Yet Another Minion Post

[Spirit_OK]

(feel free to pin it to gather all suggestions in one thread)

Current problems:
1. Minions can't be contained in an area, they tend to run off to the other side of a map.
2. At least engineer minions can't use targets, can't find a path (BUG)
3. Minions can't use elevators.
4. Minions can't use shared storage, move items manually. Shared storage is a generic feature of storage itself as it appears.

Possible solutions:
1. Virtual borders or actual automated gates that block their pathfinding.
2. Fix it :) Seems that the pathfinding routine gets timeout error way too fast.
3. Let them use teleporters!
4. Let them use nearest chest as an entry-point to storage network just like player do.

What do we need to automate in ideal world (like in the early trailer):

• Gathering: collecting wild plants and putting to storage. Could be an upgrade of basic role.
  
  
• Farming. Other games do it by assigning plants to the patches, then the helper just collects, stores, re-plants and waters from a nearest source.
  Needs a patch, a water source, seed storage, plant storage and worm storage. Stops if the plant storage is full. Prioritizes planting and watering, drops excessive seeds and worms on the ground, puts them to storage in the downtime (at last priority). if respective storage is not full.
  Bonus: Could extract seeds from any chest in a shared storage. Could switch to water-refilling subroutine if a water storage is empty, then back to farming. Could identify autosprinklers and autopatches if installed.
  Development: From one minion, one bucket, one chest and 2-3 patches with one plant to a sprawling farm with several farmers, dedicated delivery bots and water bots.
  
  
• Fishing. Needs fishing rod storage or internal fishing rod, bait storage, fish storage, junk storage or could never catch non-fish items. Stops when the fish storage is full.
  Bonus: Could extract bait from any chest in a shared storage. Could have bait preference.
  Development: Not so much, there are only two fishing places.
  
  
• Cooking. Needs kitchen, fuel, ingredients storage (could be a kitchen integrated storage), food storage (again, integrated). Gets fuel, crafts food, puts to storage. Excessive fuel could be converted to coal. Stops when not enough ingredients or fuel.
  Bonus: Could switch to refueling subroutine if empty (see below). Could use shared storage to look for ingredients.
  Development: From one cook and one field kitchen to supply chains that create complex foods like burgers step by step.
  
  
• Operating equipment. As cooking, but applied to other crafting stations that has recipes, ingredients and products. Also operating special stations like hydraulic press - fetching ingredients and placing products in a storage rack.
  Bonus: Could use shared storage to look for ingredients.
  Development: From kitchen refuelling bot to Factorio-like workshops. One of the traders says she did exactly that - could we get a copy of firmware?
  
  
• Gofer/butler: minion follows the player or stands at the post, accepts orders to find X items of Y and bring them/put them in a separate chest or in a player-made storage. Should probably be a separate GUI window with a queue. Could have an endless order (essentially "refill"). Stops when the quota is met or can't be reached, starts the next task.
  Bonus: Could use shared storage to look for items.

With all this, the player would at last be able to chill out and play ukulele all day long.

Edit: styling, typos.

[FUNTUL]

Hi, Thanks for feedback! We are constantly working on fixing minions (Thanks for the bug report), but there are here to help, not to do all the work. Unfortunatly they were not built to create automation heaven, where all things are done without player :^(

We actually want you to engage with every cycle like farming and crafting. Otherwise your chest will be flooded with automated items and gameplay will be replaced with boredom. To make automation as huge, as you describe (multistep cooking and crafting, zone control, resource request), we would need to completly rebuild the game. We acknowledge that in and will work on automation in future projects.

[TyrannicalW]

Hello, what about moving levels with minions. Please allow them to go into the nano or use elevators