Friday Facts #225 - Bots versus belts (part 2)

[Klonan]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-225

[aklesey1]

Pictures in FFF 225 not showing, its not loading

[IronCartographer]

I would normally argue very strongly against "weight" mechanics, but as a limitation on bots, in this specific instance...it might make the most sense.

Factorio 2: Good luck moving asteroids, ye tiny droids!

[Hyratel]

I would normally argue very strongly against "weight" mechanics, but as a limitation on bots, in this specific instance...it might make the most sense.

Factorio 2: Good luck moving asteroids, ye tiny droids!

perhaps have the maximum cargo size reduce bot speed by 1/3 or so? idk, I generally use bots very little so this is above my experience

[psiphre]

I would normally argue very strongly against "weight" mechanics, but as a limitation on bots, in this specific instance...it might make the most sense.

Factorio 2: Good luck moving asteroids, ye tiny droids!

i actually think weight would be a fantastic idea. cargo size AND maximum weight research (to a limit).

[PTTG]

Maybe it's because I'm fairly new to the game, but I'm ok with whatever changes bots need. I currently use them to compliment my factory, rather than to replace belts, by using them for low-frequency misc items and using belts for four or five or six main production items.

[Gergely]

My intention was to create an emotional roller-coaster

Are you kidding me?

Plz next time tell us more about your reasoning behind this.

[fienxjox]

All I ask if you do choose to debuff something you don't like - *please* ensure we can reverse that decision via the mod API to restore the game to how a large part of the community thinks it should be without having to sacrifice things like game performance.

[mozair]

i love everything about this week's FFF so much


so much thoughtful consideration


and couldn't agree more on the considerations about game design (fun === optimal, so choices mean more than one thing can be viably optimal)

[Zeblote]

So many splitter improvements

To buff belts further, why not finish up and enable those loaders by default?

[milo christiansen]

Bots are getting nerfed? Be still my heart, maybe there will be some interesting mega-bases soon instead of big, boring bot farms.

Also the splitter improvements make me very happy.

[Koub]

Now I must say I'm glad this FFF arrived

[psihius]

But what about us, the min/max people?
Sadly, belts due to their nature, cannot push the production as far as bots, unless there are not just faster belts, but also faster ways to unload wagons to a belt to keep feeding the production.

Sure, a regular player might discover bots, use them and think it's a cop-out, because they make everything easy. But for production bases you can't just dumbly stick roboports, robots and make everything work even at 1k science per minute at 60 UPS. The megabase is trains and robots. Maybe think from this point: what can be done to belts, so it is worth incorporating them into megabases and they don't absolutely destroy performance because you need a 36 wide bus to feed your needs.

I'd say - loaders and different "highway" belts and splitters for space science And make us work through science to get them good.

Some community members have top of the line overclocked CPU's that run at 5GHz+ and they build megabases that barely run at 30 UPS on those beasts. Those are hundreds and thousandths of hours of gamepay. That is what many like about Factorio.

Splitters look great, that is definitely the right move

[Sigma1]

I have been wanting a good splitter filtering feature for a while, so this is very welcome. Also, could you make graphics for the loaders and enable them?

[Omarflyjoemacky]

So many splitter improvements

To buff belts further, why not finish up and enable those loaders by default?

This. Please. Throw in a vanilla graphic too.

[Matthias_Wlkp]

You could add a slider in the game settings to set bot capacity - % of regular stack the bot can carry. That way everyone can debuff them as they see fit, with default setting closer to minimum.

I think that bots should not be able to carry more than 4-5 of any item at the same time. Belts should be for mass transport for high quantity goods (like ores, plates), while bots should be for carrying items on relatively lower quantity - like science packs.

[Zool]

One way to nerf bots would be, to give a bot a „loading and unloading time“ on a chest of lets say 1s, and only after he is finished loading, the next bot can come ... that way, the throughput of chests can be limited easily, and more bots wouldn‘t increase the throughput of a simple chest to chest transport.

In a situation like that, bots would still be superior for low-throuput, but very special items, but at the same time belts can shine for throughput.

[mozair]

Bots are getting nerfed? Be still my heart, maybe there will be some interesting mega-bases soon instead of big, boring bot farms.

Also the splitter improvements make me very happy.

YES!


really can't wait to get to a place where stamping down requesters/providers is not so infinitely better than everything else

[JohnyDL]

I'm not sure if FFF225 is attempting to extinguish or fan the flames in the wake of FFF224.

I am reminded of the old putting tanks/cars on conveyors to make them more useful approach to belt buffing. and... yeah I'm not gonna go into more more napalm for the pire

Devs do what you think is best. So far you've been awesome I trust you to keep being awesome. I want other players to trust that you're not going to break the game. I want other players to realise even if there's a beta which does break the game you can roll back changes. I want everyone to relax and take a bit of a breath.

47 pages and counting in the other thread of ideas and threats and people agreeing and disagreeing with every stand point while useful in some respects will take a toll on attitudes and opinions. Not all players are as angry as those in that thread not all opinions as strong. It's not necessarily us vs them though it may seem that way sometimes.

Everyone who posts one thing wants only what's best for the game, I'm sure so can everyone cut everyone else some slack

Please?

[Ubertwink]

That was quite an interesting read, thanks for sharing.

I like belts and I like to make stuff using them. However, I do feel that sometimes they are too clunky and frustrating to build with compared to how quickly you could achieve the same thing using bots. Removal of belt compression is not very helping too.
Belts are in dire need of QoL improvements. Splitter buff is good, but what's really needed is the ability to modulate splitters into a single giant wide splitter with technically unlimited amount of inputs/outputs. I think there was some mod that does that - should definetely exist in vanilla.

For some this feature will seem OP, for some useless considering the problem we are trying to solve. In reality, it will help making belt+train combos much more fun to play with along with minimal game balance impact.

And bring back the underground belt compression!