How do you set up winder bots?

[Hypersapien]

How do you set up bots to keep all the other bots in an area wound up? I'll have two winder bots covering the same area and every once in a while I'll find all the bots run down, including the two winder bots.

Am I missing something? Or is there not really a way to have bots run indefinitely without ever having to wind them up manually yourself?

[Egan Wolf]

In theory I believe you can create a system where one bot is recharging until he dies and then the other one starts, recharges the first bot and keeps recharging until he dies at which point the first bot starts recharging again. They would need a store or shouts to communicate to each other. But I never tried it myself.

Much simpler way is to lower the chance of a blackout by adding more bots to the area.

[Hypersapien]

Originally posted by Egan Wolf:

In theory I believe you can create a system where one bot is recharging until he dies and then the other one starts, recharges the first bot and keeps recharging until he dies at which point the first bot starts recharging again. They would need a store or shouts to communicate to each other. But I never tried it myself.

Much simpler way is to lower the chance of a blackout by adding more bots to the area.

This just occurred to me. Do signs work while they're being carried? Could you set a sign area to 1x1 directly under the sign and have one winder carry it and the other winder only be concerned about the sign area?

[Egan Wolf]

Yes, they work, just don't put them into backpacks because they don't update their area when stowed.

The other bot will discharge eventually, that's why I think they have to swap their roles.

[Hypersapien]

Originally posted by Egan Wolf:

Yes, they work, just don't put them into backpacks because they don't update their area when stowed.

The other bot will discharge eventually, that's why I think they have to swap their roles.

Right. As long as the second winder is still in the first winder's area the first winder will wind it up.

Do bots wind down from just sitting and doing nothing? Do different actions wind them down at different rates?

[Wat]

Originally posted by Hypersapien:

Am I missing something? Or is there not really a way to have bots run indefinitely without ever having to wind them up manually yourself?

Originally posted by Egan Wolf:

Much simpler way is to lower the chance of a blackout by adding more bots to the area.

Originally posted by Hypersapien:

Do signs work while they're being carried?

Use sign with a maxed out area. Use a bot to carry it around. Order other bots to rewind any
bot within the sign area. Can use many bots to rewind, like 4 or more, which are reused across the whole map. The chance of all of them shutting down at the same time is near zero.

With a bit more thought, rewind bots can be synchronized with shouts and hears to bring the chance of a blackout down to exactly zero. Although I also never tried this myself.

Also, at late game, mk3 bots don't need to be rewinded.

[Kyle]

i usually indicate a 'foreman' for each of my building dedicated to recharging the bots in that area and then have a few for each sub-section/chunk of my base that can recharge the main guys

albeit that's mainly so that my bots don't have to travel all over and each spot can have its dedicated charging bot, it works out since most of the spots where bots die out are covered by dedicated chargers

[Lord Stone]

Originally posted by Wat:

Use sign with a maxed out area. Use a bot to carry it around. Order other bots to rewind any
bot within the sign area. Can use many bots to rewind, like 4 or more, which are reused across the whole map. The chance of all of them shutting down at the same time is near zero.

I am using this setup, but sometimes for some reason the bot carrying the sign sometimes runs out of power and isn't being rewinded by the rewinding bots. I still cannot figure out why. I double checked everything, there are still rewinding bots running, they are checking the area under the sign. The area under the sign has not shifted off the center (which is something that can happen when the sign comes close to the edge of the explored map). But still the winder bots aren't coming to wind up the sign carrier.

[Egan Wolf]

@Lord Stone One case I see is that first the sign bot dies, then one of the recharge bots who is outside of the sign area starts moving to him to recharge him but dies before reaching the sign bot and is still outside the sign area. He can't be recharged and the sign bot can't be recharged because he is reserved by the dead recharging bot.
Remember you can hold Alt and hover over objects to see if they are reserved.

[siderisanon]

When creating bots for an area, I assign many of them to first check if any bots in that zone need a recharge. For example, my acorn gathering bots will check for uncharged bots, look for acorns to pick up, put them in storage, then repeat. When you've got a dozen or more bots working in an area and all of them are recharging each other, bots are rarely wound down for long.

I assign my areas to signs, then billboards later.

Before disks, I just teach each bot as I wind the next bot created. Once I have disks (or better yet the bot database) it is easier to have a saved template for recharging bots in an area.

Unfortunately, the four lines of extra code are sometimes too much for complex scripts or Mk0 bots. Usually, there are enough other workers in an area to handle things.

Repeat Forever (with failure)
---Find nearest discharged bot
---Move to bot
---Recharge bot

[Mal Function]

i like a multi area bot, with maybe 2 or possibly more sharing an area. while Mk0s can only handle 2 areas (due to memory), Mk1s can do 3 or 4 with a memory upgrade, and those areas can be 17x17 or 23 x 23 with search upgrade, so a potential area of 46x46 with 4 full size search areas.

Mk2s just get silly, their 31x31 base area makes a 4 area bot able to recharge in a 62x62 area.

the code for a multi zone bot is quite simple too...

Repeat Forever
   Repeat Forever (fail)
      Find Nearest Discharged Bot
      Move to Bot
      Recharge Bot

just repeat the Repeat with fail loop as many times as memory allows, and set each loop to a different search area.

[siderisanon]

Originally posted by Mal Function:

i like a multi area bot, with maybe 2 or possibly more sharing an area.

My default on Mk2 bots is very similar. I have my areas all marked with billboards. I have a default 4-billboard code saved in the Bot Database. I just park the charger bot at the center of the four zones and assign them to the four billboards.

The billboards are spaced such that there is a small overlap so roads are all covered by two zones. Each square zone is covered by four charger bots at each corner, so they recharge each other as well.