You do you with this, just a few things to distinguish it from AAI signal transmission. I was thinking about this, but did not have it formed enough to start building. Most of it is to add a little bit more game to it, instead of "instant signal transfer to any part of the galaxy".

• attach it to a technology, so it can possibly be moved to a planet that actually use this for gameplay. You can use custom research triggers for this.
• IF has a technology make the platform and the planetary comms have a different trigger
• at least an option to limit range, so it's not intergalactic (or possibly multi dimensional). Either targeting a nearby planet, or all nearby planets. "nearby planet" can be defined by it having a direct space platform connection to it. This adds a little more game to it, as now you build infrastructure to bounce signals over to other parts of the system.
• my concept for a limit was to let it read the planet's signals, then relay it to another platform in space, so the platform becomes a kind of satelite. You have a reason to make more than 1 stationary platform.

Again, you do you with this. If some of it is met then I'm adding it to the outer rim as a dependency.

Thanks for the interest, first of all.
I started this purely due to being frustrated with egg launching, so the comms mode was a bit of an afterthought.
I added it mainly since I needed to get rid of the vanilla way the radars connect for the other mode, so I reimplemented it myself and though why not add named channels.

I'm not super happy with how the gui around channel creation/renaming/deletion work right now and I'm rewriting the code a bit anyway.
So if you have some ideas of how I can make it work for your use-case as well as others please do tell.

In terms of research trigger, this would be something other mods can then modify to integrate it?
Either way I'm gonna take a look at it after some bugfixes.

Honestly, anything that gives you that cross surface signaling while also creating its own problems to solve will work.
That gives it a little bit more game to play with.

Hence the idea of limiting the cross surface signals to "nearby" planets, because then you have to jump signals between them.

I like the idea of needing to bounce signals off of stationary platforms for interplanetary comms.
Do you have a concrete gameplay use in mind for Outer Rim?
Upping the power use could be interesting, if the relay satellites far from the sun would need long solar "arms">
Sounds like the AAI signal transmission graphics would be more appropriate at that point.

Do you have a concrete gameplay use in mind for Outer Rim?

The concrete gameplay use is both for the outer rim, and the next iteration of dea dia.

In early testing, it was clear that I need to pair this mod with interplanetary signal transfer to get the kind of control you really want. Send your requests to the other planet via signal to know what exactly needs to be inserted into the cannon. So you can send more than a certain number of item types through it. (it is coded with a linked chest that you can only insert into or extract from. Insert on one planet, extract on the other)
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/orbital-cannon

I'd unlock this either together with the cannon, or after it.

Sounds like the AAI signal transmission graphics would be more appropriate at that point.

Honestly, making it work as a normal radar feature is good enough.

This lib can let you toggle arbitrary scripts based on weather or not you can consume electricity. May fix some of the problems where the radar can actually work without power. :)
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/powered-machine

I implemented staggered polling which is probably fine for radars and rocket silos, but still looking for a solution to lua events from circuit conditions.

What would be the idea?

I've asked if you'd like to explain powered-machine on your discord thread.
It's abusing items spoiling in some way, I think?
There's probably a roundabout way to get an event when a circuit changes (I need this for both this mod probably and for my silo mod), maybe you know a good way?
I theorycrafted power switch with circuit -> fake radar -> on_chunk_charted or something dumb like that.

I've asked if you'd like to explain powered-machine on your discord thread.
It's abusing items spoiling in some way, I think?
There's probably a roundabout way to get an event when a circuit changes (I need this for both this mod probably and for my silo mod), maybe you know a good way?
I theorycrafted power switch with circuit -> fake radar -> on_chunk_charted or something dumb like that.

It raises an event for you that you can use to enable or disable the radar itself, and you can also use it to disconnect the wires you use to transfer signals.

If you ping me on discord, I can be hands on with it, and I also accept documentation feedback as I'm not that good with writing those.

All the docs I have are in the description of that mod. I don't think it's complicated to use. I hid as much of the internals as I could from any mod using it, because I don't want to deal with what that code does when working with the cannon. That event is the real deal, it lets me have my custom behavior use that toggle.

the only things orbital cannon do is hook up to this event in the control stage so I can turn it off as needed,

[defines.events["powered_machine_enabled_orbital-cannon"]] = function(event)
            internal.enable_cannon(event.entity, event.running)
end

Then have this field on the cannon's entity prototype. Specifies how much energy should be used, and also adds pollution.

 powered_machine                        = {
        heating_energy = "0kW",
        energy_usage   = settings.startup["orbital-cannon-energy-consumption"].value,
        energy_source  =
        {
            type = "electric",
            usage_priority = "secondary-input",
            emissions_per_minute = { pollution = 2 },
        },
    },

Sorry, that part is probably clear enough.
I was curious about the details you wanted to hide, since my power check is cheap, but I'd like to have a version of this to detect circuit conditions or changes.
I'll get into understanding this that once I have bigger issue with silo controls worked out.

I assume it's a hidden assembler with inputless receipe that works as long as there is power, and somehow it working refreshes a spoiling timer, which if depleted triggers lua?

Sorry, that part is probably clear enough.
I was curious about the details you wanted to hide, since my power check is cheap, but I'd like to have a version of this to detect circuit conditions or changes.
I'll get into understanding this that once I have bigger issue with silo controls worked out.

I assume it's a hidden assembler with inputless receipe that works as long as there is power, and somehow it working refreshes a spoiling timer, which if depleted triggers lua?

That is about that yeah. If you want to turn it off with circuits, then the event also gives you full access to both internal assemblers, you should be able to hook something up to those. I'm willing to add an api for that as well if there is a good solution.

I am thinking about turning it off with circuits, and it migth be more problems than what its worth compared to just relying on the humble power switch.

If I expose the internals to external signals, then if the player can either deadlock the system or maybe possibly get the machine to run for free.

Using a fixed signal may be a feasible workaround. I can use a combinator as a diode to only let the player insert that one signal. This is not clean, but is stable.

In this case it may allow the radar to be turned off via a signal coming in from a remote network, causing it to turn on and off repeatedly as the signals turns off ghe radar, then it turns back on as the signal disappears from the radar turning off.