are already terrible, usually cutting the space biome in half with an access tower and making the two halves jetsuit only doesn't produce any fps changes for me. It's a fairly small area and it is dug out most of the time so the pathing is simple even for jetsuits.

Not having to deal with scanners (which **** up sometimes on reload), doors, automation and more importantly not having to build gantry scaffolding to build pipes and rails around rockets is PRICELESS. Plus once the steam room heats up, depending on the number or rockets, you end up getting the energy for LOX/LH for free from steam and still have excess. 10k petroleum rockets give an enormous amout of heat very often (2.7 cycles). In my last base 3 of them were basically powering my space biome (although i also had the main spine to be sure). Plus you have the heat from comet and comet exhaust for free, which can also be enhanced by placing a few tempshifts ABOVE the steam room, behind the rockets

 

5 hours ago, psusi said:

Yea, 5 is enough but it only costs a little more steam to send 9, so why not?

Touchè my friend! 

[Craigjw]

With steam, I tend to send as many research things as possible to get the research, but after that, 5 research modules is a good number, you don't need more than that to get all the research boxes checked and learn what's on the planet. If I want more research, I just add a module to cargo rocket.

databanks used to work as you said, which is why I found it strange that researching Hydrogen tech, I didn't have enough and still managed to complete it.

You can send rockets out with an open bay, but where your gantry is located will inevitably be either blocked by a regolith pile or the regolith will break wires, plus, if you get a meteor strike while your rocket is landed, it'll build up at the bottom and block the rocket, you won't be able to take off and you'll have to dig it out before you can launch.

[psusi]

I was wondering about meteors getting into the launch bay.  Won't they damage the rocket if they hit it?  How do you get rid of the regolith?  Even with doors regolith will still pile up and drop in when they open, and you can't have the mesh tiles with doors or sweepers in the way of the rocket to remove it.  Can you have triple doors to clear the regolith and the rocket can launch with them open?

[BT_20]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

I was wondering about meteors getting into the launch bay.  Won't they damage the rocket if they hit it?  How do you get rid of the regolith?  Even with doors regolith will still pile up and drop in when they open, and you can't have the mesh tiles with doors or sweepers in the way of the rocket to remove it.  Can you have triple doors to clear the regolith and the rocket can launch with them open?

Rockets don’t take damage from regolith they can’t be buried and when they land or take off the regolith tiles get mined by the rocket.

I typically have 2/3 of space for regolith and solar and the other 1/3 for an open rocket bay with jet suits so I can tile the rockets next to each other.

[psusi]

Just now, BT_20 said:

Rockets don’t take damage from regolith they can’t be buried and when they land or take off the regolith tiles get mined by the rocket.

Regolith sure, but the meteor itself damages buildings it hits.  Or is the rocket immune to that too?

[BT_20]

Just now, psusi said:

Regolith sure, but the meteor itself damages buildings it hits.  Or is the rocket immune to that too?

Completely immune the only way you can have problems is if a rocket capsule gets blocked from regolith but that would take many many cycles without a launch

[psusi]

8 hours ago, suxkar said:

Obviously the important thing is that is has to be very well enclosed so the pathing will not "leak". My fps are already terrible, usually cutting the space biome in half with an access tower and making the two halves jetsuit only doesn't produce any fps changes for me. It's a fairly small area and it is dug out most of the time so the pathing is simple even for jetsuits.

How do you have an open launch bay that is very well enclosed to limit the jetsuit pathing?  Either it's open, and they can path everywhere, or it's closed, in which case, why not just use ladders and a gangway?

[suxkar]

1 hour ago, psusi said:

How do you have an open launch bay that is very well enclosed to limit the jetsuit pathing?  Either it's open, and they can path everywhere, or it's closed, in which case, why not just use ladders and a gangway?

