Give construction bots the ability to 'throw' landmines

[lovewyrm]

Doesn't have to be a huge range. They can throw cliff explosives, right?
Why not landmines? Would keep them out of harms way a bit while replacing minefields.

I like landmines and use them a lot, not just as outside defense, but i put them inside my factories as well, and I generally lace newly liberated land, or just big spaces of land, with mines, gives expansion parties a fun surprise.

So...there are landmine lovers out there. I am one of them.

Please give the bots a chance to place them without having to be on the same tile...flamethrowers and biters take out too big of a chunk of 'resource efficiency' of the mines by virtue of destroying robots.

I am aware of the mine launcher turret mod, btw. I like/prefer the bot variant though

[ssilk]

I’m not sure if you know it, but construction bots can build mine fields. Or do you mean this mechanism to throw them the last meters?

Throwing them would make the bots too strong, I think.

[lovewyrm]

I’m not sure if you know it, but construction bots can build mine fields. Or do you mean this mechanism to throw them the last meters?

Throwing them would make the bots too strong, I think.

Yes, I know they can build minefields, and yes, I mean "throw the mine the last few meters".

Would they really be too strong? Oil is infinite and it's cheap to fuel flamethrower turrets with it and the flames burn enemies really damn good.
Mines need to be manufactured, and they're placed one at a time, and they have a few seconds of fragility before they burrow.
Any bot is more valuable than a mine and restraining the bots to place the mines requires some really clunky workarounds.
(which some might call good because they require thinking, which is true and good but...it usually ends up awkward and not 'stylish')
Plus, in combination with flamers, the bots get burned anyway, trying to repair the walls.

The walls that protect the super effective burning death spewers of nigh infinite fuel.

But a mine? The bot has to go out into munching range for placing them. Just for a little bit of a boom ...
Something other than flames.
Biters die anyway...the biters have no chance against flamers...
This is for flavor T_T mostly.

[Qon]

Throwing them would make the bots too strong, I think.

They are supposed to be strong for automation. This just makes them less suicidal, making the resource cost of the landmine the primary point of balance for them in terms of resource and crafting costs. I don't think bots killing themselves is a feature, it's just the way it has been since before cliff explosives existed and were deliverable by a throwing construction bot. I don't think you have a proper reason for saying that.

There are no proper ways to automate and problem solve around this issue either. The best you can do is store the landmines far from the front lines in hope of bots arriving once the attack and fire is over. Roboports can't be disconnected/disabled via circuit network (they have a 30 minute energy buffer and start with like 5 minutes making that completely impossible to time reasonably). There is no way to detect attacks at landmine range, roboports don't output how many ghosts (of landmines) there are in their area and no other ways to properly find enemies in circuit network. Basically there is no way to read irelevant info into the circuit network and no ways to control the bots via the circuit network.

Can you put numbers on your claims to prove you have a case?

[aka13]

Throwing them would make the bots too strong, I think.

They are supposed to be strong for automation. This just makes them less suicidal, making the resource cost of the landmine the primary point of balance for them in terms of resource and crafting costs. I don't think bots killing themselves is a feature, it's just the way it has been since before cliff explosives existed and were deliverable by a throwing construction bot. I don't think you have a proper reason for saying that.

There are no proper ways to automate and problem solve around this issue either. The best you can do is store the landmines far from the front lines in hope of bots arriving once the attack and fire is over. Roboports can't be disconnected/disabled via circuit network (they have a 30 minute energy buffer and start with like 5 minutes making that completely impossible to time reasonably). There is no way to detect attacks at landmine range, roboports don't output how many ghosts (of landmines) there are in their area and no other ways to properly find enemies in circuit network. Basically there is no way to read irelevant info into the circuit network and no ways to control the bots via the circuit network.

Can you put numbers on your claims to prove you have a case?

I wait until some flamer fuel has been drained, wait 60 seconds, release the bots, retrieve the bots, refill the fuel, request repair material if needed. Works bretty good can recommend.
Maybe you could add a laser turret and put it in range of the mines, and detect energy drain? Or a machinegut, and detect ammo usage, not sure if it helps.

Screenshot 2022-04-04 103100.png (1.03 MiB) Viewed 1852 times

[Qon]

My base had 1 network. I can't retract the bots or the mines. I used mines only. Flamers and lasers have shorter range than roboports so can't be used to detect when long range mines need replacements anyways.
I just stopped caring about bot losses and placing mines in providing chests far away from mine fields was enough to save most bots. Your solution "works", but not better than my solution. It isn't worth caring about working around it because the tools are too bad for it to be worth the effort when it doesn't make anything better.

Which is why bots throwing the mines wouldn't really affect balance or reduce the need for creative solutions (none work well, can't get less than 0). It would just make it possible to have mines stored closer to the field and increase the ways you can build your defenses. It would make mines seem less like a broken and forgotten feature that the devs don't prioritize at all.

[aka13]

My base had 1 network. I can't retract the bots or the mines. I used mines only. Flamers and lasers have shorter range than roboports so can't be used to detect when long range mines need replacements anyways.
I just stopped caring about bot losses and placing mines in providing chests far away from mine fields was enough to save most bots. Your solution "works", but not better than my solution. It isn't worth caring about working around it because the tools are too bad for it to be worth the effort when it doesn't make anything better.

