Factorio Forums

Constructing large areas with eg. refined concrete, having 2 roboports mk2 & 50 construction robots, results in a weird behaviour regarding recharge operation.

Robots pick up tiles from my inventory, fly to their destination, place them down, come back to me to pick up the next tiles and so on. This draines their internal battery. At some point, carrying tiles and flying to the destination, they do a turnaround, not far away from their destination, to recharge, without having performed the job. Then, they fly the same way a second time to (finally) place the tile.

Isn't it possible to calculate if the remaining battery energy is sufficient to successfully complete the task without recharge? If the result is "no", then they should recharge before they fly out again to place something, even if there's (insufficient) energy remaining. This would speed up processes & provides against flying the same way nearly twice.

The same behaviour should occour with robots from stational roboports.

I think that's to prevent switching to "emergency fly mode" with massively reduced speed (no matter I can't imagine that something with a completely drained battery can still fly, but useless robots on the ground is surely not an intention).

This has been discussed before, and robots are UPS-lite precisely because they're stupid like this. Even more so with roboport-based robots; a robot that doesn't have enough energy to reach its destination would have to spend a lot (relatively speaking) of CPU to find a path through the roboports, and then do something sensible if a new roboport is added or an existing one is removed.

This is not a bug, make a feature request.

DaleStan wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:49 pm

This has been discussed before[...]"

I've searched but nothing found within the last 4 years. I apologize if I missed that thread. They can be merged if desired.

[...] robots are UPS-lite precisely because they're stupid like this. Even more so with roboport-based robots; a robot that doesn't have enough energy to reach its destination would have to spend a lot (relatively speaking) of CPU to find a path through the roboports, and then do something sensible if a new roboport is added or an existing one is removed.

So the robots have this behaviour to keep UPS as high as possible? I think a short check if the energy is sufficient to place the desired tile shouldn't consume too much UPS, taking into consideration that a robot calculates its energy requirement "on the fly" anyway. So my thought is to bring exactly this calculation while the robot is over the character (or a stationary roboport) before it continues.

Loewchen wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:00 pm

This is not a bug, make a feature request.

Is there an explanation why this isn't a bug? You mave move this to the desired forum.

vangrunz wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:07 pm

Is there an explanation why this isn't a bug?

Everything you describe is working as intended.

Loewchen wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:15 pm

Everything you describe is working as intended.

OK, then there's no need for a feature request.

vangrunz wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:18 pm

Loewchen wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:15 pm

Everything you describe is working as intended.

OK, then there's no need for a feature request.

I think you misunderstood the statement. Just because it's working as intended doesn't mean there isn't an idea that might be better. It just means it's not a bug.

vangrunz wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:07 pm

DaleStan wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:49 pm

This has been discussed before[...]"

I've searched but nothing found within the last 4 years.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=103400&hilit=robot+charge

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:25 am

I think you misunderstood the statement. Just because it's working as intended doesn't mean there isn't an idea that might be better. It just means it's not a bug.

The statement was clear: it is "intended".

Intended functions have the status to me "leave it as it is" so I don't want to bother.

If bots retire half of their job without success, then this is a bug to me, especially to an ambitious & interesting game with an eye for the finer details like this. It's, of course, impossible to turn this to a perfection because perfection never exists in real life, but some basic points should be consistent, IMHO.

vangrunz wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:07 pm

DaleStan wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 24, 2023 10:49 pm

This has been discussed before[...]"

I've searched but nothing found within the last 4 years.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=103400&hilit=robot+charge

Oh, wow, thank you for this impressive thread. I'll investigate this another time in detail, but a short "skim through" seems to be exactly my request.