Limit robot throughput per chest

[ske]

In my opinion every item should have its unique place in the game. Robots provide great flexibility for low throughput items, building and repairing stuff and I really like using them for that.

What bothers me now is that robots are too overpowered in my opinion. After you have a lot of power and resources (which both effectively cost nothing once you have acquired them), the most easy and efficient way to build a factory is to use robots and trains for everything. I do not see why unloading a train/chest with those small pesky robots should be faster than unloading it with strong inserter arms onto solid steel belts.

This could easily be fixed with a minimum delay for exchanging items betwen robots and a chest and by limiting the number of robots requested per chest.

[kiba]

Bots are really power hungry things, plus, they don't perform as well at large distance.

So belts and inserters are really good for conserving energy.

The only issue in my opinion is that belt based setups just at some point can't keep up.

[ske]

Bots are really power hungry things, plus, they don't perform as well at large distance.

So belts and inserters are really good for conserving energy.

Currently, Energy is not really a problem. Just build more solar panels and batteries. Therefore I would exclude this problem.

Trains perform well at large distance. In a factory between train stations you don't really need any belts anymore.

The only issue in my opinion is that belt based setups just at some point can't keep up.

This is just my point formulated in reverse. I say: "Make robots slower." You say: "Make belts faster."

My thinking is that there will always be some bottleneck however you make it, you just can adjust where the bottlenecks are. Ultimately it's up to the game designers to balance everything out and this is just one aspect. From my current perspective robots need to be slowed down a bit so that they are a bit slower than a fast inserter putting items on a belt.

You can still use robots AND inserters working in parallel which makes achieving maximum throughput more complex and interesting.

[bobingabout]

Making the belts faster or robots slower isn't the only issue.

Items placed in the world can't be in stacks! so you can only place one item from a belt into a machine at a time, where if you use robots and a chest, your same inserter can grab a stack of 5 and drop the whole thing in the factory at a time.

That's the bottleneck, not the robot or the belt itself, but the difference in how the inserters act when being used from one method or another.

Sure, you could add a chest as a buffer, feed from the belt to a chest, then chest to factory, but if the factory is running flat out none stop, then the bottleneck is still that first inserter feeding from the belt to the buffer chest.

Using robots, 10, 20, over 9000!!! robots can service the same chest at a time, but a maximum of 3 inserters can service a chest (3 sides with an inserter putting items in, one taking them out), alternatively, you can just add multiple input inserters, but then the size of the factory is limited, therefore the number of inserters you can use is limited too! and that's assuming you can produce, place, and transfer items fast enough on a belt to keep up with it in the first place, outputs have limits too!


And that isn't even taking my mods into account, some of my mods have factories that work so fast, even using robots, if you want to have some of the factories running at full speed, you need multiple input inserters. With a belt you'd have no chance of keeping up!