Any chance for an Aquilio start? Not sure what tech you'd need to start there, besides medium power poles and a heating tower. :)

There are no raw resources on Aquilio, you need to import everything...not sure how you expect to start there.

Plus even if you did somehow hack together a mod to start there, launching a platform will instantly die because you don't have rocket launchers and the platform won't have time to build before it is destroyed.

I've been thinking about this, and there would be a few ways to handle an Aquilo start.

Ignoring the bootstrap problems (starting from nothing).

Let's first look at self-sustaining on Aquilo. For that, the two initial issues are iron, stone and copper. All 3 are needed, and cannot be sourced here.

In theory, you could have a Aquilo orbit start, and drop down iron and copper from orbit, but that would require post 3 planet research, and an orbital platform. Wouldn't give you stone however, unless asteroids are modified to also produce some stone (not completely unreasonable?)

Another option, a simple one, would be to add resources patches to Aquilo. Turning it into a frozen mix of Nauvis and Aquilo. Feels a bit like the most boring option.

I think, the most interesting option, is to have a mineral sludge like solution that the seablock mod has. Maybe the water is just contaminated with minerals, and you can extract those.

Could also combine the two options, have iron/copper be from sludge, while stone is from resource patches.

(bootstrapping is a whole other story that requires more thought then I have now)

I feel like the correct answer for an Aquilo start is to give the player a starting space platform above Aquilo.

The platform starts with just enough items to harvest asteroids and process them and self-expand. A few asteroid collectors, crushers, solar panels, furnaces, and assemblers. And probably a few belts and inserters for early space platform automation... unless you want to force the player to do it all manually. Until the player manages to build a rocket, they will have only one platform as their source of iron/copper and stone.

There will need to be a few tweaks to asteroid crushing recipes. Advanced asteroid processing needs to be unlocked from the start (maybe even disable the original basic crushing recipes) to allow for reprocessing oxide asteroids and producing copper ore. The recipes should be modified to produce stone as a byproduct.

There might need to be a few other balance tweaks (there is currently no way to build new crusher, collectors or electric furnaces without plastic, and the current chain for that is very long) , but this starting space platform should allow the player to bootstrap all the way from nothing on Aquilo to launching rockets.

Plus even if you did somehow hack together a mod to start there, launching a platform will instantly die because you don't have rocket launchers and the platform won't have time to build before it is destroyed.

This mod already disables harmful astroids above the other planets, to allow constructing platforms there. The same would apply to Aquilo too.

+1 for space start

Tweaking all the asteroid recipes to produce one (1) stone as a byproduct (including reprocessing) would be the maximally evil way to fix the stone problem. Railgun should be unlockable with just cryo science, and there should be an underpowered version you can build with only aquilo resources to let you reach the rest of the solar system.

Another alternative is to use Sea Block tech - allow the player to refine minerals from Aquilo's waters, starting with some minerals they mine from the surrounding blocks. Heat tech needs to be unlockable as soon as possible, of course. And maybe a crude heater you can build directly above an oil deposit - this "wastes" the oil until you can get Pumpjack technology, but allows you to get some heating in so you can actually build stuff.

I haven't put any effort into making an Aquilo start yet, but another modder has made Dredgeworks: Frozen Reaches, which uses the new API this mod provides to make an Aquilo start. I think this is the best you'll get for a long while, at least until another modder makes a different more "vanilla" feeling start, or I get around to it after said long while.

Is there a chance you'll rearrange the orbital asteroids over Aquilo when starting there in conjunction with the Dredgeworks mod, to make spaceflight more possible?

Yes, currently the asteroid safety code I wrote kind of sucks because it only works for a specific format of asteroid spawn probability definitions.
I need to write a much more generic asteroid safety algorithm that can handle any definition, which would then solve the problem for all planets and all planet starts. Asteroid spawn probability definitions are really complicated though, and I've been too busy to really sit down for a few hours and come up with something, but it's definitely very high on my todo list.

Alright, gotcha. Hope your schedule clears a bit soon, and looking forward to it whenever you do get around to it.

hey you all, at the time i play an aquilo start with the help of the mod Cubix. i reached an stable surface base with no heating or energy problems. its a bit grindy becourse of the only way to get stone, iron and copper leads to cubes but hey it was my decision to start here. but now i have the challenge to leave aquillo and reach Maluna, with is nicely placed 1000km away. Problem i only have access to yellow and read ammunation and guntowers. Lasertowers are not the way becourse i have only solar and maybe steampower on the spaceplatform. my planetbase has 20 silos with precharged rockets for a fast first delivery. But iam not sure what it needs to reach Maluna. The damage should be minimalistic to big and medium asterioids and besides of walls i did not know any other defensiv things to do. Have anybody an advice for me to bring the possability up a little bit? oh the tooltip says 10/m big asterioids at aquilo that drops to 2/m before reaching maluna. at maluna they should be no big asteriods anymore. So speed should be key?

Sorry my english isnt the best hope its understandable. ;-) Thanks for your response.

So it sounds like this might be one of the first few times that you made a space platform. One of the issues that you are having is that you are adding maluna, maluna is where you can learn to crush stuff but with the change from nauvus -> aquillo that changed what asteroids are in space.

Your route aquilo-> muluna: https://i.imgur.com/qBeysRb.png
What it normally is nauvis -> muluna: https://i.imgur.com/kwrMEhY.png

You go from only having chunks in space to having big asteroids.

My suggestion to you is that you send up yellow ammo via rocket because it 100 rocket capacity, just have a stockpile of ammo in the hub. Once you get to muluna you don't need to worry about the big asteroids because there are only chunks in orbit.

Not sure who needs to fix the asteroid spawning @_CodeGreen any insight?

As of right now, custom planet starts need to do their own asteroid safety measures, so Cubium would have to change aquilo to be safe. I intended on making a more generic asteroid safety script, but it got away from me and I worked on other things (asteroid spawn definitions are really, really complicated to dynamically modify). Maybe at some point I can write a proper asteroid utility library and provide it for modded starts to use, but as for fixing the issue right now it would have to be on Cubium's side.

If you're absolutely stuck, I can write a quick little mod to remove big asteroids from aquilo's orbit and connections, that way you don't have to wait for Cubium to update. Best way to make that happen is over discord if you have it, if you're on the Factorio server just ping me in #mod-dev-discussion, or in my server if you felt like joining, even just temporarily.

I don't think that they are stuck, they just need a bit of ammo because the trip between the two planets is so short, they just need enough ammo for the return flight

hello all, i can confirm that iam not stuck and i did not need a single shot. only loses round about 10 space platforms to two big astoriods in front of the Ship "Moonlander one" a high speed rocket xD
@Muramas, the return flight would be a long time in the future. I have to create a space platform in this save orbit of Maluna with is able to tock the flight back to fulgora with 35000km.
seems i was a little to scary for now.
bye