[0.11.3] Powering unpowered roboports confuses bots

[Kirk]

A small something I ran into yesterday:

I was above the top of my base and placed a construction order by blueprint. No construction bots came to fullfill the construction because I had not yet placed a roboport to extend the automated construction range. So I placed said roboport, and the construction bots came. But the roboport wasn't powered (not connected to the electricity network by a pole). When I powered the roboport by placing a pole next to it, it started charging its internal buffer. At this point the construction bots that were on their way to the blueprint order (and in the automated construction area of the recently placed roboport) stopped dead in their tracks, and not until the roboport had been sufficiently charged they continued on their journey.

So, steps to reproduce:
- Have construction bots in an existing network.
- Order construction outside the network.
- Place unpowered roboport connected to existing network covering the order location.
- Observe construction bots coming over.
- Power roboport.
- Observe construction bots no longer moving until the roboport has charged.

I play the 64 bit build on Windows 7. There was nothing unusual in the log, just start, stop, and autosaves.

[MF-]

So only "empty" and "fully charged" roboports count as "good"?
Interesting

[warmadmax]

i've seen similar behaviour,
while ever the blue "charging" icon is visible over a roboport they're in-operative.

funny thing is when you first construct a roboport, it isn't "empty", it comes with about 10% charge and it's in operational mode,
shouldn't it spawn empty of electric and be in-operative until you've connected it to the grid?

[kovarex]

This is not a bug, as the roboport, is not operational until it is charged.

There is a good reason for it. If the player has not enough electricity, the roboport would change on off state every other tick or so, and the logistic network would have to be updated very often for all the roboports.

[warmadmax]

what about the initial 10% battery charge you get when placing the roboport??

when you place the robo port down it IS operational due to the initial 10%.
if you never connect it up to the grid, it does go through this "battery" and eventually runs out of power, but it can last quite a while until this happens.

by rights it should be at 0% charge until you've connected it up to the grid and charged it should it ???

i can see that it may be useful for blueprints that could get built out of sequence (i.e. roboport constructed first followed by power poles),
most of the time though, the roboport and power pole sit inside the construction range of the previous port so no need for this initial 10% battery level to be present.

[kovarex]

what about the initial 10% battery charge you get when placing the roboport??

when you place the robo port down it IS operational due to the initial 10%.
if you never connect it up to the grid, it does go through this "battery" and eventually runs out of power, but it can last quite a while until this happens.

by rights it should be at 0% charge until you've connected it up to the grid and charged it should it ???

Maybe, but it would be annoying, as you would have to wait for it to charge first.

[The Lone Wolfling]

My opinion is that this should be classified a bug.

My suggestion as to how to fix it would be to make Roboports start slightly charged, but initially not connect to the logistics network for the purpose of charging bots until they are connected to power.