Rocket workhorses fleet

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

Maybe as inspiration for others, maybe just for my own satisfaction, I present you my rocket fleet  (Currently on testing branch)

1) TWLC (Two Dupe Luxurious Colonizer)

There's just one module needed for supporting dupes - gas cargo with enough of oxygen, leaving you enough space for modules useful for your missions (you can easily sent steam rocket with spacefarer, gas tank and two trailblazers to build landing pad on planet).

If you still need more space, you can either fill one (or more) storage bin with oxylite or use high pressure vent to overpressure interior (good bye, eardrums :-).

Now for another two designs, more of individual taste:

2) TWLC-S (Two Dupe Luxurious Colonizer - Supporter)

If you want third member of team while you really don't want to build Exosuit Forge on planetoid. Or you are sending just one dupe for finishing some tasks and want to have all necessities on board.

Plumbing picture not included as it is really simple.

It could be used as research rocket (replace forge with lab/telescope) however there are more efficient designs for that.

3) TWLC-SE (Two Dupe Luxurious Colonizer for Safer Enviroment)

While having atmo suits on site is undoubtedly nice advantage, not all planetoids need that level of safety. For those, where it's not needed, I like this design, as it removes need for reed fiber and places atmo suit repair behind checkpoint.

 

With all these designs you can go route with oxylite, which will create space for more modules. What I am not sure is if cabin will get overpressurized and filter connected to small pump won't stop working correctly.

[silverbluep]

What is that temp art building; and the one tile wide hand sanitizer station?

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

Just now, silverbluep said:

What is that temp art building; and the one tile wide hand sanitizer station?

Both things are from public test branch:

Temp art = space toilet with clean water input, outputting PW on the other side of wall (you can see small pipe inside window.

Hand sanitizer was narrowed down to 1x3 tiles.

[Orzelek]

2 minutes ago, silverbluep said:

What is that temp art building; and the one tile wide hand sanitizer station?

Testing branch has hand sanitizer thinned to 1 tile wide and toilet that pumps waste outside.

[xenoborg]

The toilet and hand sanitizers problem wasnt that they were 2 wide, its that they are 3 tall. And if that toilet has to be wall mounted thats just gonna complicate layouts even more.

[Gurgel]

Nice! I have done several different research designs on my own, but I think I will copy the first one as a colonizer.

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

9 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Nice! I have done several different research designs on my own, but I think I will copy the first one as a colonizer.

Thanks, glad it's helpful...

Funny fact, thanks to Klei changes on testing branch, design is already obsolete

I took bunk beds from testing branch, squeezed third dupe in and even were able to achieve bedroom bonus (currently my 3rd version of luxurious spacefarer  ) in exchange for two storage bins:

No doubt there will be another changes from Klei, so I expect to redesign again soon

[KonfigSys]

glad that Klei decided to invent these space specific utility buildings. What are the 4 ports in the outer walls? You can dump gas/water out to the space now?

How do you fill the water tank? Do you need an external water module or these special ports allow bypassing the requirements?

It sounds interesting.

[Kderosa]

Nice designs.  You really don't need the liquid tank - just zig zag the pipe to the toilet back and forth in the cabin a few times.  You'll run out of oxygen before you'll ever use up all the water.  Here's a similar colonizer design for 3 dupes,  Has room bonuses and room for a material handling system with extra storage space in front of the exosuit docks.  I had a gas element sensor in place of the switch (lower right hand corner) but it was acting up. Reliably gets 30-45 morale depending on food.

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

8 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

glad that Klei decided to invent these space specific utility buildings. What are the 4 ports in the outer walls? You can dump gas/water out to the space now?

How do you fill the water tank? Do you need an external water module or these special ports allow bypassing the requirements?

It sounds interesting.

Ports are for liquids and gases - upper for liquid, bottom for gases; left side for getting in, right side to pump it outisde of module to pipes/vents (if connected) or just in out space (if not conncted).

Liquid ports outside of module:

Rocket storage modules work same as before, trough buildable ports.

[Ceos]

To the stars in style! Love the use of oxygen masks, I always forget about them but perfect for the first few colonies. Heck probably good enough to set up a base with suits on just about any planet.

As another silly trick I have been putting temp shift tiles everywhere as a no fuss material storage. 3 steel, a few dirt, bunch of igneous, couple diamond, couple plastic. That way I have a bit of everything for colonization without having to use bins and drop on the floor (and then have it auto picked up because I had a bin somewhere then yell at the dupes and myself etc.)

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

1 hour ago, Ceos said:

As another silly trick I have been putting temp shift tiles everywhere as a no fuss material storage. 3 steel, a few dirt, bunch of igneous, couple diamond, couple plastic. That way I have a bit of everything for colonization without having to use bins and drop on the floor (and then have it auto picked up because I had a bin somewhere then yell at the dupes and myself etc.)

