Factorio Forums

Like with power poles.

I think this would allow us to have a lot more flexibility in setting up charging ports without expanding the network (so we can have charging closer together for separate networks. In general I would love more flexibility with the logistics network so much that I would love to see the charging, network extension and bot storage all broken into sub components, but that's another post for another time I think this one change would open up a lot of options in designing networks.

Besides the fact, that I don't like how the current pole-disconnection (cause to reconnect you need to drag wires etc. or rebuild the pole, see also viewtopic.php?f=67&t=9092 Free cables/wires (Poles contain all) ) I don't understand the usage case very good. What should I do with such a feature?

I mean: You can pick a roboport out of a bigger network, yes? So what should I do much with this single roboport? It's just to less (in my opinion). So how can I reconnect some roboports again? What is the equivalency to the poles and wires?

I mocked this up in a couple minutes:http://m.imgur.com/YsgU4SX

So the issue here is that in order to have multiple logistics networks while also keeping them separate you have to have the roboports like 51 blocks away from each other. This means I can't have charging stations close to where I need my bots to be. Ideally, you could put a bunch of roboports where I have the assembly machines (they are stand-ins for roboports that have been disconnected from the network.

Really the issue is that we need a better thought out and more robust logistic network system, similar to the tools we've been given for comparators and belts/inserters. The roboport do all the work and thusly are very inflexible in their uses. Ideally we should have three items for the robots:

1. Range extenders
2. Charging stations
3. Bot storage

If we were given these three as separate items in the game it would allow us to place charging close to where it needed to be while still having the flexibility of having multiple networks separate from one another.

My suggestion to shift-click the roboports to disconnect them from a network was I hoped a stop-gap measure to give us the ability to place charging stations closer to the green strip there in the screenshot w/out having the network extended.

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=20566 Changes for the Personal Roboport
I can only recommend to read the other suggestions.

scarhoof wrote:1. Range extenders
2. Charging stations
3. Bot storage

Those are the 3 new types of roboport in my mod
The problem is that with the way it works no, a robot will go to Range extenders, or Bot Storage entities and expect to be able to charge there, because it's basically programmed to assume they are a roboport that does all 3. At least they don't all need a storage space, because the network accounts for if it is full already, and no storage equates to full. But the side effect is basically that every port needs a charging point in it, charging stations still work very well though, because they charge robots faster, or more of them, so the queue is smaller, therefore more robots choose to park around them and wait for charging. (There seems to be some sort of queue rating system for nearby roboports, so the ones with the shorter queue are used first)

Sounds like a bug? Have you made a report? Can you link it?

ssilk wrote:Besides the fact, that I don't like how the current pole-disconnection (cause to reconnect you need to drag wires etc. or rebuild the pole, see also viewtopic.php?f=67&t=9092 Free cables/wires (Poles contain all) ) I don't understand the usage case very good. What should I do with such a feature?

I mean: You can pick a roboport out of a bigger network, yes? So what should I do much with this single roboport? It's just to less (in my opinion). So how can I reconnect some roboports again? What is the equivalency to the poles and wires?

Hope this isn't considered digging a dead thread up, but how about a button available to enable extension of the logistics range? It's intuitive (a big button that says "extend logistics range/disable logistics range") and we get our charging station without connecting other logistics networks. With it on extend it works just as it would currently (and it is the default), when disabled the range drops down to its footprint (4x4). Now, how hard is that to implement I wouldn't have a clue.

Hm. I just saw, that I linked the wrong thread.
This is the right thread: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=18093 Roboport/Logistic Network/Robot enhancements
-> Logistic Network extensions

(My personal favorite to do such things is still the viewtopic.php?f=67&t=8905 Overlapping Logistic Network II )

The problem with suggestions, that turn on or off something in the logistic network is, that it needs some kind of micromanaging. It's also not possible to use that for blueprints. And many, many more of such simple issues. So a good suggestion tries to let such a new feature just look like the extension of the current. I think that is one of the points, that makes the Overlapping Logistics so sexy.

Nice. If I saw that I wouldn't have had anything to comment

I don't see an eta on it, but its nice to know you're working on it!

I'm just an interested forum member and moderator. The cool guys sit in Prague.