[0.12.1] Personal roboport doesn't work as expected

[Martc]

Perhaps a succint solution would be to say, robots will take from your inventory, as long as you have more than 1 of the item, ie, they never take your last one. In that way, they will build from your inventory when you have the stuff, but they won't take the last one leaving you unable to place ghosts.

I am not sure that this is a good solution, because some players may consider this as a bug, that robots are not using all of your items. Maybe if the last item is prohibited only while you are holding it in hand makes more sense.

I think best solution would be, if you will be able to use empty filtered inventory slot as a blueprint of that item. So not having that item is not problem for you, you can continue placing ghost images.

And I agree that current behavior is very frustrating. I usually picked some item up to place some ghosts and returned it back, now with personal roboport is this impossible to do. You must always use blueprint for that.

[ssilk]

I am not sure that this is a good solution, because some players may consider this as a bug, that robots are not using all of your items. Maybe if the last item is prohibited only while you are holding it in hand makes more sense.

Makes more sense, yes. As long as I put it back: Then it is gone.

I think best solution would be, if you will be able to use empty filtered inventory slot as a blueprint of that item. So not having that item is not problem for you, you can continue placing ghost images.

I would see the keeping of the last item just as a provisional fix, until it is possible to lay ghosts without having the item in the inventory and/or turning the personal roboport off.
Or other stuff. I mean I'm not fixed to one idea here. Maybe we need just a combination of different suggestions.

I just try to make the roboport more usable in all game-situations.

[Gandalf]

Just wanna add my +1 to this, I've also found this to be quite annoying.

Something that kind of works is having blueprints of individual items in your hotbar. However it becomes a little annoying because blueprints seem to refuse to stay under your cursor (they always get offset a tile to the left for me) and you don't get any sounds when placing a lot of them.

I really like the idea of being able to ghost-place the item placeholders from your reserved slots.

Whatever you do, don't just leave it as is because it's really annoying when the bots take your last item and you can't do anything anymore.

[JimiQ]

Simple GUI that would allow setting personal roboport active only outside external logistics network? I don't really see usefulnes of personal roboport inside big logistics network, but deactivating manually is too much hassle

[EvanT]

I would prefer having a toggle for this other than taking the armour off.

Prioritization of local drones over personal drones is not what I want when rebuilding stuff. Then I want the personal drones to use my inventory so the process is fast.
But mostly I want the local drones to take care of orders. So a button I can hold while placing blueprints, ghosts or "red blueprints" to define which drones will try first would be the ideal solution my eyes.

On the "Not as expected" part I would have expected, that personal drones use the vehicle’s inventory while I'm driving one.

[SHiRKiT]

I just think that no personal robots should do anything if the request can be accomplished by the real robot network that's covering the player. If the player is in a real robot network range, then the robots or should not do anything at all (which is not a good solution), or only do something if the request fails at the real network.

Without this, I think personal roboports becomes a hassle to deal with.

[kovarex]

I just think that no personal robots should do anything if the request can be accomplished by the real robot network that's covering the player. If the player is in a real robot network range, then the robots or should not do anything at all (which is not a good solution), or only do something if the request fails at the real network.

Without this, I think personal roboports becomes a hassle to deal with.

But we made the personal roboport exactly to avoid this. There is special logic forcing the personal roboport to be primary. You don't want to wait half an hour for the robots to come from the center of the base, you want to build it immediately and be resuplied automatically later.

If you want the game behave like this, don't use the personal roboport at all, simple as that.

[ssilk]

Ok. I have slept now several days over it: It's not a bug, I'm o.k. with it. And not worth to discuss so long around, I know the wube-style and you planned it like so, and I trust enough, that you have made many thoughts about it.

But sometimes we (the community) are not so sure about it. You can see this here. Especially when you suggest to use not a feature of the game if you want to use it for something, you don't have planned it for. I mean, it's Factorio, I never played a game, where I used so many stuff not in the way it was planned for. I think Factorio is the most misused game now.

I think, all what the community wants to hear is, that you are aware of this. Not even, that you have a solution yet.

