Why do roboports even have repair pack slots?

[BlakeMW]

As far as I remember, they never did. But I might be mistaken.

Yup, I'm not sure if it was in 0.11 or 0.12 where they changed it so that mining 2 damaged entities would merge the two into a single healthier item.

AFAIK, Tools, Armor and Ammo have always used this behaviour.

Damaged things like turrets actually get put in their own "damaged items stack" so you have stacks of healthy items and stacks of damaged items. Within a damaged items stack the damage is averaged out (i.e. add a 25% hp item to a 75% hp item and you get two 50% hp items), you'll never get less items by combining stacks of damaged items. It is items with durability (rather than hitpoints) which have the merging behavior.

[bobingabout]

As far as I remember, they never did. But I might be mistaken.

Yup, I'm not sure if it was in 0.11 or 0.12 where they changed it so that mining 2 damaged entities would merge the two into a single healthier item.

AFAIK, Tools, Armor and Ammo have always used this behaviour.

Damaged things like turrets actually get put in their own "damaged items stack" so you have stacks of healthy items and stacks of damaged items. Within a damaged items stack the damage is averaged out (i.e. add a 25% hp item to a 75% hp item and you get two 50% hp items), you'll never get less items by combining stacks of damaged items. It is items with durability (rather than hitpoints) which have the merging behavior.

Makes sense.

still, it's better than having an inventory of 50 damaged turrets, where each of the 50 take a slot each. (as it used to in the olden days)

[Deadly-Bagel]

Damaged things like turrets actually get put in their own "damaged items stack" so you have stacks of healthy items and stacks of damaged items. Within a damaged items stack the damage is averaged out (i.e. add a 25% hp item to a 75% hp item and you get two 50% hp items), you'll never get less items by combining stacks of damaged items. It is items with durability (rather than hitpoints) which have the merging behavior.

They used to but in 0.15 damaged turrets and walls now combine into a single stack. It was found to be extremely rare that having multiple stacks of damaged items was beneficial.

[QGamer]

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but...

I seriously wish that Roboports should have their repair pack slots reduced to just 1. I used to like to set up a requester chest to feed repair packs into Roboports, but when I realized that it put 1.4k repair packs into the Roboport I felt like I just wasted so many resources to feed the packs in.

200 Repair Packs is plenty. Just 1 slot is all we need. That way I can feed repair packs in without feeling like I wasted a ton of iron gears and green circuits.

[bobucles]

The inventory slots let a roboport always have access to some repair packs and to make sure they get distributed through the network (eventually). The default storage chest behavior is to dump all matching items into one chest, which you obviously don't want with repair packs.

7 slots is pretty excessive though. 1 is plenty, 2 is silly, 3 is ridiculous but at least it helps with mods that add new repair packs.

[Zavian]

The slots are supposed to allow construction robots somewhere to store partially used repair packs. You aren't supposed to fill them with an inserter, just provide some in a storage/buffer/provider chest.

[QGamer]

The slots are supposed to allow construction robots somewhere to store partially used repair packs. You aren't supposed to fill them with an inserter, just provide some in a storage/buffer/provider chest.

Oh, I didn't know that. If you aren't supposed to put repair packs in, then inserters should simply refuse to put them in.

But in any case, you'd only need 1 slot.

[bobingabout]

I honestly do like to have the repair packs in the roboports on the borders, mostly because when they're there, robots in those roboports don't have to go elsewhere to get more repair packs, they just grab from their home depot and use them.

Something else that I think would be useful... filter the robot slots for specific robots. again, if you have the roboport right next to your outter wall, with no machines around, why should it even have logistic robots in it, much less be filled with them and no room for construction robots. Filter slots should also act like requester slots, so not only do only those robots dock in those slots, but if the slots aren't full, more robots will choose to dock there rather than somewhere else. it would mean that you always have construction robots on that border. same with the repair packs, set a filter on the repair pack slot to repair pack, and logistic robots try to keep it filled.

[mrvn]

Do construction robots even leave repair packs in roboports? I've seen them fly around with a repair pack and normal cargo. So it seems like they don't need the roboport repair pack slot.

[bobingabout]

Do construction robots even leave repair packs in roboports? I've seen them fly around with a repair pack and normal cargo. So it seems like they don't need the roboport repair pack slot.

They keep hold of it until they dock. then it goes in the roboport's repair pack storage.

[joseailton]

Omg!

Please

1-Inserters should be allowed to take repair packs from the roboport if roboports continue to have repair pack slots wich I believe they should not.
2-remove repair packs from roboports
3-a roboport is not a chest. If one do want to pick up things from it, him/her must use a inserter. not be available to logistics network
4-i would like to read the content from a single roboport instead of being forced to read contents from entire network

[QGamer]

I do see why roboports have the slots--they have them so construction robots can repair things quickly & easily--but 7 slots!? Really? 1 is enough. Please.
I hate having to place hundreds of repair packs in when all I really need is 20 or so. So:

4-i would like to read the content from a single roboport instead of being forced to read contents from entire network

So we can set up a circuit condition: insert repair packs until there's 20 of them

[joseailton]

I do see why roboports have the slots--they have them so construction robots can repair things quickly & easily--but 7 slots!? Really? 1 is enough. Please.
I hate having to place hundreds of repair packs in when all I really need is 20 or so. So:

4-i would like to read the content from a single roboport instead of being forced to read contents from entire network

So we can set up a circuit condition: insert repair packs until there's 20 of them

And I can't bring repair packs in advance to the borders of my facility because if I use requesters they will steal from roboports.

Seems to me the best solution is to turn roboports into common chests instead of logistics chest, and then I can move things near them using requesters and do a conditional insert based on a circuit plugged to the roboport based on the ammount it contains.

[steinio]

Where should a robot put used repair packs in?
YES - roboport repair pack slots.

[mrvn]

1) used repair packs simply stay with the bot.
2) storage chests.

[joseailton]

1) used repair packs simply stay with the bot.
2) storage chests.

mrvn, I don't think robots should keep the repair packs because they may need to do something else between two repair activities, like building some stuff wich would make them need to carry diferrent stuff.

I didn't understand the second item, storage chests? what do you mean exactly?

My regards

[mrvn]

1) used repair packs simply stay with the bot.
2) storage chests.

mrvn, I don't think robots should keep the repair packs because they may need to do something else between two repair activities, like building some stuff wich would make them need to carry diferrent stuff.

I didn't understand the second item, storage chests? what do you mean exactly?

My regards

A bot can have a repair pack and also carry other stuff. You sometime see that when a bot returns from a repair job but gets retasked before it enters the roboport.

As for storage chests I simply mean that bots could return repair packs to a storage chest when they are done with it.

[bobingabout]

The problem with Robots and Repair packs, is when they dock back into the roboport, they turn back from an entity into an item STACK, which can't hold an inventory itself, therefore the tool has to go somewhere.

[darkfrei]

But construction bots not need tools, they are robots! Just more time/energy consumption and done