Hi, I had some trouble getting the hang of the exchange ships as well at first.
What works for me is for example.

1. On Aqualis , place a harvester bot to collect silkworms(or whatever).
2. Place an exchange rocket and set the planet to Prime.
3. Set demand for that exchange rocket for silkworms.
4. Set exchange rocket to autolaunch when full. (Watch and make sure the drones do their job.)
5. Place enough optimizers with trade rocket fuses near the exchange rocket to decrease turn around time to something you can live with.(Optional if you can stand the 10 minute wait time.)

Then hop the bus, (if you have the all the goodies to travel easily) and head for Prime.

1. On Prime , place a planetary depot and set it to receive silkworms.
2. Wait till your autolaunched exchange rocket on Aqualis delivers, making sure the product arrives and your little drones snatch the products for use.

I'm using dozens of these setups on all the planets/moons for dozens of products all headed for Prime and haven't had a problem .
The problem I had at first was understanding that for automated deliveries its a one direction, one planet only system.

You may already know all this and have a bug of some type, and there are other threads that explain it better but good luck and have fun.

Um... in between points 1 & 2, shouldn't there be another point saying "build storage demanding silkworms" ? Or does that fall under making sure the drones grab the product?

And - this is where my chain breaks down - what do you do when there's no more storage room? You can only build more for so long, and, what do you do with it all? We can't sell them, you can only build so many silkworm factories, eventually it all backs up and then what? I've yet to figure that one out... satisfactorially, at least... (that "rrrrr" sound is wheels spinning, lol!)

Originally posted by Robirda:

And - this is where my chain breaks down - what do you do when there's no more storage room? You can only build more for so long, and, what do you do with it all? We can't sell them, you can only build so many silkworm factories, eventually it all backs up and then what? I've yet to figure that one out... satisfactorially, at least... (that "rrrrr" sound is wheels spinning, lol!)

low priority a shredder set to auto-shred when full, it'll stick stuff there once everywhere else that wants it is full.

Well first, you don't need storage between the harvester and the exchange ship.
Setting supply on the harvester and demand on the exchange rocket gets it loaded.
I'm just using silkworms as an example, could be any product drones can collect.

Second, on Prime, if you don't need the product right away it will just sit in the depot
(that you set to supply the product) till you want it used in some fashion. (Once again silkworms was just an example).
The exchange ship will just keep going back and forth carrying the same load over and over unless something uses some of its product.

At the moment I'm shipping 25 different items from all three other planets/moons to Prime.
To increase the throughput for the system I sometimes use 2 to 5 planetary depots to ensure I have enough product on hand on Prime.
If I really need more of a particular product on Prime I make multiple exchange rockets on the other planet/moon to send to multiple depots on Prime.

Mostly I'm just doing this to see what happens and how far I can push it.
Fun..

Originally posted by prtmh:

Well first, you don't need storage between the harvester and the exchange ship.
Setting supply on the harvester and demand on the exchange rocket gets it loaded.
I'm just using silkworms as an example, could be any product drones can collect.

Yep, okay, I followed that part okay - but this next part has me even more confused now, because in your earlier post you said,

Originally posted by prtmh:

1. On Prime , place a planetary depot and {b}set it to receive{/b} silkworms.
2. Wait till your autolaunched exchange rocket on Aqualis delivers, making sure the product arrives and your little drones snatch the products for use.

(I added bold highlights to the parts that are confusing me)

...yet your later post says ;

Originally posted by prtmh:

Second, on Prime, if you don't need the product right away it will just sit in the depot {b}(that you set to supply the product){/b} till you want it used in some fashion. (Once again silkworms was just an example).

...So this sounds to me as if you are setting the depot to both receive and send? And if you don't have a demand set anywhere (for an autocrafter or storage - where would the little drones be taking the product to?

Maybe I'm trying to overthink this and that's why I'm confused - but I thought we couldn't do receive/send for the same machine or storage? Or are the depots different?

You can't of course set them to send and receive.
What I mean by that is to set the depot to receive the product from the exchange rocket . That's what places the picture on the front.
Then set supply on the logistics menu so the drones can take it to whatever needs it.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3538445863

Hey, thanks muchly for the clarification, I really appreciate it. I think I get it now, I was right, I was over-thinking it (again) ;-p

Yeah, I try and read this stuff before I hit 'Post Comment' and see if it makes sense.
Sometimes it does and then there's those other times. :)

Oh man, you said a mouthful, lol! ... and I used to wonder why Grandma would roll her eyes and say, "Well, welcome to the humans race!" in that particularly 'gotcha' tone...

(ping!) *lightbulb!* ... ;-}