Factorio Forums

Mod Version - see files below at mod portal link: V0.4.4
Release date for 0.4.4 is 2020-Feb-17
CURRENT VERSION:
Mod Portal Link

For interested contributors and bugfixing: https://github.com/kyranf/robotarmyfactorio

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE DEV/UNSTABLE BRANCH FROM GITHUB:

• Go to the github page for this mod, and view the Development Branch (not Master!) https://github.com/kyranf/robotarmyfact ... evelopment or the Unstable branch https://github.com/kyranf/robotarmyfact ... e/Unstable
• Click on the "Clone or Download" button and download the .zip file.
• Unzip the contents and go to your current installation of the Robot Army mod, and copy-paste the new dev branch files into it, over-write all files.
• If it's up-to-date, Read the dev branch info wiki page to make sure you understand what is new, and any new mechanics you can play with. https://github.com/kyranf/robotarmyfact ... ranch-Info
• Note you may need to change the mod folder name with whatever version number is mentioned in info.json file if you get an error on start-up

General Information at the Wiki on Github: https://github.com/kyranf/robotarmyfactorio/wiki
changes from 0.4.3 to 0.4.4:
- updated to work for Factorio 0.18. Had to change some sound file names, easy!
- small fix on start-up error when no tick or squad table existed.


Please, report bugs on Github (https://github.com/kyranf/robotarmyfactorio/issues) or on the forum thread, not on the Mod Portal (until they allow mod authors to get email notifications).
See mod portal https://mods.factorio.com/mods/kyranzor/robotarmy for download


Concept:
Manufacture and deploy automated soldiers to go out in hunting parties to annihilate the biter menace, or an opposing player's base/army.

How it works:
Manufacturer a "droid" soldier unit which is placed like any normal object or deployed at the Droid Assembler. You produce droids in an Assembler 2 or 3 (blue or yellow), after researching at least military 1. Military 2 and 3 unlock the later game droid soldier types. There are also now flying robots available and are unlocked with the "Combat Robotics" tech.

The droids move around and can form squads and attack nearest biter bases. Droids placed nearby another droid or group of droids will join their squad. If there are none nearby, the droid will make his own squad and wait around for more droids until finally the squad reaches the point where they will go and hunt (configurable, in config.lua).

Wherever you choose to place them, the soldiers mingle around defending their area until there is a certain squad size, at which point they will move to go hunt as mentioned earlier. They can be placed at any time during battle if you want some backup while taking down a huge biter nest. Be aware - They engage with the enemy and will aggressively hunt nearby biters/nests. They may slaughter their way through an entire (early to mid-game) biter nest or at least die trying. Huge numbers will be needed to take on biter nests with large worms and medium/large biters. The mod has been expanded to add more powerful and different types of robot soldiers in order to help deal with that issue.

[OLD FEATURE - NOT USED ANYMORE]
The droid squads collect Alien Artifacts (including bobs' ones) if you have placed an Army loot chest. You can place Droid Guard Stations and fill them with droids and it will spawn a group and keep the numbers up if some die while defending the area. Alien artefacts have been disabled by the default game, and are disabled in the mod now by default. if you run with Bob's Enemies or other mods that have drops by aliens with the word 'artefact' in it, then you can re-enable it in the config.lua by finding the obviously named setting and making it = 1

More recent videos and Youtuber Spotlights:
See Xterminator's mod spotlight video for a quick introduction to the things this mod adds: https://youtu.be/21wTN5Bui3c

For a great introduction to the mod's features in German please see this video by SeeNo:
Für eine großartige Einführung in die Features des Mods auf Deutsch lesen Sie bitte dieses Video von SeeNo:
https://youtu.be/JK3SI5Geg1o

This is cool! Great work.
Automated biter hunting is something that is missing in factorio.

Factorio meets Supreme Commander ... lets automate the WAR!
Great Job!

Hi guys, just to clarify the behaviour of these robot soldiers is literally just an idle spitter. They will stay where they are spawned until aggro'd by incoming enemies.

You could make fortifications from walls to keep them from wandering too far.

They auto-heal slowly.

There is currently no death animation, I want to add one though!

They work best in small groups - or a huge swarm whatever you want.

I just added a git repo for those interested in adding or fixing anything for me
https://github.com/kyranf/robotarmyfactorio

Seems very interesting, with some work on the AI, and all the other polish, I can see this mod being a lot of fun.

This is a good idea and I had no idea that modding Factorio could be so easy! I'm busy for the next couple weeks, but I'll take a look once I'm back.

Thanks for using the MIT licence.

I want this mod to work as a base for others to make the RTS functionality that I think Factorio lends itself towards, but has not yet been (or might never be) implemented by the devs.

I love your idea! Personally i would find it very cool if your "spawned" soldieres would form a group and than seek out nerby enemy biter nests on their own. Essentially you would be producing your own "biters" which would work in the same way the biters do, just in the opposite way.

soldieres would form a group and than seek out nerby enemy biter nests on their own

Yes, that is basically the point of the mod, the overall vision i'm aiming for. It becomes a war of attrition with the biters, and you can go out with your swarm of troops and help them carve out the biter deathworld!

Against other players, it's a "who can manufacture the most/best weapons of war" and lead their armies to victory against strategic ore patches etc.

