Are digging robots supposed to work this way?

[Charrey]

Bots that I have for replanting trees and pumpkins always leave undug spaces inbetween. They can't find these spaces when they look for nearest soil in a specific zone. This makes for very inefficient farms. How do I fix this? Is this on purpose?

Optimal farm:

|x|x|x|x|
|x|x|x|x|
|x|x|x|x|
|x|x|x|x|

My bot's farm:

|x| |x| |
| | | | |
|x| |x| |
| | | | |

Where x is a hole.

[Tenebrais]

This is correct, diggers will only dig holes in even-numbered coordinates. This leaves spaces all around the hole. I don't know if it's to help bots move more quickly through the farm (bushes and stuff slow down movement) or if there are some things that need empty space near their planting, but that is how it is.

It's worth noting that you don't need that extra space filled in unless your farm space is very small. Even for a basic bot, everything fully completes its growth cycle within the time it would take a single bot to dig all of the holes in its full-size search area even with that spacing.

[DizzieDawgie]

I've heard if you till the land with a hoe, then tell a bot to dig the tilled soil, it will dig every space without leaving gaps. I'm gonna try this myself today.

Gaps do help the bots move more quickly, at least I've seen me and the bots are slowed down walking through bushes. I'm also not sure what would happen if a dropped berry doesn't have and place to land if all surrounding spots are occupied with bushes too.

Note: "tilled" soil is different than just the brown dirt patches where the turf has been removed with a shovel. "Tilled" soil requires tilling the brown dirt with a hoe.

[[Ygg]Azarhiel]

You need a space for resources to pop when tree is cut down. I had a berry farm with no gaps, you loose berries if there is no space to drop. I guess it is the same with all farms...

[Charrey]

I guess all of this makes sense in a way. Still, the behaviour surprised me as other bots can generally find a goal if it exists.

[Voidheart]

If you want you can manually fill in the gaps for stuff that doesn't have to be replanted so you have like below. That will still leave room for robots moving and items to drop but have more plants.

|x|x|x|x|
| | | | |
|x|x|x|x|
| | | | |

[Arcanestomper]

You could do two wide rows of tilled ground and plant stuff on top of them. That would maximize space, be automatable, and still leave room for things to drop. The downside is that you would need more bots to cover a wide area, but in my experience a bot working full tilt can only plant on five to ten tiles before the plants are ready to harvest anyway.

[dorianmode]

How does anything get lost if you're automating collection? Bots can navigate just fine through berry bushes.

Note there's significant slowdown from walking through bushes, so maybe keeping them spaced and placing roads between them is preferable, although it also increases travel distance.

[Arcanestomper]

I haven't seen it myself, but presumably if there is a bush in every direction, then the berry just doesn't get placed. You can't place anything on bushes after all.

[dorianmode]

I'm going to remain sceptical until it's tested.

[CloversDrop]

Bots always dig holes in a grid, with 1 gap between them.
Till the soil first if you want this feature removing.

[Arcanestomper]

Originally posted by dorianmode:

I'm going to remain sceptical until it's tested.

Well I tested it and that's how it works. I planted a 9x9 square of berry bushes. When I harvested the middle one the berry dropped straight down and disappeared.

[dorianmode]

Originally posted by spellbook23:

Well I tested it and that's how it works. I planted a 9x9 square of berry bushes. When I harvested the middle one the berry dropped straight down and disappeared.

Well I tested it with a bot collecting the berries, and what do you know:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1896840387

You can't access the berries yourself as they fall inside the bush, but it's a game about automation, and the bots are fine with it...

[Buck]

I would also much prefer it if bots dug every tile. If you want certain tiles undug, you can just leave/place turf on them and the bots will skip them. It's very annoying the way it currently is. Even if the even coordinates were relative to the search area, you could just have multiple bots dig, but as it is, it just feels wrong.

[Blaze1961]

Originally posted by dorianmode:

Originally posted by spellbook23:

Well I tested it and that's how it works. I planted a 9x9 square of berry bushes. When I harvested the middle one the berry dropped straight down and disappeared.

Well I tested it with a bot collecting the berries, and what do you know:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1896840387

You can't access the berries yourself as they fall inside the bush, but it's a game about automation, and the bots are fine with it...

How did you set up the bots to remove the turf every other square in that farm? Or did you just have a bot to replant the turf after the holes were dug?

[dorianmode]

Originally posted by Blaze1961:

Or did you just have a bot to replant the turf after the holes were dug?

This.