Construction robots to follow logistic areas

[Eternal]

Hello, im playing since 3500 hrs ago gametime, and im still baffled how i have to do a huge amount of infrastructure to have my bots build something a bit far (i know ab engi train and the drill with it) but im curious, is there a way or mod to have bots never go out of logi area or construction area, like to follow the orange path... I know devs are incompetent in coming with some solution cause otherwise it would cross their mind... Same as google devs that never ever cross their mind we wiuld need also a delete button not only backwards....
If anyone knows a mod, share pls. Thx

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by Eternal:

I know devs are incompetent in coming with some solution cause otherwise it would cross their mind...

Here's a quote from a dev:[forums.factorio.com]

Originally posted by Rseding91:

The core question here is: should the game attempt to solve the "you built a ineffective robot network" or should the player solve it. Our stance is: the player should solve it.

Or, to phrase it in a more inflammatory manner (which you seem to prefer): I know you are incompetent in building your bot networks cause otherwise you wouldn't have this problem :)

There are more than a dozen threads with relevant discussions, explaining why implementing this would be a bad idea, linked from this post: https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=18093

[PleB Hitzgi]

To a degree i'm gonna side with op here: I mainly have the issue with building bots. If i have 200 or so in my inventory and then use a blueprint, the game appears to send out "buildrequests" (if that makes sens). Now i'm a fan of not having buildingbots in my networks at all, 0/0. This is to keep the buildingbots centralized and not have one move across hunderts of tiles to get this one furnace and then moving back the where i want it instead of just taking it from my inventory and moving 3 tiles.
However, having enemies enable requires a lot of wall repairing and replacement of turret. Doing it manualy or with personal roboports takes ages depending on the size of your base. I attempted to split my roboport network in two to solve this: one for logistics in my "main" area where i produce science etc, and a seccondary one with only buildrobots that just covers the outher wallarea of my base. Now while this does work to a degree, i had a realy hard time covering the walls properly without accidentally connecting both networks.
A good way to solve this would be to make roboport a bit more editable. Giving them some settings to adjust the ranges of build and logistic ares, or a simple tickbox to say for example: do not build in this area. Would not be hard to implement and would make that one robot coming from the other side of the base no longer do that.
I'd welcome something like that, cause atm i just don't build buildrobots at all for my network, and it kinda makes me sad cause they would be very useful.
One last thing i though about is the way how blueprint and disturcted objects are handled the same. If they changed that you could also maybe change the way that behaves. Like if somethings gets destroyed (purple health bar) a robot will get requested from the network if there is one and the item is provided. If you build a blueprint (or build with shift) only robots form personal roboports are requested. This shouldn't be impossible to implement as the game has to rembember where the bots come from already cause somehow they always return to the player if they're sent out from it.
edit: i know it's not like the same problem that op has but it's still some odd thing with the bots imo.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Generaly robots are great for small and medium bases , large you start seeing large "innefficiencies" and if you just want to cover everything it will become "really bad"

mods somewhat are better with this as lots good mods adds tiers to robot(having higher capacity , battery and speed) meaning that inefficiently is lower as base and artition of it is not so bad


but generaly you should not slap robots everywhere , you can keep parts of base chunks not connected to main system and have "localised" robots and have recources be transported by trains (good example is mining base for repairs of turrets/replacing robots , with special train just going "across all stations" resuplying them with bots/turrets/parts/ammo

Robots are great but i like that they got limits , every transportation method in game has "a limit" of some sort , belts are slow take space and keep "recources" on them , trains need even more space and planing , robots get very inefficient as base grows larger (and big power drain)

once you start using them like intended it gets great


One good example of it is using robots to equalise ore into storage chests(at mining base) so all wagons are loaded quick and equaly(takes far less space and perfect)

or doing same for "unloading" so all belts are allweys full(disconected from main base robots)

one thing i would like devs to do is make "mini robot port" who has less range so we can make "localised" logistic small holes easier (mods give more freedom on that)