And then sending enough supplies to defend your outposts against the enemy swarm of robot soldiers

Version 0.1.1 added, adds explosion (no damage yet, even though there should be) on the death of a droid soldier. Custom icon (exoskeleon icon with modifications).

item should be in the military category now too. See first post for updated .zip

Yuoki Tani made a cool looking combat droid for his mod. Maybe you can ask him if you may use it.
https://youtu.be/ZYAV8RWYB9o?t=18m53s

"Start Dreaming"

Can produce Soldiers with different tier/upgrades. Exoskelets make it faster or better weapon fire faster ...
Fully automatic the War.
I can produce the soldiers, bring it with trains to the front, unload it to a chest and that chest is a "Spawn Point".
Where i can give 2 Infos "Group of Soldiers = 20". When it reached 20 its start to drop the army an go to fight the biters in a group.
And "Radius = 100" the distance to the Spawn point who it will fight the enemy.

So i can make a outpost ... send soldiers with trains and give only the group size and radius and lets fight!
Better Mechs/Tanks because the enemy will also stronger

"End Dreaming"

With this i can only say ...
Im prepared ... lets rock

you genius!

google translate
I have been waiting for something like that .. well done! it is necessary to have not only the soldiers but also tanks, and new weapons to add). and that they could be refilled and to supply weapons to realism.

рус оригинал
давно ждал что то подобное.. молодец! надо еще не только солдат но и танки, и оружие новое добавить). и то бы их можно было заправлять и снабжать оружием для реализма.

I have try it and the balance is quite good ... not to strong and not to weak.
To make that robots it need heavy armor and that is a little to expensive ... i would prefer the normal armor or something else.
310 Iron and 112,5 Cooper is to expensive for that firepower.

Better change the recipe to
10x Green Electronic
1x Submachine Gun
1x Iron Armor
10x Pircing Round Magazin
then it cost 130 iron and 70 Cooper ... thats OK i think.

EDIT:
For Big Worms the are to weak ... it will be cool to have a stronger Droid with rockets or something else.
And that can have the other Recipe.

miturion wrote:Yuoki Tani made a cool looking combat droid for his mod. Maybe you can ask him if you may use it.
https://youtu.be/ZYAV8RWYB9o?t=18m53s

Wow, that is amazing stuff from Yuoki. Epic robot thingy.

DOSorDIE: I think there are plenty of improvements to the recipes and balance for future, for now i'm doing a "minimum viable product" and getting all the tech (code, mod technical issue) out of the way first for a stable base, and then I/other people can work on the flesh and skin of the concept - making fancy graphics and fixing all the recipes and making different robot types with awesome guns/features.

Speaking of tech issues, I just fixed one that means 0.1.2 can be released now, which has squads follow their respective player who spawned them. Currently every unit placed just automatically joins that player's squad. Means you and a friend can play online and lead a giant army each into battle

kyranzor wrote: Speaking of tech issues, I just fixed one that means 0.1.2 can be released now, which has squads follow their respective player who spawned them. Currently every unit placed just automatically joins that player's squad. Means you and a friend can play online and lead a giant army each into battle

in that case the recipe is OK.
Is it possible to "collect" the army once i dont need it? That will be awsome!
Versus Big Worms its a little disaster ... i need stronger one maybe with different weapons like rocket launcher or else.

I could have the units mineable maybe? To pick them back up. Or maybe a "disband' feature that makes all troops go to a certain type of building and convert themselves back into a droid item.

kyranzor wrote:I could have the units mineable maybe? To pick them back up. Or maybe a "disband' feature that makes all troops go to a certain type of building and convert themselves back into a droid item.

The disband feature where great ... when ide more then 1 min then go back to base and convert to a item.
But for the first ... mineable were more then enough.

EDIT:
Maybe a building who set the droid items to troops? ... then i have all i need for a Big War.
The limiter for set the trooops I can build with logic ... so the mod dont need to do that.
I only need a bigger Range who it attack the enemy.

kyranzor wrote:Speaking of tech issues, I just fixed one that means 0.1.2 can be released now, which has squads follow their respective player who spawned them. Currently every unit placed just automatically joins that player's squad. Means you and a friend can play online and lead a giant army each into battle

Why would you do that? If I wanted robots that follow me then I could just use destroyer capsules instead. The big problem with destroyer capsules (for automating war) is that they follow the player instead of seeking out targets.
What you want is to select troops and give them a target to walk to on the map. You know, RTS style. But also some kind of automatic seek and destroy mode. And some way to automate deployment like you can do with logistics and construction bots, requester chest with inserter into robot port.

If I made a automatic war mod then I would probably use construction bots as base for a defence oriented bot (stays within logistic network) and destroyer capsules as base for offence.

Bug: After a while they despawn. And so do the natives which the are modded from. And the natives also despawn if there's water in their path when they get stuck on it because they don't know how to walk around it so yours will probably also do that. Bug it's not really acceptable that your bots just vanish if you want to actually use them. Also without random despawns you need some way to put them back into a box or you will crash your game from trying to simulate infinite undying robots.

Thats why its work in progress!
He test what with the system is possible ... and the possibilities are limited.
Now i think he make a working base and then he will improve it.