Preamble
- I'd like to apologize in advance if my lexicon is a bit off - I haven't played Factorio for some time but I'd like to get into it again if I could find a mod or solution to my problem. I also understand that the Robot logic is very complicated so I completely accept that I'm a beggar here.
- Because I show screenshots of my base in this post, I know it's likely I'll receive comments to the tune of "why don't you build this way instead?". While I'm happy to accept suggestions, I'd still like to know if anyone is able and willing to make a mod that fixes the "problem" that I'm trying to identify.
I'd like to have a way to separate logistic networks that doesn't involve needing to physically separate them. Currently if you want to separate two networks, you must physically separate the roboports so that their logistic (orange) ranges do not overlap. While the game world is basically infinite, this is quite inefficient in terms of space and causes what I would consider unnecessary grief. Quite simply, I want to divorce the logistic networks themselves from their physical connections.
Clarifications
I am not referring to construction ranges in this request - I see no issues with the construction bot logic and they could remain unaltered for all I care.
Problem
I have completed my starter base and I want to move into a more grid-based, modular base construction. The below screenshot is a rough draft as to what an example grid could look like with smelters, locomotion and of course, bots!
- 2019-12-22 15_15_11-Factorio 0.17.79.png (3.79 MiB) Viewed 2900 times
The cell described in the previous paragraph is supported by the roboports inside the circle labelled '2'. The roboports within circle '1' are what I refer to as the mainline logistic network. The region identified within the third circle is a kind of no-man's land. This is the area where some construction space overlaps but there is a clear gap of logistic networks as shown below.
- 2019-12-22 15_53_38-Factorio 0.17.79.png (2.54 MiB) Viewed 2900 times
Solutions?
Okay, so how can we mod away this problem? I'm not a modder, I've only taken a couple computer science classes, so don't look at me for technical answers! But I have a vision. Here's my proposal and sort of a mock workflow for what it could look like.
- When roboports are placed or removed on the map, they affect their "physical" logistic network like the base game. When the roboports are not "linked" to expand the logistic network, they are discontiguous and completely unaware of eachother. This is an array of physical logistic networks where the members are the roboports.
- In addition to tracking the physical logistic networks, the game/mod tracks an array of "virtual" logistic networks. Similar to the physical logistic networks, the roboports are members of their definied virtual network. Additionally, bots, chests, and chest contents are members of the virtual network, NOT the physical network as in the base game. Roboports are members of both physical and virtual networks.
- When a roboport is placed (without a blue print) it is automatically a member of a default virtual network. Call it whatever you want, undefined, null, network 0, native, etc. I'm going to use network 0. Roboports still follow the same logic as the base game to determine which physical network they belong to (I'm assuming based on whether they are neighboring with another roboport or are orphaned on their own).
- The roboport will have a GUI extension attached to it to define the virtual network of which it is a member. Think of the same GUI method used for train stations - the player can free-type the new network's name or select from a pre-existing network name.
- Once a roboport has had its virtual network defined, this property of the roboport can be transferred into blueprints, copy/pastes, or Shift+Left Clicks and Shift+Right Clicks similar to train stops.
- When a bot (construction or logistic) is created on the world surface by the player, it is automatically a member of network 0. There would have to be a new property for each bot that tracks which virtual network it is a member of. The bot will float in place if there are no roboports that are members of network 0, or travel to the nearest roboport of network 0 as one would normally expect. For a bot to be adopted to a specific virtual network, they must be placed into a roboport that is also a member of that virtual network. When the bot is adopted into the virtual network, it has the property updated in its instance in the game to identify it as a child of that virtual network. I have no idea how well this is going to work with stacks/inventories of robots in the game, perhaps this can be dynamically handled when the bots are dispatched for work/jobs/tasks? There could also be a mod option for the player to set which virtual network these "surface" bots are members of when the player manually places them.
- Logistic chests must be given a similar level of respect as bots when it comes to their virtual network membership. I believe a single select dropdown GUI extension to the chests is the simplest method. To continue the analogy from point four, this would make chests like locomotives as roboports are like train stops.
- I won't sit here and claim to know how the work/job/task scheduling of robots works or try to give an idea as to how this would work on a logic/algorithmic level. But obviously, the goal is that logistic requests occur only within their own virtual networks. Supply still goes to demand and the priorities of bots don't change, but they are limited to their virtual networks. But there are always exceptions. I cannot envision a way to limit construction bot jobs, so I believe those would have to remain as they are (whichever is closest and able across all networks). The player's own logistic requests and trash pickup would also have to be serviced by all virtual networks. I suppose it's not impossible to whitelist or blacklist virtual networks on these functions, but I'm forgetting that I'm the beggar here. If this feature were to be implemented, the variable would have to be consistent across all roboports in the virtual network. In the case of player logistic requests, it should not matter which roboport the player is in range of, so long as a virtual network that can support the request can traverse the journey to the player.
- Logistic and construction bots that belong to a virtual network will not be given tasks outside of the range of the roboports within their virtual network (possible exceptions for player logistics). This is to prevent sprawl of the bots between physical locations. The bots assigned to a virtual network should stay in that exact area. However, the bots should be able to travel outside of their immediate neighborhood. It is entirely possible to have a virtual network be discontiguous but the physical network be contiguous. As long as the two virtual networks are able to "communicate" over the physical links between roboports, tasks should be able to be received within the same virtual network.
- Because of the previous statement, bots should be allowed to charge at whichever roboport they require as normal.
- If all roboports belonging to a virtual network are dismantled while bots belonging to that same network are working on tasks, those bots will freeze in place on the surface as would occur in the vanilla game until they are either picked up or a roboport belonging to the same virtual network is placed down.
Some other thoughts and questions about such a mod that don't necessarily pertain to the workflow above are listed below.
- How would uninstalling the mod affect save games? How badly is that going to break things? In theory everything just becomes a mega-network as the base game doesn't use the new properties, but I'm no expert.
- How would this work in multiplayer? How do individual player logistics get dealt with?
- I don't have any reason to suspect that this mod would impact personal construction robots but perhaps there's a devil in the details. Similarly, I have left out repair packs from all of this. There's a possibility they need to be given some kind of special care but I haven't given them much consideration.
- Minor QoL changes, mainly GUI. Things like hovering over a chest - how do we show the player which roboport(s) the chest is associated to? In the base game it is simply all roboports in range, but this would change under a mod like this. Also, if construction items are missing bots, from which network? If blueprints are missing items for construction, from which network?
I wrote far more on this than I had initially intended. If you made it to the end, good for you! I hope this gives someone with the skills and desire the inspiration to make something really great. One last thing to mention before I sign off is that I had the original imagination that the setting of the virtual network on chests and roboports could be accomplished using the circuit network and virtual signals but I think that's a bit much to expect from the first post.
Signing off!