Also late game roboport use is have big specialised bases who make 1-3 goods at most , ore/recources are transported , distribured by robots , robots load finished products onto chest who get loaded on train


by doing this you can pretty much avoid "huge base problem"

[THE kilroy]

There has to be mod with a roboport that has 100000 tile radius, i would search for larger roboports or something similar. Sounds like a game breaking mod to me but theres plenty of people who share your intrest

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by PeP Clippy:

To a degree i'm gonna side with op here

You didn't :)

Originally posted by PeP Clippy:

A good way to solve this would be to make roboporn a bit more editable. Giving them some settings to adjust the ranges of build and logistic ares, or a simple tickbox to say for example: do not build in this area. Would not be hard to implement and would make that one robot coming from the other side of the base no longer do that.
I'd welcome something like that, cause atm i just don't build buildrobots at all for my network, and it kinda makes me sad cause they would be very useful.

I'd welcome some more customizability for the bot networks as well. I can't agree or disagree on how hard it would be to implement, though, as I haven't seen the code or even the design for the current implementation :)

Originally posted by PeP Clippy:

Now while this does work to a degree, i had a realy hard time covering the walls properly without accidentally connecting both networks.

Building your walls a bit further out could help with that particular issue, I think.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Originally posted by PeP Clippy:

roboporn

[PleB Hitzgi]

Originally posted by piccolo255:

Originally posted by PeP Clippy:

Originally posted by PeP Clippy:

Now while this does work to a degree, i had a realy hard time covering the walls properly without accidentally connecting both networks.

Building your walls a bit further out could help with that particular issue, I think.

Fair point that would solve the issue. I would just argue that currently the options you have on roboports to edit theri functionality is exactly one and that's the positioning. I mean look at trains. They have integrated conditioning when to drive to the next station, what stations should they drive to in the first place, timers, rail signals even coloring. You could do something similar to roboports aswell. One more thing i had in mind was something like custom networks maybe? Like... Give roboports a customizable color and only maybe the same colors of 2 port will interact with eachother and trade out bots. That would make you use your area a bit more efficient. Making the player solve issues is good, but you also gotta give him something to work with. A 8 way intersection for trains is not the easiest thing in the world, but some of us managed it cause we got rails and we got 2 types of signals that we understood and so it became rather easy to do. But roboport have barely any signaling possibilities to adjust them whatsoever. It's a lot harder to set them up the way you want them to behave...

[PleB Hitzgi]

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

Originally posted by PeP Clippy:

roboporn

Whops noone saw that (on that note i'm wondering how that not got censored).

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Originally posted by PleB Hitzgi:

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

Whops noone saw that (on that note i'm wondering how that not got censored).

Most filters can be bypassed , my character in 2 mmos is called Bootycheeks

[vts6482]

As piccolo quoted, it's left up to the player to decide what they do and I think that's a good thing (lest the devs strip out more features that people find confusing). I've learnt to accept a bit of collateral damage when expanding the perimeter (1.4k conbots & 1.2k logibots killed in my current map). It's a tradeoff between cautiously planning expansions and just "getting it done" while suffering a few biter raids now and then. I have the choice to just expand "safely" by 5 chunks each time instead of 10.

[Eternal]

Meh ... I used kinda accusatory phrase... I apologise...
I built all sorts of bases in these 2 yrs... But now i started a new map, wanna go to some 5 k spm , so i decided to make a different build than before, this means lots of train tracks ... Intersections... Then unloaders and stackers and ofc production lines to match that 5 k... So i spread cause i wanna avoid congestions, and i usually use a engineering train , pluck down a roboport and start from there with automated engi station and train... But im bored of that... I wanna use bots to build... No more engi trains, especially now with buffer chests i can use also logi bots to help builders by having their mats close, but that going into wilds and slowly come back and then go again... Oh my life... Just a simple follow the area it will be perfect, i will read now your link. Thx all

Edit: just checked link, yes i want more cpu usage put into pathing, so again these are builder bots, not playing roboproduction, i hate logi prod builds too unsatisfying...

