Player Construction Bot Logic Improvement #2

[Maddhawk]

This is another idea, different from my other thread to improve player construction bots, and in this one I want to suggest that the game perform a battery check on every player construction bot when either taking an item out of the players inventory or returning an item prior to departure. If the check reveals that the next target destination AND return trip CANNOT be completed without dropping below a bots reserve threshold, then it will opt to go ahead and recharge from the player's personal roboport right then and there.

There is nothing more annoying than seeing a construction bot on its way to Africa, get 99% of the way there, then return to the player, task incomplete, just because it needs to recharge and then do the trip all over again.

[FuryoftheStars]

Yup, I'll +1 this!

This should hopefully have a better chance of being implemented than the similar suggestion for non-personal bots (but whereas they just plot a course for the roboport closest to their destination but still within their flight range).

[Maddhawk]

Yeah, factory construction bots I don't really have an issue with. Once you are just throwing out blueprints and the factory is building it, you can just leave and move on to the next area instead. It only really matters early game, when building remote outposts and when doing custom stuff like testing newly made blueprints to make sure everything meshes correctly.

That said it could do a path finding check with factory roboports too. Like, make list of all the closest roboports along a bots flight path, break down the flight path into segment based upon which roboports sphere of influence they are in, calculate which segment it won't be able to make at least 50% of the segment distance, then if the calculation reveals less than 50% distance for a segment can be covered - it will recharge in the preceeding segment, or if the calculation is over 50%, but under 100%, then it will recharge in that farthest segment. Then it will repeat the process until it has reached its destination.

When a bot determines which segment it will need to recharge in, instead of heading directly to the final destination, it will be line to that roboport instead, recharge, then resume its journey. This would then create bot pathing that looks sorta arced, albeit with very rough geometrical shaping.

[Maddhawk]

I'd like to clarify, I can understand why this idea wouldn't be implemented for factory bots. The scales at which mega factories can reach could potentially add an enormous amount of overhead.

This is why I really only propose this idea for the players own personal construction bots.