I apologize, I guess what I said was misleading. I simply meant that it is closed off from the rest, but still big. Basically take most of the space biome, cut it vertically with an acess tower and you obtain 2 large rooms that contain rockets and can be accessed only by Jesuits. I will post a pic soon

[psusi]

1 minute ago, suxkar said:

I apologize, I guess what I said was misleading. I simply meant that it is closed off from the rest, but still big. Basically take most of the space biome, cut it vertically with an acess tower and you obtain 2 large rooms that contain rockets and can be accessed only by Jesuits. I will post a pic soon

And that doesn't cause lag?  I suppose the access ladder down from my bunker doors is usually blocked by regolith, so if I go a screen or two to the left I can build one wall up to the build limit on each side of an open hangar large enough for a few rockets, with a jet suit checkpoint as the only entry point.

[Ixenzo]

If you build the rocket engine on (bunker) doors, you could wire them up to a sensor and flick them open to dump stuff. Lazy and angry.

[suxkar]

1 hour ago, psusi said:

And that doesn't cause lag?  I suppose the access ladder down from my bunker doors is usually blocked by regolith, so if I go a screen or two to the left I can build one wall up to the build limit on each side of an open hangar large enough for a few rockets, with a jet suit checkpoint as the only entry point.

This is my setup from my previous base:

 

The rockets are not there, it's a bug, I'm sure you are familiar with it.
Vertical bunker walls need to be 2 tiles wide otherwise comets still damage the external column (my mistake can be seen next to the liquid hydrogen).
Tiles and doors underneath the rocket exhausts are there to help gather heat. Turns out they are completely useless.

PROS:

- Huge amount of energy: this setup is not optimized to produce energy and yet it generates about 5-6 kW, although this also takes into account the heat from aquatuners used to produce LOX and LH, which are not running much with supercoolant.

- No scaffolding necessary to build pipes, rocket pieces and conveyor belts. Absurdly comfortable, you can't go back after you tried it.

- No scanners, which means no power/automation infrastructure. Rockets land, unload and refuel at the same time, and in seconds they take off.

- Huge accessible steam room to cool molten objects, heat frozen ones and add more aquatuners if required for other projects.

 

CONS:

- Rockets are immune to meteor dmg and crush regolish while landing/taking off, but if the regolith from meteors piles up above the rocket engine segment while it on the ground, what is on top of it (fuel or oxydizer tank) will cease to work, meaning the refueling stops and the rocket is stranded until dug out. Has never happened to me in hundreds of cycles, but the chance is non zero. Simply solved by digging a couple tiles if it happens.

- Regolith can only be moved manually, which is painful with slow jetsuits, but is also not necessary. Most of the regolith one has comes from the deposits that were there already, not from meteors (unless you are playing thousands of cycles). Just sweep the place before building. An alternative can be to give up the steam room and create a dropping system with doors, haven't tried it.

- Hard to modify: Rebuilding/modifying anything will leak steam like crazy. If something breaks, it will break very badly if unattended. The heat from rockets doesn't stop coming, so if anything goes wrong with the steam turbines, stuff will start to melt. I avoided this risk by putting may be too much steam (60kg per tile): there is much, much more thermal inertia, but much energy is trapped and will not be used.


After writing down pros and cons, it looks like the steam chamber is the only source of POTENTIAL problems. I still prefer the idea, but one could skip the steam room for simplicity and securty.

In my current base I'm planning on doing this on the whole space biome, which the access tower in the middle. I've had ZERO lag impact with this setup, so i hope making it 4 times bigger will still be unimpactful. Will let you know if you want. I guess I'll start with half of the biome.

Since you are tackling space, it is also worth to know that, in case you didn't already, rockets need tiles to be built upon, but don't need them to work. They also do not obstruct each other, which means that another option in a vertical launch silo as tall as the whole map . The idea is a bit crazy but could be very fun. It is also the most energy productive as heat doesn't disappear in space for most of the silo.

Let me know if you need further explanation, or the savefile is you want