Objects missing robots/Needed objects changing randomly

[just4fungaming01]

I recently tried to make a new smeltery using a blueprint, but when I hovered over the alert box, which was telling me there were construction tasks waiting for robots and which part I still needed to supply, I noticed the information in this box was continuously changing, even when I had ALL robots in my inventory (no personal roboport), and no items were going in or out of the logic network chests.
The bug was still there after reloading the world.

This is in the latest experimental release (running steam on 0.17.x bèta). I'm running no mods.

In the attachments, I added the world in which this happened, along with a video of the amounts changing.

Not sure if it's needed, but just in case:
System specifications:
- Core 2 DUO E8500
- Intel Q45/Q43 integrated chipset (integrated graphics)
- 4 GB DDDR2 ram

[MrGrim]

This is normal. The counts are based on all of the processed ghosts from the oldest unexpired alert to the most recent. Generally this is the last 600ish ghosts processed that'll have active alerts. If you have more than 600 ghosts, then the ones with unexpired/active alerts will always be changing as the list of all ghosts is processed repeatedly over time.

[Loewchen]

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=49597

[just4fungaming01]

Generally this is the last 600ish ghosts processed that'll have active alerts.

I also have seen up to 1201 ghosts being processed normally at the same time. This seems like a much higher number than 600. How is this possible if the game only handles the 600ish ghosts that sometimes appear to be the case?

Also, what if the reasoning behind this? Wouldn't it be easier to just load all the ghosts at the same time, and only update the number when new ghosts are added/old ghosts placed/overwritten? It seems to me like that would have less of a performance impact, and allow for a more precise info on what exactly one would need. Would this cause a different glitch/bug?

[coderpatsy]

Generally this is the last 600ish ghosts processed that'll have active alerts.

I also have seen up to 1201 ghosts being processed normally at the same time. This seems like a much higher number than 600. How is this possible if the game only handles the 600ish ghosts that sometimes appear to be the case?

Also, what if the reasoning behind this? Wouldn't it be easier to just load all the ghosts at the same time, and only update the number when new ghosts are added/old ghosts placed/overwritten? It seems to me like that would have less of a performance impact, and allow for a more precise info on what exactly one would need. Would this cause a different glitch/bug?

The game has to check if each ghost is in a powered construction network and if a robot and item are in place to build it. Those aren't simple operations, especially when you take into account personal roboports moving around (and vehicle roboports with mods). The game limits those checks per tick to avoid grinding the game to a halt just because there's thousands of ghosts.

As far as I know, they've done some tweaks in 0.17, where personal roboports are checked separately of static networks, or something to that effect.

[MrGrim]

Generally this is the last 600ish ghosts processed that'll have active alerts.

I also have seen up to 1201 ghosts being processed normally at the same time. This seems like a much higher number than 600. How is this possible if the game only handles the 600ish ghosts that sometimes appear to be the case?

Also, what if the reasoning behind this? Wouldn't it be easier to just load all the ghosts at the same time, and only update the number when new ghosts are added/old ghosts placed/overwritten? It seems to me like that would have less of a performance impact, and allow for a more precise info on what exactly one would need. Would this cause a different glitch/bug?

Possibly a combined tile queue and normal queue. 0.17 has a dedicated queue just for tiles so bot paving w/ concrete doesn't delay other jobs. If you're using mods it could be multiple surfaces if you have a mod that uses them.

Also, just to be clear, it's not that they are being processed at the same time. The way it works is:

* Check next ghost in queue.
* If no bots are available or no materials are available, kick off an alert for this ghost.
* If the issue was no bots are available, stop processing for this network in this tick.

That alert is it's own separate thing in game, and it expires after a set amount of time. What you see is the combined set of alerts that have not yet expired. The number of them is simply a function how many have been generated in the last time interval. It is only incidentally related to the actual processing of ghosts, so it's common to see it fluctuate.

If you do a large concrete job you can actually see this visually on the map since alerts have map locations. You'll see the alert icons visually move around as old ones expire and new ones are generated.

I hope that helps!