Factorio Forums

I have a feeling that this has already been suggested but searching revealed nothing. I am sure ssilk will be quick to point out if it has been

The problem: You have no direct control over where bots dock themselves.

The suggestion is simple: allow us to order docked bots, that is, the bots which aren't in chests as items, but sitting in roboports. This way, I can easily collect them from a network. Example: I would like x logistic and y construction bots for a mining outpost I am setting up. I don't want to run around looking for them, so I set my personal logistics to requests these bots (they have a special icon in the entity list). The bots ship out and insert themselves into my inventory.

Extended suggestion: We can set these requests inside the roboports themselves. Example: I set each of my ports around the perimeter of my factory to request 5 construction bots. This will ensure an even distribution of them close to my walls.

Alternate suggestion: Docked bots offer themselves to fulfil orders if there are no more bots in storage. For example: There are 10 logistic bots in storage. There are 50 docked in a port. I order 20. The 10 from storage get delivered to me and then the 10 others insert themselves. I do not like this suggestion as much as the first as it gives less control as to where the bots come from, but it may be simpler.

JackGruff wrote:I have a feeling that this has already been suggested but searching revealed nothing. I am sure ssilk will be quick to point out if it has been

^ ^

There are some similar, but this one is unique:

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=3850
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=5008

It's been a long while since this was posted. The need is still there. Any update possible?

deer_buster wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 2:02 am It's been a long while since this was posted. The need is still there. Any update possible?

Would you like to add any other use cases you want this for, beyond what OP wrote?

Setting a "requested docked bots" for a particular robot sounds really useful, but the details are hard. When does a requested bot decide to leave and do work? Can it fulfill requests only in that roboport's area, or will it go farther if no one else is available, or if it is the closes bot? Does another bot immediately come to replace it in the dock, or do you wait for the first bot to return, like a personal roboport? That's a lot of extra checks just to find which bot to use, and a lot of extra bot trips to rebalance them after every job.

The mod Logistic Network Channels lets you segregate roboports and their bots even if they overlap, which I think is a more intuitive way to implement a similar behavior, and without any performance-killing logic outside of the base game.

The idea of having your main network bleed itself dry fulfilling logistics requests sounds like a non-intuitive, base-breaking behavior that will frustrate more players than it pleases. I don't want my construction train to fill itself with all the construction bots from my main network, and come back to overrun defenses. Logistic bots would be even worse, as there could be none left to get new ones from the factory. But if someone really wanted this, I believe it could be made in a mod.



Canon from the developers is that bots are really dumb individuals, and you have to work around that. We've found tricks to deal with them, and there are a few mods for players who don't mind the CPU performance hit of making them smarter.

1. Now you can read the number of bots in the network to automatically add and remove bots with inserters to a particular roboport. It's not perfect, because you have to wait for bots to migrate to/from the inserting roboport on their own, but it works if you pick one in a central location. You can automatically replenish them when they are destroyed (or stolen by players ), and detect when they are all busy and need more friends.

2. If you need to get your construction bots to a particular place in a large network, then you command a full chest to be deconstructed (or something like that) to attract them like bees to honey, then cancel the order when they get close.

3. If you need bots to stay at your outpost or defenses, or a super large network causes problems, the official technique is to make segregated networks. Use trains (with or without circuits) to provide new bots and materials to the other networks, and insert bots into that network automatically as needed.

4. If you want bots to take to an outpost, AND they are not already overflowing the roboports near you, stealing them from your main network probably not a great idea. Bots should be part of your automated mall factory, with some inventory preserved by your "insert new bots" circuit logic (see #1 above) or saved in a buffer chest for player requests.

The only thing we don't have is the ability to read the number of bots and repair packs in a particular roboport, without a mod like Inventory Sensor, but that's a minor annoyance. With this information, you can make a system that ensures a specific roboport always has a specific loadout. It would add desired bots from requester chests and extracts excess bots into active provider chests.

This reminds very strong to viewtopic.php?f=6&t=54352, where we discussed the auto-request for missing items to craft yourself.

This one hits into the same notch. Request things that can be done otherwise. Needing some extra cpu cycles to calculate, but needs the player just think one step in advance. Will IMHO not come.

What I like here is the idea of requesting robots and repair packs into roboports. I think that’s a good idea.

See also viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28176 Control Number of Bots in Roboport/RP Content To Circuts
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8925 Distribution of robots
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10152 Controlling robot distribution
And the linked threads from there.

Meanwhile I think this should be as simple as possible: three sliders for construction bots, logistic bots and repair-packs. The sliders (for robots) works similar as a supply-chest: if there are free robots in other roboports and a roboport has too less robots parked, the game creates a request from one roboport too another.