Which is why bots throwing the mines wouldn't really affect balance or reduce the need for creative solutions (none work well, can't get less than 0). It would just make it possible to have mines stored closer to the field and increase the ways you can build your defenses. It would make mines seem less like a broken and forgotten feature that the devs don't prioritize at all.

I agree, but alltogether I think what we need in fact is "danger" detection, a la "read from radar if enemies are present", "is fire present" and the ability to detect, if ghosts exist in the radius of a specific network/roboport, instead of minethrowing.
Mines are a symptom, not the issue.

[Qon]

I agree, but alltogether I think what we need in fact is "danger" detection, a la "read from radar if enemies are present", "is fire present" and the ability to detect, if ghosts exist in the radius of a specific network/roboport, instead of minethrowing.
Mines are a symptom, not the issue.

I don't really disagree. I actually agree, except I think we can have both. Mine throwing wouldn't seem less like the "correct" choice with all those other features. But mine throwing seems like it would be much faster to implement and much less resource intensive, by orders of magnitude for both.

[aka13]

I agree, but alltogether I think what we need in fact is "danger" detection, a la "read from radar if enemies are present", "is fire present" and the ability to detect, if ghosts exist in the radius of a specific network/roboport, instead of minethrowing.
Mines are a symptom, not the issue.

I don't really disagree. I actually agree, except I think we can have both. Mine throwing wouldn't seem less like the "correct" choice with all those other features. But mine throwing seems like it would be much faster to implement and much less resource intensive, by orders of magnitude for both.

Reasonable, I actually agree as well.

[ssilk]

Throwing them would make the bots too strong, I think.

They are supposed to be strong for automation. This just makes them less suicidal, making the resource cost of the landmine the primary point of balance for them in terms of resource and crafting costs. I don't think bots killing themselves is a feature, it's just the way it has been since before cliff explosives existed and were deliverable by a throwing construction bot. I don't think you have a proper reason for saying that.

There are no proper ways to automate and problem solve around this issue either. The best you can do is store the landmines far from the front lines in hope of bots arriving once the attack and fire is over. Roboports can't be disconnected/disabled via circuit network (they have a 30 minute energy buffer and start with like 5 minutes making that completely impossible to time reasonably). There is no way to detect attacks at landmine range, roboports don't output how many ghosts (of landmines) there are in their area and no other ways to properly find enemies in circuit network. Basically there is no way to read irelevant info into the circuit network and no ways to control the bots via the circuit network.

Can you put numbers on your claims to prove you have a case?

The bots get so strong, you can use them as offense weapon. Build minefield over biter village, go nearby, release your bots. Nice. But would make fight much too easy.

And I know of course how it hurts, when you loose bot after bot in a useless fight. But I would say, that are special situations. You can do many things to avoid that:
- build as “round” as possible, avoid edges,
- build pre-fighting stations (make the distance between roboport and fight longer)
- use lasers
- don’t use mines

In my opinion mines are only good to defend in pre-robot stage and to protect parts that are critical or open. For the last mile. They are not good for defense in general.

If you don’t use mines you also don’t need to throw it.

And in general I also find tools, that help to control the roboports, have more information, use circuits etc. much more useful. There are some suggestions, but I’m now too tired to find them.

[lovewyrm]

>If you don't use mines then they don't need to be thrown
Please stop posting in my thread now.

[Qon]

- don’t use mines
If you don’t use mines you also don’t need to throw it.

You are off-topic when you suggest using lasers instead and tell us to stop using mines. That's against the forum rules.

Throwing them would make the bots too strong, I think.

Can you put numbers on your claims to prove you have a case?

The bots get so strong, you can use them as offense weapon. Build minefield over biter village, go nearby, release your bots. Nice. But would make fight much too easy.

The throwing distance only needs to be a few tiles long, like cliff explosives. The distance is to keep outside fire and biter range, not behemoth worm range. Also, why use bots when fighting enemies with mines when your character is there? You can place mines instantly at about the same range as your bots can reach. It's better to turn your personal roboport off and drag-place manually.

Bots can already fight less than behemoth enemies by placing mines from map. A few tiles of throwing distance will help with this of course but impact might even be negligible for this with behemoth worms massive range. And if this becomes too strong as a tool for offense then you could tweak the activation timer of mines mildly.

Anyways, using construction bots laying mines for remote expansion and offense has felt much less cheesy than turret creep. And it is the closest we have to automated war with the natives in vanilla Factorio, it's actually really fulfilling using your manufacturing power to overwhelm the natives and watch your base expand from map view. It's the closest thing we have to war automation and Factorio-style production of death before artillery. It's quite sad how behemoth worms can kill almost all bots and make this tactic completely unusable. But I guess that's what artillery is for. Weaker enemies gave you some substantial bot losses but the bots managed to deal enough damage to get progress at the same time so if you had the production capacity it was viable.

[ssilk]

Hey, this “don’t use mines, so that they don’t need to be thrown” was just a joke. On the other hand the logic behind it is strong.


Seriously, I’m still not so super convinced that this is a good idea, but I never was a fan of the mines, so I think in the end it’s some developers taste, that decides it…

[JimBarracus]

1. A reconstruction cooldown could be added.
-in the menu ?
-some kind of rule book ?

2.Turrets could be able to send a signal, that they are busy (shooting)
-roboports can be deactivated, this prevents them to deploy bots.
-split it up into construction, reconstruction and repairs