wetware or software issue?: deconstruction bots corner-case behavior

[golfmiketango]

I feel like something changed about what happens to construction bots holding items destined for non-available storage in recent versions. Maybe it's just my save, or even my imagination. The most obvious manifestation happens if I'm out in the boonies with a company of spider-trons, kicking thorax and taking names. If construction bots run out of spider-trunk/boot storage, they just get stuck there holding their items. They never give up and resume their slow drift towards the nearest network, even after my spiders all leave the area. Worse, if I go to my base, empty out my storage, and return to rescue the bots, they are still stuck in hold-trees-and-hover mode. Indeed, even if I bring electricity, storage chests, and a roboport, they still won't adjust their plans.

So the obvious question is: is this just me or my save? And assuming no, is it a deliberate change, or a bug? Or was it always that way and I am just delusional?

[Klonan]

I am not exactly sure about what the situation you describe it,
Can you provide a screenshot and a save game showing the issue?

Nothing has changed with the robot logic in a very long time

[cbhj1]

sounds like robots are getting stuck in an out of logistic storage state (like when hovering over a full chest) and not following like when deployed from player inventory, nor being adopted into another network once the spidertron leaves the area.

golfmiketango, a save with bots in this state may be useful as well as step by step reproduction for tracing.

[golfmiketango]

sounds like robots are getting stuck in an out of logistic storage state (like when hovering over a full chest) and not following like when deployed from player inventory, nor being adopted into another network once the spidertron leaves the area.

Yes, precisely, cbhj1.

Hmm... the fact that nobody else seems to have the same problem makes me think about mods as a possible culprit. I have creative mode "disabled" in my free-play, but iiuc "disabled" means the mod is still there, trying to be a noop, perhaps unsuccessfully. Also my save is quite old. So this could be a bug that occurs only when upgrading pre-spidertron saves or something.

Going to try some experiments; maybe I can find a culprit mod and move this report there, otherwise I'll post a save as suggested, or, if possible, a minimal reproducer (my save probably has a pretty low s/n).

[golfmiketango]

OK suspicion confirmed. I made a vanilla freeplay, and cheated in everything I needed to re-create the circumstances that glitch out my bots as described in OP.

The stuck-with-cargo robots don't seem to get stubborn, when unable to deliver. Indeed, stuck-holding-un-deconstructable-cargo construction bots appear remarkably good at selecting, of various overlapping networks which might become available to them, one with an actual solution to their problem in the form of available logistic storage space.

Come to think of it there are plenty of edge cases around bots and storage networks where I'm not sure what the 100% correct result even is; at some point these network-membership decisions must become semi-heuristic come to think of it. Anyhow I do know that since a long time ago this 'stuck-forever-until-manually-deconstructed' state is not the expected outcome for bots holding items unless there really is no better option.

So it's either a mod bug, or a porting from 0.17 bug. Or possibly a porting-from-0.17-with-some-particular-combination-of-mods-and-entities-in-one's-save-problem, etc...

I'll try later to find the culprit mod; perhaps I can submit a useful bug report on this to somebody. Or, failing that, I'll post my save here, for the sake of completeness and/or interested parties.

tldr: afaict this bug is not present in a mod-free campaign created with the latest released factorio build.

[Kyralessa]

The most obvious manifestation happens if I'm out in the boonies with a company of spider-trons, kicking thorax and taking names. If construction bots run out of spider-trunk/boot storage, they just get stuck there holding their items. They never give up and resume their slow drift towards the nearest network, even after my spiders all leave the area.

Are these your bots, or a Spidertron's bots?

I've only noticed this behavior with construction bots belonging to a Spidertron; that is, bots tied to a Spidertron's personal robotport(s) and originating from the Spidertron's inventory.

If the Spidertron is full, they get stuck. To get them unstuck, you have to clear inventory space in the Spidertron. (If you have several Spidertrons, it's not always obvious which one they belong to.)

[golfmiketango]

They are the spidertron's bots. Here I've broken down and generated a save where the problem is "about" to happen; just sync mods, load, and watch the bots get stuck trying to fulfill deconstruction requests.... hmm, it works just to just provide the .zip corresponding to a save right?

[golfmiketango]

The most obvious manifestation happens if I'm out in the boonies with a company of spider-trons, kicking thorax and taking names. If construction bots run out of spider-trunk/boot storage, they just get stuck there holding their items. They never give up and resume their slow drift towards the nearest network, even after my spiders all leave the area.

Are these your bots, or a Spidertron's bots?

I've only noticed this behavior with construction bots belonging to a Spidertron; that is, bots tied to a Spidertron's personal robotport(s) and originating from the Spidertron's inventory.

If the Spidertron is full, they get stuck. To get them unstuck, you have to clear inventory space in the Spidertron. (If you have several Spidertrons, it's not always obvious which one they belong to.)

So this is interesting, apparently I am not the only one experiencing this after all. Are you running any of the same mods as me?

• * Alien Biomes
  * Alien Biomes High-Res Terrain
  * Creative Mod (soft-disabled)
  * Dectorio
  * Shortcuts for 1.1

Notably if I clear space in my Spidertrunks, the bots do come back! Also I notice some of the Spidertrunks are jammed with junk that I hadn't realized/expected. so I guess that must have something to do with the problem. A third complicating factor is apparently my Spidertrons are carrying logistic bots. I think when I made that decision I thought they would act as buffer chests keeping my character topped up. They don't. I still have some experiments I want to try. What happens if I pick up the spidertron the bots are waiting to return to? What happens if I leave the area, clear the trunk and come back?

Oh, crap. I just figured out that my vanilla experiment failed to reproduce these problems probably only because none of my Spidertrunks were still jammed full after returning to base. iow maybe this is not mod-related after all. In that case then maybe there is a valid bug or feature request here, depending on the answers to some of the what-if's above.

[golfmiketango]

OK, giving this some thought*, here's what I think (maybe) this comes down to -- the analogy between a Spidertrunk and a player's inventory is incomplete, leading to surprising results.

Specifically, if a player's inventory is full, the bots will chase their player all over the place trying to return deconstructed items and themselves to player inventory. But if the same thing happens to a Spidertrunk, they seem to freeze in place in some or all scenarios, with the yellow "lack of storage space" icon, until space is made for them in the spidertrunk.

--
* I think my mistaken belief that I was making space in my Spidertrunks (when in fact I was not) drove me to several incorrect statements and beliefs in my prior posts to this thread, sorry about that!

[Kyralessa]

I'm fairly sure I've had this happen in unmodded vanilla too. I think it's just how Spidertrons, inventory, and construction bots work right now: If the Spidertron's inventory is full, the Spidertron's deployed construction bots freeze until there's room again.

Is it a bug? Not if it's what the developers intended. Only they can answer that question.