O.k., you are of course aware, it can't be differently, but it doesn't look like so.

[MeduSalem]

If you want the game behave like this, don't use the personal roboport at all, simple as that.

Well I took your advice and unequipped it... because I can't deal with that since it causes only more manual work for me.

Seems like I'll have to resort on the good old trick of carrying around a bunch of real Roboports and extend the real network instead because doing it that way doesn't dump a bazillion of items I don't need into my inventory once I deconstruct something which I have to sort out manually afterwards.

And for building... well yeah my logistic networks may be vast and extensive and it might take a long time for construction robots to arrive from the center of the factory or whereever they may come from but I'll take that compromise if I haven't to clear out my inventory after deconstructing something, because that takes even longer if one deconstructs entire assembly lines with 20 different item types, since they don't even drop the stuff in a particular order in your inventory having you to wait until they are completely finished deconstructing or otherwise you'll encounter a race against the construction robots who will continue dumping something into your inventory that you put into the trash slot already.

Also my logistic network is probably better able to handle a huge request anyways, even if it takes longer for them to arrive they will still finish much faster than the personal roboport ever could because of how many Construction Robots and Items I'd have to carry with me, which I simply have no space for in my inventory, to make up for what the 500 Construction robots from the logistic network could do. Also I don't have to stay in the area to wait for stuff to get finished, I can wander off and do something else in the time.

Another thing is that I mostly only have blueprints in my inventory to reduce the amount of stuff I'm carrying around, so that's also counterproductive as I don't even have most of the items in my inventory in the first place, so I'm less inclined to use the Personal Roboport for actually constructing something inside my logistic area.

I'd only have used personal roboports outside of the logistics area for very specific items (outposts/bug hunting), but since always equipping/unequipping once leaving/entering the logistic network area becomes a pain in the butt, because of how one forgets to do that half the time, I'll leave Personal Roboports be for now.

[kovarex]

I'm quite curious, what is the root difference between your and my playstyle, that make the view on the personal roboport so different.

I personally have automated requests of the basic intermediate products and all the basic structures (belts, inserters, rails, assemblers, power poles, roboports, etc). Stack or more of each, so whenever I build the blueprint I have enough of it on me and I see the result in seconds, so I can work with that. I usually don't have problems with inventory space, unless I have a lot of crap that I can just get rid of. When I'm building specific things like solar arrays, I'm ok with the robots to take all of the solars/accumulators from my inventory (if I have some, I usually don't have), and the rest, they take it from the logistic network. I don't have to see the result now, so I can just put blueprint or two of solar array and I can leave it there as it is.

[SHiRKiT]

I'm quite curious, what is the root difference between your and my playstyle, that make the view on the personal roboport so different.

I personally have automated requests of the basic intermediate products and all the basic structures (belts, inserters, rails, assemblers, power poles, roboports, etc). Stack or more of each, so whenever I build the blueprint I have enough of it on me and I see the result in seconds, so I can work with that. I usually don't have problems with inventory space, unless I have a lot of crap that I can just get rid of. When I'm building specific things like solar arrays, I'm ok with the robots to take all of the solars/accumulators from my inventory (if I have some, I usually don't have), and the rest, they take it from the logistic network. I don't have to see the result now, so I can just put blueprint or two of solar array and I can leave it there as it is.

I normally have 5-10 of some item with me, unless I plan building something. I do not carry anything in my inventory that's no essentially needed. I normally have around 5k logistic and construction robots in all networks (since I don't think we'll ever get to the idea of "colored" networks, I forgot the proper term), I separate them into outposts networks, which basically just rebuilds and takes care of the network, and my main network, which consists of a really large logistic network, all done by bots (trying to build the 0.12 base like this as I speak, since I lost my 0.11 save). Most of the time I do not want anything to mess around with my inventory at all, since I spend most of my time destroying and building new stuff with ghost placement and blueprint it at the end. Messing with my inventory means that I cannot work with ghost placement near me, and I'd need to spend logistic slots to request the stuff I'm building, which makes no sense to me. If the bots will end up bringing the stuff to me so that my personal robots build the stuff in the end, I'd prefer for them just to build the stuff with the items in the logistic network, which would've happened if "I wasn't in the way".

