I made this mod because I got frustrated after realizing the ethanol thrusters on Pelagos are just meant as an early game alternative

Ethanol thruster was meant to be thruster alternative that trades off ability to make fuel in space for fuel that last for longer

Ideally you should throttle thruster because then fuel can last up to about 20x of its original value, because I tweaked curve to work like this.

This allows you to make ships without any fuel infrastructure on orbit, and relying on logistics instead

I recommend Gleba Reborn, as it also adds a recipe to make nutrients from carbon and sulfur, which theoretically allows you to make a fully sustainable bioship that runs without electricity!

Similarly here
Pelagos provides you with ability to pack wood tighter in transport via cargo crates
And recipe to make spoilage out of wood
And recipe to more efficiently convert spoilage into nutrients.
Depending on how you build your ship single rocket worth of wood could last few hours

Aside of its gleba similarities Pelagos is logistics challange and this was extended to space technologies.

Recipe chains will work a bit differently on 1.0.0 version of planet mod I am working on for 2.1 but core rule is the same.
These ships were not rly meant to be self sustainable

Sorry for distorting your vision of how Pelagos should be played hahaha. I get that the logistics is a big part and I did enjoy having to use ships to make use of the limited land. I'm just not really a fan of ships that don't produce their own fuel. I already don't like that I have to use either crazy amounts of solar pannels or a nuclear reactor to get power on my ship in vanilla. I know it's for balancing reasons but it has always made designing a new spaceship rather bland for me, as there are really only two options. So having a way to avoid electricity, I wanted to translate this into space and not just replace a nuclear reactor that needs logistics with a thruster that needs logistics. What I enjoyed a LOT more though, was building a base without always relying on bots and combinators. I'm a big fan of the "fluid puzzles" of fitting different liquids into a tight space without the wrong pipes connecting and really liked structuring my base around fluids instead of power. That's the Pelagos mechanic I wanted to use in space. I ended up building a ship powered by ethanol and methane and I almost got it to work without power, unfortunately I did not see any way of using an asteroid crusher for the carbon and sulfur into nutrients recipe that Gleba Reborn adds. I've never modded anything for Factorio before and only did this mod with AI, because I knew it should be a very small change. Maybe one day I will add a diesel crusher as well. Also the corrosive ammo is really cool to use in space. I love the concept of just having gun turrets only and being able to destroy small medium and big asteroids with it. If you would like, I can update the description to not put words into your mouth about how the thrusters are intended to be used. Just let me know.

Really liked the mod, when I started playing this I told my friends "guys, someone made a mod just for me!" You did a great job haha!

Sorry for distorting your vision of how Pelagos should be played hahaha.

Np
Don't get me wrong, I literally thought you missunderstood how it works. Thats why I tried to explained it in detail above

I know it's for balancing reasons but it has always made designing a new spaceship rather bland for me, as there are really only two options. So having a way to avoid electricity, I wanted to translate this into space and not just replace a nuclear reactor that needs logistics with a thruster that needs logistics.

Hmm
thing is that numbers on ethanol thruster were not balanced around you having access to fuel production constantly
Ideally this kind of thruster should have much higher fuel consumption.

but as I mentioned before I changed few things for pelagos 1.0.0 and 2.1 version of the game.
which was result of feedback I got in past. So in Short:

• In newest version after you place diesel machine in space it set it's input fuel filters to "space diesel fuel"
• "space diesel fuel" is new fluid I have made
• space diesel fuel is made of any supported fluid that has fuel value, and oxygen.
• oxygen so far can't be made without electricity, but it will have recipe in biochamber after I finish reworking my mods
• and new ethanol thruster require 2 different fluids: ethanol and oxygen.

And now going back to your idea of thruster.
This kind of thruster should probably have similar fuel consumption as regular one but use "space diesel fuel" as fuel, instead of ethanol

This way can produce fuel in space to have self sustained thruster and ethanol remain exclusive to pelagos surface. That would probably better fit, and still kinda hit every checkbox you have based on what you are saying.

Now that I think about it I might actually try to make thruster like that...
I am currently reworking "diesel machines" mod by making custom graphics in blender and changing some stuff. But this will be for factorio 2.1

I don't know a lot of people who use corrosive ammo for what it was intended to do :D
If you like fluid powered machines same as I do I can say something more:
I am slowly working on planet about building on giant oil rigs and utilize diesel smeltery (not made yet), diesel foundry (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/diesel_foundry) and hydraulic machines (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/hydraulic_machines)

Planet is not playable yet but when it will be you will be able to find it here
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ferros

In case I could help with something my discord is pasted in a lot of places on my profile and mod sites.
Happy that you like it.

• In newest version after you place diesel machine in space it set it's input fuel filters to "space diesel fuel"

That sounds really cool man, I swear I saw the term space diesel somewhere somehow and always assumed I would unlock it later on. Now it makes sense why I couldn't find it! haha

This kind of thruster should probably have similar fuel consumption as regular one but use "space diesel fuel" as fuel, instead of ethanol

This way can produce fuel in space to have self sustained thruster and ethanol remain exclusive to pelagos surface. That would probably better fit, and still kinda hit every checkbox you have based on what you are saying.

Now that I think about it I might actually try to make thruster like that...

Yeah, that would be a better solution for sure. You can be sure I will be trying to bend and break the rules again in order to turn this into something stupid :D

If you like fluid powered machines same as I do I can say something more:
I am slowly working on planet about building on giant oil rigs and utilize diesel smeltery (not made yet), diesel foundry (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/diesel_foundry) and hydraulic machines (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/hydraulic_machines)

Looking forward to it, I will give it a try when it's done. Oh and a last thing, the fact that the grabbers are just pipes and can be used in conjunction with the diesel assemblers that go out on both sides is soooo satisfying to use! I love how you can (and almost have to) fill every single tile with a belt or pipe or something. This just makes the "puzzle" aspect of fitting it more interesting than it is in the base game. More things like that like for example a different kind of ground pipe that works diagonally (just a random example, I don't actually want this specifically) or whatever would add a lot to a planet focused on fluid powered machines. Probably it would be hard to add to the system without trivializing it, but I really enjoy what you already have. Keep up the good work!