Yep, thats pretty neat trick how to load up rocket with required materials without need to repeatedly load one (or more) containers with desired things. Crew then can spend some of their free time to deconstruct tiles during the flight.

[Ceos]

13 minutes ago, Jurij I. Gorkij said:

 Crew then can spend some of their free time to deconstruct tiles during the flight.

I am even more cruel than that... my mining rocketeers get to train their building while traveling. I have them build and destroy tempshift plates constantly. No idle dupe warnings on my colony .

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

7 minutes ago, Ceos said:

I am even more cruel than that... my mining rocketeers get to train their building while traveling. I have them build and destroy tempshift plates constantly. No idle dupe warnings on my colony .

Honestly, since I was just once able to establish luxurious living on planetoid (there's always one more design choice which makes me postpone the process), it makes perfectly sense to me. As space crew has most luxurious living, they must pay with a lot of work

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

7 hours ago, Kderosa said:

Nice designs.  You really don't need the liquid tank - just zig zag the pipe to the toilet back and forth in the cabin a few times.  You'll run out of oxygen before you'll ever use up all the water.  Here's a similar colonizer design for 3 dupes,  Has room bonuses and room for a material handling system with extra storage space in front of the exosuit docks.  I had a gas element sensor in place of the switch (lower right hand corner) but it was acting up. Reliably gets 30-45 morale depending on food.

Forgot to react - you are very right, sir. I tend to overestimate things, thats why i used reservoir.

However with another thought (and some testing) you can fill module with up to 1.200 kg, which equals 480 uses of toilet.

Way more than approximately 214 uses of Hand Sanitizer (15.000g/70g).

And ofc as you said - oxygen is bottleneck here. (if 60 kg oxygen/dupe translate to "use", than smaller cargo has 60 uses, large one 183 uses).

Seems I'll do another alteration of my rockets but I think I'll just replace reservoir with pilot seat (who wouldn't like to pilot spaceship while sitting on the toilet) and put another two storage bins inside.

 

 EDIT: 

This is what i got - i've added doors to the left - great hall is still spacious enough and I like additional functionality of door when multiple rockets are present on one planetoid (dupes keep blocking each other when idling, going to toilet etc.)

[Kderosa]

2 hours ago, Jurij I. Gorkij said:

This is what i got - i've added doors to the left - great hall is still spacious enough and I like additional functionality of door when multiple rockets are present on one planetoid (dupes keep blocking each other when idling, going to toilet etc.)

Nice.  Room for three dupes and a great hall is quite the feat. On my last trip three dupes used up nearly all the O2 in the large gas cannister while only using about 23 beads of water for the toilet and 14 kg of berry sludge.  This is a rough guide for food and water on extended trips unless you want to use the oxylite in the storage bin trick.  I think the small gas cannister is a wee bit undersized for planet colonizing.

I haven't been as worried about getting the great hall bonus lately once I realized that providing carpet and berry sludge provides 28 morale right off the bat.  Sometimes I'll even sacrifice a room bonus altogether to cram in space for one more dupe.  Here's a design that shoehorns in room for four dupes.

 

The sacrifice is I lost the room bonus for the CO2 pump near the entrance. You can also put a conveyor loader above the bedroom door if you're using the design as your material hauler and don't mind losing the barracks room bonus.  I try to keep any storage bins before the exosuit docks to minimize non-crew dupes from entering the cabin and either dropping their exosuits because the docks are full or dropping them because they've worn out.  In both cases the dupes become trapped in the cabin and require intervention.  And while the starmap sensor has been a real benefit, one problem it causes is that when a rocket lands and you're off doing something else, the dupes can't use the washroom as they sit on the landing pad waiting for me to free them.  You should be able to set the permissions to "all" during flight or it should be done automatically.  As you can see, dupes peeing in my rockets is now the biggest problem.  I'd also add a gas element sensor on the bottom of the rocket (right below the ladder ideally) with a buffer gate to automate the CO2 removal.  The other issue I've noticed is that over two exosuit docks seems to drain the rocket battery during longer flight using the radbolt engine which is problematic.

Here's my latest design for a dupe two exploration mission.  I opted for solar modules in lieu of the cartographer module. Also room for an orbital microlab if you wanted.  The waste gas removal system in this design works well - has a gas element sensor and a buffer gate set to 30 seconds and an override switch to shut the whole thing down.  Remove the telescope and this module can be repurposed for pretty much anything. A slimmed down exosuit forge would be a nice wishlist item.