My playstyle is pretty different from yours. I'm never ok with anything that's implicitly working with my inventory and messing around in a way I do not want. I use bots for everything. But in a totally different way.

At the next weekend, if nobody goes hunting for it, I'll try to create a mod that disables the personal roboport when inside a construction network, and add's a GUI button somewhere I manually control it.

[MeduSalem]

I'm quite curious, what is the root difference between your and my playstyle, that make the view on the personal roboport so different.

I personally have automated requests of the basic intermediate products and all the basic structures (belts, inserters, rails, assemblers, power poles, roboports, etc). Stack or more of each, so whenever I build the blueprint I have enough of it on me and I see the result in seconds, so I can work with that. I usually don't have problems with inventory space, unless I have a lot of crap that I can just get rid of. When I'm building specific things like solar arrays, I'm ok with the robots to take all of the solars/accumulators from my inventory (if I have some, I usually don't have), and the rest, they take it from the logistic network. I don't have to see the result now, so I can just put blueprint or two of solar array and I can leave it there as it is.

That's actually a really interesting question...

I guess that I'm using pretty much every item of the game way too often in day-to-day scenarios when I'm playing. I've at least 30-40 items I use during almost every session of the game because if I see something I could do better I'll do it right away. Which is why 20 request slots don't really do the job for me, even though I've never complained about that yet since I've found my way around that. Most of the stuff I've no free request slots for I'm carrying with me as single-item blueprints and I only request the stuff that actually doesn't work quite well that way because they are buggy or not quite as functional or don't work at all this way. For example:

- Splitters... Single-item blueprint placement is buggy with them because it can't be placed anywhere near existing stuff (I wanted to make a report about that a long time ago but didn't get to it yet)... also there's this strange off-set to many single-item blueprints that makes them hard to place.
- Underground belts... Can't change the direction of the item flow and it's not worth to have 2 explicit blueprints for that which look exactly the same.

So that stuff makes sense to have it as "real item" in your inventory, so I'm always requesting a stack of them. Then there is also the stuff that I want to have ready at all times for the case I'm going outside the logistic network because running back/forth isn't that fun at all, like for example:

- Shotgun Shells... I don't want to be caught off-guard.
- Power Poles... I need them to get power somewhere...
- Roboports... I can't extend the roboport network without...

For everything else I'm using single-item-blueprints, which to be honest fill at least 50% of my inventory, if not more sometimes. For example:

- Assemblers... I don't carry them with me as real items... I don't need to because the single-item-blueprint does the job quite well and I don't need them in outposts either.
- Walls... I don't carry them either because they need to be within a construction robot area anyways to get repaired, so I might as well let them get placed by them.

I guess that I can't play the game saying "today you are going to redo the assembly line" and then only have the items needed exactly for that. On the way I'm stumbling accross other stuff as well like "damn power is short"... and then I'd have to get all the stuff for that into my inventory and on the way back to the assembly lines I get attacked by biters who took their chance during the power fluctuations and I've to expand on the defense and so forth and need those items.

So that's why I'm relying very heavily on blueprints and I mostly don't have the required items in my inventory.

The above mentioned items are just examples, like I wrote. There are several dozen other items for which similar reasons exist as for why I'm requesting them or why I'm using them as blueprints.

But I guess this is also why I'm having major trouble in dealing with getting all the items dumped into my inventory when deconstructing something. I just don't have the space for all that crap because I don't request most of those items to my inventory in the first place and I don't want it because I'm a lazy bastard relying on construction robots to do almost everything for me. xD

Another thing is that I'm building/deconstructing stuff on mass. If I build something it's almost guranteed that the blueprint will be stamped all over the place like crazy with hundreds over hundreds of items of the same type being needed, which is another reason why the items in my inventory would never suffice in the first place, and the same is true for deconstructing... It wouldn't fit into my inventory.

