Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

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Bauer
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by Bauer »

mrvn wrote:
Szpak wrote:Obviously it is not a bug but a very annoing feature. Simple solution would be if personal bots gets their jobs assigned either if inside your backpack or charging. And only in those situations.
But then a bot can't fly out, place a rail and then deconstruct a tree on the way back.
I would sacrifice this.

It is extremly anoying that blueprinted ghost are notcompletely build by you 99 bots in your inventory because you "lost" a bot while riding a train. I find it extremly hard to NOT lose any bots. I even run faster than bots with exoskeletons...

ratchetfreak
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by ratchetfreak »

mrvn wrote:
Szpak wrote:Obviously it is not a bug but a very annoing feature. Simple solution would be if personal bots gets their jobs assigned either if inside your backpack or charging. And only in those situations.
But then a bot can't fly out, place a rail and then deconstruct a tree on the way back.
Then let them get assigned deconstruct jobs when inside construction range, (you could make the actual range a circle with something like 3x the radius of the construction zone to avoid the 90° turn in some cases) never assign jobs to bots outside construction range, once they enter construction range they can pick up a fresh deconstruct job, currently they'll ignore any deconstruction planned outside range anyway.

Only assign construction jobs when within 2-3 tile of the player and with a decent charge of battery.

But if the battery is empty then just go to recharge first

zOldBulldog
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by zOldBulldog »

The main cause of the problem described was that jobs were assigned to personal bots so far away that they could not be fulfilled in minutes.

Would these personal bot simple rules be enough to avoid the issue?:

- Do not assign a job to a bot that is further than X distance.
- Do not assign a job to a bot with less than 25% charge (to give it a better chance to return to you).
- Do not assign a construction job to a bot unless it is extremely close to you (since it needs to pick up materials from your inventory).
- Cancel the job assignment after 15 seconds if not completed (so that it can be reassigned).

mrvn
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by mrvn »

You are trying to solve the wrong problem.

The real problem is bots getting lost in the first place.

Bots should not move out when

1) the roboport is disabled. That's not the same as taking it out of the armor since then it looses it's charge. It needs a disable feature.
2) you are moving close to or faster than the bot speed. Any bot leaving would just get lost so there is no point leaving.
3) you are in a vehicle on automatic. E.g. a train stopped at a signal. Who knows when the train will move again, don't risk the bots.

With those features if you are still loosing bots then that means you didn't care. Problem solved.

ratchetfreak
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by ratchetfreak »

mrvn wrote:You are trying to solve the wrong problem.

The real problem is bots getting lost in the first place.

Bots should not move out when

1) the roboport is disabled. That's not the same as taking it out of the armor since then it looses it's charge. It needs a disable feature.
2) you are moving close to or faster than the bot speed. Any bot leaving would just get lost so there is no point leaving.
3) you are in a vehicle on automatic. E.g. a train stopped at a signal. Who knows when the train will move again, don't risk the bots.

With those features if you are still loosing bots then that means you didn't care. Problem solved.
but lost bots blocking progress is also a problem that needs solving

zOldBulldog
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by zOldBulldog »

mrvn wrote:You are trying to solve the wrong problem.

The real problem is bots getting lost in the first place.

Bots should not move out when

1) the roboport is disabled. That's not the same as taking it out of the armor since then it looses it's charge. It needs a disable feature.
2) you are moving close to or faster than the bot speed. Any bot leaving would just get lost so there is no point leaving.
3) you are in a vehicle on automatic. E.g. a train stopped at a signal. Who knows when the train will move again, don't risk the bots.

With those features if you are still loosing bots then that means you didn't care. Problem solved.
That would work too.

1 and 3 are probably easy to do.

2 might be tricky:
- Player's "instant speed" is almost always faster than the bots.
- Sometimes you want to move through a large blueprint to allow its construction. You might start and stop or go in a pattern to get in range of the various areas.
- One option could be to calculate an average player speed to do what you do.
- Another option - a reasonable compromise - is to only launch bots if you are standing still... even if "standing still" is only for a millisecond.

And yes, if you run away once they are launched... in this scenario that would be the player's fault.

Or maybe what we need is some combination of your ideas and mine. That could make the whole thing quite foolproof and "feel natural" even to a new player.

Bauer
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by Bauer »

ratchetfreak wrote:Then let them get assigned (...) jobs when inside construction range.
That's simple enough and would solve the problem.

- A lost bot is a bot outside (personal) construction range.
- Don't assign jobs to lost bots.

mrvn
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by mrvn »

zOldBulldog wrote:
mrvn wrote:You are trying to solve the wrong problem.

The real problem is bots getting lost in the first place.

Bots should not move out when

1) the roboport is disabled. That's not the same as taking it out of the armor since then it looses it's charge. It needs a disable feature.
2) you are moving close to or faster than the bot speed. Any bot leaving would just get lost so there is no point leaving.
3) you are in a vehicle on automatic. E.g. a train stopped at a signal. Who knows when the train will move again, don't risk the bots.

With those features if you are still loosing bots then that means you didn't care. Problem solved.
That would work too.

1 and 3 are probably easy to do.

2 might be tricky:
- Player's "instant speed" is almost always faster than the bots.
- Sometimes you want to move through a large blueprint to allow its construction. You might start and stop or go in a pattern to get in range of the various areas.
- One option could be to calculate an average player speed to do what you do.
- Another option - a reasonable compromise - is to only launch bots if you are standing still... even if "standing still" is only for a millisecond.

