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Construction bots returning to a roboport to make it their home (to go into the roboport when they have nothing to do) will not recharge at other roboports along the way. They will slowly fly, sometimes across great distances, to get to the only roboport they want to use as "home", and will ignore any other roboports along the way - even roboports which have no bots charging or lined up to charge. Of course, the roboports they fly over are already full of bots, but that shouldn't stop them from stopping to recharge... should it?

I think a discharged bots should look from time to time if there are (new) chargers around. They should also prefer non-moving chargers over moving (personal roboport), if both are equally near.

Thanks for the report. I made the change for 0.12.5 that will allow robots to search for closer roboport for charging even when it already picked roboport for stationing. If something else breaks because of this, I will blame you two!

@ssilk, it would be cool if robots planned their routes with charging in mind, so they doesn't decide just few tiles from their destination they need to recharge and go back to roboport it passed just few seconds ago. But those are changes for another major update

posila wrote: I made the change for 0.12.5 that will allow robots to search for closer roboport for charging even when it already picked roboport for stationing.

Excellent! I'll let you know if I see any more bots acting stupidly.

posila wrote:@ssilk, it would be cool if robots planned their routes with charging in mind, so they doesn't decide just few tiles from their destination they need to recharge and go back to roboport it passed just few seconds ago. But those are changes for another major update

That's clear.
Keep in mind, that the real interesting stuff happens, when we sometimes have pvp: What happens, if I bring my bots to the opposite side? Can I overtake the roboports? a gameplay like Siedler II, where I have to conquer castles to gain land?
... dreaming a bit ...

posila wrote: If something else breaks because of this, I will blame you two!

well .... not to blame any one but the same happens on 0.12.6 for logistics bots that are stationing they do not stop at a full roboport for charging as seen in this video i have taken of them flying
the roboports
https://youtu.be/EQrPxMKA9VE

Redbutton reported the post, I looked at the video and reopened this bug. I saw this: The bots go into the port without recharging (or it is the bad video quality, that I don't see them charging?), even if the port is full, then immediately leaving it again ... A dev should take a look, cause something is smelling there.

redid the vidio to see the whole screen with the robots pathing on screen
docking bots have no pathing unfortuantly
https://youtu.be/N-g3dh8mprQ

the charging is done before docking on the upgraded electric roboport in the vids this has been tested with both vanila and the modded roboport
will upload save file if needed

in the video you can see the robots loose power within range of a full roboport no docking room and will not stop to charge at thoes full roboports
expected them to charge and carry on to the roboport that they have apparently marked for docking but have no way to tell what port they are docking at with the debug option on

steps to reproduce
1 .. gather 10 roboports and place them in a single line conecting the logistics network
2 .. gather 50 construction bots and place one in each slot of 9 of the roboports leaving one on the end emptie and making no room for logistics bots
3 .. gather 10 logistics bots and place in the last roboport that does not have the construction bots
4 .. place down a requester chest at the last roboport where the construction bot are placed and request a item 5 items total will do
5 .. where the logistics bots are place down a storage chest and add the 5 items you are requesting
6 .. when the items are done transfering notice the bots having no path in the debug menu and not charging at any port along the route back to the first port

Fixed it ... again

will the fix/show the pathing in debug for docking bots or should i put that in to the sugestions area?

No, the fix didn't add target roboport station to debug overlay. We use the overlay when we debug or optimize something, so we stuff to it as we need. Maybe you could suggest adding an overlay designed for optimizing factories .