I normally have 5-10 of some item with me, unless I plan building something. I do not carry anything in my inventory that's no essentially needed. I normally have around 5k logistic and construction robots in all networks (since I don't think we'll ever get to the idea of "colored" networks, I forgot the proper term), I separate them into outposts networks, which basically just rebuilds and takes care of the network, and my main network, which consists of a really large logistic network, all done by bots (trying to build the 0.12 base like this as I speak, since I lost my 0.11 save). Most of the time I do not want anything to mess around with my inventory at all, since I spend most of my time destroying and building new stuff with ghost placement and blueprint it at the end. Messing with my inventory means that I cannot work with ghost placement near me, and I'd need to spend logistic slots to request the stuff I'm building, which makes no sense to me. If the bots will end up bringing the stuff to me so that my personal robots build the stuff in the end, I'd prefer for them just to build the stuff with the items in the logistic network, which would've happened if "I wasn't in the way".

My playstyle is pretty different from yours. I'm never ok with anything that's implicitly working with my inventory and messing around in a way I do not want. I use bots for everything. But in a totally different way.

Also that, because I'm also ghosting most of the stuff I'm not using as a blueprint already.

The only reason why I'm using single-item blueprints over ghosting for the most part is because half of the time I'm actually placing the item instead of ghosting it and forget that I need that thing to be able to ghost further instances later on, and then I'd have to backtrack and deconstruct it again if I can remember where I lost that thing in the first place or backtrack to the factory and get a new one, especially if I don't request it. Can't happen with single-item blueprints.

At the next weekend, if nobody goes hunting for it, I'll try to create a mod that disables the personal roboport when inside a construction network, and add's a GUI button somewhere I manually control it.

Go for it! I'll probably be using it, which would make it literally the first mod ever that I used. xD

Don't forget about something like an icon that gets displayed once you enter the construction area of a roboport that shows that your personal roboport got disabled temporarily, maybe together with the GUI button you are planning anyways that enables you to override the default behavior.

[ssilk]

- I don't like to run around to get the needed items. I use mainly the personal request slots. Maybe one reason for that is, that I don't know, where one item is. My storage chests include some, but where? And I produce belts at different sites, but which one has enough?
- I don't like to run twice: First look, about how much I need, then run back, take the items I need, run to the target, place the stuff. Instead I see a situation and build it. No need to think that much and doing running around, which distracts you all the time.
- I think I need too many different items too often.
- I don't like to request the raw materials to craft them, cause this is Factorio: You should try to automate it.
- I don't like to put so much items of one type into my inventory, cause I know it will not be enough.
- I don't like to produce enough items of one type in masses, so that when I really need them I have enough. Instead I prefer to make a lean production and make that fast enough to keep up with my building-speed.
- I like to use the ghost-building-feature. That makes building stuff so much faster!
- I use some of the items, but afterwards I don't like to put it away, because I know I will need it. I'm a messy.
- Plus the needed blueprints overwhelms my inventory all the time.
- I find the new trash-slots so useful. I have many situations, where I need to make them completely full.
- Still I come into situations, where I cannot take any more.

Solutions (in my eyes):
- Don't take the last item. (short-term solution)
- Enable to place ghosts, even if you don't have the item.
- "Book of blueprints". Get rid of the blueprints in the inventory. Introduce mirroring of blueprints.
- enable to have "subgroups of items". I mean for example the belts: we have 9 types of belts and for "normal" gameplay I need nearly all. Same with many more items. Enable for example, that we can put all belt-items into one stack (splitted into substacks). Maybe that is too strong, but you see the point.
- Change priority of Personal roboport.
- Make finding items easier (find production, find stored items).
- ... many more ...


Edit (after reading the rest, I didn't want to let the two others influence me):

I normally have around 5k logistic and construction robots in all networks (since I don't think we'll ever get to the idea of "colored" networks, I forgot the proper term)

We called it currently "Overlapping Logistic Network II" : https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =67&t=8905
(that thread are contains basically 2 suggestions, the basic one by me with some changes and Medusalem's at the end).
What's not ready thought to the end is, how these networks work with the construction bots. That is completely left away.

The basic idea behind that is, that you need - just like the electrical network - just one big robot-network, but have "islands" which belongs to other networks, too. That enables much faster delivery in most cases.

