Simple Questions and Short Answers

[Ormy]

Question;

How can I find out how many robots are waiting for recharge? I would like to be able to check on this to determine if I need to place more robotports, but I cannot find a way to do it without coming across a robotport with a circle of robots.

Many thanks in anticipation.

My solution is similar to yours. When you press F4 there is an option to show bots on the map. Enable this, go to map view, if you see circles of bots around multiple roboports you need to add more roboports.

Be aware though, once you increase bot cargo capacity not as many bots are needed for same throughput so not as much charging is needed. So if you're just on the cusp of finishing a cargo capacity research then might be worth waiting for it to finish and bots to re-settle to decide if you need more roboports.

If you're still having bottlenecks with bot charging then there are mods to increase recharge rate and number of bots a roboport can charge simultaneously. Also there are mods which make bot cargo capacity, speed, and battery capacity infinite researches, I find those very useful.

[SkiCarver]

Question;

How can I find out how many robots are waiting for recharge? I would like to be able to check on this to determine if I need to place more robotports, but I cannot find a way to do it without coming across a robotport with a circle of robots.

Many thanks in anticipation.

My solution is similar to yours. When you press F4 there is an option to show bots on the map. Enable this, go to map view, if you see circles of bots around multiple roboports you need to add more roboports.

Be aware though, once you increase bot cargo capacity not as many bots are needed for same throughput so not as much charging is needed. So if you're just on the cusp of finishing a cargo capacity research then might be worth waiting for it to finish and bots to re-settle to decide if you need more roboports.

If you're still having bottlenecks with bot charging then there are mods to increase recharge rate and number of bots a roboport can charge simultaneously. Also there are mods which make bot cargo capacity, speed, and battery capacity infinite researches, I find those very useful.

excellent, thanks.

[SajmonG]

If i right click on an assembling machine and then left click on a requester chest i copy the recipe to the chest. If i choose the iron gear wheel on an assembling machine for instance, iron plate wil be delivered to the requester chest. My question is what determine how many of the requested product it will be?
Sometimes the requester chest ask for hundreds of some products. My logistict robots start to deliver these before I can reduce the amount. I think it is unecessary to deliver a lot of products but I like the easy way to copy a recipe to a requester chest.
Thanks.

[mmmPI]

the requester chest is automatically configured to request enough ingredients for 30 seconds of continuous crafting with the assembly speed and the receipe time.

[SajmonG]

the requester chest is automatically configured to request enough ingredients for 30 seconds of continuous crafting with the assembly speed and the receipe time.

I understand. So one way is to put an assembling machine with a lower crafting speed then. Thank you for the answer!

[TheBloke]

Question;

How can I find out how many robots are waiting for recharge? I would like to be able to check on this to determine if I need to place more robotports, but I cannot find a way to do it without coming across a robotport with a circle of robots.

Many thanks in anticipation.

As others have said, I don't believe it can be done globally. But it is possible to see exact numbers on a per roboport basis - rather than just relying on counting clouds of bots. You can get extra info through the UI, by enabling extra tooltip debug info:

EDIT to add: The info below appears to only apply to 0.17. 0.16.51 doesn't have the 'show-debug-info-in-tooltips' setting, so I don't know a way to get this info in 0.16.51 - it seems likely that it's not possible. So if you're playing on 0.16, you probably have to upgrade to see this info.

1. Press F4 to open the Debug settings menu
2. Enable 'show-debug-info-in-tooltips'
3. Now hover over a given Roboport to get its tooltip. You will see there is some extra info in the tooltip. The new debug fields are marked with a blue dot:
   

The debug fields relevant to this discussion are:

1. charging: will be 0-4
2. waiting to charge: the number clustered around, waiting for an empty charge spot
3. robots to station: how many bots are scheduled to enter this roboport, ie. they have finished their job. They need to recharge before they can do this.
4. logistic and construction robots stationed: the number of idle bots in the inventory of this roboport; this is not new info, as it's also shown in the normal tooltip using item icons.

I have found this debug information to be quite interesting while I'm doing tests on optimal bot-based smelting and other designs.

When analysing this info It's important, in my view, to consider not only 'waiting to charge' but also 'robots to station'. It may seem bad if 'waiting to charge' is high, however if 'robots to station' is also high, it may well be fine. Bots recharge when they have finished their task, right before they go to the inventory of a roboport. So having lots of bots waiting to charge is not necessarily a problem, if they are only waiting to then go into the roboport inventory.

