Interplanetary Trade Suggestions

[Aster1]

I've spent a lot of time in the DLC setting up interplanetary trade routes between the forest and terra planetoids for now, but I'm working towards some of the further planets in my current game and will add more as I learn more.

In general, I think two things need to be changed to make them more viable:

1) A better method for removing CO2 from the cabin.  It can take a lot of forms: an automation-wire-controlled exhaust valve, a small (1x1 or 2x1) CO2 scrubber that takes bottled H2O and creates bottled PH2O (like AndreyKl suggested in my other post), increased CO2 consumption by oxyferns or algae terrarium, or something new.  The current solutions just can't handle being in a solo spacefarer nosecone.

Someone suggested that oxylite removes CO2 - I can't find any other info on that, can someone confirm / refute?

2) Better automated control over landing, launch, and the checklist. I've found the two most important things are 1) knowing when the rocket lands and 2) control over when crew mode "Auto" allows other dupes into the rocket.  My current favorite solution is to replace the rocket checklist output automation port with an equivalent of pether's rocket presence mod (which I'm using now, thank you pether for telling me about it!) - an output that tells you if a rocket is there or not, and to add "launch automation input is green" to the rocket checklist. 

Here's why: Existing tools allow crew mode to be set to "Auto", which allows dupes in and out until the launch checklist is completed. The problem is that the current launch checklist is not a good tool for automation. 6 of the 9 options (Fuel Tank, Module Count, Landers Ready, Construction complete, Engine, Nosecone) are for rocket building and will always be ok once the rocket is built. One (Cargo Loading Complete) is optional. Another (Destination set) is always checked because of roundtrips.  That just leaves Fueled that the player can control.  

If I want to allow time for a rocket on "Auto" to be refit by non-crew Dupes, I do it by delaying refueling after I detect the rocket's landing.  I tried using atmo sensors, but that's failure prone, so now I'm using pether's rocket presence mod to tell me when the rocket lands and it works very well in combination with controlled refueling.  But controlled refueling only works when I can refuel on both sides.  If I swap to petroleum fuel from CO2, I'm not going to have fuel on both sides so my method breaks.

 

Unrelated, does anyone have any suggestions for how I can better control what amounts of cargo get loaded?

[Sasza22]

I think we could use a rocket output vent that works like a normal vent but instead of dropping them inside it would put it outside the rocket. Then just use a pump and a sensor detecting CO2. We could also use a small building that would act like an oxylite block but you could refuel it with extra oxylite. Would be great as a no power oxygen source.

7 hours ago, Aster1 said:

Unrelated, does anyone have any suggestions for how I can better control what amounts of cargo get loaded?

I use storage compactors to make dupes deliver the exact amount of cargo then make the auto sweeper load it to the conveyor. That`s a lot of clicking. I think using a smart storage and some memory and filter gates could automate the process though. Just limit the access once the storage is full (set the max storage to amount you want to load) and enable the auto sweeper after a few seconds or so. Then reset once the rocket is back again.