And yes, if you run away once they are launched... in this scenario that would be the player's fault.

Or maybe what we need is some combination of your ideas and mine. That could make the whole thing quite foolproof and "feel natural" even to a new player.
The "moving close to or faster than the bot speed" part is about standing still. At least until you researched bot speeds so they are faster than you walking. But simply limiting it to standing still works too. It might be a good idea to make it standing still for 1-5s. Otherwise bots will start when you hit a pipe.

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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by zOldBulldog »

Adding some details I noticed today:

- Early bots are so slow that they are extremely likely to be left behind. As a consequence beginner players who don't know about this problem are the most likely to be affected by it.
- Leaving bots behind can easily happen without you noticing. Today I thought I had found a different scenario of lazy bot but nope... it was just some 10 bots left behind that I had not noticed.

And a very important detail:

- It doesn't matter that you have fresh bots you, so long as your lost bots exist your fresh bots in inventory will not do any work. For example, if you have 1 personal roboport (10 bot capacity), had 10 bots stay behind, and picked up 20 new bots... the new bots will not do any work no matter what, even if they are in inventory. Only the 10 original (lost) bots will do work... assuming they can catch up.

EDIT:

As I am dealing more with this issue, I am starting to think that the most annoying issue is when bots abandon a train driving at high speed to place stuff. You start from a base with a full complement of bots... and arrive at destination where you want to build... with no bots willing to do their job.

EDIT 2: Oh yeah, definitely losing bots when zooming by at full speed. I'm laying down some track (with some incomplete blueprints in the way) and I lose all of my bots on the way to the end of the track line every single time. Not sure if it might help devs see the problem, but here is a map exchange string, with the bots lost and me at the current end of the rail line:

Code: Select all

>>>eNpjYBBgMGZgYGBm4GFJzk/MYWZm5UrOLyhILdLNL0plZWXlTC4q
TUnVzc/MYWFmZUtJLU4tKmFmYGZJyQTTXKl5qbmVukmJxanMzIys6UW
JxcXMrMwcmUX5eVATWIoT81KASlmLS/LzgKpYWUuKUlOLmRhZuUuLEv
MyS3NBChmBTmDMeHX5f0OLHAMI/69nMPj/H4SBrAtAJ4IwELAyMAIFY
IA1OSczLY2BocGFgUHBkZGBsVpknfvDqin2jBB5PQco4wNUJGI3VORB
K5QRsRrK6DgMZTjMhzHqYYx+B0ZjMPhsj2BA7CoBmgy1hMMBwYBItoA
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BOmA8YYGY+sIdK3bRnPHsGBN7YM7KCdIiACAcLIHHAGxiKAnxA1oIeI
KEgwwBzmh3MGBEHxjQw+AbzyWMY47I9uj9UHBhtQIbLgYgTIAJsIdxl
jFBmpANEQhIhC9RqxIBsfQrCcydhNh5GshrNDSowN5g4YPECmogKUsB
zgexJgRMvmOGOAIbgBXYYDxi3zAwI8MGeuXy1KAAzmZOw<<<

zOldBulldog
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by zOldBulldog »

I have bad news. When I was finally able to make the bug report it got moved to "not a bug".

I suspect that devs consider this behavior to be "not a problem" and that players must live with the annoying design flaw.

Sorry guys, but it seems like there won't be a fix and we'll have to live with one of the less than ideal Band-Aids:

- Remove the armor.
- Remove the roboport from the armor.
- Temporarily place the bots in the trash slots.
- Or whatever other Band-Aids players can think off.

Or maybe someone will make a mod that will fix it.

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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by ratchetfreak »

zOldBulldog wrote:I have bad news. When I was finally able to make the bug report it got moved to "not a bug".

I suspect that devs consider this behavior to be "not a problem" and that players must live with the annoying design flaw.

Sorry guys, but it seems like there won't be a fix and we'll have to live with one of the less than ideal Band-Aids:

- Remove the armor.
- Remove the roboport from the armor.
- Temporarily place the bots in the trash slots.
- Or whatever other Band-Aids players can think off.

Or maybe someone will make a mod that will fix it.
it's been moved to suggestions so maybe it will get the attention it deserves

zOldBulldog
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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by zOldBulldog »

ratchetfreak wrote:
it's been moved to suggestions so maybe it will get the attention it deserves
That is excellent, it is an issue that really interferes with gameplay.

Personally, I only have one more game to go after the one I am on to be done with achievements (except for the speed ones that I am not going to bother with). After that I was planning to use mods that fix this and other problems and never look back at vanilla after that. I must confess that I am a bit fed up with "crippled starts" but I am OCD enough that I want to get those achievements done.

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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by fur_and_whiskers »

Just came across this thread today and wanted to add my own opinion.
I'm more than happy for bots to fan out behind me when I lay down a big job and leave them behind to do the job while I run ahead distributing the rest. I know how they behave and will go back and collect them. I don't want to lose the ability to do this.

I agree there needs to be a simple way to turn robo ports on and off. For now I keep two sets of armor, one with ports lots of batteries and a couple of legs, one with no ports and more legs which I swap between as needs be.

There absolutely should be an easily accessible option to set personal robots to not leave you while in a moving vehicle, especially when the car gets slightly damaged.

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Re: Lazy bot syndrome. Bug or feature?

Post by ColonelSandersLite »

If you're willing to get into mod territory, there is a mod that helps immensely with this:

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/folk/folk-stopthat

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