I believe that the ideal bot network configuration is to achieve a state where bots only recharge when they have finished their job. In that situation having high 'waiting to charge' numbers is usually fine. This requires that you have more bots than are being actively used for the given task, so that every new logistic job will always go to an idle bot, allowing the already-active bots to complete their task, recharge, and go to sit in a roboport. If this is achieved, bot travel times are never extended by bots charging and waiting to charge.

[SkiCarver]

Question;

How can I find out how many robots are waiting for recharge? I would like to be able to check on this to determine if I need to place more robotports, but I cannot find a way to do it without coming across a robotport with a circle of robots.

Many thanks in anticipation.

.....

Thanks, i will take a look.

[bagalas]

Hi there,
For some reason holding down the middle mouse button zooms in and I cannot firgure out how to stopd this. Checked the conrtols like 5 times carefully going over all bindings but middle mouse button is not binded. I even changed the filter toggle which was default binded to it.
And still, whenever I hit or hold down the middle mouse the game zooms in like if I would be scrolling upwards. Middle mouse is the push to tolk key for Discrod and it is realy uncofortable that wheneever I speak the games zooms all the way in.
Any idea how to stop this?

Thanks,

[SkiCarver]

Hi there,
For some reason holding down the middle mouse button zooms in and I cannot firgure out how to stopd this. Checked the conrtols like 5 times carefully going over all bindings but middle mouse button is not binded. I even changed the filter toggle which was default binded to it.
And still, whenever I hit or hold down the middle mouse the game zooms in like if I would be scrolling upwards. Middle mouse is the push to tolk key for Discrod and it is realy uncofortable that wheneever I speak the games zooms all the way in.
Any idea how to stop this?

Thanks,

I have to ask the obvious question, if you scroll to the bottom of this page and then hold the middle mouse button, what happens?

[bagalas]

I have to ask the obvious question, if you scroll to the bottom of this page and then hold the middle mouse button, what happens?

maybe its too late but I'm not sure what suppose to. Like, nothing. In Google chrome hiting or holding the middle button activates the 4 directional scroll movement (or whatever thats called).

[bagalas]

I have to ask the obvious question, if you scroll to the bottom of this page and then hold the middle mouse button, what happens?

maybe its too late but I'm not sure what suppose to. Like, nothing. In Google chrome hiting or holding the middle button activates the 4 directional scroll movement (or whatever thats called).

so, I found out that the Logitec M500 mouse has a special wheel which can be pushed not just down but to the left and right, which makes the wheel itself three button in one. On default this does nothing but Factorio registers this left and right "button" of the wheel as up and down.
I'm currently looking for a way to disable this function in the mouse as for my finger it is impossible to push the wheel down while not pushing tot he side as well.

[bagalas]

I have to ask the obvious question, if you scroll to the bottom of this page and then hold the middle mouse button, what happens?

maybe its too late but I'm not sure what suppose to. Like, nothing. In Google chrome hiting or holding the middle button activates the 4 directional scroll movement (or whatever thats called).

so, I found out that the Logitec M500 mouse has a special wheel which can be pushed not just down but to the left and right, which makes the wheel itself three button in one. On default this does nothing but Factorio registers this left and right "button" of the wheel as up and down.
I'm currently looking for a way to disable this function in the mouse as for my finger it is impossible to push the wheel down while not pushing tot he side as well.

Had to download the Logitech Setpoint software to manually change the button behavior. Cannot be turned off but if I use keystroke assigment and leave the field empty it basicly does nothing afterwards.
This solved my problem in factorio but there is still the issue why it registered side wheel buttons as up and down scrolling in the first place. This is something the developers might want to look into. Or not, since its a very specific issue with this specific mouse with this very specific "feature". Wish the old M500 was still manufactureds.

[TheBloke]

This solved my problem in factorio but there is still the issue why it registered side wheel buttons as up and down scrolling in the first place. This is something the developers might want to look into. Or not, since its a very specific issue with this specific mouse with this very specific "feature". Wish the old M500 was still manufactureds.

Are you on macOS?