 

I have an alternate material handling design if you were so-inclined.  This design somewhat aleviates the small capacity of the cargo bay but it's proven to be too fiddly for my liking since the cabin-side material input filter which only allows you to select one element at a time, causing material handling backups.  If you don't care about room bonuses you can move the partition between washroom and mess hall one tile to the right to gain back some of the wasted space.

Last, here's the simplified gas piping system I've ben using. fresh O2 piped in from the gas cargo cannister to the vent to pressurize the cabin first then overflows into the exosuit docks.  You tend to run out of cabin O2 first. Waste gas gets piped right back into the gas cargo cannister whereupon it gets unloaded back at home automatically.  Just fill up the gas cargo cannister all the way to the top with O2 before the trip and as the O2 gets used up it makes way for the waste gases.  Very easy and avoids having to install any filters.  Just be sure to set the cabin gas input to O2 or you'll break your exosuit docks.

The five main problems I see in this latest iteration of rocket design are:

1. material element handling is still way too fiddly and needs too much micro-managing.  There should be an easier way to load and unload rockets with the material you need without resorting to a dedicated batching room.

2. dupes getting stuck in the rocket cabins because of exosuit vacancy issues and/or worn exosuits.  this is mostly a priorities issue - maybe the rocket priority can be used to prioritize exosuit forging, exosuit dock delivery, and other mundane task associated with rocket use.

3.   A related problem is there's no easy way to prevent dupes from entering the rockets for which they aren't a crew member and then getting stuck in the rocket unless you like fiddling with door priorities - and even then.  This and dupes getting stuck in the rocket as they build it (and nearly suffocate) or peeing on the floor because I haven't released them from the rocket after it has landed.

4. the size of the small gas cannister and cargo storage are too small and the large storage modules are too tall for smaller rocket engines.  I realize this is a game design issue, but for most of the planets you don't need the larger engines to reach.  Maybe a re-balancing is in order.

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

22 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

You could remove upper plastic ladder, move door one tile down. Then you can put one support tile above doors and move your storage bin on that. Then you can place door instead of former storage bin and improve interior accessibility for non-crew.Or place pot above door with buddy bud to improve morale even more, even though there's another space above pilot seat where it could be squeezed  Sorry, filling all tiles in rocket interiors is my passion

34 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

1. material element handling is still way too fiddly and needs too much micro-managing.  There should be an easier way to load and unload rockets with the material you need without resorting to a dedicated batching room

I think storage "lockers" with dimensions 1x1, able to be build on the wall, even with just 2/5t capacity would be neat - that way you could for example set interior storages to be always stocked with 600 Glass, 2.000 Steel, 5.000 Obsidian etc. etc.

37 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

2. dupes getting stuck in the rocket cabins because of exosuit vacancy issues and/or worn exosuits.  this is mostly a priorities issue - maybe the rocket priority can be used to prioritize exosuit forging, exosuit dock delivery, and other mundane task associated with rocket use.

I think this can be achieved, if crew priorities are set up correctly.

38 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

3.   A related problem is there's no easy way to prevent dupes from entering the rockets for which they aren't a crew member and then getting stuck in the rocket unless you like fiddling with door priorities - and even then.  This and dupes getting stuck in the rocket as they build it (and nearly suffocate) or peeing on the floor because I haven't released them from the rocket after it has landed.

Thats why i really like to use door, but that solves only crew mixing on another planetoid, not on homebase. However I always build checkpoint last, so my cosntruction workes never went even near suffocating.

40 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

4. the size of the small gas cannister and cargo storage are too small and the large storage modules are too tall for smaller rocket engines.  I realize this is a game design issue, but for most of the planets you don't need the larger engines to reach.  Maybe a re-balancing is in order.

If you are speaking about sugar engine/carbon engine - you can overpressurize oxygen in cabin with either gas vent (1280 kg of oxygen in your first rocket) or with vent trick (infinite amount). Yes, your dupes will have Popped airdrums, but you would have your oxygen.

However i think spacefarer just shouldn't be used with those two rockets, their strength is in reaching locations near starting point.

With other rockets i always found enough space to fit large gas module and in case of prolonged mission/bigger crew i tend to use external ressuply on second planetoid. Or you can fit both gas tank (mainly for oxygen during flight) and liquid tank filled with water - then pump water out of rocket, use electrolyzer and pump oxygen back (beware of temperature).

 

Either way, thanks much for sharing, your designes are pretty neat

[Kderosa]

2 hours ago, Jurij I. Gorkij said:

Sorry, filling all tiles in rocket interiors is my passion

I used to be more fanatical about that before the most recent upgrades as well, but my zeal has diminished once I started using carpeted tiles and berry sludge.

2 hours ago, Jurij I. Gorkij said:

Then you can place door instead of former storage bin and improve interior accessibility for non-crew

True, but I would lose the ability for them to access what's in the storage bin.  Always a trade-off.

