TL;DR
Add logistic subnets to work toward resolving bot vs. belt debate by making bot/belt hybrids more feasibleWhat ?
I'm aware logistic subnets have been proposed before, but I have a proposal for how it could be done differently that I think would work better for players and might even be less of a chore to implement within the current system:- Add a UI (perhaps at the Roboport) for creating and managing logistic subnets within a logistic network. Subnets would have a name and perhaps some options, like how many logistic robots should be a member of the subnet (active + berthed).
- Logistic chests can optionally be assigned to a subnet. When this happens, they will only request from / provide to other members of the subnet.
- Roboports can optionally be assigned to a subnet. Logistic robots actively servicing the subnet will prioritize charging at subnet roboports.
Why ?
In the bots vs. belts debate, it seems to me that perhaps one thing the devs and community can agree on is that bots belts and trains should be good at different things, and an optimal factory would use all three modes of transport to solve different problems. Typically they are described as being better at different distances - bots at short range, belts at midrange, and trains at long range.The problem is that the logistic system works suboptimally when one giant network is trying to service everything, so instead players try to create separate logistic networks for each bot build. Because logistic networks automatically combine when placed too close to each other, players must put a lot of distance between their bot builds, to ensure they won't run into any issues with merged networks. At that distance, trains are better than belts for transporting between bot builds, so belts aren't used at all. So, counterintuitively, perhaps one way to buff belts is to buff bots by implementing some form of logistic subnet. This would allow bot builds to be placed closer together and be connected by belt rather than train.
I don't think logistic subnets can solve the bots vs. belts problem by itself but I think without it, hybrid bot/belt builds won't be possible, and any buffs/nerfs to bots/belts will just result in people using one or the other exclusively.
A couple other nice perks that I think logistic subnets provide:
- They add complexity to building with bots and make them more interesting to play with
- They encourages players to maintain a single logistics network instead of many isolated networks, which I seem to recall being something the devs wanted to encourage at one point