Courier Autos (Medium level, ground based logistics)

[Dragonmystic]

I have run into the situation where I have a bunch of stuff on one side of my factory that I want to get to the other side (particularly when playing with mods, but it does happen with vanilla factorio too.) It's not far enough or enough materials to warrant a train station, but it's also typically a stack of materials that would require a fleet of drones to do. I'm also trying to keep a good byway clean of long, long stretches of conveyor belts.

What I'm proposing is a medium-level system for transporting materials: best for a stack or two of an object a medium distance. This would fit in the logistical area between trains (large amounts large distances) and drones (small amounts small-medium distances.) It would be good for intra-factory logistics, without having to use a conveyor belt for everything.

In it's most basic sense, it would be a chest on wheels, (maybe even LITERALLY a chest on wheels.) I imagine they would drive on stone brick pavement or concrete, probably a special item like "painted line" concrete, to have more control over the path-finding algorithms. I would see them as having more of a train-style system: a set up route, rather than the drones get and fetch style logistics.

I would think that placing this logistics system would help push drones to be less relied upon, and thus moved up the tech tree if so desired, but overall I think it is good to have simply more options to serve different styles of play.

[steinio]

This would fit to your description: http://www.systemlogistics.com/eng/prod ... vehicles-1

Also possible high bay warehouse

[bobucles]

Why not trains? They're honestly not that expensive to set up.

[Dragonmystic]

Why not trains? They're honestly not that expensive to set up.

Trains take up a lot of space. You have to have the engine, tracks, unloader/loaders, turn around tracks (or another engine).

What I'm suggesting is something a bit more agile, at the cost of speed and capacity compared to a train. Maybe a compare list of the proposed benefits will help:

Trains
Intended Use: Long distance, mass transport
+ Fast over long distances
+ Massive capacity
+ Just plain cool
+ Efficient
- Take up a lot of infrastructure
- Takes up a lot of footspace
- Actually slow over small distances, since the trains take a while to speed up

Drones
Intended Use: Swarm construction, dynamic logistics, small, but complex logistics
+ Virtually no footspace, aside from roboports
+ Complex logistics made easy
+ Dynamic and easily modifiable
+ Ignores terrain
- Largely inefficient
- Massive power drain
- Can feel a little cheaty at times.
- High up in the tech tree

Autos
Intended Use: Intra-factory transportation of materials. Medium distance
+Takes up less footspace than trains
+More capacity than drones
+ more efficient than drones (but less than trains)
+ Another cool moving entity that is visually unique
- Still requires programmed paths and infrastructure
- Constrained by terrain

[Supercheese]

Check out the AutoCar mod: https://github.com/diphtherial/factorio-autocar

[Dragonmystic]

Check out the AutoCar mod: https://github.com/diphtherial/factorio-autocar

Yeah, that was pretty much my exact suggestion, Thanks! (Still, I think it might be a good suggestion for base factorio, not just a mod)

[bobucles]

Trains take up a lot of space.

If the area is too small for trains, then a well built logistic bot network can take care of it. If the area is too big for logistic bots, then it probably has enough room for trains.

[Dragonmystic]

Trains take up a lot of space.

If the area is too small for trains, then a well built logistic bot network can take care of it. If the area is too big for logistic bots, then it probably has enough room for trains.

Sure, it *could*, but I think it would be pretty cool to have this, and there seems to be a design space for it.