Cargo Ship Target Pad

The Cargo Ship Target Pad is the destination half of the cargo ship logistics system. Cargo ships use two pad types: a Cargo Ship Start Pad and a Cargo Ship Target Pad, with the target pad serving as the receiving point for shipments launched from start pads. Once cargo ships are linked, they travel between the paired pads and unload their freight at the target.

Cargo ships can now queue and take turns unloading, but only one cargo ship may offload its inventory at a time. This makes the system more practical than earlier single-file unloading behavior, while still limiting peak throughput at a busy destination.

In practice, Cargo Ship Target Pads are best used for moving goods over long distances where belts would be cumbersome, but they are not always the ideal answer for very large bases. Their effective throughput varies significantly with travel distance between pads, so a cargo ship route that looks efficient on paper can slow down once the route gets longer. If you plan to rely on them heavily, you may need multiple routes rather than a single central hub.

• A single target pad can be supplied by any number of start pads, since arriving ships queue and unload in turn.
• The practical maximum output of one target pad is about 4800/min when using all 20 ports and MK3 belts.
• Do not feed more than that into one target pad; if demand is higher, set up a second target pad to handle the overflow.
• They are most attractive as an alternative to long belt highways, especially when you want to simplify transport across large gaps.