Construction Robots not doing repairs

[Kelderek]

I've noticed that from time to time my construction robots are failing to repair my laser turrets that have taken damage. Most of the time it works fine, I have plenty of repair packs installed in the nearest roboport. When it doesn't work and the repairs go untended I have noticed that all my construction bots are on the far side of my base and idle inside other roboports. To get them to do the repair I have had to physically grab them into my inventory and the drop them over near the repair site and then they go to work on repairs just fine.

Is there some sort of max range that any one bot can travel for a task? I'm pretty sure that these bots left my laser turret area to go do construction jobs elsewhere (like when I add more solar panels to my power grid) -- if they can leave to go do that, then why can't they come back to do repairs?

Is there something else I am missing here?

And before anyone asks, all these roboports are connected with the dashed yellow lines and have overlapping orange coverage areas. When the repairs are not happening the bots have been idle, they were not busy with other tasks. I know I could separate this into multiple robot networks so that the construction bots near my laser turrets would not be called in for blueprint tasks elsewhere, but I would rather not have to do that as I use the network in these areas for logistics things too.

[BurnHard]

Have you tried putting the repairpacks in eg a nearby storage- or provider-chest? I think Robots will only use repairpacks stored in a roboport if the robots are exactely there waiting, when getting the repairorder. If they find no other repair packs in the logistic network (provider- or storage-chests), they wont start repairing.

[Kelderek]

Near to what though? Closer to where the bots are idling in the back of my base or close to where the repairs need to happen? Right now the repair packs are inside the roboport that covers the area where repairs are needed (my front line defenses). I don't have any repair packs in storage in the network at all -- that is something I have yet to automate, I just make more by hand whenever I run low.

(thanks for the response, I really want to figure this out)

[BurnHard]

Just place the handcrafted repairpacks in a storage chest and check if all the bots repair damaged objects now immediately. (They should take the repairpacks from the logistic storage when something has to be repaired)

[Kelderek]

This seems to be working, thanks for the help.

I would think this might be a bug though if the logistics network does not recognize repair packs already inside roboports. The roboports have special slots to store these packs so I would think the network would know that they are there in case bots need to find them for repairs. It never occurred to me to put repair packs into storage when I knew that the ports had special space for them.

[ssilk]

Then write a bug report.

[Kelderek]

Then write a bug report.

Done. Good call.

[Jetlaw]

Also it's worthy of note that the inner square on roboports is the logistics network where items are shared and the outer ring is the construction/repair network.

If any of your roboports are outside of the main logistics network, they will not be able to see or access any repair packs that are in the network they're not attached to.

In other words, make sure all your roboports are connected via logistics dotted-yellow-lines. Any not connected to the main network will function independently within their own logistics network.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points.

[Kelderek]

Yeah, I mentioned that in my OP up top. The roboports I have are all fully connected.

[Drury]

Actually, if all else fails (which is fortunately not the case now thanks to logistics chest override), you might want to disconnect the roboport covering laser turrets from the main roboport network and have a group of isolated robots solely in charge of repairing the turrets there.

[Kelderek]

Actually, if all else fails (which is fortunately not the case now thanks to logistics chest override), you might want to disconnect the roboport covering laser turrets from the main roboport network and have a group of isolated robots solely in charge of repairing the turrets there.

That would depend entirely on whether or not you are using the same roboport for any logistics stuff in the same area. If you have provider/requester chests in the area then this would not work. For example, what if you had a train station right there that needs to be defended and has regular biter attacks? You might be using logistics to move train cargo around or maybe just refueling the engines. Maybe you use gun turrets and use logistics to resupply the ammo. There are lots of reasons why you may use logistics in the same space that you need repairs, so it may not be feasible to split your network. But of course, if you can afford to make them separate then that might make your life easier.

[ssilk]

Just want to mention this : https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 292#p53181