Any way to make Robots stop flying through the storm?

[Trubbles]

I have an L-shaped main island on my latest Fulgora build. Unfortunately, my robots like to fly in a short straight line across the oil ocean in the middle. I'm still many many hours from Foundations in this build so that's not an option. Is there any way to make a no-fly zone for my stupid robots? Thanks!

[back_buffer]

No. You need to separate your island's networks or cover that area of the ocean with lightning towers.

[Fletch]

They will always fly in a straight line between points A and B. When they run low on power, then they will fly towards the nearest roboport to recharge.

Typically it is not a good idea to have a huge sprawling single bot-network, but instead have many small (disconnected) specialized bot networks For fulgora, you probably want to use elevated rails / trains between the islands -- or just accept that you'll lose bots to lightning.

It is annoying that the foundations to build over the deep ocean is down the line...

[knighttemplar1960]

Break the network at the 90 degree angle by 1 tile. Requester chests at the break on the supply side use an inserter in the gap to move the items to a passive provider chest in the other network.

[Chindraba]

Belts

[Fletch]

Originally posted by Chindraba:

Belts

You like trains, you'll love Fulgora. The planet forces a train-based design interconnecting small islands that can't be crossed with belts. Surprised OP got roboports to connect actually. Ah, a big L-shaped island. Still have to employ multiple islands at some point. Belts would do it on a single island.

[Trubbles]

Thanks for the feedback, all. I'm going to disconnect the network in the middle and make it into two networks. I have trains bringing in scrap and a bus on the island but many things done with logistics because its just so clean and easy for a lot of the things you only need sometimes...

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by Fletch:

Typically it is not a good idea to have a huge sprawling single bot-network, but instead have many small (disconnected) specialized bot networks

This was very important pre 2.0. I'm less sure of its importance post 2.0 due to the bot AI upgrades.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

Originally posted by Fletch:

Typically it is not a good idea to have a huge sprawling single bot-network, but instead have many small (disconnected) specialized bot networks

This was very important pre 2.0. I'm less sure of its importance post 2.0 due to the bot AI upgrades.

It is less important. It is not, yet, unimportant. You can still get bots flying half-way across the map in a large network. The only 'issue' with that is the delay in getting things done. Presuming the power is a non-issue and the UPS isn't a problem, of course.
The problem with a large net and logistic bots is they'll go where ever "it" is to get it and your lopsided production can go unnoticed, and uncorrected, for quite a while. With a smaller net the issue would cause an alert for missing inventory and you could find and fix the cause.
Of course, with the con bots, it sucks to have a factory built and not running because one more belt has to travel by bot from the other side of the map.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Fletch:

Originally posted by Chindraba:

Belts

You like trains, you'll love Fulgora. The planet forces a train-based design interconnecting small islands that can't be crossed with belts. Surprised OP got roboports to connect actually. Ah, a big L-shaped island. Still have to employ multiple islands at some point. Belts would do it on a single island.

Explore around on Fulgora. When I first hit Fulgora I found 2 large islands and a medium that were all within reach of each other's roboports and in range of standard large power poles.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3383549808

[Fletch]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Explore around on Fulgora. When I first hit Fulgora I found 2 large islands and a medium that were all within reach of each other's roboports and in range of standard large power poles.

Agreed. The starting area on Fulgora (at least mine) was pitifully small so I explored and picked some decent sized islands. Not as nice as yours though -- mine are too far away for big poles. I should've spent more time exploring before settling on the ones I did (no enemies so no worries about exploring vast areas).

[Hurkyl]

Here's a crazy idea: make a lightning strike detector so that you can detect when night falls. When it does, disable some roboports to disconnect the network so that bots won't start new flights in the danger area. And make a timer to turn the roboports back on again after a short while (and each new lightning strike would restart the timer).

With some more work you could probably even schedule to turn the roboports off a little before when night falls.

[eeloocraft113]

if your accumulators are at 100% then it is night