It has since gone on to start eating my base. The base and the small ship were connnected, the NCF is not connected to either.

Turn off the NCF, remove the beacon. It should stop ?

Alright I'll try that next time I'm in the world. I think It probably was ignoring the beacon because I was in creative mode, so the beacon, of course, was owned by no one. But that doesn't explain why it started eating my ally's drone and then my base, I checked ownership, everything was set other than the beacon

Well, deconstruct does not work without a beacon, it shouldn't just eat a random ship. That isn't possible at all.

it definitely happened though, I noticed these nanites flying off to nowhere and they were eating a ship, and then I figured when they took the last piece that was over but I later discovered them eating the bottom of a ramp

I noticed if they are eating an object that is connected IA connector they don't stop at the connector and I also seen them eating something and when I remove the Beacon they don't stop unless I power down the NCF until all nineties have returned

Yeah if they are connected, then it will take down all grids connected. I'm not sure this was the issue though? Or was it?

Isn't it supposed to eat Debris, such as the stray 1x1 armor or gyro bouncing around inside of a ship?

Um tyrsis relating to the above comment, is there an way to add a feature that allows the factory to deconstruct any grid that could be considered as trash?

I had this originally, but it is just too dangerous, as it would end up eating things that people don't want it to (ie decorative blocks, or things without ownership, but not part of an owned grid).

When a beacon is attached, all blocks on that grid are marked. Even if parts fall off, those parts are still marked, so that's why it can still deconstruct those.

I will eventually add an "area" beacon where you can define an area of space, where if anything is in that space it'll deconstruct, so you can setup larger deconstruction areas without requiring separate beacons.

cool

maybve that could be a separate option, maybe for say roleplay, where it eats everything it can find that isnt part of a proper grid

Ohhh, the description wasn't clear that entire grids and connected items get marked by the beacon (it made it sound like only a specific block would be marked, which was strange). I had wanted a specific part of the base deconstructed and I didn't realize it needed to be separated, so it looks like the beacon did work as intended, but not as I expected, even though it was placed in creative. The drone was connected to the base grid I accidentally marked. Another thing is that the description claims the factory block can't send out deconstruct nanites unless it gets a deconstruct upgrade attached to it, whcih I didn't do.