I remember that the devs had to put in an unusual fix for macOS. On macOS, holding shift while doing a mouse wheel scroll up/down is mapped by the OS to scroll left/right. Bug report. It only applies to mouse wheel, not trackpad scroll.

There's no standard OS configuration that can change it, although there is some (commercial) third-party software that's able to remove the shift+up/down = left/right mapping (SteerMouse.)

Therefore the devs put in a workaround: detect if a left/right scroll was done, and use it in the game as Shift+mouse wheel up/down. Otherwise it was impossible to map shift+mouse wheel up/down, which is used for scrolling through blueprint books and clipboard history. This workaround isn't new - it was definitely in place as of 0.16 at least, probably earlier. Though it had to be updated in 0.17 (hence the above bug report.)

So if you're on macOS, I think this may explain what you saw.

[bagalas]

Are you on macOS?

I remember that the devs had to put in an unusual fix for macOS. On macOS, holding shift while doing a mouse wheel scroll up/down is mapped by the OS to scroll left/right. Bug report. It only applies to mouse wheel, not trackpad scroll.

There's no standard OS configuration that can change it, although there is some (commercial) third-party software that's able to remove the shift+up/down = left/right mapping (SteerMouse.)

Therefore the devs put in a workaround: detect if a left/right scroll was done, and use it in the game as Shift+mouse wheel up/down. Otherwise it was impossible to map shift+mouse wheel up/down, which is used for scrolling through blueprint books and clipboard history. This workaround isn't new - it was definitely in place as of 0.16 at least, probably earlier. Though it had to be updated in 0.17 (hence the above bug report.)

So if you're on macOS, I think this may explain what you saw.

Appriciate the explanation. But no. I'm on a good old Windows PC.

[brunzenstein]

how do I lock a item in the Quickbar on a Mac?
I canot find proper key binding

[posila]

how do I lock a item in the Quickbar on a Mac?
I canot find proper key binding

Toggle filter (Command + Right Click) might be what are looking for?

[brunzenstein]

how do I lock a item in the Quickbar on a Mac?
I canot find proper key binding

Toggle filter (Command + Right Click) might be what are looking for?

Toggle filter (Command + Right Click) clears the slot

[TheBloke]

Toggle filter (Command + Right Click) clears the slot

Are you on 0.17, with the new Quickbar?

You place an item in a Quickbar slot either by:

• Holding an item in your hand, then clicking it (Left Mouse Button) into any empty slot;
• Clicking with LMB on an empty slot, which will bring up the Item Selection window, in which you can choose the item for that slot.

Slots must be empty before a new item can go into them - use Cmd-Right-Click (Toggle Filter) to empty slots, as you just saw.

Full instructions are on the Wiki Quickbar page.

If you're on 0.16, then slots are both locked and unlocked with Cmd-Right-Click - same as with your own inventory and a cargo wagon (the 0.16 quickbar is a standard inventory, unlike the new one in 0.17 which is a separate UI element.) In 0.16 you can either place an item in a slot first, then lock it to that slot by Cmd-Right-Click. Or you can Cmd-Right-Click on an empty slot to get the Item Selection window, where you choose what item that slot is filtered for, preventing other items from going to that slot.

[BlueTemplar]

I have to ask the obvious question, if you scroll to the bottom of this page and then hold the middle mouse button, what happens?

maybe its too late but I'm not sure what suppose to. Like, nothing. In Google chrome hiting or holding the middle button activates the 4 directional scroll movement (or whatever thats called).

so, I found out that the Logitec M500 mouse has a special wheel which can be pushed not just down but to the left and right, which makes the wheel itself three button in one. On default this does nothing but Factorio registers this left and right "button" of the wheel as up and down.
I'm currently looking for a way to disable this function in the mouse as for my finger it is impossible to push the wheel down while not pushing tot he side as well.

I have a MX620 with a similar wheel, and honestly, they dropped the ball on that one.
The ability to sidescroll (when it even works!) is just not worth the wonky middle-click... (though in my case it tends to move up or down when I press it, rather than to the sides...)
But I got somewhat lucky on that one, as unlike for the M500, I also have a search button, which I re-bound to middle click !

[Ghoulish]

The Linux version of Factorio can fork the game save process and do it in the background whilst you play on. Does this also happen with Linux headless? I assume it would, but wanted to check.