[0.12.1] Personal roboport doesn't work as expected

[codewarrior]

The thing where my personal 'bots will take my last item and prevent me from ghost-placing any more of that item is really, really, really annoying. My #1 peeve with the personal roboport. I don't build absolutely everything with blueprints, and they don't really help when snaking a long belt through some obstacles.

Having my inventory be filled with deconstructed items is somewhat less annoying. I'd love it if the deconstructed items went into my logistics trash slots.

I'm glad to hear that a blueprint library is coming. Now I won't need to have a chest full of blueprints sitting near my storage area.

[ssilk]

I think this suggestion is really simple to implement and will increase usability a lot:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14598

And I did also a suggestion: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14632

[Gandalf]

I think this suggestion is really simple to implement and will increase usability a lot:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14598

And I did also a suggestion: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14632

Those sound both way to complicated. Roboports so far are pretty straightforward. There may be some disagreement on who takes priority over what but all in all it's a very concise setup. If you start complicating that with half baked attempts at guessing the player's intentions or yet more variations of roboports, it'll just add more and more edge cases and contribute to the confusion.

I have played for a while now and I'm no longer so convinced about this personal roboport vs. local roboport priority issue. I think the way it works right now (0.12.3) is probably actually the behaviour that covers the most use cases.

[ssilk]

Well. In my opinion the personal roboport needs a small tweak. And I think it is the combination of 2 or more of the mentioned ideas. Not only one alone.
The problem is, that some needs to be tested in that combination, cause you cannot imagine, how they work together.

And well: I know it sound now a bit childisch, but I think the issue is small, but still there. It prevents the player of using the PRP all the time.

[ssilk]

I like such kind of distinction: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =6&t=14698

[Tallinu]

Not sure if this has been mentioned and I missed it, but I do think that personal robots should never take the last item out of your mouse cursor. If you have more than one and you're ghost-printing, fine, they can take some of them, but that last one should be off-limits.

This rule clearly would NOT apply if it was simply an item sitting in your inventory and you were placing things via blueprint - because the blueprint is in your mouse cursor, not the item the bots want to place. (They can't take the blueprint, but they're not trying to take the blueprint, so it doesn't matter.)

So, this rule wouldn't prevent you from carrying exactly the right number of items needed for your blueprint and having it place all of them, the way a strict "never take the last one of anything" rule would.

Alternatively, only prevent the last item from being taken out of your mouse cursor if the gost placement location is within a base logistics network.

If someone wanted to use a robot to place the last one of something via ghost image, say, because they simply don't want to walk all the way over there, they could still do this! All they'd have to do is return the item to their toolbar or inventory with Q after shift-clicking. Once returned, the item is no longer in the mouse cursor and the rule no longer applies, and the bots are allowed to take it and place it.

So this doesn't even have the potential to remove any functionality at all. It should only prevent the nuisance of having your last item stolen while you're using it.

[codewarrior]

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 think it is this:

I use the personal roboport as a "range extender" when manually placing items without blueprints. Once you're used to using the roboport like this, the default build range for placing items seems unbearably small, so I use shift-click to build everything with personal bots. I think the same can be said of everyone who gets annoyed when the bots take the last item.

This style also means you can shift-click an item right under your feet, and a bot will wait for you to move out of the way before placing it. With normal building you simply can't build an item under your feet.

[SHiRKiT]

Just for linking purposes, I have created a mod that covers this area that's not covered by the vanilla game. Check it out here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 92&t=14830

[nobodx]

My 2 cents:
Pre-Personal Roboport, I used to have a single item of the commonly needed items on me (eg a assembler) to place ghost images of stuff to build. Or stuff I needed as supply (eg 10 blue splitters in a row), without having to request them.
But since the robots in your inventory take from *all* your inventory, they often steal the stuff that I want to place somewhere, halfway through placing stuff.

Keep the priority and behavior as it is, but disable the robots ability to take the item "from your hand".

[ssilk]

So I have played now a lot the lasts weeks with the personal roboport.

TL;DR:
- really avoid, that robots deconstruct, if you don't have enough inventory space left
- (more) mechanisms to keep the inventory nice&clean: blueprint book (stores also the empty blueprints) and other mechanisms (e.g. auto-trash-mod)
- auto-blueprint an currently placed item, if last item is taken from a bot: would be really helpful (blueprint-book needed for that)
- easy switch between power armors would be useful (own slots near weapons)
- eventually some inventory upgrade needed
- pre-load inventory with number of blueprints, for faster construction.

....
Long version:

I think I have one suggestion, that really should be included in 0.12:
If you mark something for deconstruction AND your inventory is too small to contain all that stuff the personal roboport should not be used. Or should only be used so much, that the inventory has left one free stack.

Background: I had that situation now several times (think for example if you mark some full chests for deconstruction) and it is really annoying and it takes a while to manage that situation. It makes also much sense in that case, I think this is an expected behavior, that the bots bring on than you can hold.

EDIT: If your deconstruction includes a roboport, then that roboport should be deconstructed only, if the robots match inside your inventory. I lost hundrets of bots because of that: Last roboport of an outpost was deconstructed by my personal robots, but some bots from that outpost hadn't returned to that roboport yet. In that case the the remaining robots go back to the next roboport. Directly through a biter village! They should return to the player in that case. But that means, the roboports should only be deconstructed, if the remaining bots match inside the inventory. Quite complex.

For the other cases: After upgrading the inventory (inventory upgrade mod) and and request slots (dito), I'm really happy with the behavior of the personal roboport.
The auto-trash-mod is also a very big help, to keep the inventory small.

As summary I can say, it is really the case that the inventory is too small for the blueprints AND all the single items, that are needed to place ghosts. If there is
- a "blueprint-book", which can contain many blueprints,
- mechanisms to keep the inventory automatically small (auto-trash and the above mentioned suggestion),
- there is an easier way to switch between between the (equipped) power armor suites (I would wish own slots for that)
- there is eventually an research to extend the inventory,

then I think all the mentioned issues with the roboports can be ignored, besides that, when an item is used to place ghosts.
I suggest here the following: When you place items as ghosts and the last item is taken out of your hand you get automatically a blueprint with that item (if you have some empty in the blueprint-book) and can continue placing it, as nothing happens.

Oh, yes, one thing: You want to construct something from a blueprint. Then it would be useful that you can "load" your inventory with that many blueprints: Put pseudo-blueprint into personal request slots.

... hoping for 0.13.

[Shin Rho]

I had the same problems (personal bots stealing last item) because I realy like the personal roboport and I use it a lot I would suggest the following:

just be able to place a ghost from the crafting screen.
something like:
left mouse - hand build 1
right mouse - hand build 5
shift-left mouse - place ghost (inventory closes and your cursor becomes a ghost cursor for placing ghosts)

This way it always guaranteed that you can place every item without cluttering your inventory with single items of everything.


I did a hasty suggestion for that without searching first over there:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 76#p114276