2 hours ago, Jurij I. Gorkij said:

I think storage "lockers" with dimensions 1x1, able to be build on the wall, even with just 2/5t capacity would be neat

wall mounted storage bins and refrigerators would be a welcome addition - I always have plenty of wall and ceiling space and not enough floor space available.  And being about to specify specific amounts for multiple items for those storage lockers is also much needed, as you say.

2 hours ago, Jurij I. Gorkij said:

However I always build checkpoint last, so my construction workers never went even near suffocating.

I do this too, but unless you monitor the situation until it's done being build, you can still wind up with trapped dupes until the exosuit stations have oxygen.  There should be a better way like defaulting to disabled.

2 hours ago, Jurij I. Gorkij said:

If you are speaking about sugar engine/carbon engine - you can overpressurize oxygen in cabin with either gas vent (1280 kg of oxygen in your first rocket) or with vent trick (infinite amount). Yes, your dupes will have Popped airdrums, but you would have your oxygen.

Yes, those engines are close to useless.  I lean on the petroleum engine with a power module and a small gas tank.  The third module can be a liquid tank for the petroleum refueler rocket, a cargo container for the hauler rocket, a trailblazer for the colonizer rocket, or the orbital cargo which would be much more useful if you could specify different materials instead of just hoping the dupes fill it properly.

I used to play the base game on hard mode where the popped eardums and the sopping wet debuffs were murder on stress levels, so I try to avoid doing that if I can help it.  although, putting a high pressure vent with a gas pressure sensor can be used to limit the pressure levels to just below eardrum popping, but I don't think this will buy you more than a day or two of extra time since the cabins are so small.

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

16 hours ago, Kderosa said:

The other issue I've noticed is that over two exosuit docks seems to drain the rocket battery during longer flight using the radbolt engine which is problematic.

You could build another starmap sensor and trough NOT gate disable power to the atmo docks during flight.

13 hours ago, Kderosa said:

wall mounted storage bins and refrigerators would be a welcome addition - I always have plenty of wall and ceiling space and not enough floor space available.  And being about to specify specific amounts for multiple items for those storage lockers is also much needed, as you say.

I tend to keep from suggesting to have storages with variable target amounts of different things as I suppose Klei engine is currently not capable of. However I see 1x1 storage lockers, each one for one item, preferably as background building (even though that could be considered overpowered) as nice solution.

13 hours ago, Kderosa said:

Yes, those engines are close to useless.  I lean on the petroleum engine with a power module and a small gas tank.  The third module can be a liquid tank for the petroleum refueler rocket, a cargo container for the hauler rocket, a trailblazer for the colonizer rocket, or the orbital cargo which would be much more useful if you could specify different materials instead of just hoping the dupes fill it properly.

If by power module you mean battery, there's very good question which i learned on this forum - why is battery needed during the flight? While on flight, every (external) power source will be producing constantly. There's no need to store power for night as solar panels will work 24/7.

For rockets I normally use frequently (petrol, steam, hydrogen), engine is usually strong enough to produce all power needed by things inside rocket. Because of that, I do not see battery as module needed while on flight. If there happens to be case where power buffer would be needed, I would fit my battery inside.

One more thing I prefer - steam engine over small petroleum engine. Yes, engine is very slow (which I offset a little by forcing crew to research/explore while in flight), however that one more tile is beneficial to me (speaking about colonizer rocket, where I just need to fit in both traiblazers).

 

[BlackGoat]

thanks for sharing, i had to stop playing for awhile because rockets were really....not great....but it seems like they have come a long way in reiteration since 6ish months ago - looking forward to jumping back in soon

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

1 hour ago, BlackGoat said:

thanks for sharing, i had to stop playing for awhile because rockets were really....not great....but it seems like they have come a long way in reiteration since 6ish months ago - looking forward to jumping back in soon

Rockets are what made me interested in this game (multiple planetoids etc.) but true, they were mediocre before. But they keep to get better and better

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

Just wanted to share my two latest designs, maybe useful to somebody

Work team rocket/colonizer

Only gas cargo module for oxygen is needed (i prefer to use gas cargo) or you could go with oxylite in one of bins and switch combo of high pressure vent and gas element sensor with gas valve and passive filter.

In case i would send two rockets to colonize (6 dupes), i would switch one bin for door for increased control who can enter the rocket.

Luxurious pilot module

My attempt to build module for single dupe (pilot) with almost everything he needs inside rocket (no need for exterior storage of oxygen/water) for purpose of space mining. Had some left space so I've put Telescope in for increased usability.

Wiggled water pipes provide enough water for about 100 cycles of flushing/washing hands.

And door to make sure only pilot can enter the rocket.