The way a personal roboport would work with that is, that you can connect your personal roboport into the same network as the normal roboports/chests. But how is - as said - a completely different question.

[ssilk]

Actually that are suggestions, which also might be helpful:

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14263 Better Personal Roboport (3 suggestions)
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14521 Inventory and toolbelt filters act as request slots
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14295 Priority Selection for Logistics (Robotics Sugestion)
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=13435 Logistics System Requests

[RoddyVR]

Maybe i'm weird, but i fully like the way the personal roboport works right now. even though i dont think my play style is much like kovarex's. But like for him, the addition of personal bots helped me, by making some of my manual labor automatic. I tend to carry most of what i'm gonna build with me and i have no problem running back to base to resuply (i barely use logistics network). The personal bots have made it that i no longer have to have a logistics network at all, but can use blueprints to copy parts of my factory or to build long mutli lane belts without having to run up and down the line once for each belt.

In any case, so far everyone who complains about how it works now keeps saying what you DON'T want the personal roboport to do (take your last item, build in your overall network, put stuff in personal inventory), but it seems to me like if we take everything someone in this thread has said they don't want to personal robots doing and implement it all, then the personal robots will never do anything at all (except clear trees outside existing robonet).

I think when you list what you want the personal robots to not do, you should think of a situation when someone actually want them to do exactly that. And more so, describe what you think the function of the personal roboport is. I think some people here, built the personal roboport, filled it with bots, but don't actually have an understanding of what these little guys should be doing. If your plans don't include any work for these robots, then of course anything they do is just getting in your way.

Kovarex has a plan for his personal bots, they build everything near him quickly, by taking items from inventory, then that inventory gets replenished by the request slots. they deconstruct anything he points to, and then if he doesn't reuse the items to rebuilt what he just destroyed (better), he dumps it into the trash bins and his robonet takes it all away.
Its a working system, and in this case, the personal roboport is basically acting like an automated version of the mouse pointer. Without the personal roboport all the work it does now would be done by hand.

In some of your described annoyance scenarios, it seems like you had a working system without the roboport (be it single item blueprints or ghost placing) and you like it, but now that the personal roboport is added, it doesn't fit well into your system and you're trying to change the roboport to fit into your play style (that developed without the personal bots).

[kovarex]

Maybe i'm weird, but i fully like the way the personal roboport works right now. even though i dont think my play style is much like kovarex's. But like for him, the addition of personal bots helped me, by making some of my manual labor automatic. I tend to carry most of what i'm gonna build with me and i have no problem running back to base to resuply (i barely use logistics network). The personal bots have made it that i no longer have to have a logistics network at all, but can use blueprints to copy parts of my factory or to build long mutli lane belts without having to run up and down the line once for each belt.

In any case, so far everyone who complains about how it works now keeps saying what you DON'T want the personal roboport to do (take your last item, build in your overall network, put stuff in personal inventory), but it seems to me like if we take everything someone in this thread has said they don't want to personal robots doing and implement it all, then the personal robots will never do anything at all (except clear trees outside existing robonet).

I think when you list what you want the personal robots to not do, you should think of a situation when someone actually want them to do exactly that. And more so, describe what you think the function of the personal roboport is. I think some people here, built the personal roboport, filled it with bots, but don't actually have an understanding of what these little guys should be doing. If your plans don't include any work for these robots, then of course anything they do is just getting in your way.

Kovarex has a plan for his personal bots, they build everything near him quickly, by taking items from inventory, then that inventory gets replenished by the request slots. they deconstruct anything he points to, and then if he doesn't reuse the items to rebuilt what he just destroyed (better), he dumps it into the trash bins and his robonet takes it all away.
Its a working system, and in this case, the personal roboport is basically acting like an automated version of the mouse pointer. Without the personal roboport all the work it does now would be done by hand.

In some of your described annoyance scenarios, it seems like you had a working system without the roboport (be it single item blueprints or ghost placing) and you like it, but now that the personal roboport is added, it doesn't fit well into your system and you're trying to change the roboport to fit into your play style (that developed without the personal bots).

yes

[RoddyVR]

I dont mean to pick ssilk, just you've summarised what others want so well, that its easier to quote just you then half the thread.

