0.16 personal bots don't do much

[jimmydont]

Before going to 17, I'm building my 16 spaghetti bigger and bigger, with 10 launches and counting.

In the process, I'm noticing that I put down a blueprint and my personal bots only seem to take one pass each at building it. They leave my backpack, throw down one wall each, then take a nap until I lay down the next blueprint. I guess other idle bots, even very far away but within the same network are 'claiming' that work for themselves even though my personal bots are right there (my whole base is logistically linked through roboports, even out to ore sites that I transfer by train, as I use requestor chests for ammo all along the tracks.. )

Have I basically answered my own question?

I guess I can test it myself, but it's a burning Question and I can't play now.

Thanks

[torne]

Yeah, the game loops over the ghosts one at a time, trying to find a roboport network that can build it. I think it prioritises your personal roboport network, so if possible it will assign a task to all your personal bots first, but as soon as all your bots have a job to do it will start assigning remaining ghosts to other networks if they are covering the right area, have free bots, and have the materials. The only time your personal bots will get a second task without placing a new blueprint is if there weren't enough resources/bots in your regular network to assign all the ghosts the first time around, and it loops all the way around the list to have a second go.

This is one of the several reasons not to have extremely large roboport networks, unfortunately.

[kostermw]

I prefer an extremely large roboport network. Bots eventually gather at spots where they are mostly needed. The personal bots are handy for chopping wood, but that's about it for me.

[torne]

Yeah not saying you *mustn't* have a massive roboport network, just that this is one of the downsides you should consider

[SyncViews]

I guess other idle bots, even very far away but within the same network are 'claiming' that work for themselves even though my personal bots are right there

This is the case, while your personal robots get priority when you place a blueprint nearby it will then schedule any other bots. Once a bot is en route, it won't switch to a close bot, this applies both to construction bots and logistics bots.

This can even happen if crossing your entire network twice (say you place a blueprint, the bot is in a roboport next to it, but the nearest chest is the other side), and worse if your network is concave at all then the bots will try to cross the "gap", run out of power and head back very slowly, mean still no closer bot will get scheduled. If you have biters around, they will also happily try and fly over a base.

I tend to avoid large logistics networks entirely, the smaller they are the better they work. You can transfer items between them using trains, or using requester chests on the edge.

logistics-bridge.png (2.49 MiB) Viewed 1978 times

[BlakeMW]

Basically the idea with blueprint deployment in the grid roboport area is you can just drop it down then go away while it gets finished, typically it doesn't really matter if it takes 10s or 60s to build out a blueprint. The personal roboport is really designed - or at least best used - for building blueprints outside the grid roboport area such as making railroad blueprints, outposts or offensive laser turreting. When you are in the grid roboport area you may as well save the battery charge in your personal roboports.