"Giant space elevators make it easier to transport materials between planets. They can connect factories on different planets to form a massive industrial empire."
Overview[]
The Interstellar Logistics Station (ILS) is an extended version of the Planetary Logistics Station, having its functionality and more. It can be crafted in an Assembler or from within the Icarus' Replicator. It provides a place where Logistics Vessels manage their cargo as they travel between planets and even other systems. It can hold 100 Logistics Drones and 10 Logistic vessels.
The ILS requires some complex materials to make. The extra components over the Planetary Logistics Station (which already uses Processors) are the addition of Titanium Alloy instead of the individual Titanium Ingots and Steel, as well as doubling the total amount of Particle Containers (which in turn use Graphene). Both the alloy and graphene for the containers require a steady supply of Sulfuric Acid. Note that the alloy will also be used for creating the Logistics Vessels adding to the supply requirements, so solid production of alloy will be required to get the whole system of interstellar transportation running smoothly. As a side note, the ILS item can in turn be used for crafting, being upgraded again to craft the floating Orbital Collector.
When placed on a line of longitude, Interstellar Logistics Stations can be placed a minimum of 24 squares apart. It is also one of the machines that do not require a Sorter to insert and extract resources.
Settings[]
There are three modes for any resource that is stored in the Interstellar logistics station; Demand, Storage, and Supply. These modes can be set both in the planetary and interstellar network via the local and remote variants respectively. Local/Remote demand will allow the station to both receive and send logistics drones/vessels for that resource. Similarly, local/remote supply will allow the station to send or supply inbound logistics drones/vessels with that resource. The storage mode puts that slot outside the logistics network, neither sending nor receiving items, but it does allow for resources to be placed/removed from the station manually or by belts. Items can be manually removed or added by holding right-click on the icons in the menu.
Local supply/demand refers to on-planet supply or demand, and can be serviced by logistics drones. Remote supply/demand refers to supply/demand between planets or systems, and requires logistics vessels to service. As an example, if you want to send Titanium Ingots from one planet to another, the supplier must have Remote Supply set, and the receiver must have Remote Demand or Remote Storage set.
At the bottom of the screen there exist several settings:
Max Charging Power - The upper bound of power usage when charging after placement or launch of a drone/vessel. Does not impact idle consumption.
Transport Range of Drones - Max range in degrees a drone can travel. 180 degrees corresponds to the distance between the poles, and 90 degrees the distance from a pole to any point on the equator.
Transport Range of Vessels - Max distance in light years that a vessel can travel to fufil a request.
Distance to enable Warp - Min distance in AU a vessel's trip must be to enable its use of local space warper.
Min Load of Drones & Min Load of Vessels - The minimum amount of cargo that must be carried by a logistics drone/vessel to enable it to fulfil a request. Minimum of 1%, maximum of 100%. At the base logistics drone cargo size of 25 for example, a min load of 40 percent means that a request will not be fulfilled until at least 10 of the resource is available for transit. The math is similar for the logistics vessel, which has a much larger base capacity of 200.
Note that although the power usage can be adjusted via a slider, it will not consume strictly that much: Instead, it uses the formula
power = max_power * min(1.0, 1.05 - energy/max_energy)
This means that initially it consumes full amount, roughly half at half charge, and only 1/20th max at nearly-full. It also means the overall charging profile (assuming you keep a constant setting, and can sustain the full charge rate initially) falls off exponentially.
In transit values do not necessarily align with reality if the min load is not 100% for both vessels and drones. When in transit a drone or vessel will assume full cargo until pickup, at which time the value will become accurate.
Usage[]
The Interstellar Logistics Station has five containers for resources each with a maximum capacity of 10000 resources regardless of type. To transport resources between planets, resources must be set to Remote Supply, Demand, and Storage. Each mode has the same function as the Local modes except items set to remote must be transported between different planets rather than the same planet. To transport resources, a station must be provided a substantial amount of power and Logistics Vessels of which it can have a maximum of ten.
Note that Logistics Vessels only consume power when they are departing from the station to fulfill a supply/demand request; incoming vessels from other stations do not consume power when landing/taking off (and use a different animation), and this can be used to your advantage when starting a small outpost: You can create a Planetary Logistics Station with no vessels that is not connected to the main grid, or only powered by a few Wind Turbines or Solar Panels. This will overcome the 60kW idle power and trickle-charge the building without overwhelming your outpost's grid, and remote Logistics Vessels will handle moving the items.
By default, the Interstellar Logistics Station cannot transport between stars because Space Warpers are required to travel longer distances. This can be disabled, although it is not recommended because vessels may take many real universe hours to travel between star systems. To unlock Vessel warping, the research "Logistics carrier engine" Level 4 must be completed and the station must be supplied with Space Warpers either manually or by conveyor belt. To transport resources between star systems, Vessels will consume two warpers and make the journey. It is recommended that if items are being transported in this manner that warpers are also transported.
To extract and insert items conveyors can be connected to the twelve ports on the bottom of the building. If items are being extracted, a filter has to be set when placing a conveyor to export with either the Tab key or the arrow keys to select the exported item. Items can also be added or removed manually, although this is not obvious at first. Ctrl and Shift-clicking the item portrait do not work, however right-clicking (which by default selects half the items, and if you drag allows you to fine-tune the amount) does work. You can also manually drop items (of the correct type) onto the portrait.
Crafting Recipes
Crafting Into
Replicator | ✔ |
---|---|
Made In | Assembler |
Unlocked By | Interstellar Logistics System |
Recipe | Interstellar Logistics Station | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Time | 30s | Replicator | Yes | |
Made In | Assembler | |||
Unlocked By | Interstellar Logistics System | |||
Outputs | 1xInterstellar Logistics Station | |||
Inputs | 1xPlanetary Logistics Station | 40xTitanium Alloy | ||
20xParticle Container |
Total Raw Materials
Inputs | |||
---|---|---|---|
120xWater | 1120xIron Ore | ||
360xCopper Ore | 320xSilicon Ore | ||
160xTitanium Ore | 240xStone | ||
240xCoal | 180xCrude Oil | ||
(90)xHydrogen |
Crafting Energy (not including mining): 2.13 GJ
Crafting From
Outputs | time | Inputs | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1xOrbital Collector | 30s | 1xInterstellar Logistics Station | 50xSuper-Magnetic Ring | ||
20xReinforced Thruster | 20xAccumulator (Full) |
- ↑ Power usage can be set via slider on the building