[1.0] Construction bots preferring passive provider chests over storage chests

[smmalis37]

I've noticed that my construction bots seem to be preferring to pick up materials from my passive provider chests instead of my storage chests when both have the requested material but the passive provider chest is closer to the destination. This implies that these two chest types are being treated as equal priority, since the bots are picking the closest option. However https://wiki.factorio.com/Logistic_network says that storage chests should be a higher priority than passive provider chests, and therefore distance shouldn't even be considered. Not sure if this is a bug, or intentional and the wiki needs updating. I'd prefer if this was considered a bug, as I'd prefer the behavior currently outlined on the wiki.

[boskid]

Construction bots are different from logistic bots and they have different priorities. Duplicate 56091 (Not a bug).

[smmalis37]

I understand this is not considered a bug, but I'd like to vote for the design to be changed so that both logistic bots and construction bots follow the same priority rules.

[ickputzdirwech]

See 89326

[boskid]

Current solution is good for what construction bots are designed to do so it is not going to change.

[smmalis37]

I wholeheartedly disagree. While it may result in faster builds, it also results in loads of unused items getting stuck in storage chests, unless the storage chests are placed in just the right spot. It also is confusing to players that logistic bots and construction bots have different behavior. While the wiki page I linked does specify "Logistic robots on the logistic network look for orders by the chests in this order", the section is named "Priorities of robots", implying it applies to all robots. There is also nothing explaining this difference in priorities somewhere else on the page. How many other users have posted here because they were similarly confused? This behavior is unintuitive, undocumented, and, for at least some number of players, unwanted. I kindly ask you to reconsider.

[boskid]

There are multiple solutions you could use and this is a game about solving logistic problems You could have a storage chest close to where you will be building so logistic bots move items based on their priority system, and second solution would be right where you produce the stuff(like turrets): to read logistic network contents and not produce more when there are already more stuff available - this would force construction bots to take items from where they are available. Changing mechanics only because it does not work for your use case while there are simple solutions using existing stuff means i do not want this to be changed.

-- edit:

Entities are fetched from the closest logistic chest.

Wiki is correct.

[ickputzdirwech]

If you feel that the wiki is lacking a good explanation on https://wiki.factorio.com/Logistic_netw ... _of_robots, I encourage you to enhance it yourself. See this post for information how to contribute to the wiki.

On your request: I actually agree with boskid. In general I want construction robots to build something as fast as possible. If you are that fussed about recycling items (and I am to) I recommend using the following setup (pretty much what boskid described).

The output inserter for a machine that produces entities are connected to the logistic network (click the button with the N and the radar waves in the inserter gui). And have a condition set so they are only active if the available number of items is below a certain threshold.

inserter.png (97.68 KiB) Viewed 1570 times

The chest is a logistic storage chest with a logistic filter set to the item that is produced. That means all deconstructed buildings of that kind will be stored in that chest.

chest.png (19.07 KiB) Viewed 1570 times

[Serenity]

You can also output into buffer chest and have them request all other items of the type

Or output into filtered storage chests (which are available earlier). Then bots will return things there. Unfiltered storage chests then only contain random stuff that doesn't have recycling set up. Which is also a nice indicator that you may want to take care of that. Just make sure you have enough regular storage chests for other crap as the filter is only a preference