Factorio Forums

Current State
Currently there is only one option on dispatching robots (I assume this is the same as the button to enable robots on the right side of the hotbar)
https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/Lua ... ing_robots
Possible Changes
However, this binary choice is not enough control, imo. One useful thing would be to enable based on type of robot job (like construct, deconstruct, upgrade).
Example
An example of this would be in Nilaus' latest videos. He is often would like to only deconstruct, as the stuff that would be constructed is not finalized yet
https://youtu.be/xEL-ZCsHeCo?t=698
In this case, he set the miner blueprints down, but doesn't know if he wants to change it, so he doesn't build it. He does want to deconstruct however, since the power poles are in the way. I assume he would like to dispatch his robots for just deconstruction, but that simply is not coded in.
Con
Perhaps a con to this idea is performance, as having many options creates more work to do instead of just being binary.
Summary
In summary, I think it would be good to add:
-dispatch robots on type of job (construct, deconstruct, upgrade)
-dispatch on more custom things, like when the blueprint was placed(e.g. you only want to build new stuff, and leave the old stuff as ghosts)
-maybe more?

It looks like the Construction Planner mod does close to what you want. It lets you delay the dispatch of construction bots to build blueprint ghosts. I know the devs never add logic to robots because even a simple check for every robot or roboport would add massive lag on large bases.

robot256 wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 16, 2021 5:15 pm

It looks like the Construction Planner mod does close to what you want. It lets you delay the dispatch of construction bots to build blueprint ghosts. I know the devs never add logic to robots because even a simple check for every robot or roboport would add massive lag on large bases.

Ah yea, the Construction Planner mod does do essentially what I want. Looks pretty good, thanks!
As I kinda suspected, it would be performance intensive to do more than a boolean, makes sense.