[2.0.20] Ghosts don't get revived, even after waiting 20 minutes

[tangofan]

When you load the linked savegame (see end of this post), the block in which the player (in the spidertron) is located contains some ghosts for rails and elevated rails, rail signals and a rail chain signal. It appears that I have sufficient items in my logistic network to cover those (at least I'm not getting a message that any materials are missing), hover those ghosts never get instantiated, even after letting the savegame run unattended for 20 minutes.

Screenshot of affected area

Factorio Ghosts.jpg (260.38 KiB) Viewed 407 times

This whole block was stamped by removing the previous block (see "Legacy Train Blueprints"->"Train straight w/ U-Turn") and then stamping the blueprint from "2.0 Elevated Rails" -> "2.0 Straight w/ U-Turn (elevated) v1.1". Most ghost elements have been successfully instantiated, but a few have not.

I am running the 2.0.20 Steam version. Apart from the "Elevated Rails" mod, I am using the following user mods:
- InformaTron
- Rate Calculator
- Factorio Library (used by Rate Calculator)

Since, none of the mods are designed to change gameplay in any way, I assume that they do not have an impact on this issue.


Link to savegame: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qqo6w0ct ... 0ebqn&dl=0

Note: The Dropbox UI has changed. In order to download the savegame file, you need to click on the game_save01049 folder and then use the menu option "File -> Download" to download the entire zip file. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[LCStark]

Perhaps it's the same issue as here? 122426

[tangofan]

Perhaps it's the same issue as here? 122426

Possible, but hard to know for sure. FWIW I do not have any construction warnings.

[Muche]

It seems to me that one particular rail (the north one, next to the support) got assigned to the spidertron's bot network (possibly because spidertron's bot area is larger than player's and that rail fell just out of player's personal bot range).
I disabled spidertron's "Trash unrequested", put some rails from the player's inventory to spidertron's and bot built the rail. Then player's bots finished their job of a rail and a signal and subsequent queued jobs.
(Player's bot couldn't place the rail, because it is too far from the south support and the north rail was waiting on spidertron's bots.)

[tangofan]

It seems to me that one particular rail (the north one, next to the support) got assigned to the spidertron's bot network (possibly because spidertron's bot area is larger than player's and that rail fell just out of player's personal bot range).
I disabled spidertron's "Trash unrequested", put some rails from the player's inventory to spidertron's and bot built the rail. Then player's bots finished their job of a rail and a signal and subsequent queued jobs.
(Player's bot couldn't place the rail, because it is too far from the south support and the north rail was waiting on spidertron's bots.)

Muche, thank you so much for this excellent, spot-on analysis. Indeed the trunk (inventory) of the Spidertron does not have those items. Once those get added (I did this by activating the "Trains" inventory group in the Spidertron), the ghosts get instantiated. Also on a separate reload of the savegame, I moved the Spidertron a few blocks away and the ghosts got instantiated (presumably because the job got handed over to the main bot network).

So the issue here is that the job is given to the Spidertron's bot network, even though it doesn't have the parts (and the parts are not on request). IMHO one of the following things should happen, if the parts are not available (or suddenly become unavailable, e.g. if the player drops an item somewhere):
1. the job should either be handed over to the main bot network (that would be my preferred behavior)
2. Or alternatively there should be a warning message that the job cannot be fulfilled from the Spidertron's bot network

The behavior should also be the same for the player's own bot network.

[robot256]

Especially the case where a bot is assigned multiple jobs but gets stuck on the first one, that bot should be disqualified for further assignments and its remaining jobs should be opened for reassignment after some time.

[Muche]

I don't think reassigning a job that can't be completed due to missing item to another network is desired.
Like, if I'm building an outpost from my inventory but run out of e.g. big miners, I may not want a bots come from the base over some biter bases and risk losing them.
I would expect an alert about it though.

[tangofan]

I don't think reassigning a job that can't be completed due to missing item to another network is desired.
Like, if I'm building an outpost from my inventory but run out of e.g. big miners, I may not want a bots come from the base over some biter bases and risk losing them.
I would expect an alert about it though.

What you are describing, would be bad indeed, but that's not what I'm asking for.

What I am asking for, is that the request should be handed over from the spidertron to the roboport network that covers this area (which has sufficient parts in my case). As I mentioned that already happens, when I move my spidertron away, so that its bots no longer can instantiate the ghosts. I just would like the same thing to happen, if my Spidertron is still in range, but for some reason cannot fulfill the request. So in short: If the Spidertron (or for that matter the player's personal roboport) cannot satisfy a build request, handle that request, as if he wasn't there.

[Hares]

Noticed that behaviour too.
Probably related issue: 122867: [2.0.21] Construction task for rail ramp never assigned.