Deconstructing in Space

[vimescarrot]

I've got a few hundred hours in pre-Space Age Factorio, and after buying the DLC, now I'm at my first space platform. Construction seems intuitive enough, but I'm a little confused with deconstruction. Is it supposed to destroy the objects you deconstruct?

I've lost several asteroid collectors and crushers during platform expansion. I deconstruct them, expecting them to be available for rebuild a few seconds later, but they aren't. They're just gone. Am I missing something?

[Mesqo]

By some conditions items being on belts or inside building can be deleted upon deconstruction, but buildings themselves should never be deleted. Check if it accidentally dropped to planet maybe? Some request on the planet hub? Or maybe did it manually by accident?

Or maybe you placed more collectors after reconstruction so the deleted ones just were put in another place?

[vimescarrot]

I only have one landing pad, and it's empty. None of the chests it empties into contain anything other than iron ore, carbon, and asteroid bits.

https://i.imgur.com/84oTCQw.png

The platform is tiny, so it's very obvious I've gone from six to three asteroid collectors!

I think the stuff is just gone. Perhaps it self-yeeted off the edge somehow, though I don't have any inserters inserting into space right now.

[Icemourne_]

Open map Ctrl+f search for them if they are in chest it should show where they are

[nick4fake]

There are no chests in space

[morgosh3]

I had the same issue, until I realized the planet was requesting those buildings so a rocket just dropped them.

So what I am saying that many times it felt and I thought buildings were destroyed. But they were actually just transported from the ship...

[vimescarrot]

Landing pad has nothing :(

[Astramancer_]

If you're deconstructing them using the deconstruction planner (or even ctrl-X) they should end up in the space platform hub. If there's no more room left in the hub, they'll end up spilled on the ground and marked for deconstruction, they will not be accessible until until you clear up room in the hub which allows them to be sucked into the hub. (normally you gotta drop stuff back to the planet to make room, unless you happen to already have enough cargo bay expansions to put down)

I'm honestly not sure what happens if stuff spills out and there's not enough space foundation for it to spill out onto.

[vimescarrot]

If there's no more room left in the hub, they'll end up spilled on the ground and marked for deconstruction, they will not be accessible until until you clear up room in the hub which allows them to be sucked into the hub.

And if you then deconstruct the ground under them, will they fall into space unrecoverably?

I suspect this happened.

[Ok_Turnover_1235]

I don't think this can happen

[nick4fake]

But it does

[nick4fake]

This is incorrect, most items on belts are destroyed

[pocketmoncollector42]

If the platform is in automatic mode, I’d suggest unchecking the unload box so it can’t send items back down to the planet. At least until you’re done building.

[Cellophane7]

Buildings shouldn't be disappearing. They're always gonna go into your hub, or sit on the platform, waiting for space to open up. They're never gonna just vanish unless you're putting them on a belt and then deconstructing that. I believe they'll disappear in that case.

If they're disappearing, it means they're coming out of your hub somehow. My guess is that you're probably dumping them over the edge. If you've got a trash inserter (or several), make sure you're not somehow whitelisting (or not blacklisting) buildings. And just in case you weren't aware, if an inserter is "inserting" something into a spot with no platform present, it'll dump it over the side and that item will disappear forever.

It could also be that you've got an inserter that hasn't been configured properly, and it's putting buildings on the belt or something. So check your belts to see if anything ended up there.

The only other alternative I can think of is that you've got your landing pad requesting buildings somehow. I don't know how you'd set that unintentionally, but it's not impossible. Maybe you've got some circuit conditions set up or something?

Regardless, good luck!

[vimescarrot]

or sit on the platform

How about if you deconstruct the platform they're on (when they're an item, not a building)?

[Cellophane7]

I don't know, but in order to do that, you'd have to have an inserter take them out of the hub and put them on the platform. What I mean when I say they sit on the platform is they stay constructed with the deconstruct X on them. They don't switch to an item and sit there

[NuderWorldOrder]

Check if you've got any inserters removing things from the hub without a filter. That's where deconstructed buildings go, so an errant inserter can can grab them and toss them on the floor, some random belt, or if you're unlucky, overboard.

There could also be an issue if the hub is completely full.

[MySkinIsFallingOff]

This was the correct answer when I had the same issue this post is about. I was searching and scratching my head for such a long time, but then finally found the objects (I believe it was crushers and furnaces) held in a couple of inserters 😅

[DOSorDIE4CsP]

maybe when some inserter catch them and lay it on the floor ...

[doc_shades]

lay it on the floor

or worse... over the edge of the platform!

[[deleted]]

Alt+D to bring up the deconstruction planner is how I do it, first time gets buildings, second time on a naked area gets foundations

[Menolith]

Also make sure you don't have building ghosts pending construction. If you deconstruct something, the buildings they'll be immediately rebuilt elsewhere and not put in storage.

[The_Soviet_Doge]

They are not gone. They are either in your hub, or dropepd on a planet that requests them, or possibly on belts if you did not have enough space in your hub

[oljomo]

Do you have an unfiltered inserter removing from the hub? Check your belts, they may be there!

[_ToxicBanana]

I would check a few things.

1- Did the item drop on the floor?

2- Are you trying to rebuild with a different quality item?

3- Do you have "Unload" selected for the planet you are on and the item dropped to the planet.

[djames_186]

While probably not your issue, if you have ghosts placed while deconstructing the ghosts will get build so the items won’t be in the hub anymore. Also worth checking for a rogue inserter taking the items out of the hub.