Suggestion: Seperate use of personal and networked robots
Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2016 11:52 am
Problem use case - you want to deconstruct a nice tureet/wall/pylon bastion and return it to your inventory for reuse, so you mark it for deconstruction. Half the buildings end up being picked up by non-personal, networked robots and taken to your central storage depot.
Problem use case - you want to build out a solar farm from your main stocks while you run past to do something else, so you place a blueprint. Your personal robots use your inventory emergency stash instead (and get left behind).
Problem use case - you want to deconstruct a large chunk of your base, and dont care where the buildings go, so you mark it for deconstruction. Your personal robots fill your inventory completely and STILL go and get more, ending up hovering near you waiting for space.
As should be clear from these three examples, prioritisation between personal and networked construction robots is sorely lacking. At present if you have, say, 30 personal construction robots and issue 60 tasks, they will do 30 (I think the nearest 30?) and the other 30 will go to network robots if in range. There are few circumstances in which splitting like this is desirable.
Instead, personal robots should NEVER be used when issuing blueprint orders inside a networked area UNLESS a hotkey is held while the blueprint is placed/dragged, in which case they should EXCLUSIVELY be used. Outside of a networked area the hotkey would be optional.
This behaviour tweak would make using personal robots so much more intuitive.
Problem use case - you want to build out a solar farm from your main stocks while you run past to do something else, so you place a blueprint. Your personal robots use your inventory emergency stash instead (and get left behind).
Problem use case - you want to deconstruct a large chunk of your base, and dont care where the buildings go, so you mark it for deconstruction. Your personal robots fill your inventory completely and STILL go and get more, ending up hovering near you waiting for space.
As should be clear from these three examples, prioritisation between personal and networked construction robots is sorely lacking. At present if you have, say, 30 personal construction robots and issue 60 tasks, they will do 30 (I think the nearest 30?) and the other 30 will go to network robots if in range. There are few circumstances in which splitting like this is desirable.
Instead, personal robots should NEVER be used when issuing blueprint orders inside a networked area UNLESS a hotkey is held while the blueprint is placed/dragged, in which case they should EXCLUSIVELY be used. Outside of a networked area the hotkey would be optional.
This behaviour tweak would make using personal robots so much more intuitive.