.....
Solutions (in my eyes):
- Don't take the last item. (short-term solution)

so i have 20 furnaces, place a blueprint that includes 20 and it doesnt get filled by my personal bots? I'd get more annoyed... not to mention the single pieces of rail, turret, wall, and other things that are useless as oneoffs littering my inventory after a while.

- Enable to place ghosts, even if you don't have the item.

process to select what you'd want to place might be a bit unwieldy... you'd be picking from EVERY item in the game... i'd probably not use the feature.

- "Book of blueprints". Get rid of the blueprints in the inventory. Introduce mirroring of blueprints.

while i would like this feature, its a cheat in space management... right now you have to balance the number of blueprints with inventory space management, The inventory is gigantic as it is, and you're basicaly asking to increase it more by shrinking a large part of it (in the late game) down to 1 book.

- enable to have "subgroups of items". I mean for example the belts: we have 9 types of belts and for "normal" gameplay I need nearly all. Same with many more items. Enable for example, that we can put all belt-items into one stack (splitted into substacks). Maybe that is too strong, but you see the point.

please no, i'd find it hard NOT to use this, but at the same time would hate that to pick an inserter i now have to click on the stack, and then select the type inside it that i want.

- Change priority of Personal roboport.

to what? so that it doesnt build if there is regular network around? i'd HATE that change (why even have personal then), so that it doesnt put deconstructed items into my inventory but instead into chests... also would have to have to run to teh chest every time i want to reconstruct something 1 tile to the left of where it is (very easy to do now with perosnal bots, no waiting for long trips for half the bots, cause there's an inserter in a chest 9 screens away)

- Make finding items easier (find production, find stored items).

would be usefull, but i find myself at a loss even trying to imagine how to implement this, how would hte UI look? click on a craft like screen and have it flash an icon on the map for every inventory that has this item?

[kovarex]

- "Book of blueprints". Get rid of the blueprints in the inventory. Introduce mirroring of blueprints.

while i would like this feature, its a cheat in space management... right now you have to balance the number of blueprints with inventory space management, The inventory is gigantic as it is, and you're basicaly asking to increase it more by shrinking a large part of it (in the late game) down to 1 book.

Actually, this feature is already implemented by Rseding91 and we like it, it will go to 0.13

[oLaudix]

- "Book of blueprints". Get rid of the blueprints in the inventory. Introduce mirroring of blueprints.

while i would like this feature, its a cheat in space management... right now you have to balance the number of blueprints with inventory space management, The inventory is gigantic as it is, and you're basicaly asking to increase it more by shrinking a large part of it (in the late game) down to 1 book.

I think the blueprint book is a good idea. Especially with introduction of personal bots. Nowadays i even blueprint single smart inserters so I don't have to copy pasta settings to each of them. Building large factories makes me have about 20 blueprints easly.

- Change priority of Personal roboport.

to what? so that it doesnt build if there is regular network around? i'd HATE that change (why even have personal then), so that it doesnt put deconstructed items into my inventory but instead into chests... also would have to have to run to teh chest every time i want to reconstruct something 1 tile to the left of where it is (very easy to do now with perosnal bots, no waiting for long trips for half the bots, cause there's an inserter in a chest 9 screens away)l

Personal Bots Mod was working like that. It was annoying as hell. Robots running away from you and storing themselves in that network even more. The only thing I would change in personal roboport is bots putting stuff in storage chest when my inventory is full.

I tend to carry most of what i'm gonna build with me and i have no problem running back to base to resuply (i barely use logistics network). The personal bots have made it that i no longer have to have a logistics network at all

After 0.12 I only carry 50 construction robots on myself and have 0 in my roboport network. All items I need to build are put as a request and all I need to do is go back to main factory and stand for 10s for logistic robots to bring stuff to me. To be perfectly hones personal roboport made construction robots kinda obsolete to me.

[ssilk]

<lots of critics>
It was not my intend to suggest useful things. It was my intent to give ideas.