[vts6482]

Originally posted by Eternal:

but that going into wilds and slowly come back and then go again...

Ah that. Yeah, that will happen within a base perimeter if you don't have every inch plastered with roboports. Really would be nice for vanilla to have an infinite research for the bots' internal batteries.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Originally posted by vts6482:

Originally posted by Eternal:

but that going into wilds and slowly come back and then go again...

Ah that. Yeah, that will happen within a base perimeter if you don't have every inch plastered with roboports. Really would be nice for vanilla to have an infinite research for the bots' internal batteries.

even if it was case in perfect scenario , travel time would be still long(even if you reserch speed you hit brick wall where reserch is 32k each science , then 64k

problem with batteries is , bots would "charge longer"
"but make bots use more power then to charge" then your roboports from 1gigawat , eat 32 gigawats after just 6 levels up 1x2x2x2x2x2x=32 , then 64 , then 128

your missing entire point really , your not supposed to plaster all map with roboports , even if devs added reserch it would not solve your problem

if you really want to strech , make localised roboports there(not conected to main grid) , with essencials you need

[vts6482]

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

Originally posted by vts6482:

Ah that. Yeah, that will happen within a base perimeter if you don't have every inch plastered with roboports. Really would be nice for vanilla to have an infinite research for the bots' internal batteries.

even if it was case in perfect scenario , travel time would be still long(even if you reserch speed you hit brick wall where reserch is 32k each science , then 64k

Not an issue - when I put down blueprints remotely I don't expect things to be built instantly. (That said, I'm up to 1M for speed research :P)

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

problem with batteries is , bots would "charge longer"
"but make bots use more power then to charge" then your roboports from 1gigawat , eat 32 gigawats after just 6 levels up 1x2x2x2x2x2x=32 , then 64 , then 128

No, it would be less on average because they aren't making silly detours when their battery runs flat. As for that power scaling, it would only happen if you're exponentially increasing the work bots do (e.g. if using logibots everywhere instead of belts).

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

your missing entire point really , your not supposed to plaster all map with roboports , even if devs added reserch it would not solve your problem

if you really want to strech , make localised roboports there(not conected to main grid) , with essencials you need

I think you're missing the point - what use are construction bots and blueprints if you can't utilise them where you need them without having to personally travel there in the first place?

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Originally posted by vts6482:

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

even if it was case in perfect scenario , travel time would be still long(even if you reserch speed you hit brick wall where reserch is 32k each science , then 64k

Not an issue - when I put down blueprints remotely I don't expect things to be built instantly. (That said, I'm up to 1M for speed research :P)

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

problem with batteries is , bots would "charge longer"
"but make bots use more power then to charge" then your roboports from 1gigawat , eat 32 gigawats after just 6 levels up 1x2x2x2x2x2x=32 , then 64 , then 128

No, it would be less on average because they aren't making silly detours when their battery runs flat. As for that power scaling, it would only happen if you're exponentially increasing the work bots do (e.g. if using logibots everywhere instead of belts).

Originally posted by Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

your missing entire point really , your not supposed to plaster all map with roboports , even if devs added reserch it would not solve your problem

if you really want to strech , make localised roboports there(not conected to main grid) , with essencials you need

I think you're missing the point - what use are construction bots and blueprints if you can't utilise them where you need them without having to personally travel there in the first place?

not really , moders already did what you asking , and it increses power drain so much roboports drain almost as much as "everything else" and do mind i do spam bazilion of laser turrets

Power drain for 5dim mk 2-4 bots and "roboports" mk2-4 gets really ridicules

if you want to do what you want to do there are mods for "roboport trains" and "construction vechicles" , you can automate both to some extent , tell it to go "here" and you build what you wanted