Friday Facts #225 - Bots versus belts (part 2)

[Oktokolo]

Lulz. So if i somehow need to transport more than a blue belt's throughput of rocket silos, belts are better for that?
Thanks bro! Will definitely keep that in mind for next time when i need to handle the output of a 100 silos per second outpost...

[mrvn]

Wrong. The cargo capacity is irrelevant. Since shells do not stack 48 bots are activated. Would shells stack then only 12 bots would be activated. The throughput would be the same. Only the number of bots involved changes.

What? No. You're forgetting that two things are happening at once:

- Roboports are affected because cargo size is affected.

That might cost you more roboports but they are hardly at a limit for 48 bots. Remember the test case had a line of roboports in place of the 4 blue belts. Plenty of recharge spots there for all 48 bots to recharge.

- Requester throughput is affected because total chest capacity is affected

Yes, that't the limiting factor. Not that bots only carry one shell.

What about cars, rocket silos and tanks? Are they carries one-by-one too?

[Pascali]

Yes but what is the power drain caused by the bots as well as the enormous resource sink to craft the roboports, logistics bots, and chests used?

Let's see. 300 busy roboports, 4 bays, 1 MW recharge, pretty simple math. The live test hovered almost exactly at 1GW out of a theoretical max of 1200MW. It wasn't the most optimized setup for sure.

and way more easy(boring) to set up.

[Jap2.0]

Lulz. So if i somehow need to transport more than a blue belt's throughput of rocket silos, belts are better for that?
Thanks bro! Will definitely keep that in mind for next time when i need to handle the output of a 100 silos per second outpost...

No problem, I'm more than happy to help!

That's a bit pedantic isn't it mate?

Surely the point is that there are some things that need to be moved in bulk and some things that don't. If it's got a stack size of one, it probably doesn't need to be moved in bulk, and therefore "throughput" is somewhat meaningless.

I mean... now we know that a blue belt is more efficient than bots for transporting fuel if you ever have 80,000 trains (if I got my math right).

[Oktokolo]

I mean... now we know that a blue belt is more efficient than bots for transporting fuel if you ever have 80,000 trains (if I got my math right).

But is the belt more efficient than trains?
Also if already using 80k+ trains, i would probably want to keep my base pure and therefore would use trains for the fuel too - regardless of efficiency.

[Jap2.0]

I mean... now we know that a blue belt is more efficient than bots for transporting fuel if you ever have 80,000 trains (if I got my math right).

But is the belt more efficient than trains?
Also if already using 80k+ trains, i would probably want to keep my base pure and therefore would use trains for the fuel too - regardless of efficiency.

True - and then you could also filter it to a set number of slots in a wagon to optimize throughput.

So, it looks like the solution to this is to use trains for everything.

[Avezo]

It seems to me bots could be just nerfed and map generation have some settings allowing buffing them back to current strenght, similar how you can manipulate science and recipe costs.

[Jap2.0]

It seems to me bots could be just nerfed and map generation have some settings allowing buffing them back to current strenght, similar how you can manipulate science and recipe costs.

I don't know whether it would be best to have the default at current strength, or nerfed - I think people would complain either way. Also, they might want similar settings for other structures - which would, admittedly, allow for some interesting challenges.

[azairvine]

While it wouldn't allow for a robot-only base, my idea (which has probably been mentioned 50 times already) more so reflects the Death Spell.

Limit the resources that robots can carry - ie they can only carry raw materials (wood, ores etc) and no crafted items.

Or give items a weight and robots a load capacity so that certain items simply can't be moved by robots.

[Jap2.0]

While it wouldn't allow for a robot-only base, my idea (which has probably been mentioned 50 times already) more so reflects the Death Spell.

Limit the resources that robots can carry - ie they can only carry raw materials (wood, ores etc) and no crafted items.

Or give items a weight and robots a load capacity so that certain items simply can't be moved by robots.

The thing is (and yes, it's been suggested before - but in 100+ pages of discussion most has) that people don't like it when you straight up tell them they can't do something. You could limit stack sizes. Another problem with arbitrary weights and stuff is mods - do they have to specify a weight for everything? What is the default? Some people will say that bots are for high-variety, low-quantity transport, and if you make large, expensive stuff uncarriable by bots, it defeats that purpose.
And then there's also the whole group of people who will complain if you try to nerf bots in any way.

[Oktokolo]

Limit the resources that robots can carry - ie they can only carry raw materials (wood, ores etc) and no crafted items.
Or give items a weight and robots a load capacity so that certain items simply can't be moved by robots.

That would make bots useless for me. I mostly use them for deliveries to the player character and to create low quantitity stuff.
Is your intention to only nerf the use cases bots have originally been invented for?

[Deing]

As of now, I can only think of Planet Base, another building-managing game. In that game, there are bots too, although very different ones. Those bots can temporarily break down from time to time and needs tending to by the astronauts, consuming some resources in the meantime. Also, they have a life span, long as it may be, they eventually "dies" and go out of work forever, thus you have to make new bots every once in a while.
Maybe you could take that as an example?

[Pascali]

Or give items a weight and robots a load capacity so that certain items simply can't be moved by robots.

And limit the factories that accept bots.

[Sactorio]

It seems to me the Logistic network embargo achievement kinda solves this whole problem by itself (dunno if this has been mentioned already, over 2k posts on it is TL;DR).

Why not just emphasize that achievement somehow? For instance make it a default map option instead of an achievement.

[pleegwat]

Is the data in backers.json moddable?

[Koub]

Is the data in backers.json moddable?

I don't see the link with the topic's context .

[Mobius1]

It seems to me the Logistic network embargo achievement kinda solves this whole problem by itself (dunno if this has been mentioned already, over 2k posts on it is TL;DR).

Why not just emphasize that achievement somehow? For instance make it a default map option instead of an achievement.

Indeed, for those complaining about bots that they're too OP, just make a startup OPTION to remove bots from the game, let ppl play with only belts all the time buffering items everywhere, making the whole factory throughput capped and very slow. I hardly doubt that any megabase would achieve major productivity scores on any computer without using bots at all.
As we already agreed by the looks of it, nerfing bots or boosting belts won't solve the dispute, the problem is personal preferrence, for that is why we have scenarios, mods, startup options.

[Pascali]

the game has to be changed in a lot of ways if bots are gone. From this point the game evolution slows down, because an additional version has to be made. So - just nerf bots(working with only some factorys + slow them down + max bots per sector + high attrition, + high power consumption + only work on day).

[Koub]

So - just nerf bots(working with only some factorys + slow them down + max bots per sector + high attrition, + high power consumption + only work on day).

Why not burn people using bots while you're at it ? That way no more bots will be used.
BTW no need to repeat ad nauseam the SAME arguments (and bad solutions) hundreds of people have made before on the numerous topics in the belts vs bots. If you have nothing new to add, no need to post.

[Pascali]

It was new to the poster before. And no - that don´t will stop people from using bots. You can use bots with some fabrics. And that will be an option if you have time-problem to set up a belt-setup.